Dean looks to his 6th Tour de France

Jul 29th, 09.  Julian Dean has just finished his 5th Tour de France and he's already making plans.  Plans on how to beat the Columbia HTC train, and personal plans for his 6th Tour.

Julian Dean went into his Tour de France with a busy season of racing already behind him.  

His 2009 season started with the Tour Down Under in January, then went on to the classics where he injured his knee, putting the rest of the season in doubt.

One month later, however, Dean was lining up for the first of his 2009 Grand Tours, the Giro d'Italia.  At the Giro, Dean and his Garmin Slipstream sprinter Tyler Farrar first challenged Cavendish and his Columbia HTC train for the sprint wins.

Their experience helped determine the team strategy for taking on Columbia in the second of Dean's 2009 Grand Tours, the Tour de France.

Despite some great moves by Dean to pull Farrar into position, the results again show the Columbia HTC train and Cavendish's final thrust proved unbeatable.

The final sprint into Paris

Dean said on the last stage into Paris, his team had a plan to change those results.  

"We had a plan this morning and we were supposed to have more guys involved in the sprint, but some of the guys were tired I guess and couldn't get up there," said a disappointed Dean directly after the race.

"We ran out of guys with one kilometre to go and there wasn't really much I could do, I tried to get in behind Columbia but it was almost too little too late," he said.

With 1km to go Dean says he was out the front but realised it was too early to go. "I didn't want to lead Columbia out, so I backed off a little bit and tried to get back in behind. But at that speed to drop off and accelerate again, it's too much at those speeds," he said.

Cavendish easily won the stage with his final leadout rider, Mark Renshaw, in 2nd.  Dean had high praise for Columbia HTC, and Mark Cavendish in particular, "You can't take anything away from him, he's a great rider, an incredible sprinter," he said.

The future

"I'm an old guy, I need some rest somewhere"Dean still thinks Farrar has the ability to beat Cavendish but Dean's  experience makes him think Garmin need to change their tactics.  

"We're trying to do something we probably don't have the horsepower to do in Garmin. I think for the future it would be better for us if maybe me and Tyler work by ourselves and work off the Columbia train," he said.

Whether that means Dean stays with Garmin is not a certainty. Dean said he was is waiting until he gets home to Spain, when things are "calmer" before looking into those details.

Dean has a World Cup race in Hamburg in two weeks and then he says he needs to sort out what he does for the rest of the year. "I'm an old guy, I need some rest somewhere," he says of his busy season.

For now, Dean is just happy to have completed his 5th Tour de France. "You always feel quite humbled being here. It's a great event for us, there is nothing else like it. The Giro and the Vuelta are big, but riding into Paris today ... I thought about George Hincapie who has done this 14 times, I am sure the 14th is as magic as the 1st, as the 5th is as magic as the 1st is for me," he said.

So will there be a 6th? "Yeah definitely.   I still feel like I want to keep racing and continue with my career, but first I need to get a contract sorted out and take it from there."