World champion Peter Sagan spoke with journalists on Saturday in Westlake Village, California, at his gran fondo charity event. The Slovakian said that his contract with Bora-hansgrohe allows for him to race off-road when it doesn’t interfere with his road schedule.
“I can do mountain bike racing. It was part of the [contract] with Bora. We’ll see how it’s going in the season, and then I’ll have to decide my schedule,” Sagan said. “It’s not very easy to put it all together, to change from road bike to mountain bike. This year I did it because I had to prepare for the Olympic Games. I had to get the points, and it was really tough for me this year. It was [juggling] a lot of things.”
Sagan will start 2017 season at the Tour Down Under, and focus on the Spring Classics, before returning to the Tour of California. Tour de France will be another big goal for Sagan next season , a race where he hopes to tie Erik Zabel’s record of six green jerseys.
“What I decided when I was under 23, is that it is impossible to be changing from road biking to mountain biking because it’s not the same,” Sagan said. “If you go riding the mountain bike, you should be doing mountain-bike races. You can train on the road bike, okay, but the focus is on the mountain bike. And if you are a professional road biker, you have to focus on the road bike. If I go for mountain bike, maybe it’s better than I just go for fun. I don’t know. We will see.”
