A victory just days into his professional career at the Tropicale Amissa-Bongo in January of last year was something of a calm before the storm for Daniel McLay.
After earning his path to the professional ranks via the school of hard knocks that is the Belgian amateur scene, the Briton was under no illusions as to what he was facing into, of course, but his first six months in the peloton provided some salutary lessons nonetheless.
“During the first half of last year, I learnt my lesson to try not to force it too much between races because I ended up getting pretty tired,” McLay told Cyclingnews at the Tour of Qatar last week, where he kicked off his second season at Fortuneo-Vital Concept.
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“I learnt to make sure to focus on recovery a bit more because the races are that bit harder. You learn to stay a bit calmer in a race too, and I think those are the main things I picked up.”
McLay’s hectic spring campaign was something of a baptism of fire, and included debuts at Paris-Nice and Paris-Roubaix, but by the time the Tour de Picardie rolled around in May, there were sure signs that he was beginning to tread water. His season finished strongly, too, with solid outings at late season semi-classics Paris-Brussels and Paris-Bourges.
“The back end of the year I was definitely going a lot better. I never got on top of it in the first half of the year but then I took a rest and did a good training block and started racing, and from then I was just getting better every race,” McLay said. “Hopefully I’ve learned from that and can produce my form a bit earlier this year.”
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