It’s not often that a rider arrives at a new team and admits he or she has taken a ‘step back.’ After three years at IAM Cycling in which he stepped out of the shadows of domestique duty to explore his potential as a stage race leader, Mathias Frank will revert to type in 2017, this time in the colours of AG2R-La Mondiale.
Every rider on the IAM roster has had to seek out a new avenue since it was announced the Swiss team would fold at the end of the season, but it’s not that Frank has had to settle for something he’d ordinarily have been unhappy with.
Despite finishing eighth at the Tour de France in 2015, the leadership experiment didn’t turn out quite as he’d hoped, and the 29-year-old is perfectly happy to begin shepherding French sensation Romain Bardet as he used to do for Tejay van Garderen at BMC Racing.
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“At IAM I got the chance to find out what I was capable of,” Frank tells Cyclingnews at AG2R’s first off-season gathering in the French Alps. “But then I found out that I was struggling sometimes to perform under pressure.
“It’s hard put my finger on it. For me it’s always been hard to predict my shape. Some guys can really time it. For me it’s more about the feeling, whether it comes or not. Then it’s hard to be a leader, because on certain days you have to perform.”
Frank’s talent is plain to see but he hasn’t necessarily come away from his three years at IAM with the results to show for it, though his eighth place at the Tour and 2nd place at the Tour de Suisse the previous year were highlights.
His main focus this season revolved around Suisse, his home race, which led into the Tour, but Illness forced him to abandon both, and made up his mind.
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