Olympics: Dean hitting top form at right time

With only two days off the bike since his best Tour de France ever, top New Zealand road cyclist Julian Dean is brimful of confidence going into Saturday's Olympic men's road race.

Dean scored six top 10 finishes in the recently completed tour, and is firing on all cylinders heading into the road race's testing 248km course.

"The Tour de France can go one of two ways -- if you don't have a good tour and you're struggling the whole time, then you've got zero chance of coming out two weeks later for the Olympic Games," he told NZPA today.

Dean said he took a calculated risk riding the tour so close to the Beijing Games, racing "full gas" for the whole three weeks.

"The body is quite a temperamental machine, and it could have easily toppled the other way."

Keeping the balance right has meant Dean has taken only two days off training since finishing the tour.

"Taking time off is the worst thing you can do -- even on rest days in the Tour de France we ride. Except for those two days, pretty much every day I've ridden a minimum of three hours and up to six hours.

"I feel more comfortable being out on the bike, I recover better riding easy for a couple of hours than I do at home sitting on the couch."

Beijing and the Olympics offer two rigorous tests for cyclists -- an ever-present blanket of smog, and a hilly course.

"It's going to be really challenging, probably like the Paris-Roubaix (famous for its rough terrain and treacherous cobblestone roads). No one's really looking forward to it, but everyone's got to cope with it.

"The smog doesn't disadvantage one rider over another. We've been given masks to wear, but I haven't used it yet and don't intend to."

The Beijing course definitely isn't one that suits Dean. The first 80km heads out from near the Forbidden City to the Great Wall before the serious hills begin in a 24km seven-lap circuit that climbs 520m per lap.

Dean finished ninth in the sprint classification in the Tour de France, and has no illusions about the nature of the Beijing course.

"The course is obviously more suited to the climbers -- the Valverdes, the Sastres, Cadell Evans -- it's going to be difficult for a rider like myself, I'm not a specialist climber. But I was climbing at a level I haven't climbed at before in the tour."

Dean said the fact that countries were limited to a maximum of five or six riders per team, as opposed to the eight or nine of the Tour de France, made for a very different sort of race.

With bigger teams able to exert less control, smaller teams like New Zealand -- Dean has Glen Chadwick and Tim Gudsell watching his back -- stand a better chance.

New Zealand road coach Jacques Landry said there was a very clear focus in the men's team heading into Saturday's race.

"When you look at the other teams like the Spaniards or the Italians, there might be five chiefs in one team, which could be a bit of a hindrance. For us, it's cut and dried. We know who we're focusing on," he said.

It's cut and dried for Dean as well, who is contesting his fourth Olympics and finished 15th in Athens four years ago.

"The Olympics is a one-day race, and anything can happen at any time. You've got to prepare for any scenario."

Even so, Dean has his ideal race well mapped out.

"The last one or two times over the climb is going to be difficult for me to stay in touch. It's about limiting my losses and hoping on that 10-12km descent back to the finish I can be in a cohesive enough group to shut down any gap and maybe have a chance at a medal."