The 12th grand tour of Adam Hansen's streak proved to be the most difficult as he crashed early in the Tour, but the Aussie won't stop now.

It will be easy to find Adam Hansen later this month. Just head to the south of Spain on August 22, and the 34-year-old Australian will be decked out in his Lotto-Soudal kit, ready to race the Vuelta a España.

It will be his 13th-consecutive grand tour start, and if he arrives to Madrid on September 13, it will set a new record.

Getting through number 12 was no easy feat, however. Hansen crashed heavily in stage 2 of the 2015 Tour de France, and barely made it to Paris.

“Of all of my grand tours, this has been the hardest,” Hansen told VeloNews. “The crash made it very difficult.”

That’s Hansen-speak for pain. The veteran Aussie was squeezed off the left side of the road, landing heavily on his right shoulder in stage 2, in the crosswinds that proved so decisive in the GC battle among the favorites. With his right shoulder covered in mud, he gritted his teeth to make it to the line. X-rays later that night confirmed a dislocation of the AC joint.

For Hansen, the rest of the Tour turned into a battle of survival. With his shoulder wrapped in tape, he suffered through the first week. Unable to ride in a tuck, he was dropped in the team time trial in stage 9, and rode across the line alone, at nearly four minutes slower. The Pyrénées were even worse, but he fought to stay in the gruppetto.

When VeloNews checked in with Hansen deep in the Alps, he was barely hanging on.

“My body’s all twisted,” he said. “With the shoulder injury, I am using different muscles. The injury and bad luck has made this the hardest grand tour for me.”

Three days later, Hansen made it to Paris for the fourth-consecutive July, giving him a record-tying completion of 12-straight grand tours.

He bettered the mark of Marino Lejarreta, who rode nine straight grand tours, and three more, to give him 12, but not all in a row. He equaled the record held by Spanish rider Bernardo Ruíz, who rode 12 in a row from 1954-58.

Some say there should be an asterisk next to Ruíz’s mark, because the Vuelta in those days was not a full three weeks. Lejarreta, meanwhile, says his record has more merit, because he was racing for the overall classification during at least two of his three grand tours he raced he each year.

Hansen said he never planned to a grand-tour record, which started with the 2011 Vuelta, but that is just what started to develop as the weeks peeled off.

“I was never targeting the record, but since I got close, I wanted to do it,” Hansen said. “The crash made it very difficult.”

With the Vuelta on the horizon, Hansen vows to keep on trucking.

As a reward for his endurance, tenacity, and contribution to the team, which won four Tour stages thanks to André Greipel this year, Lotto-Soudal signed Hansen to a two-year contract extension that will keep him in the peloton through 2017. During his grand-tour streak, he’s won a stage in the 2013 Giro as well as a stage in the Vuelta last year.

Does he plan to keep rattling off grand tours?

“I hope to keep the streak going,” Hansen said. “I just like the rhythm of racing for three weeks. I’d rather do that than travel to two or three separate races.”

The 70th Vuelta a España begins August 22 in Puerto Banus, and ends September 13 in Madrid.