Steve Cummings is looking to draw on experience when he gets his season under way with rides at both the GP Cycliste la Marseillaise and Etoile de Bessèges.

The 28-year-old is no stranger to either event and has particularly happy memories of Bessèges. In 2006, as a second-year pro with the Belgian-based Landbouwkrediet team, he romped to a third-placed finish on stage three at Les Salles du Gardon and is hoping he can be a force to be reckoned with again this time around.

He said: "I'm really looking forward to it. I've always enjoyed racing down there and that stage in 2006 was one of the first big results of my road racing career.

"From what I remember of Bessèges the stages are fairly short, around 140km, and a few of them have some pretty sizeable climbs, but they shouldn't be a problem for me.

"I'll be looking to make my mark on those tougher stages. I prefer more selective stages rather than those which usually end in bunch sprints."

Cummings is one of the more senior riders in Team Sky's squad in France but is quite relaxed about what his role will be once the racing begins.

"I'm just going to wait and see how things pan out. For these first races we're just going to ride together as a team and see what happens."

Raring to go

After the winter training camp in Valencia, Cummings was laid low with a virus but insists he is now back to his best and raring to go.

"When I was sick I had to take things easy for a week, but I've felt really good in training since then.

"I've been doing tough, long rides every week with the likes of Peter (Kennaugh), Morris (Possoni) and John-Lee (Augustyn).

"Max (Sciandri) is also here and he helps a lot. We had a great day the other day actually. We did a three-hour loop and then followed his Land Rover to do some motor-pacing, that was fantastic, and then we went up to around 1000m and there was a lot of snow up there.

"Everybody has slightly different things they want to do but we try to get out as much as we can as a group because it's better than training alone."

The GP Cycliste la Marseillaise is a one-day race which takes part on January 31, while the five-stage Etoile de Bessèges runs February 3-7.