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Simon Gerrans is far from satisfied, despite his dream run of world cycling success.
The 34-year-old has confirmed his status as one of Australian cycling’s all-time greats with three years of stellar form.
In that time the Orica-GreenEDGE team leader has won the Milan-Sanremo and Liege-Bastogne-Liege classics, worn the famed yellow jersey in the Tour de France and dominated the top Australian road races.
Last month, he won silver in the elite men’s world championships road race behind Polish ace Michal Kwiatkowski.
And all that makes Gerrans want more.
“Contrary to what people think – if you win a race once, you’re done with that race – if you win a race often, it just drives the hunger to back up and want to perform well again,” he said.
“I’ve had some great wins over the last couple of years, but there’s still plenty more hunger left for European racing.”
Gerrans is also determined to rebound from this year’s Tour de France disappointment.
He eventually had to pull out of the Tour after crashing in the opening stage.
“That was a bitter disappointment, so there’s definitely a big motivation (to be) back at the Tour de France next year,” he said.
Gerrans will repeat the schedule that has worked for him so well – start in January with a succession of big Australian races, then compete in the European spring classics and prepare for the Tour.
After that, he will decide whether to aim again for the late-season world road titles.
His domestic schedule will feature defending his national road and Tour Down Under titles in January, followed by Victoria’s Herald Sun Tour from February 4-8.
Gerrans was a VIP guest at Wednesday’s launch of the Herald Sun Tour, which has guaranteed funding for at least three more years.
His team-mate and compatriot Simon Clarke is defending champion.
“This is far from pre-season – these races are really important,” Gerrans said.
“A win here counts for a lot.”
Clarke won this year’s Herald Sun Tour in unusual circumstances – emergency services had to leave the scheduled final stage because of concerns about nearby bushfires, forcing organisers to cancel the racing.
“We had an absolute scorcher of a week … and everyone was pretty-much burnt out by the time we got to Sunday,” Clarke said.
“So the fact that stage was forced to be nullified, it wasn’t such a bad thing in the end anyway.”
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