inCycle Video: Taylor Phinney big interview part 2

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After recovering from a broken leg in a season-ending crash at the USA Professional Road Race Championships in Chattanooga, Tennessee in May, Taylor Phinney will be aiming to get back to his best in 2015, in what will be his fifth year as a professional on the WorldTour with BMC Racing.

In the second part of a two-part inCycle video, Phinney relives the penultimate stage 6 of the 2013 Tirreno-Adriatico. The 206km stage from Porto Sant'Elpidio back to Porto Sant'Elpidio was held on a parcours known as one of the toughest in the history of the sport, and it was made even more difficult because of treacherous weather conditions.

In an emotional moment, Phinney describes how thoughts of his father, Davis Phinney, inspired him to make it through one of his toughest days on the bike.

“Once I started to get really cold, I started to get pretty dark, pretty sad,” Phinney said. “I started thinking about my dad. He has Parkinson’s disease. He’s had Parkinson’s since 2000, and I started to think of the kind of struggle that he goes through just on a daily basis, from waking up, to taking a shower, to just eating food. He’s been suffering with this disease for 14 years now.

“I started to think, well hey, if my dad was out here and he had the chance to be perfectly healthy, and be in my position, 20 minutes off the back of one of the hardest bike race stages that I’ve ever done, he would trade me for that position in a heartbeat.

"I thought, there’s no way I can step off my bike. I have to make it to the finish line no matter what. I started to think about my dad so much. I needed to honour him, and needed to honour the sport and the fact that I signed up for this, and this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to finish this race.”

Watch the inCycle Video: Taylor Phinney big interview part 1

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