Team Garmin-Transitions’ David Millar rode a consistent and smart stage on an epic day in the Giro d’Italia, moving him up the overall to third place.
“Wow, what a day. It’s one I’ll never forget. I don’t think anyone who rode will either,” Millar told Cyclingnews after washing off the mud on the Garmin team bus.
“I actually enjoy it when it’s like this. I think this is what racing is all about. In a way, the worse the conditions, the better I seem to go. In the end it was just mano-a-mano and it was actually a lot of fun.”
“The roads round here are called strade bianche but they weren’t white today. After just two kilometres of racing on them I looked at the guy next and thought’ ‘Is that what I look like?’ We were like mud men.”
“I’m two or three kilograms over my ideal climbing weight. That is usually a handicap but I think it helped me in the cold and wet conditions,” he told Cyclingnews.
“When everyone cracked on the last climb, I was still okay but then I bottled it on the last descent. After all I’d got through I was scared of crashing.”
“I told myself there was no way I was going to crash and throw it all away in the last few kilometres so I tip-toed it on the last descent.”
“It wasn’t actually that bad riding on the dirt roads, it wasn’t dangerous. The problem was the amount of dirt and water coming up into your eyes. There were moments when I was just blinded. When it happened going into a corner that was the worst. You couldn’t see which line to take.”
More photos from the Giro d’Italia:
