CHELMSFORD-BORN Ian Stannard kick-started his sixth season as a pro bike rider in Australia this month, keen as ever to put his hundreds of miles of winter training to good effect as he starts his build up to the mud and crashes of his favourite races of the year, April's cobbled Classics.
And the 25-year-old had an extra incentive to perfect his training this winter as he starts his 2013 racing campaign wearing the red, white and blue jersey of the national champion, having won the British Road Race championship last June.
Now in his fourth year with Team Sky, Stannard is a renowned Classics specialist and has already achieved significant results in one-day 'Classic' races having finished third in Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne in 2010 and fourth overall in the 2011 edition of Paris-Tours.
Having taken a short rest after finishing his 2012 season with a crash and fractured pelvis, Ian has been clocking up the miles starting with a lone week's training in Lanzarote before joining up with his teammates at Team Sky in Tenerife and then Majorca.
Having topped their 2012 season with Bradley Wiggins stunning victory at the Tour de France, the team have been looking at how they can replicate that success in the Classics and part of that plan has seen a Classics squad training together over the winter before they started their first race of the year this week 'down under'.
That careful preparation even had the group undertake a rare visit just before Christmas to some of the cobbled roads that feature in the Tour of Flanders – one of Stannard's favourite races – for an early recce of this year's race route.
Did it seem strange to Ian to be riding those roads in December? Never one to be fazed, Ian answers that question very simply; "No, they are the same roads, etc, it wasn't any different to when we race them in March and April."
He was equally direct in explaining how he felt he'll respond to Sky's focused attention on the Classics and the specific training programme they'd been undertaking; "Its ok, nothing new really just solid training. How will I benefit from it? I don't know, I'll have to wait until the racing has begun to find out."
Usually at this time of the year Ian will know exactly what his early race programme will consist of but it's been reported that Team Sky will be missing some of the early semi-classic races and usual warm up races like Tirreno – Adriatico that usually feature in Stannard's programme and instead be undertaking Classic specific training camps so at this stage all Ian can say about his racing schedule is that it will involve "some racing and lots of training. Basically, I don't know!"
In a recent video promo on Team Sky's website Ian said that his goal for the season was to "perform in the Classics and prove myself" and he recently expanded that comment adding that by the end of the Classics campaign he wanted "just to have raced my bike to the best of my ability".
That's one thing that's always been Stannard's determination, to give of his best whether it's playing a support role helping a team-mate chase a win or, as he's always dreamed of, being the first British rider to cross the line first at his favourite race of the year, Paris – Roubaix and 2013 will be no different.
