Bradley Wiggins lined up at the start of the Giro del Trentino yesterday, making his return to stage racing following his short but intense love affair with the cobbles. The former Tour de France champion plans to prepare quietly for his final objective of the first part of the 2014 season, Amgen Tour of California, while Dario Cataldo and Kanstantin Siutsou are sharing a responsibility of leading Team Sky in the Italian four-day event.

Despite lining up with only six out of eight possible riders in the roster, British squad kicked off the Giro del Trentino with a promising third place taken in the team time trial yesterday. Wiggins crossed the finish line first among Team Sky riders and enjoyed few moments of virtual leadership before being beaten by NetApp-Endura and BMC.

While a local hero, Daniel Oss (BMC), became a first leader of the Italian event, the former Tour de France champion received an opportunity to cheer the crowd clad in the sprints red jersey.

Despite the honours he shared yesterday, however, Wiggins claimed that he aims to use Giro del Trentino to go back to the stage racing routine following his brilliant showing in the Hell of the North and training block he underwent in Mallorca.

"I've been trying to get back in the routine for these race, for stage races, after being in Belgium and not really doing much between the big days of racing," Wiggins told Cyclingnews before climbing onto the podium and spraying the crowd with the Italian Spumante.

"I've had a tough couple of days after training hard but once I did my warm up I felt good. It's always hard to judge how you feel but I could tell that not much has changed since last Sunday."

While the 33-year old Briton tries to quietly lose his weight and find climbing legs ahead of his important appearance at the Amgen Tour of California, Dario Cataldo and Kanstantin Siutsou are expected to wave the flag for Team Sky at the Giro del Trentino. However, despite several strong contenders to take the spoils in the Italian stage event, Wiggins expects that riders will be reluctant to make the race really hard as they have their minds already set on the Giro d’Italia.

"We've got other riders who have aspirations but like many people here, I don't think any one rider or any one team wants to take it on because they're thinking of the Giro d'Italia," Wiggins predicted.

"I hope to find my climbing legs in the next few days. It was always the plan to look at Roubaix as part of the process of the season. I didn't do the whole Classics campaign, so Paris-Roubaix didn't mark the end of the spring for me, I always knew it'd be two days off afterwards and then straight back to where we left."

"The Tour of California is still definitely an objective but perhaps not as much as it was a while ago. The team has changed with some guys coming back from injury, so it will be hard to gauge what we can do. Of course, we'll give it our best shot."

Even though Giro del Trentino marks Wiggins’ return to stage racing following his short stint on cobbles, the 33-year old Briton admitted to have developed intense love affair with the Paris-Roubaix emphasized by his respectable ninth place taken in the monument over a week ago and sets the Hell of the North is one of his main objectives for 2015 season.

"I think Paris-Roubaix is best race in the world and knocks spots off the Tour de France," he said provocatively.

"I like having the versatility to be able to target it and get a result. I won the Tour de France despite not being a pure climber. I don't know if that makes my Tour win better or worse but it was nice to go onto the Roubaix velodrome with the riders of that calibre of that front group, with people like Cancellara. I 100% definitely want to go back next year."

"There was a lot of talk about if I could do something, with loads of propaganda and people asking Cancellara about me. But now I'm up there. When they remember next year that I was ninth, they'll say I can win Paris-Roubaix. And I'd love to go back and give it another go."