Interview

Every few years a talent captures the imaginations of average triathletes. Such a person may or may not be an established champion, but always has heart, courage, uncommon ability and a race tactic that confounds the sport's most gifted.

Björn Andersson is one such triathlete. There is probably no one in triathlon for whom so many total strangers are pulling. Fortunately for those of us holed up in Valyermo, he likes training in our neck o' the woods. We thought we'd make him a little more familiar for those who read Slowtwitch. This interview is a bit of a companion piece to a little off-the-cuff experiment Björn allowed us to conduct on him this week.

Björn Andersson is from Trollhättan, Sweden, and is the son of two college professors. Mom teaches history and Swedish languages. Dad is a physics and math prof. He's got one older sister, and while Björn is a college graduate with a teaching credential his parents and sister are more the studious types, while Björn is the one who pedals 350 watts with the same effort it takes others to engage in a brisk walk.

SLOWTWITCH: Let's get some business out of the way. Who are your sponsors? And what equipment do you ride?

BJORN ANDERSSON: Cervelo...

ST: And that's a P3 SL, soon to be P3 Carbon, right?

BA: Yes, and Rotor Cranks, 175 millimeters, 56, 42...

ST: That 56-by-42 is down from something like 58-by-something?

BA: ...42. Yeah. One element is trying to speed up the cadence, the effective power on the downstroke is greater on the Rotor Cranks, so I don't need the bigger chainrings. You get a bigger muscle contraction on the downstroke, so it makes more sense to speed up the cadence a bit.

ST: And the rest of the sponsors?

BA: Craft for apparel, Ironman Wetsuits, Reynolds Wheels, Oakley, New Balance, Fuel Belt.

ST: You're 26 years old. What is your athletic background?

BA: Swimming until the age of 14 or 15, a bunch of other sports, like soccer, 'til I was 15, lots of different sports. My first triathlon was at the age of 14.

ST: How long did it take you, after you started in triathlon, to realize you were going to be a very good cyclist?

BA: Well, I found that cycling came quite easily for me starting out, but I didn't train for triathlon until '96 or '97, and that's when I realized cycling would be my best discipline.

ST: How do you characterize your talent? Do you think cycling is always going to be your best event of the three?

BA: I'm not built as a runner. I don't think I'll be one of the fastest runners in the sport. But I do hope to work myself into being one of the stronger runners. One has different talents for different sports, some things just come more naturally to some people.

ST: Are you going to try to specialize in Ironman racing?

BA: Yes, definitely, half-Ironman and Ironman.

ST: What is is about your riding style that makes you fast?

BA: Disregarding the last year, something I did do well was finding a style that was reasonably effective for me and that I worked on consistently for quite a long time. I really adopted to my riding style, and something I've grown to be really comfortable in. I never considered myself a real talent, it's just a lot of consistent hard work and I've managed to be able to make it work.

ST: How has your riding style changed, if at all, over the past year or two?

BA: I would say the last couple of months I've been working on getting my cadence up slightly, so that it's maybe 10 beats higher, maybe a bit more than that for flat riding. Also, I sit a bit differently on the bike, a bit more forward on the narrow part of the saddle. Plus a few small tweaks since I went into the wind tunnel a couple of weeks ago.

ST: Will it change more, is there a trend? And what do you think will eventually be your most efficient way to ride?

BA: That's something I'm trying to figure out of course, considering how my races have gone the last year. I'll keep working on getting my cadence up a bit. But I don't really know if I'll be able spin high cadences. I think some people are more efficient at spinning high cadences, and some are not.

ST: What races will you do this year?

BA: I've already done IM New Zealand, then I'll do Wildflower, Florida half-IM, Quelle Challenge Roth, Norseman, IM Wisconsin, those are the major races. Maybe a few short distance races in between. Plus I'll try to race Swedish national TT Championships again.

ST: Are we Björn fans going to see anything different in terms of race tactics?

BA: I don't want to lay out my race tactics on the internet, but I have a few different ways I'll try to play out the races, to start giving me some decent results again.