Road racing world champion Mats Pedersen will compete in the Tour de France, which runs from August 29 to September 20.

Pedersen, in his fourth year with Trek-Segafredo, had relatively few opportunities to show off the rainbow jersey, although he did ride the Tour de Euro-Metropole, Tre Valli-Vallezine, and Milan-Torino at the end of last season.

"It's really nice to finally see the race calendar again," he said. I've spent the last few weeks riding, but without a clear goal in mind."

"Of course, my goal remains the classics and I want to be in the Tour. And I'm hoping for a rainy Paris-Roubaix this year," Pedersen said.

The mythical borderline "rainy Paris-Roubaix" has not been held since 2002, when Belgian Johan Museeuw won the race. Since then, the race, usually held on the second weekend of April, has been held in dry and dusty conditions.

This year, the newly proposed date of October 25 is unprecedented, and the weather in Northern Europe at that point could be anything from still warm like a summer hangover, to overcast and windy, or even a bucket of overturned rain.

Pedersen finished second in the 2018 Tour of Flanders, and with this year's Ronde set to take place in its "rightful" place on October 18, a week before Roubaix, the 24-year-old Dane is looking to make up for a 2019 classic season that did not go his way He is trying to.

"A race is a race, and I'm ready whenever the Classic starts," Pedersen said. 'If the world is like this, I don't mind staggering the race.'

"It's nothing special in my mind, and I'm not thinking about it too much. I'm just looking forward to getting back into racing." It will be a cool experience to do all these big races in such a short time. It's new for everybody and I think it's going to be good."