Alberto Contador (Team Astana). Photo copyright Fotoreporter Sirotti.
Tour de France champion Alberto Contador said Tuesday the unusually cold weather in Europe is hampering his preseason training plans.
The Astana rider said his training so far has been "difficult to sort out."
"I've had to combine my training around other commitments and, well, with the winter we've been having in Europe this year -- and especially in my area -- I can't remember one as bad as this one," said Contador, a native of the town of Pinto, which is just south of Madrid and which has been hit by freezing temperatures and snow.
The Spanish rider still feels he is in good physical shape going into Astana's 10-day preseason training camp at Calpe, which begins on Thursday.
"The truth is that I have very good feelings and compared to past years I think things are going pretty well," the 2007 and 2009 Tour champion said.
Contador will start his 2010 campaign at the Tour of Algarve in Portugal in mid-February, but doesn't believe he will win that race since he does not feel as fit as he was at this point in 2009.
"This year I don't think I'll arrive there at the same level as last year," Contador said. "But it will be a good warmup for the rest of the races."
Contador will follow that with the Paris-Nice in March and perhaps the Tour of Catalonia and Tour of the Basque Country after that. He has not ruled out the Giro d'Italia or Spanish Vuelta yet but said his priority remains the Tour.
Contador also believes Astana has built a good team around him since the departure of Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer.
"I think in the end we've managed to put together a pretty competitive team that is quite complete, one that is at the level that the Tour requires," he added.
