Australian mountain bikers have a great track record of converting into top road cyclists, most notably Tour de France winner Cadel Evans, but Daniel McConnell has no plans to make his switch from the dirt to the road permanent following his second crack at the Tour Down Under.
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With his international mountain bike season not starting until the end of May, the Canberra mountain biker asked his Trek bosses if he could ride in their team at the South Australian race to help lay a solid training base for later in the year.
He met his teammates on Thursday and will race with them for the first time in the Tour Down Under prelude, a criterium in the Adelaide streets, on Sunday.
Evans made a high-profile switch from the mountain bike to the road, while Peta Mullens also made the switch to win the national women's road championship in Ballarat last Saturday.
But McConnell isn't considering doing it full-time just yet with his focus still on the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro next year.
It will be the second time the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist has ridden the tour, having also done it in 2006.
"At the moment this is just the one-off, but we'll see how we go, but at the moment the focus is 100 per cent on the mountain bike," McConnell said.
"I've got a big year planned this year with the ultimate goal being Rio the following year. For me it's all just focused on mountain bike."
McConnell wasn't nervous about his return to the road, just excited.
He hasn't set himself any lofty goals and was just hoping to be able to help his Trek teammates during the six-stage tour that starts the 2015 professional campaign.
The 29-year-old has looked at the stages and was expecting a tough tour with some solid climbs.
While he didn't have great expectations, he said if an opportunity presented itself he'd try to take it.
"I'm just here to learn and have a different experience to normal, see if I can play a part at all and help the team out to get some results," he said.
"I've come into this race pretty open minded, I haven't put too much pressure on myself and the team hasn't put too much pressure on me either, so I'm not expecting too much, but if the opportunity comes my way I'll be hopefully ready to take it."
McConnell is one of four Canberrans taking part in the tour, with Mathew Hayman the captain of Orica GreenEDGE, Michael Rogers boasting the same role for Tinkoff-Saxo and Nathan Haas being part of the Cannondale-Garmin team.
