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It was indeed pretty simple, and as we came to the finale, I was in with a big shout. Alexander Kristoff had Luca Paolini lead him out for a long sprint, as he prefers. He’s really fast when he gets rolling, but he lacks that explosive Cavendish-style punch. I tried to respond, but 290 kilometers is a hell of a long way in March, especially when you’ve been training yourself half to death, and my legs let me know loud and clear that they strongly disapproved of sprinting. Only John Degenkolb could get past Kristoff, and Michael Matthews edged me off the podium. Oh well, at least it was a short drive home.

Great. So now the guy who had brought me here had disappeared. But not after burdening me with a coach who was destroying me week by week. Bobby didn’t understand me, and I couldn’t stand his persistent interventions.

I’m lucky. I’ve never had any problem motivating myself to train. If I want to win, I have to race well. And if I want to race well, I have to train. But that is what training is to me: preparation to race. Not training for its own sake. Maybe that works for some riders: G.C. riders, for instance, like Alberto Contador or Chris Froome, who don’t race so often, need to train with structure to make sure they arrive at their goals in peak condition. Also, they can use races like the one-week stage races in Spain or the Dauphiné or Tour de Romandie to train. If you take this year, 2018, as a comparison, I won my first race in Australia in January. I’m basically trying to win twice a week pretty much from then until the world’s in September with a couple of weeks off here and there for good behavior. Or, in the case of last year, bad behavior, but we’ll come to that.