Quite a year for Canadian Dominique Rollin. On his first year with the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team and his second year racing on the North American circuit, he caught everyone’s attention after the fourth stage at the Tour of California, the 135-mile (217 km) slog from Monterey to San Luis Obispo. In horrendous weather conditions, Rollin pulled away from his breakaway companions with 12 miles (20 kms) to go and held off some of the best riders in the world, including a chasing George Hincapie (Columbia) to take the stage win after nearly seven and a half hours in the saddle. He also went on to win the Sprint Competition.

Throughout the year, the 6 foot 2 inches, 182-pound Rollin worked hard for his team to bring in victories and Rollin himself finished thirteen times on the top step of the podium in 2008 (so far) which included a stage win at the Cascade Cycling Classic and the CSC Invitational.

I caught up with a relaxed Rollin at the start of the Tour of Missouri where after joking about wishing for windy and horrible weather conditions for the upcoming race, Rollin who excels and loves racing in bad weather, looked back at his year.

Rollin was also looking forwards to a final racing push starting with the Tour of Missouri, the World Championships and finishing up with the Jayco Herald Sun Tour in Australia.

“It’s the second year that I do the Sun Tour, it’s a good experience, I like it. This year, I’m taking advantage that half my team is Australian to stay a it in the warmth before returning to the cold weather in Quebec. It’s a way to extend the season, to take a rest a little later, this way I don’t really have a morale break or a loss of motivation.”

Team for 2009. His Toyota-United team is ceasing its existence after three years  as its primary sponsor  decided not to continue after the end of the year. At the time of the interview, Rollin said he had a few offers and declined to talk more about them.

“It’s a strange year. I only hope not to gain the reputation of shutting down teams, two in two.” smiled Rollin whose previous team Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada folded at the end of 2007. “Joking aside, it was disappointing to have a team like Toyota-United leave.”

During Interbike, I learned that Rollin is joining the new Cervélo TestTeam for the upcoming season.

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Dominique Rollin Wins KOM Competition; Ivan Dominguez Places 2nd in Stage 6

Team Racks up 66 victories and 146 podiums in 2008

Team Wins 162 Races and 355 Podiums in its Three-Year Existence

Bend, OR – In what was the teams final official team race under the Toyota-United moniker, the boys in red, white and blue didn’t disappoint as they fought hard all week to keep their stage win streak alive, currently holding the record at 9 stages in America’s largest grand tours; Amgen Tour of California, Tour de Georgia Presented by AT & T and the Tour of Missouri, the most stage wins of any team world wide. Unfortunately, the team came up a little short with Ivan Dominguez placing 2nd in Saturday’s stage 6, losing to Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia), arguably the world’s fastest man with four stage wins at this years Tour De France and three stage wins at this year’s Tour of Missouri. “I tried so hard to beat Mark on Saturday, my boys set me up perfectly, but when we arrived at the finish Mark hesitated with 200 meters to go due to the headwind sprint and I waited on him when I should have jumped him instead and he beat me to the line” said Dominguez.

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Kids were out in force at the start where each class visited their adopted team.

Steven Cozza (Garmin-Chiptole)
“It [the moustache] started to go out of style, I was tired of eating hair with my food. Plus that Italian racer started growing his and kind of ruined it, I had to share it off.”

“It’s going to be a battle, we’re going to be riding in the front, it’s going to be really painful but I think we’re strong enough and we can do it. ”

George Hincapie (Columbia) puts in an attack in the first kilometers

Garmin-Chipotle team leading the field at the second KOM

Christan Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle)

“I was concerned all day. It was a brutally hard day and they threw everything at us, the team did a great job. There was no respite at all today. we want just trying to control it as much as we can. The strategy is to keep control of the race and not let anybody go.”

Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United), KOM
” tomorrow there’s only one KOM in the stage and I have a good enough lead to not worry about those points and just maybe hope for a little breakaway to take over those points and we can relax and wait for the final in the sprint. I think we build enough lead on the points scale so this way we can just keep on going for our ultimate goal, a stage win in this year’s edition.”

