For Ian Stannard there are few prospects quite as appealing as riding over cobbles in wind and rain, and finishing races spattered in mud and grime. He might be from Essex, but his heart is in Belgium, with his cycling dreams focused on the cobbled classics of northern Europe: the Tour of Flanders, Ghent-Wevelgem and the Queen of the Classics, or 'Hell of the North', Paris-Roubaix.

The 22-year old Englishman is set on becoming a classics specialist in the coming years, and in Team Sky, alongside specialists such as Juan Antonio Flecha and talents like Edvald Boasson Hagen, he will be in good company.

"I definitely see myself as a one-day classics rider," says Stannard. "I love the classics - in bad weather especially. To win Paris-Roubaix in the rain would be special. Caked in mud - that'd be really cool.

"When I was a kid I loved the pictures in the magazines of those classics, when you can't make out the riders' kit, and when they take their glasses off it's like they've been wearing goggles, and everyone's crashed about ten times. That really appeals to me. To win in that weather you'd have to be a pretty hard man."

In 2008, in his first full year as a professional with the Belgian Landbouwkrediet team, Stannard rode his beloved cobbled classics, and managed to finish all three - no mean feat for a 20-year old, as he was then.

In 2009, with the Italian ISD team, he rode his first Grand Tour - the Giro d'Italia - and he finished that, too. But coming to Team Sky feels to Stannard - who is a product of the British Cycling Academy - like coming home. "I know the staff and how they work," he says. "I feel like I've served my apprenticeship with other teams, I've learned a lot, and hopefully now I can step up a bit and perform."