Bauke Mollema hailed the 2019 season as his best ever as he looks ahead to a 2020 campaign packed with goals ranging from numerous one-day races to the Tour de France.

The Dutchman, who is entering his sixth season with Trek-Segafredo, earned a career-best fifth-place finish at last year's Giro d'Italia and won gold in the mixed relay TTT at the European and World Championships.

"It's motivating to finish the season at a high level," Morema told Cycling News at Trek-Segafredo's December training camp in Sicily.

"When I started training again after a month, it was a lot easier. In cycling, or maybe in life, you always want more, you always want to look to next year and win another big race. I'm really happy with the [Giro]. It was one of my best Grand Tours. I was able to ride at a really high level. I didn't do so well in the Tour. I was really good in the beginning, but in the last 10 days, as soon as the TT was over, I felt empty. [Lombardia is my biggest victory. Compared to my other victories, the Tour de France stage was good too."

Morema attributed the 33-year-old's big success to a change in diet, a change in bikes, and a release from the team; Morema was in great form in September and October before heading to Italy for the fall classics, with Liergerne Marx, Amy Peters in Yorkshire, She won gold with Lucinda Brand, Jos Van Emden, and Kane Bouwman.

There he finished 4th in the Giro delle Miglia, 5th in the GP Bruno Begueri, 7th in Milan-Torino, and won the 18 km solo attack at Il Lombardia and the season-ending Japan Cup. Morema said that his six-week break from racing in August played an important role in his late-season run.

"I'm really happy here because I have freedom and I can talk with the team about what to focus on. I think it's also important that the team saw that I was a little tired at the end of the Tour. It was important for my body and my mind to be rested and ready."

"I'm really happy. I was able to really recover and train hard again. I had a really good training block, which gave me a boost for the last month of the season. I'm really happy because everyone already knows that I train just as hard at home as I do when I'm with the team.

"I think I've made some small steps. I think I've made a few small steps, like widening the saddle and changing the handlebars, and I think I've gotten better balance on the bike. Over the years I've been obsessing over the details, but last year I made some changes to my nutrition. I increased fiber and organic foods. I felt like I had more energy, and maybe that's why I was able to ride consistently throughout the year."

Morema also said he recognizes his own growth as a professional over his 12-year career and feels his best may still lie ahead. He committed to a cycling career relatively late, after his first year of college studying economics.

"I don't feel old, actually. I've been cycling for quite a long time, but I have the feeling that I just started a few years ago. I think I can keep going for years. Last year was the best year of my career and I hope I can continue to do my best."

"I started cycling late, and I spent the first years learning and slowly figuring it all out. It motivates me to keep taking steps at this age."

The focus for 2020 will be as intense as ever, but with an abundance of tough one-day races, Mollema is excited about the prospects for the upcoming season.

The Olympic Games will be held in Tokyo, the European Championships in Trento, and the World Championships in Switzerland. With three podiums and a win at Clasica San Sebastian, numerous top-10 finishes at the Ardennes Classics, and a win at Il Lombardia, Morema has a good chance for big results.

"This year I want to concentrate on one-day races. Not only in the Lombardia and the Italian Classics, but also in the Ardennes. The Ardennes, and especially the Olympics, the World Championships, and the European Championships. The Ardennes, and especially the Olympics, the World Championships, and the European Championships. They are all really hard courses, and it would be a real dream come true to win any of them."

"I've been watching the Olympics since I was a little kid, so a gold medal is bigger than the World Championships for me. Not everyone is going to agree with me because of the rainbow jersey, but it's still a big deal to me and I really want to compete and get results."

Mollema is one of many riders heading to the Tour de France next summer. With teammates Vincenzo Nibali and Simon Yates racing in the Giro, it will be difficult to strike a balance between both.

The challenging Tour course, with its climbs from day one, is appealing to Morema, but he questioned why the Olympic road race had to be held immediately after the final Tour race in Paris; in 2016, of course, there was a two-week gap between the two races.

"Last week I looked at the course again and planned which stages to reconsider. Some of the stages I didn't know about; it's not like the Tour to have a really hard mountain stage on day 2, day 4, the Pyrenees, and stage 8.

"The early stages are super hard and the last week is crazy hard. It will be an interesting Tour. There is no time to get into a rhythm. The first week you will fight and suffer and the last week will be very tiring.

"I don't understand why they put it so close after the Olympics, I don't know if the UCI is influencing it, but the Olympics are three or four weeks long, why not at least a week or two later?"

"It's a little annoying, but for most riders It's the same thing, they just have to go straight from Paris to Tokyo."

While Mollema's Olympic berth is still up in the air, he feels he will be in the Dutch delegation of five in Tokyo, based on his strong one-day performance. Jumbo Visma's Tom Dumoulin should also join Morema, and there will be some unexpected teammates on the starting lineup.

As a quirk of the Olympic selection rules, teams can get an extra track athlete by adding one to their road race team, as Germany did with Maximilian Levy in Rio.

"I think I earned my spot in the one-day race last year. Of course, there is also Tom Dumoulin. He usually competes in time trials and road races. We have some other climbers and I think we will have a really strong team."

"We were discussing having an additional athlete like Jan Willem van Schip on the track for the team sprint and team pursuit. He could be the fifth man on the road. It's not official yet, though. "

Mollema feels he is in top form for 2020 and has a feeling that his team may also be in top form. Four-time Grand Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali has joined the team, climbing domestique Kenny Elissondo has joined the team, and Giro d'Italia mountain champion Giulio Ciccone is in his second year on the World Tour.

Morema will join Richie Porte at the Tour de France and is expected to attack GC from two sides. Nibali, meanwhile, will also take part in several races; with three GC men, Trek said it expects to be able to take the fight to Ineos and Jumbo in 2020.

"We have more riders who can play an active role and we can go for GC in more races. Nibali has added a big leader who can win Grand Tours and one-day races. For the team, that's really important." [It looks like they will ride the Vuelta and Liège together and start the Volta ao Algarve together. It looks like we will run the Vuelta and Liège together and start the Volta ao Algarve together. I can help him in some of the races and he can do the same in some of the final races.

"Ineos has been a strong team lately, always in the top 10 or on the podium at the Tour with two or three in the top 10, and Jumbo Visma has a few leaders. I am really looking forward to competing for GC at the Tour. I feel my best season is still ahead of me."

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