Be careful what you ask for. That's one of the lessons Trek-Segafredo's Peter Stetina took away from this year as he continued his return from a potential career-threatening injury at the 2015 Tour of the Basque Country, where he collided with poorly marked traffic bollards while riding for BMC and fractured his tibia, kneecap and four ribs.
The now-29-year-old American was out of competition for four months and returned at the Tour of Utah in August of 2015, still walking with a considerable limp and with the help of a cane. He finished the high-altitude race that features a considerable amount of climbing, but then dropped out of the USA Pro Challenge two weeks later in Colorado. He ended his 2015 season in Asia with a 29th-place finish at the Japan Cup, then signed with his new team in the off-season.
"I raced so much this year," he told Cyclingnews last week at the Tour of Alberta before lining up for his final two races of the year at the WorldTour events in Quebec and Montreal.
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"I told the team that to come back and get to my old level I needed to race a lot, and they took that to heart," he said. "After Utah I already had 77 race days, so I got more in by August than some guys have in a season. I've been training since I came back last year in August – I didn't take an off-season – so I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel pretty early now."
Stetina concluded his 2016 season with 84 race days, including finishing his fifth Grand Tour at the Tour de France, where he helped support Bauke Mollema's ill-fated podium run and was 46th overall himself. He told Cyclingnews he's happy with what he was able to accomplish this year, especially considering he seriously thought about walking away from the sport this spring.
Stetina suffered through his season opener at the Tour Down Under, then continued to soldier through tough days at the Vuelta a Andalucia, the Volta a Catalunya and a return to the scene of his crash at Pais Vasco. He supported the team through Fleche Wallonne and Leige-Bastogne-Liege, then rode Tour de Romandie, all the while wondering if he would ever find the form that made him a highly sought after WorldTour domestique who could climb at the front of the pack.
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