'I still have the instinct to follow the yellow ones' – Primož Roglič adjusts to new colours at Paris-Nice

Bora Hansgrohe’s flagship signing Primož Roglič has started his season at Paris-Nice, but, after spending eight years at Visma-Lease a Bike, it’s taking the four-time Grand Tour winner some time to adjust.

Speaking before the start of stage 2, Roglič told RTV Slo: “It’s going well so far. But during the race, after all these years, I still have the instinct to follow the yellow ones. I have to get used to these new colours.”

Plenty of Roglič’s old teammates are in action at the ‘Race to the Sun,’ including Wilco Kelderman, Olav Kooij – who won stage 1 – and Matteo Jorgensen, all wearing their distinctive yellow and black kit.

The Slovenian left for a better shot at Tour de France glory, the one Grand Tour missing from his palmarès, as Visma-Lease a Bike focused their efforts on two-time champion Jonas Vingegaard.

"After all those years, in which you have always raced with the same riders, it is very different with a completely new team, with new people," said Roglič.

“So it is first and foremost our main goal to get to know each other thoroughly and to gain confidence in each other. We want to work on that.”

That will be crucial for Roglič’s hopes of winning another Grand Tour and finding success this week at Paris-Nice, where he is one of the favourites. With Vingegaard competing in Tirreno-Adriatico and fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) opting for the Classics rather than a warm-up stage race, Roglič’s main rival this week is former Vuelta a España winner Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step).

Following two bunch sprints, the stage 3 team time trial in Auxerre on Tuesday will play a critical role in establishing the GC, which has yet to fall into place. Evenepoel is best placed of the GC riders at six seconds behind leader Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ), but Roglič is only four seconds off the Belgian’s pace.

However, world time trial champion Evenepoel will see this as a chance to put significant time into his rivals, having demolished the field and eliminated seven riders in the Volta ao Algarve ITT last month. And the stage profile looks more suited to Evenepoel, who is also more established in his team and appears likely to simply drag his teammates to the finish line. Like last year’s TTT, times in Auxerre will be taken from the first, rather than the fourth rider.

At 26.9km, the route starts out on the flat along the Yonne River, before two fairly short climbs and a much faster second half to the stage, where the elevation drops before a slightly uphill final kilometre. The day’s first climb comes after 5km and climbs up 200m over 2km, while the 2.6km-long second incline pitches up at 5.8% before a gentler second section to the top.

Soudal Quick-Step are the 18th team off the start ramp on Tuesday afternoon, with Bora-Hansgrohe 20th and Visma-Lease a Bike 21st before Groupama-FDJ close the show.

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