Mike Barry (Columbia), stage winner and Most Agressive
Our strategy today was to make the race as hard as possible for Garmin. We have a couple of guys that are very close in the classification and we’d like to wrestle it away from Christian. We have to make the race as hard as possible, to isolate him and we managed to do that towards the end of the race and we kept attacking until the end and I found myself in position to go for the stage win. The team rode really well today and really it could have been any of the guys with the opportunity to go for the victory, it just happened to be me to attack, I attacked at the right time and got away.

Eric Baumann (Sparkasse), second on stage

“A really tough stage, all the time up and down, very fast. My team did a really good job, we were able to put guys in the big breakaway and at the end, only one guy was stronger than us. For us, it’s okay second place.”

“We do all the time in Europe the races, then we had a chance to come over here and we want to keep this chance so we can come in the nest years with these nice tours. I am only here for bikes, baby clothes and gap for my kids (laughs). ”

All photos copyright Lyne Lamoureux

Ivan Stevic and Hilton Clarke Score Four Wins at Tulsa Tough Omnium Series

Dominique Rollin Wins Ricola Twilight Criterium, Places 2nd at CSC Invitational and 3rd at Kelly Cup

Chris Wherry Wins Iron Horse Criterium for His First Win of the Season

NYC, NY– The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team showed they are on form and ready for Philly week the last seven days by winning six out of the nine races they entered.

The win streak began with former USPRO National Road Champion Chris Wherry winning the Iron Horse Criterium on May 26th in his home town of Durango, CO. “It’s really nice to make my way up to the top step again” said Wherry after his win.

The next win came by way of “The Horse” Dominique Rollin who won the difficult Ricola Twilight Criterium in Baskin Ridge, NJ on May 28th. The 40 mile mid-week criterium is known as one of the most difficult criteriums in the country due to its technical nature and tough uphill finish on the one-mile circuit. “After crashing in the final two laps at the Tour of Somerville Criterium a couple of days before, I was really motivated for a win” said Rollin. “I followed the Team Type 1 lead-out train the final lap and just overpowered them up the hill for the win” continued Rollin.

Just days before the Ricola win, Rollin also took 3rd place at the Kelly Cup in Baltimore, MD. The result came on the heels of finishing a strenuous training block as he was in his final preparation for Philly week. Rollin was in a break of eight riders that went up the road and during the final laps, not sure he was fresh enough to out sprint his breakaway companions, he decided to just ride hard and try and take the sting out of their legs for the finale and was able to reduce the break to four riders of which he took 3rd place.

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Bend, OR – The Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team flexed its muscles this past week winning six out of eleven races it entered as its riders prepare for Philly week, a series of three races in the greater Philadelphia area held the first week of June.

The incredible string of wins began with Dominique Rollin’s win at the GP Granby Time Trial near Bromont, Canada on May 10, 2008. Rollin won the 19 kilometer time trial in a time of 24:04.14, a mere 6.8 seconds over second place finisher François Parisien (Symmetrics).

The sixth annual Mt. Hood Cycling Classic began on Tuesday May 13th with a short 1.8 kilometer prologue time trial. Ivan Stevic showed he’s returning to form after a long nine-month bout with a sore right knee by placing third with a time of 2:48.7, 3.7 seconds behind the winner Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell).

The following day, the riders competed in stage one, the Mt. Tabor Criterium. Team Bissell controlled most of the race, which was held on a hilly circuit in the heart of Portland. Despite 90 minutes of attacking by Toyota-United, and other teams, the field remained intact with two laps to go. The final three kilometers saw the Toyota-United boys in red, white and blue turn it over to their two fast men, Hilton Clarke and Ivan Stevic, who finished the job taking 1st and 2nd respectively. As a result of Clarke winning the stage, he also picked up the leaders yellow jersey, king of the mountain and sprinter’s jerseys for his efforts.

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The 2007 NRC winner Rory Sutherland (HealthNet-Maxxis) went flat out like a lizard drink’n and crossed the line with the fastest time, winning the Redlands Prologue – Sun Time Trial, in nine minutes and fifty-one seconds. Coming in second, with less than 2 seconds slower is Ben Day (Toyota-United). Rounding off the podium, is Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United) with 8 seconds slower than Sutherland.

“It’s hard for everybody. Today a lot of things seem to slide in right, whereas last week in San Dimas they just didn’t happen, I didn’t get it together last week and it’s a matter of trying to iron out those problems, and get the monkey off my back a week early.” said Sutherland about his race today.

