Lars Bak

Lotto Soudal's stalwart Dane tells us why he has survived so long as a pro

2017 was a long season, but I didn’t do too many races after the Tour so I wasn’t what we call “race-f*cked”.

My name is Lars Ytting Bak. The Ytting part is special. In Denmark there’s a maximum of 200 or 300 people with that name, and I don’t think there’s one that I don’t know.

My first team, in 2003, was Fakta. Unfortunately the team stopped at the end of that year. Then I went to Bankgiroloterij, and I was unlucky because they stopped as well. After that I was at CSC for five years. I could have stayed, but wanted to try something new and went to High Road. That also closed, but we won everything in 2011 and everybody got good contracts. Then I went to Lotto – at least Lotto will never stop!

Equipment is better these days. You had good bikes 10 or 15 years ago, but the difference now is there are no bad bikes. In the old days you could get some shit equipment but now they are all really good bikes.

We are pretty spoiled. At the Tour Down Under it’s business class and nice hotels. What you can be afraid of is that maybe in 20 years we’ll race the whole year. The season is getting longer.