The ordeal of Frank van den Broek in the Giro d’Italia continues for now

“Yeah, I rode at a nice steady pace. It was a nice extra rest day.”

“I had my average speed on my bike computer, so I tried to nudge it up a bit. I don’t think they’ll go faster than about 60 km/h average, so I should make it.”

“Not that great, actually. I still have a lot of trouble from my crash on stage two. On top of that, I got a cold from stage three onwards, so my form hasn’t been great. That seems to be over now though, so I’m hoping I can still try something in certain stages.”

“I think so. So far we’ve actually had a fairly easy Giro with not too many hard stages and mostly long transfers, so I think it’s possible. The third week is still a real goal.”

“Mostly my shoulder. I can ride with it okay, but it just doesn’t feel good. Especially in the time‑trial position it’s not comfortable. And then there was that cold too…”

“I’m getting great support from the team. The third stage was the toughest, because we’d taped my shoulder really tightly, but that made me sit completely crooked on the bike. On the rest day, the physio treated me and got me properly positioned on the bike.”

"In the first week after that, the main thing was to get through those stages as conservatively as possible. It’s getting a little better every day, but it’s hard to really recover properly in a Grand Tour. Because you also have to recover from the stages."

“It's hard to say whether it's good enough to keep going. Right now I think: I'm here anyway, and maybe I'll regret it if I go home and suddenly feel great there. And I also think it's important to be able to help my teammates, even if it's just a little bit. But it remains difficult; neither scenario is ideal. But this is simply the situation.”

“Yes, indeed. It’s just still a tough call.”

Bram van der Ploeg ( X: @BvdPloegg | email : [email protected])