"The course was very well suited to me, maybe I would have preferred it a little bit longer, but it was pretty close to being perfect for me. But I misjudged the pacing a little bit; I went out a little bit too hard and then the last four kilometers it was a pretty hard headwind, and I kind of came off the pace a little bit there.
"I really suffered in the heat as well for the last four or five minutes, so it was more a case of just hanging on and keeping a little bit of rhythm and not lose too much time. Luckily I held on!
"I didn't come here to come second, but it's January, and normally in the season I can gauge how I will do, but this was my first TT, so I wasn't sure how my body would handle in the heat and that sort of stuff.
"I was watching my power meter and thinking this sucks, I feel like shit. But everyone's power was down in the heat."
All the riders in the race used road bikes rather than time trial bikes and Mullen said: "Obviously, our bike is incredibly fast, probably faster than my previous TT bike on its own
"I know that we have some of the best equipment in the whole race and that was definitely a big motivation for me. We have the best bike; we have great wheels, the only thing missing was the extensions. Last year guys rode them, and we assumed it was the same, and we only found out two days ago we cannot even use it.
"The problem for me is I am actually a big guy, I have a big frame, and in the TT position, I am lucky that I am able to get very small for someone my size and hold a really good position. That's one of the factors that makes me good at time trials; I am able to bend my body into a shape it's not supposed to go. But on the road bike I have nothing to pull on like with the extensions; normally I would pull on the bars quite a lot."
"It's the first for me having to do a TT on my road bike, and I made a few modifications like a couple extra rolls of bar tape where I was resting my arms, and I folded my hoods in so I could hold onto something and have leverage. I struggled a little bit to hold the power I normally hold [on a TT bike] but it worked out really good - in the end, I think everyone was in the same boat.
"I kinda had it in my head that I needed to be around 52km/h average and it was leaning towards that in the final, so I knew it was a quick ride. But I also knew that Ganna is probably in good shape as he is going to the World Track Championships in 2-3 weeks, and he was fourth yesterday in a hard finale - I was nervous about him that he would have some serious horsepower. At the first check, he was 8 seconds ahead, and I was in the hot seat thinking, 'Here we go again - I've been here for two hours, and now I am going to kicked off with the last guy. Story of my life.'"
Picture courtesy of Vuelta a San Juan
KEV MONKS FOR DIGITAL SPORTS GROUP
Source: DSG