Men’s Podium (l-r): Ben Day (Toyota-United), Rory Sutherland (HealthNet-Maxxis) and Dominique Rollin (Toyota-United)

The next stage is the Beaumont Road Race where the 194 men tackle a 138 km circuit race with 2 time bonuses on the line. HeathNet-Maxxis will have its job cut out for them defending the leaders jersey with Toyota-United placing 6 riders in the top fifteen positions. And Rock Racing still smarting from losing their lead in San Dimas and finishing on the second step of the podium, by one second, will be trying to move up Oscar Sevilla now in fourth place.

“It’s good that we have the yellow jersey, obviously you always want to be in the lead, but it’s not good when you look back and see Toyota’s got second and third right behind you, so it gives them some ammo against us. Honestly, it’s going to be hard, tactical racing, and you can’t discount Sevilla right within reach so we’ll see how the racing goes.” said Health Net-Maxxis Directeur Sportif Mike Tamayo.

The team is motivated. “We had a lot of illness at Tour of California, our staff got sick, our riders got sick, that virus went everywhere, plenty of people got sick so we’re happy to be done with it. We went to Taiwan had a great race there, we won fifteen out of sixteen jerseys available so it was a great race.” continued Tamayo.

Same as the women, riders and teams are expecting the Beaumont to finish in a field sprint, and that, again, the last stage, the Sunset road race, be the decisive stage in the Redlands Classic.

“I think it’s going to be a smaller bunch kick, a smaller bunch kick. I don’t think the course is hard enough to really break the field apart but you never know, if the right move goes…” said Tamayo about the upcoming stage 1.

Rory Sutherland (Health Net-Maxxis), winner

“It’s a very important race for the team and to be able to do that straight away is a really good thing for our morale. ”

“We just concentrate on today, today and tonight we’ll look at tomorrow. Like I told my good friends here, you get second and third so you can’t have too much of a better day. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, if you look at last year, so many dynamics change this race, so many things can happen especially on a day like Sunday, there’s no concession, it’s racing every single day, we’ll see what happens. If it works out, it works out, and if doesn’t, it doesn’t. We have a very capable group of guys, we’ll see what happens.”

(About his form) “It’s my job to be good pretty much the whole season, I’m trying to stay at a happy medium the whole season so to speak. “

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In the first part of our conversation with Toyota-United rider Dominique Rollin, we talked about his racing start in Quebec, Canada and his years, sometimes difficult, of living and racing in Europe.

Looking back on 2007

At the end of 2006, Dominique Rollin made the decision to return to North American and signed with the American Pro team Kodak-Galley and returned to raced in North American circuit for the 2007 season. “I wanted to reduce my travels, stay closer to home.”

The year started off strong for Rollin with his new team with back-to-back victories in Jacksonville and NRC wins at Roswell and Walterboro. The team was still learning to work together and Rollin felt that there were some coordination problems. “You get to know each other, you come from the amateur level so you don’t really know what to do, a little more energy in the management can bring about a team that works well…. it’s like all teams.”

Rollin estimates that it takes from six to eight months for a team to get to know each other to work well together which was demonstrated by the team results at the end of the year. “We showed it in Ireland, there was 5 of us and we managed to control the race. In Missouri, the guys did a great job. There is always an adaptation time with any team.”

Rollin unsuccessfully tried to defend his jersey at the 2007 Canadian National Championship in the road race which had a much smaller field than usual as it was held on a weekday. “This year there were only around fifty riders which makes a much tighter peloton. I found myself isolated with all the Quebecois watching me because I was the defending champion. It’s always more pressure when you’re the defending champion.”

Rollin represented Canada in the World Championship road race in Stuttgart, Germany in September but had to pull out of the race when he cracked. “I didn’t bring my own nutrition to the World Championship because my team didn’t have any so I took whatever the National Team had, and it was different than what I’m used to. So I didn’t eat enough and with two laps to go, I find myself dehydrated, with a headache and I bonked. I think I could have done at least one more lap if I had eaten correctly, I was able to follow the field, but…”

Looking forwards to this season

In September 2007, the Kodak Gallery Pro Cycling Team announced that it was stopping operations, but even Rollin was already looking to go elsewhere. “There was Symmetrics that had been sending me a few offers, they’ve been after me for two years but looking at the organizational structure, I preferred to go with Toyota.”

