Fabian Cancellara has still not made a definite decision about his possible Hour Record attempt but together with his Trek team, the Swiss in continuing the preparations. At the recent Trek training camp in Benidorm, he tested material on the track in Valencia and the team is now looking into the schedule to find a suitable time for possible shot at the record.

Fabian Cancellara has indicated that he would like to beat the World Hour Record as he continues his quest to widen his palmares. While a definitive decision still hasn't been made, the Swiss is continuing his preparation of what could be a shot at beating Ondrej Sosenka's 49.700km mark.

Sosenka set the record in Moscow in 2005. Unfortunately, his career ended when he tested positive methamphetamine at the Czech time trial championships three years later.

The record lost its prestige when the UCI decided to ban tri-bars and re-set the record to Eddy Merckx’s 49.431km set in 1972. At that time, the record was held by Chris Boardman who had covered 56.375km but that performance is now only seen as "Best Human Effort". Previous records set by Francesco Moser (1984), Graeme Obree (1993 and 1994), Miguel Indurain (1994) and Tony Rominger (1994) were also deleted from the official list due to the rule changes.

In October 2000, Boardman ended his career by reclaiming the record, clocking 49.441km in Manchester. Since then, none of the sport's major stars have shown any interest in attempting to cover a longer distance but Sosenka improved the mark in 2005.

If a major rider like Cancellara decided to make an attempt, it would add more prestige to the record after a few years where it has been mostly neglected by the cycling world.

Cancellara has already said that his main focus in 2014 will be the cobbled classics where he aims to defend his titles in the Tour of Flanders and the Paris-Roubaix. Later in the season, he will again target the rainbow jersey while he is still undecided about a possible Tour de France participation.

Those lofty goals make it difficult to find room for a World Hour record attempt but Trek manager Luca Guercilena explain that the preparations are ongoing.

“When you make an attempt on the record, it also means removing the athlete from another objective, and obviously that’s not so easy in the first season that you put a team together, especially with a rider as important as Fabian," he told Cyclingnews. "That said, we are going ahead with tests on material and we’re looking into what might be a good period of the calendar to do it relatively soon."

Boardman and Indurain both made use of their Tour de France form to make their attempts but Cancellara is instead likely to exploit his post-classics condition. He plans a considerable shorter transition time from road to track than the two time trial giants of the 90es who both broke the record between five and six weeks after the Tour.

“You’d need a minimum of fifteen days to adapt to the track before a record attempt: it’s unthinkable that you could do it immediately afterwards because the pedal stroke you use on the road is very different to the one you use on the track,” Guercilena said. “But clearly the most important part of a record attempt is the form, and given that we’re talking about an athlete used to time trialling, the time needed to adapt should be relatively reduced.

“The hope is to find a period of form during the year where Fabian is at 100%, translate the work he has done on the road onto the track, and then make an attempt on the record straight afterwards.”

Cancellara did some testing of material on the track in Valencia when the team was gathered in Spain earlier this month. The record attempt is likely to either be made on the new track in Grenchen in Cancellera's native Switzerland, in Anadia (Portugal) or on the high-altitude track in Aguascalientes in Mexico where a number of world records were broken at the recent track World Cup.

“We’re in the development stage but the performance itself obviously is another thing altogether," Guercilena explained. "Right now we’re starting the work necessary to make an attempt on the record, and we’ll see in time whether it’s possible or not."