Peter Sagan, who turned 30 on Sunday, was also on his first day back at work, his fourth year at Beulah Hansgrohe, and his thoughts on his fourth decade: "Nothing has changed for me." He sits in a conference room at the Del Bono Hotel in San Juan, taking questions from reporters about the year ahead. It's the same as it has always been.

So has his winter. He spent the off-season traveling to Colombia for the Sagan Fondo in Barranquilla, but by late November he was once again facing the nature of his existence, as he performed the ritual of the base mile purge in order to return to racing at this week's Vuelta a San Juan.

"Well, it was okay," Sagan says. 'More or less all the same. We built a base in the winter and now we have to work on intensity. I didn't do Australia, and I prepared in Monaco. This is my first race and then I will continue with the high altitude training camp. It's the same training on the bike, just in a different location."

The first two stages of the Vuelta a San Juan ended with a group finish won by Rudy Barbier and Fernando Gaviria. Sagan was not as intense as his younger rivals, but he was still able to sprint for the win.

He finished sixth in the first stage and fifth the next day, and will certainly move up as the week in Argentina approaches.

"I feel I have changed. I am more interested in the important races than the small ones," says Sagan. Sagan said, "It's impossible to run at the same level from January to November; it's impossible to run at the same level from January to November; it's impossible to run at the same level from January to November. I think that's something you learn with age."

Sagan has 113 wins to date, but it is time to prioritize quality over quantity. Or as Sean Kelly once said about his career: "I want to carve out a big 'palmaré' in the last few years."

The team's success is a testament to the quality of the team, and the team's ability to keep going.

Slovak can already look back with satisfaction on his record of honors: three world titles, seven green jerseys, and two monuments.

"I am very happy with what I did and what I won. I'm very proud of it," Sagan said, "and I'm very proud of what I've done. But I'll keep going." There's only one reason I ride a bike: to be a good rider.

In the Classics campaign, Sagan will once again battle the Ancien Regime of Dečuninck-Quickstep and Classics revolutionaries such as cyclo-cross stars Mathieu van der Pol and Wout van Aert. Sagan notes that the style of racing has changed a bit since the days when Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara dominated the pavé.

"Compared to 10 years ago, when I started cycling, cycling has changed a lot. 'The style of racing has become more aggressive. It's not like the days when every team had GC, sprint, and classic leaders like Boonen and Cancellara. Now it seems like one big anarchy."

Sagan is neither for nor against this anarchy. It exists and he had to adapt. Nothing more, nothing less. It's much harder to control. 'Well, that's just the way it is.

Sagan's season has traditionally been divided into three parts: classics, Tour de France, and world championships. This year it is more crowded with the addition of the Giro d'Italia debut and the Tokyo Olympics schedule. Despite the grueling course, he should be competitive in Japan, but he denies that skipping the Rio road race in 2016 in favor of a mountain bike event was a mistake.

"It never was," he said. It was a different time and I had more time." He enjoyed several races in Austria and the Czech Republic, earning points.

Following a routine from four years ago, Sagan will avoid racing again this year in February, instead going to Medellín, Colombia for an extended high-altitude training camp.

This means that there will be a five-week gap between the end of the Vuelta a San Juan and the next race, Strade Bianche. However, Sagan is accustomed to this solitary form-building.

"It's different for every racer. Everyone is different and reacts differently to altitude. Some riders need altitude, some don't. But this is a time in cycling when everyone is training at altitude and everyone is spending a lot of time at altitude.

"We had Sky before, but that season didn't work out. A year later, I tried.

Sagan notes that high-altitude training is another way cycling has changed since his debut in Liquigas in 2010. Sagan notes that high-altitude training is another change in cycling since its debut in Liquigas in 2010.

"It's normal," he said. It's like standing at the start of a long race, six hours on the bike, maybe it's raining, maybe it's cold. It's like a never-ending story, and an hour goes by like five hours. But when you get to the finish line and get in line, you say, 'It went by so fast.'"