After wrapping up the Giro d’Italia on Sunday, Alberto Contador returned home to Pinto, in the hills outside of Madrid, to show off his Maglia Rosa and trophy to his adoring fans.

However, he hasn’t got much time to celebrate his great triumph as he needs to prepare for the Tour de France, as well as riding the Route du Sud before it.

“My Tour de France starts now,” Contador said in the wake of his emotional Giro win to the press. “Now I will recover, listen to my body, and start to think about the Tour.”

“The Tour is obviously a race that can be much more complicated, for the quality of the field and accumulated efforts from the Giro,” Contador said. “I see them as one, the Giro and Tour. Psychologically, you have to prepare yourself for it, because it’s complicated in your head to end one grand tour like the Giro, and start to think about the next one.”

While the doubters point to a failed Giro-Tour double attempt in 2011, Contador points out that he hadn’t trained for the Giro in either of those years but this time he has prepared to ride both events right from late 2014.

“With respect to 2008, the preparation was obviously very different to this one that I had planned for,” Contador explained. “In 2008, I started the Giro at the last minute, I didn’t know the route, the climbs, and I didn’t know how I would be received. In 2011, I trained with the Giro in my mind, but I also rode a very intense beginning of the season.”

“When we mapped out this ‘doblete,’ the Giro and Tour, we knew that I had to arrive in conditions to win,” Contador continued. “I was not at the same at this Giro as I was at last year’s Tour, so in that regard, it gives me a bit of tranquility.”