Rohan Dennis hopeful of three in a row after a different preparation for national championships

ROHAN Dennis will on Friday shoot for a third straight national time trial championship and his preparation has been from the garage of his home in Andorra to escape the snow.

Rohan Dennis pictured before last year’s Tour Down Under. Picture: Dan Peled (AAP).

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ROHAN Dennis will on Friday shoot for a third straight national time trial championship and his preparation has been from the garage of his home in Andorra to escape the snow.

The 27-year-old BMC rider opted for his first white Christmas this year and only returned to Australia from Europe this week.

But he is confident of quickly acclimatising to summer and giving the 40.9km race against the clock a red-hot crack.

“I spent a few weeks in Girona where I was wearing layers to train outside, but the last five days were on the ergo trainer in Andorra,” Dennis said.

“It’s still only 13 degrees in the garage but you get no wind so you heat up pretty quickly.

“Form-wise even though I’ve had a different lead-up — I’ve been doing more k’s at a lower intensity to try to get that base up — when I’ve done my power profile tests they’re the same as last year.

“So I can’t really say the (different) training has hurt my intensity.

“The idea of doing it (pre-season) a bit more old school was to get length into my system all looking towards the Giro d’Italia.”

#RoadNats Defending 🇦🇺 TT champ @RohanDennis and @MilesScotson are heading out for a recon on the #BMCTimemachine ahead of Friday’s race. pic.twitter.com/aM53lHGl5T

— BMC Racing Team (@BMCProTeam) January 3, 2018

Dennis, a time trial specialist, will start Friday’s race in Buninyong as favourite but will face a stiff challenge from the likes of BMC teammate Richie Porte, Mitchelton-Scott’s Luke Durbridge and Bennelong-Swiss Wellness rider Sean Lake.

“I definitely want to try to defend it, I want to 100 per cent and it’s going to be a very controlled TT, you can’t go all out in January in your first hitout,” Dennis said.

“Every year I’m learning a bit more about my limit in January and hitting exactly what I can.”

The elite men’s time trial starts at 2.15pm. The elite women race over 29.5km from 1pm.

Originally published as Rohan Dennis hopeful of three in a row after a different preparation for national championships