When Cyclingquotes spoke to Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack-Leopard) on the eve of the Tour de Suisse the home crowd favourite revealed that the hadn’t been preparing particularly much for the opening individual time trial this year, hinting that the time trial discipline may not be as important to him as it used to be.

“I believe I’ve only been on my time trial bike 3 or 4 times during the last couple of months,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that time trials are history for my part but obviously when you have done so much, put in so much effort and managed to win quite a lot in a certain discipline, it’s not unusual, I think, to begin searching for new goals. Besides, my preparations for the spring Classics went perfectly this year and fortunately it showed in the races so I think that’s where my focus will be in the future. Previously I would spend almost as much time on my time trial bike as I would on my road bike, but this year I haven’t really done any consistent training on my time trial bike since January and from January until now it’s quite a long time. Things have changed and for the time being I’m moving in this direction [the Classics].”

Only three riders, all of them Belgian accidentally (Roger de Vlaeminck, Rik Van Looy and, inevitably, Eddy Merckx), have succeeded in winning the 5 Monuments of cycling, i.e. the Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Giro di Lombardia Classics. Joining that select group of Classics specialists still remains a dream for Fabian Cancellara even though he has chosen to focus of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix during the past years rather than focusing on the two Monuments still missing from his palmares. The difficulty of abandoning races that suit his characteristics as a rider perfectly and the enormous change in planning involved in pursuing that dream being the rationale.

Doing well and maybe even adding to his tally at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are clear and tangible goals. Secondly, there’s the question of planning the season. The Monuments won by Cancellara thus far [Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix] are all ridden within a relatively limited period of time and other races that fit his characteristics as a rider, like the Gent-Wevelgem and E3, are sandwiched in between these Monuments. So it’s possible for him to target a series of Classics and semi-Classics within a comparatively short span of time. If he were to aim for the Liège-Bastogne-Liège, however, he would have to reschedule his spring itinerary as the Milan-San Remo and LBL are 6 weeks apart and it’s impossible to sustain a peak condition over such a long time span.

Speaking of the Tour de Suisse Cancellara emphasized the strength in depth of the team and spoke about his own ambitions for the race.

“Obviously the Tour de Suisse is still very important to me and even though we do not start the race in Lugano as we used to in the past, I’ll still try to get a good result in the opening stage and see where that leads me. However, we enter this race with a really super strong team, and I may be called upon to support some of my teammates at a later stage which I will gladly do, of course. I’m still progressing after the break I took and the Tour of Belgium. I want to perform well here, but it’s no secret that my big ambitions for this year are the spring Classics and some races towards the end of the season, particularly the world championships. That’s also the reason why I won’t be participating in the Tour de France this year.”

Taking part in the Tour de France, Cancellara explained, would hamper his preparations for the latter parts of the season. “I know from experience that I have to be 100 % motivated if I’m in a race and that’s why I said to the team that I would prefer to shift my focus and do, among other races, the Vuelta instead of the Tour this year to be fully prepared for my goals this autumn. Besides, our team is bristling with strong riders for the Tour.”

Cancellara subsequently elaborated on the change in planning involved in his set-up for this season.

“Earlier I used to have three goals for the season, in the spring, in the summer and in the autumn. This year will be different because of my absence from the Tour de France. Evidently I have some minor goals for the middle part of the season, such as the opening stage here at the Tour de Suisse, but basically it will be 3 months of building up my form in order to be fully competitive at the closing stages of the season. This is a new approach for me but it’s refreshing. This new approach has been decided upon in accordance with the team. I haven’t dictated my schedule to the team because I’m not in a position to do so just because I happened to win 3 races in the spring.

The team needs me and I need the team. I needed some new challenges and hopefully this new approach can be mutually beneficial to both me and the team.”

Explaining his goals for this autumn, Cancellara said that the world championships was the main priority but also revealed that he might be setting his sights on the Giro di Lombardia and a certain jersey in another Italian race in the long term.

“Evidently the world championship is a very important race, also because I’ve never won it so it’s clearly one of my new goals. I may also participate in the Giro di Lombardia and get a taste of that race. As I said earlier, things are looking different now than they used to, so maybe next year I’ll focus more on the Ardennes Classics and then there’s the maglia rosa at the Giro d’Italia. I’ve worn the leader’s jersey at two of the three grand tours but one is missing and that’s the maglia rosa.”

Cancellara’s contract with the RadioShack-Leopard team expires at the end of the year. He wouldn’t reveal too much about his future plans, though, limiting himself to saying that talks with his current employer are “in progress”.

“I have already been a professional for thirteen years now so I think it’s fair to assume that my next contract will also be my last. I think I will ride for another 3 years so I have to be 100 % certain that I’m going in the right direction and that I can plan my future. I would like to begin to set up arrangements for my career after I’m done riding. This also explains why talks are taking a little longer than usual.”

Asked if further Tour de France participations were part of his plans, Cancellara gave no definitive answer.

“I’m not saying I’m tired of the Tour and that I won’t return to the race, but sometimes it’s nice to give priority to new things and smaller races such as the Tours of Poland and Austria. The interest in cycling from the media and the public is growing and I think it’s important for riders to help sustain that interest by also taking part in smaller races and not just the Tour de France. But I’m not saying the Tour is over for me.”

Cancellara’s decisions regarding his future may well be influenced by bike manufacturer Trek’s possible involvement with the team. Speculation has been rife that the US manufacturer might take over the main sponsorship of the team next year.

“I don’t know the official status of the talks between the team and the Trek company but I think it’s nice if an important and well-known bike-manufacturer wants to play an important role in cycling and support the sport.”