After the rain-and-snow battle last year, it looks like this will be a friendlier edition of Tirreno-Adriatico. The weather here is good, although it was actually a little warmer at home in Erfurt when I left there.

Tomorrow things start out with the team time trial. We have checked out the course twice on our time trial bikes. Yesterday we took it easily and today we turned it up a notch.

We want to go all out and see how far forward we can finish and where we have room for improvement. We'll see how it goes.

After that of course I want to bring in a win in a flat stage. I am really looking forward to that.

Photo: roth-foto.de