Doing it Deano's way | Cyclingnews

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Dean Downing(Image credit: Cam Jennings)

Dean Downing is another British cycling export, plying his trade in Europe during 2006 with the newly merged DFL-Cyclingnews.com-Litespeed team, based in Belgium. The brother of British national road champion Russell Downing, 'Deano' has posted the team's first wins of the season and has come into the 2006 season with excellent form. He spoke to Cyclingnews' Ben Atkins after the team's second training camp of the year.

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Downing said at the team launch earlier this year that he'd changed his training for the lead-up to the 2006 season; concentrating on training on the road through a British winter, rather than racing on the track (both Downing brothers are highly accomplished track riders). In fact, by mid February, he'd logged 7000km since mid-November, riding around the roads of Sheffield, near his home. At the launch, he told Cyclingnews, "I've done enough training, I want to get racing". Indeed, all those wintery kilometres have certainly paid off as he's given the newly-merged squad an excellent start to the season.

DD: I think they had to sign some young guys after signing me [laughs]. I think the new director doesn't want there to be an out and out team leader as such, just leave it to individual races. We have quite a few different style races planned this season; the flat Belgium races and the Tour of China, which I hear is a bit hilly, so it'll be hard for a rider to be up there in every one [of those races]. It can sometimes put pressure on a leader if the riders are always looking to them for everything, too.

DD: Yeah, he seems to follow me around [laughs]. We have a pretty good understanding of each other in general, but when it comes to racing we take it one step further; there have been a few races in the last couple of seasons in the UK that either Russ or I have won, and we both said afterwards. 'I was just about to attack when you went away', so I suppose we do think alike in that respect. The Lincoln GP last year was the best race we have done together - we just rode as hard as we could for the last two laps, with total trust in each other, I suppose.

DD: I think that cycling has become more popular within the UK over the last few years, with the efforts of the riders mentioned; young guys seem to be following their cycling dreams more over the water, getting the chance to ride in good European teams in France and Belgium. Funds seem to be helping a lot of riders too - the Dave Rayner [Fund] has helped lots of riders and they seem to be giving it a go...you're only young once, hey?

DD: Yeah we did the Gent 6 last year but Russ' leg was still injured from his bad crash in the Herald Sun Tour so the dream of getting into the Six Day circuit turned into a bit of a nightmare; on such a small track there is nowhere to hide and we struggled the last two nights. I still love riding on the track because that's kind of where I started, so I don't think I will ever turn my back on it.

DD: As I haven't done any track this winter I took the opportunity to have a month off my bike [mid October to mid November] and I had a great time relaxing with friends and family, a few nights out etc. I also put a few kilos on to keep me warm in the winter. So when I started back I was just doing steady training rides with the lads around where I live. I was doing about 15 hours riding per week. At the Revolution I had just got back from a 10 day training camp in Lanzarote where I did a 1000km in what seemed like gale force winds. The sun was shining though so the tan came on a bit.

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