The interview was conducted by Jens Vögele
TOUR: What role does cycling play in your life?
Thomas Dreßen: I simply enjoy cycling, especially when you reach a certain level. That's when it really gets going. When we ride as a team, we move a lot on the flat so that we can ride a defined wattage consistently over a longer period of time. But it gets really cool when you can stay within your training zones in the mountains too.
TOUR: How did you come to enjoy cycling so much?
Thomas Dreßen: We have always cycled a lot together in our family. And my brother and I used to go to my grandparents' house in Jülich in the summer, in a region where there are lots of cycle tours. We thought it was cool when we came home from the checkpoints with as many stamps as possible.
TOUR: How often do you use the road bike for endurance training?
Thomas Dreßen: Since my knee injury, I'm no longer allowed to jog, which is why I do most of my training on the road bike or ergometer. For basic training, I go out on my road bike whenever I can. But I usually do intervals on the ergometer because I can train them much more precisely that way. And of course I always have my lactate meter to hand at home. Not only so that the trainers get the values, but also because I'm interested in it myself.
TOUR: Do you draw comparisons with cyclists?
Thomas Dreßen: Of course. When you're so involved with yourself, you want to know how those who specialise in it do it. The speed at which cycling races are run, especially in the Alps and Pyrenees - it's absolutely crazy how they ride up there. But of course we realise that the demands on cyclists are completely different to those on ski racers. We don't train to have to ride 200 kilometres with 3000 metres of altitude all the time.
TOUR: How did the road bike help you to get fit again after your serious knee injury?
Thomas Dreßen: I worked intensively on this during rehab. Not only with watt-controlled training, but also with power distribution. If you're supposed to ride 200 watts after an injury, you also have to make sure that the power is distributed as evenly as possible between both legs. I then bought pedals that measure the power, which helped me a lot to get fit again and to pedal evenly.
TOUR: So did the bike training accelerate your return to the piste?
Thomas Dreßen: At least that's how I took my first steps back into the world of sport. Cycling is very easy on the joints - and with a shortened crank you can start again relatively quickly. After a break from training, the body slows down extremely. With the ergometer, however, I was able to gradually increase the load. And the good thing is that you can get back to your old fitness level relatively quickly.
