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Kristian House (left).

"I’ve always been there or thereabouts in Normandy, the long, harder days suit me and I think a stage win is well within my grasp there. I actually learned my trade racing in Belgium, so the gutters and the crap weather are second nature anyway".

Team manager John Herety added that "We have been coming to the Tour of Normandy for a few years now and there is no doubt it is a hard race – so hard in fact it is something of a rite of passage for my top riders now. But we have also seen our results and racing improve here each year and I think it is about time that our stock matured at this race, a stage win would be ideal here".

Whereas the aims in Normandy will be quite specific for the team, a revised route for the Tour of Taiwan means that the team will be waiting to see how the first few days pan out in the muggy Taiwanese heat, before working out how to emulate last years high profile successes there. After taking out the Queen stage last year and battling in and out of contention for the overall  (eventually finishing 6th), Dean Downing will be motivated for this years event and also a little cautious as a new (much hillier) route has been created for 2011.

"I had a great race last year, but the course profile has really changed for 2011. It looks like a much tougher race with an extra two days racing, plus climbs every stage. I don’t think I have my climbing legs yet but having said that, I won the toughest stage last year, so we'll see how I go. The team will be getting stuck in - same as last year, that’s for sure".

The Rapha Condor Sharp team line-ups will be as follows:

Tour of Normandy (March 21st-26th)
Kristian House
Dan Craven
Jon Tiernan-Locke
Casey Munro
Zak Dempster
Graham Briggs

Tour of Taiwan (March 19th-28th)
Ben Greenwood
Dean Downing
Tom Southam
James McCallum
Dean Windsor

For more information and up to date race results, follow the teams twitter feed at http://twitter.com/raphacondor