Before he departs for Cannondale-Drapac this offseason, Taylor phinney has one last big rendezvous with BMC Racing Team: securing a third straight World Championship in the team time trial. Should this be achieved, Phinney says it will be “the cheery on the cake” on his time with the team.

"It would be great. No matter where I’m racing I want to win, and I’ve built a really special bond with this group of guys," Phinney said the evening before the event to Cyclingnews. "I’m looking forward to racing with them no matter what, and the friendships and the bonds that I’ve made will continue and there’s no reason will change any of that. It would be a lovely cherry on top of my time at BMC."

Phinney admitted that he has felt a little nostalgic as his six seasons with the team come to a close. However, he insisted that come this afternoon, he will be nothing but focused and will save the nostalgia for after.

"I’ve had a couple of moments of nostalgia in the last couple of weeks, but before the race, I think that I will be pretty focussed on the race. Maybe afterwards, when we’re all sufficiently intoxicated, we might get a little nostalgic with each other."

Phinney said the key to the course is not going out too hard in the technical section, and saving energy for the power section coming back into Doha.

“It’s technical to start; it’s kind of a strange course with a couple of U-turns. I wouldn’t call the course glamourous or any beautiful showcase of the city of Doha," said Phinney. "We have to stay together, with the technical beginning it’s going to be easy to start out hard and take some of the corners too fast and cause some difficulties in the group in the beginning before you get to the real powerful section on the way back into town. It’s just staying conservative and racing smart, but we’ve practiced so much that we shouldn’t have any problems. It was good that we came so early because we’ve been doing that beginning circuit every day, except for yesterday."

Phinney said he was quietly confident about the individual test on Wednesday, saying he hasn’t thought much about the race until after the TTT is done.

"It’s going to be hot. It’s shorter, which I’m excited about. It’s not going to be an hour long, and it’s just going to be about 45 minutes. Hopefully, there’s a tailwind to cap it off. It’s a good power course, so it’s good for a rider of my size. I’m taking it one day at a time. Being an Olympic year, I prepared so much for that, even though, result-wise, it didn’t go the way that I wanted. Since then, I’ve been having fun, exploring and playing around in the races and chasing the fire."