Using cross season to have a go at early classics
Lars Boom has scheduled a total of six cyclocross races into his winter calendar but never made it a secret that he is totally committed to the road. In mid-January he will start his serious preparation for the 2011 season, where he hopes to have a better spring than this year.
Boom wanted to be visible in the early races this year, which he managed to a degree. A win in the Paris-Nice prologue, a fifth place in the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen – Harelbeke and a third place in the Tour of California’s stage into Santa Rosa were nice results. But he didn’t finish all the races the way he wanted to. “I had hoped that I’d be better,” he said on rabosport.nl. A 94th place in Milano-Sanremo, 77th in the Ronde van Vlaanderen and not making the time cut to land on the Paris-Roubaix results sheet were below his expectations.
In 2011 he wants to have a different early campaign. “In the new season I want to be better than this spring. I feel it is possible. Things go smoother this winter than last year.” This winter he took a longer break from the road, preparing a short cross season instead. “Beginning of December I started to feel stronger in the cross races. It wasn’t like I was lying still since October.”
On January 9 he will do his final cross race, the Dutch National Championships. Then he fully concentrates on the road. “I am a road racer and I want to be competitive for the spring classics. The preparation for this begins in the middle of January,” he said.
His first race will be the Tour of Qatar from February 6 to 11, followed by the Tour of Oman in the same month. He hasn’t decided yet on the rest of his build-up. “Paris-Nice or Tirreno. We haven’t decided that yet. If I race Milano-Sanremo I will do Tirreno. Otherwise it is likely I’ll do Paris-Nice instead.”
Boom is looking forward to either one of those traditional week-long stage races. “It will be nice to do one of the two, together with Robert Gesink.” It seems that Gesink’s choice may also influence Boom’s decision. One program detail has already been determined, he will skip the Amstel Gold Race, which he didn’t finish this year. “The emphasis is of course on the Flanders classics and Paris-Roubaix. I want to hold my own and my winter program was build on this ambition.”
Tomorrow Boom will ride the World Cup cross in Heusen-Zolder, then the Azencross van Loenhout on December 29. “I feel really well. Of course we have to see how the parcours is. Lots of snow, that’s for sure.”
Boom did a training ride in the snow yesterday and gave his fans a scare. He tweeted “Boom against tree” and showed a picture of a flesh wound to the knee. Only an hour later did he reveal that it was his dad who had gone down.