TOUR de France winner Geraint Thomas put some serious mountain mileage in his legs ahead of next month's Giro d'Italia racing last week's five-day Tour of the Alps.

The 37-year-old Welshman agonisingly missed out on overall Giro victory last year, when Slovenian powerhouse Primoz Roglic pipped him in the penultimate time-trial.

And Thomas - who namechecks the Blorenge's Tumble as one of his favourite hill rides in his book Mountains According to G – will be desperate to add the Giro Maglia Rosa to his 2018 Tour triumph when his sixth Italian tour tilt gets underway on May 4.

The Ineos Grenadiers star finished 13th in the Alps, just over five minutes behind Spanish winner Juan Pedro Lopez, but attacked several times as part of his slow build to the Giro.

He was one of the first to make a move in a thrilling final stage in Italy, attacking away from the peloton on the first ascent of the Palu del Fersina.

The breakaway lasted 20km before the peloton caught them, but Thomas was happy to make the effort before he begins his final Giro push.

"It's just another day of going deep and I've got to freshen up now.

"I think once I rest up and recover, soak up all this work, I should have made a good step," he told Cycling News.

Thomas, a frequent visitor to the old Abergavenny Festival of Cycling, also made a recon on Saturday of the tough 20th stage of the Giro, including the savage 18.2km Monte Grappa climb.

And he's now back home in Monaco, but will be hoping his preparations go smoother than prior to the Alps, when a training ride was cut short by his bike worth thousands of pounds being stolen from outside a coffee shop in Menton.