Toyota-United has not contacted Rollin because “they thought I was comfortable at Kodak so they didn’t approach me. But knowing that I was free, they absolutely wanted me on the team. So far I’ve received only compliments, I’m happy.”

Rollin sees himself as a domestique, as first and foremost he wants to help the team win races and where possible carve a place for himself. “I can bring 2 or 3 horses more to help Ivan (Dominguez) get a win or I think Hilton Clarke who is also new, a good sprinter.”

“I arrive in a well-tuned structure, it’s completely different than last year with Kodak where I didn’t know what to expect. Toyota is known for its leaders, it’s a strong team.”

Rollin joined his teammates for a two-week training camp in Solvang California, and he expects the integration into the new team to be easy. “The guys are pretty open. I think I might have a bit more difficulty than the three Australians because they all knew each other, I’m a bit less known because I was new to the circuit last year but I don’t think I’ll have any problems. I get along with the guys, it’s going to be fine.”

“You have 2 weeks of training camp to learn how to ride together and I think it’s going to be fine because the majority of the team is the same and they have been working together for 2 or 3 years.”

Rollin’s schedule was not set when we met, but two races are already in his calendar, the Amgen Tour of California in February, for which he has been training for the past two months.

Staying in California until the end of April will maximize his training period for the year, as he learned the hard way the previous year. “Last year, I made the mistake, my team insisted that I return home. Before Redlands, I was stuck in a snowstorm. I returned to Redlands, with jetlag, and one week of rollers, well it didn’t work well.”

The Canadian Championships are on the calendar in early July, as Rollin would like to wear the Maple Leaf once more. Rollin is focused on the Olympic Games as he has been named in the selection pool. “I think that we are still 17 in the selection pool which is huge, especially since about half can’t race past 200 km in that group. It’s completely different,”

Rollin hopes that the selection for the Olympics will be made as late as possible, in May or June, as he typically has good form during that period. “They make their selection closer to the Olympics, races like Philly, races somewhat similar (to the Olympic course), where all the Canadians are present is a good race to make the choice.”

Rollin loves the hard one-day races but is starting to appreciate the stage races, as he discovered in the previous year. “I was a bit dreading stage races because I cracked on the last day, or it was very difficult. My reference has always been Tour de Beauce, and it’s always been until this year somewhat of a failure for me.” laughed Rollin.

Working with his coach Brian Walton on his endurance helped Rollin gain a certain maturity, and it payed off. “In the Tour of Ireland I was getting stronger every day. I think I was the only rider getting stronger every day.”

No decisions have been made about returning to Europe in the future, and no decisions will be taken until the year with Toyota unfolds. “The American circuit is getting to be more and more interesting with the addition of Tour of Missouri, the return of Tour of Utah, Tour of Colorado new in 2008.”

Rollin loves to cook, a skill he refined while living in France, and when I asked him if there would be a competition with Toyota-United’s Ivan Stevic who also loves to cook, his answer was “Bring it on”.

“Bring it on” summarizes Rollin approach to this year, as he tackles the domestic circuit with the experience garnered on roads over Europe and North America.

One of the four new riders on the Toyota-United Pro Cycling is the 6-Time Canadian National Road Champion Dominique Rollin who won nine races as a first-year professional in 2007 and finished third overall at the inaugural Tour of Missouri. The 25-year old spent many of his formative years racing and living in France for amateur teams, including the well known V.C. Roubaix Lille Metropole.

I sat down with Dominique Rollin over a Monday morning coffee on his first day at the Toyota-United training camp in Solvang, California. He shared his background, his goals for the year, and our conversation was punctuated by laughs and chuckles.

Toyota-United contacted Rollin when his 2007 squad, the Kodak Gallery Pro Cycling Team announced that it was stopping operations. “I really didn’t really have any negotiations with them. The day after my team announced that it was folding, I received a call from Toyota. Just like that.”

Rollin is part of the Toyota-United squad for the Amgen Tour of California and will be looking to help out the team and to make his mark this season.

About his background

In his hometown of Boucherville, Quebec, at the tender age of ten, Rollin entertained himself by following on his mountain bike his older brother, who raced bikes, on his training rides.

