A push into America is the sea change that Bradley Wiggins hopes will enable to him end his career in style. Integral to that plan this season is a full-on bid to win the Tour of California, the US's most prestigious stage race from May 11-18. Wiggins will also attempt to win the Paris-Roubaix Classic – the most prestigious one-day race on the cycling calendar – and make a return to the Tour de France alongside Chris Froome.

Of those targets, the bid to crack America in the style of David Beckham is the novelty, prompted, Wiggins said, by a visit to Los Angeles and his sense of the void that has been left after Lance Armstrong's disgrace.

"Cycling is huge there and there is a huge void there. People in the US are keen on cycling but have been robbed a little bit with what's gone on. Then we will see where the future goes. As a Tour winner with credibility, with no skeletons in your closet, people look up to you and want to get on their bikes because of what you achieved one summer.

"That is quite rare, especially within cycling – there are not many of us Tour winners that haven't got a history, three or four, part of a very small club, and it's our responsiblity to preach that to the world."

Asked if he wanted to do for cycling what Beckham did for soccer in the US, Wiggins said "I wouldn't say that but who knows?"

There is a sense that Wiggins has moved on from 2012 and part of that process will be a possible return to the Tour this July when it starts in Yorkshire. "I'd need to be in shape to be on the podium, just as Richie [Porte] was last year, and again in 2012, with Mick Rogers, Richie and Chris. You've got to forget the previous history of the Tour – we can't compare ourselves to other Tour winners.

"I'm looking forward to going back to the Tour as an ex-winner, doing myself justice and the team justice, and being part of that. A lot of it was coming to terms with [the Tour win] – I left home as an unknown and five weeks later came back as one of the most famous people in the country. I'm not carrying the burden that I did carry for four years of is he going to win the Tour?"

Wiggins is also excited by the prospect of trying to win the cobbled Paris-Roubaix Classic, a goal he has been mulling over since 2012. "Once the fighting is done in the early [cobbled] sectors, it's about spending long periods of time on your own, which I'm good at. It gives me a different dimension."

There is, he believes, not a great deal of specific preparation that can be done for it. "That's one of the beauties of it – it's sustained threshold, there is a lot of risk involved but other than the reconnaissance of the race, there is physically not much difference. I always remember the press cuttings from when I was a kid – Roubaix is always something and I'd love to win it, to be part of that final [shakedown], that final 40 or 50 kilometres, so many things come together to have to win that race, or play a part, even if it's doing a job for Geraint Thomas or whatever."

The Team Sky head, Dave Brailsford, who has known Wiggins since he was a teenager, believes the 33-year-old "is in a good place. He's got his goals and is working towards them. It will be good to see how he gets on in the early part of the season. He's very keen to do a good Paris-Roubaix, Tour of California and then do a Tour de France. For the time being that's what his season is based around."

According to Brailsford the Wiggins-Froome rivalry is "no longer a story. Sorry but you've wrung that one dry. Chris is as committed to win this year as last year. Things happen, you see it with a lot of gold medallists, there's a lull, which is a human phenomenon, but I think he's managed it really well. We're totally determined it won't happen again. He's had his time to go and do all his bits and bobs. He will go a bit more steady this time, [in 2013 he was] trying to earn the respect of his team-mates and one of the issues or challenges was to try and refine that."

Brailsford believes that Wiggins has come to terms with the fact that he is no longer Team Sky's leader. "He's come to terms with his 2012 performances and can see his way forward. Giro? Richie is going to lead the Giro and Brad's programme is more around Paris-Roubaix and then California and then up for selection in the Tour. Paris-Roubaix is a race he's always liked since he was a youngster, he's always been there in the background, he's always felt he has got the physical attributes, so there is an opportunity. The Classics are a gaping hole in our palmares and we'd like to try and sort that out."

Hardly surprising after all his practice last year, the Team Sky head is now a master of the art of batting away questions about his leader. Asked if there was any chance that Wiggins might lead the team in the Tour, he replied: "It's just hypothetical situation, the same as if you said: 'What happens if Brad crashes a week before the Tour?'"