Interview - Adam Yates looking forward to the longer climbs in the Vuelta a España

Aug 29 2017 09:04 pm CET

Photo of Adam Yates © Mary Cárdenas / CyclingPub.com

Text continues below the gallery (hover on the photo to browse)

Orica-Scott's Adam Yates occupies ninth place in the Vuelta a España after the first nine stages, and is looking forward to the longer climbs of the second and third week.The 25-year-old has delivered a solid performance so far, in what is his second grand tour of the season after the Giro d'Italia in May. CyclingPub.com had the opportunity to talk to the Briton at a hotel near Alicante city on the first rest day.It's been good. It's been a week of long hot stages. The finishes are always those little steep climbs, kind of annoying (laughs). But we're in a good position. We have Esteban in second in the GC and myself still in the top ten. Now we have the longer climbs coming and hopefully this suits us a little bit more and maybe we can try something.At the moment yeah. These steep climbs are not too easy. Even in the road book it says like four, five percent and then you get there and it's nine, ten you know.Not too many. The problem is that of how many stages did we have? Nine? Eight had steep climb finishes. If they spaced it out a little bit more during the race maybe it would be a bit better but we're in a good position. All good so far.Not really. I think we are racing every stage how we want and so far we haven't lost any unnecessary time. I myself am losing a couple of seconds here and there every day, on every climb. But I'm hoping on the longer climbs I will feel a little bit better and we'll see what happens. So far Sky and Froome are looking super strong and we still have the TT to come but we're in a good position.Yeah this is the first time. The problem is that you never know how to prepare. I've done the Tour two times now and you get an idea of what works and what doesn't work. This being my first time doing the Giro and the Vuelta, you never know how it's gonna go. You obviously know how hard to train and what to do in training but you never know exactly. You can't predict form. You can always try your best to reach the best condition and the right moment but you can never fully predict what's gonna happen. So far so good. At the end of the day I'm still in the top 10 of the GC so it's not too bad.Yeah my first year. When I went to the Vuelta in 2014 it was kind of a late call-up anyway. I had been going well pretty much all year and I just crashed in San Sebastian but I almost made the front group. Obviously the condition was good and I'd been racing well all year, gaining some nice results. So there was never really a plan of preparation for that race whereas this year there was a lot more focus and designated training areas and weeks. So it's a little bit different.For sure, a big gap in the middle of the season. I think I had nine weeks between the two grand tours and I only really raced Poland and a small one-day race in Spain. A big difference and in the end it was six and a half weeks, I think, after the Giro before I raced again. It's new and you can't predict how you're gonna go, form-wise. You can always predict how the training goes, trying to get the best shape possible. You never know until you actually go out there and do it.If I did the same program I would probably want to race a little bit more. I think this is a lot of the reason why I am losing a bit of time on the steep climbs because I haven't got the punch. You can train as hard as you want but actual racing and the micro-accelerations out of corners, crashes, sprinting and all this, you can't replicate that in training. But in general it was a good training period. I spent a lot of time at altitude and a lot of time in the heat before the Vuelta so yeah, maybe just a couple more races here and there but in general it was a good build-up.Not really. If we did the same program and the training we would probably be in the same condition. But we did completely different programs this year so it's a bit different.Not really. When we were growing up we raced separately quite a lot. We raced together sometimes and when we were under 23's I was with a French team and he was on the British Academy and I never saw him, never raced with him. It's not like I need the support.No. At the end of the day, when we're racing it's a job and we're just trying to get the best result possible.Yeah all the time. The best thing to do is just to say Yates instead of trying to guess. You've got a 50/50 chance so the odds are pretty good but a lot of the time people get it wrong (laughs). It's one of them things.After finishing this I go to Milano-Torino and then after that Lombardia, and that's it. So I've got about three weeks after the Vuelta finishes before I race again and that's it then. Just two one-day races and then finished.We made some good signings. We just announced Jack Bauer, a big strong guy. And I obviously don't know my program for next year yet but we just wait and see what races we do and make a plan from there. We made a couple of good GC signings and really good climbers, so every year we're getting more and more support for these big races and hopefully that will make a difference.