“I think this is my fifteenth season this year… yeah, I’ve spent more than half my life on a bike. My parents kept me back, but the year after, at 11 years old, I started racing and since then it’s a passion.”

The amateur circuit in the province of Quebec allowed him many opportunities to challenge himself and to develop as a racer. “There was always at a minimum, about thirty riders lining up for each race for each category. Even sometimes we were fifty-ish. It’s good when you are 10 or 11 years old, about forty guys to race against and with.”

Rollin continued to race in Quebec and Canada, and his results impressed Jacques Landry, the then coach of the National Team, and starting in 1999, he raced in Europe with the National Team.

In 2003 and 2004, Rollin joined French amateur teams and even though he made a name for himself, he couldn’t find a team for the 2005 season. “I came back home for a bit of rest, relaxation, of rethinking of my career,” said a laughing Rollin. “these things happen. It’s tough going to Europe, it’s known to be tough mentally, especially as an amateur because there isn’t really a good team organizational structure, you are just left on your own where only results matter.”

After returning to race in Quebec, Rollin send an email to V.C. Roubaix Lille Metropole amateur team in September 2005, with almost no expectations. He was going to stay in Quebec and race just for fun, when in November, DS Cyrille Guimard contacted him. “He said ‘we have a spot that just opened, are you interested in joining us?’ ‘Yes’, when Cyrille Guimard calls you, you say yes. I jumped on the opportunity, it was a good experience.”

Unfortunately, Rollin found that the team while “looking organized from the outside, was a mess from the inside,” or as Rollin said “Pourquoi faire simple quand on peut faire compliquer.”

Living and Racing in France

Rollin learned tremendously from racing and living in Europe especially from his first Directeur Sportif, Guy Gallopin, brother to Astana’s Allain Gallopin. From him, he not early learned how to race correctly, but all the work off the bike essential to being a profesional racer, such as auto-massage techniques, stretching refinements. Gallopin also made him work on his pedaling technique, “before I was just pushing, I pointed my foot, I think I spent 3 months working my pedaling technique, I would race and even the juniors would beat me” laughed Rollin. His pedaling improved, and “I saw a big difference, I was really comfortable in a race when I had to give it my all.”

Obviously, Rollin had to go through an adjustment phase when he went to race in Europe. “I was going to Europe since ‘99 with the National Team so it is a transition to go from a 60-man field to a 200-man strong peloton racing on roads four times narrower.”

“It was an adaptation, but it was there that I really learned how to race, it was there that I learned to read a race correctly, how to position myself.”

He remembers one race in particular that helped him understand how to race in the wind, and how to use echelons. “The Olympia Tour in Holland where I took a wicked beating but after that I knew how to ride in the wind.” chuckled Rollin, “After that, there were no problems.”

Living in France was not easy even if he spoke the language. For the three years that he lived in France, he had the bad luck to find himself living in apartments that were removed from everything. In his second year, his apartment was surrounded by schools which were empty during the summer. “There is no one, you find yourself all alone, with no mode of transportation, no car, without anything, so I had no one to see. After a while, you really need to talk to someone that doesn’t know anything about cycling to get your mind of cycling.”

A lot of riders have difficulty adjusting to moving to another country and often can’t adapt. “You leave the country but when you get there the team wants you to only think of cycling, cycling, cycling but you need time to think of other things, to see other things… that is what is so tough, missing that little moment of rest makes you crack.”

For Rollin, 2004 was a difficult year where he questioned his cycling career, so much so that he put his “World Championship at risk which is the reason I was second to last at the time trial.” He had been reaching out to the Canadian Cycling Association (CCA) for two months asking for assistance to no avail “because the man in charge was a Frenchman in France and he couldn’t understand what we were going through.”

“There was a cultural barrier even though we spoke the same language. We need to move, to see other things, you can’t really stay in front of TF1 and France 2 all the time”, summarized a laughing Rollin.

In 2006, V.C. Roubaix Lille Metropole took a professional license while they were in negotiations with Rollin without informing him of this change of licensing. When Rollin heard the news through the media, he stopped the negotiations”, due to “a lack of respect.”

Stay tuned for part two, when Rollin recaps his 2007 season and we go over his goals for the 2008 year with the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team.

Photo c. Kathleen Poulos and Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team