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Kristian House Interview · 09/02/09
Paul Rowlands of LeadOut talked to Kristian House at the January team training camp.
Paul writes:
Kristian House is one of the most experienced riders on the UK professional scene, representing Great Britain on both the road and track and winning races in the UK, Australia and on the Continent.
House’s most successful season to date was 2006, winning three Premier Calendar events on his way to sealing the overall title, and taking victory in several overseas races including a stage of the Tour of Brittany and the overall of the FDB Insurance RAS in Ireland.
After a year spent in North America riding for the Navigators squad, Kristian returned to the UK with the Rapha Condor Recycling squad for 2008, wearing the King of the Mountains jersey at The Tour of Britain for three days.
As we head into the 2009 season, I sat down with Kristian at the end of the team training camp in Malaga, Spain, to talk about the team, its new signings and his personal aspirations for the year ahead.
Paul: Firstly, from your own point of view, after the week’s training, are you where you want to be at this point in the season?
Kristian: Yeah! I think I’m pretty happy with where I’m at, you never really know until you get into the racing I think. That being said, I’ve already had six days of racing (in Australia). You have a feeling, but it can all go wrong, it can all go the other way once you get into racing. But I’m pretty happy with where I’m at and these six days have been really good, I’ve gotten some pretty good riding in, some pretty good climbing, some decent intensity, so yeah, I’m pretty happy.
Paul: When we spoke earlier in the week you said you thought you might be a little ahead of where you would normally be at this time?
Kristian: It’s weird sometimes, I did the Bay crits (in Australia) at the begining of this year and I had done absolutely no intensity up to that point, I’d done a couple or maybe three ten minute efforts, but more power stuff than any kind of sprint work, but at the Bay crits I was firing, I was going really really well and when I was riding for myself I was getting in breaks that were only getting caught in the last couple of laps and then when Graeme Brown needed guys to ride on the front for him I was able to do it from lap 1 to lap 40, till the finish of the race basically. So yeah, it was a little bit odd because I didn’t feel like I’d done enough to be at that point. I’d taken three weeks off the bike completely, lying on the beach drinking beer, as you do on that time off. So I felt like I was farther ahead than what I had trained for. So it’s sometimes a weird feeling, obviously once you start applying a bit of intensity to it you get a real feeling for where you’re at.
Paul: You’re one of the riders on the team that uses the SRM cranks, do you cross reference the ‘feeling’ you get on the bike with the raw data?
Kristian: I use it for some of the efforts on the bike but I’m not one of those guys that gets glued to it. I kind of use it in the ride to do very specific efforts and then I look at it afterwards to see actually how hard the ride might have been. For example, that six hour ride (the riders had just completed a long group ride in the mountains when I sat down with Kristian). I came off the ride feeling really really good, didn’t feel like I’d overextended myself and then I went back and downloaded the file and had a look at it and thought well actually that was quite hard! I spent quite a lot of time in zone 5 and zone 4 so I knew I should actually take this rest day as a rest day rather than thinking I would go out and do three (hours), you know, just keep it going? After looking at it I thought ?I do need a rest day’.
It (the SRM system) can be a good thing but it they can also sometimes be a detrimental thing because people do get fixated but I don’t think I get to that point.
Paul: Sticking with the kit for a second, a couple of the guys are on the final prototypes of the 2009 bike, are you looking forward to getting yours?
Kristian: They look really nice, the frames themselves look really nice. And then obviously of course with the new Dura Ace getting rid of those cables in front, I keep bending mine so I can pretend like I don’t have them! The bikes look good and I’m really looking forward to getting on mine.
Paul: Looking at the broader team, there’s a few new recruits, a few totally new and a few you’ve known down the years like Tom coming in to the team, how do you feel it’s all gelling?
Kristian: On the rides you can see it’s really going well, everyone’s talking to each other, we’re having a good laugh at the dinner table, everyone’s pitching in. It’s good to see that and it’s good to be part of it as well because you spend three or four months of the year in Australia and you don’t really know how it’s going to be, but people are getting in with the banter and enjoy that part of things. I think the team’s going really well, we’ve still got to get Lappers here (Darren Lapthorne) and Chris (Newton) isn’t actually here, but I can see Lappers fitting straight into it. He’s a great rider and I’m really looking forward to having him on the team as well, we’ll have a really good core of riders there so it should be good.
Paul: For people in the UK who maybe don’t know much about Darren, tell us more about him and his pedigree as a rider?
Kristian: He’s from Melbourne, he’s been Aussie road champ and it was pretty awesome when he won that, the way he won it. If he even gets a glimpse of that form back it’d be good. I’ve raced with him all over the world and wherever you’ve gone he’s always involved in the racing. He’s a great guy, pretty funny, just an all round good guy.
Paul: Fast forward now to the end of the year, what races would you like to be looking back on success in?
Kristian: In the UK scene I think it’d be Lincoln, it’s always one of my favourite races. Internationally hopefully races like Quinghai Lake, Tour of Japan, Tour of New York. Really looking forward to them. For this team one of the key things is Tour of Britain at the end of the year. So having a good result there which may mean winning a jersey or being in a jersey like I was last year or wining a stage and I think we’ve got riders who are capable of doing that.
On the domestic scene, just getting up there in the premiers, like we did last year but maybe winning a few more would be ideal. But just keeping a good solid year going would be great for everyone. I’d certainly like to win a few more than I did last year!
With that I left Kristian to make his way down to Martin the soigneur’s room where he was due for a massage. With over 30 hours of training over the course of the week in Malaga, he’d certainly earned it!
