Erik Zabel is expected to move from Milram one year earlier than originally planned and to return to his old T-Mobile team.

Zabel is widely expected to return to the Magenta, where he raced with Team-Telekom from 1993 to 2005, after saying he would finish with Milram this year.

"For a possible switch of teams we do not need lawyers, we are all grown-ups," Zabel told reporters in Munich on Thursday.

"I am in good spirits and looking forward to competing next season."

The German sprint star has had a difficult year, acknowledging to using the illicit blood-booster EPO during the 1996 Tour de France when he won the first of a record six green jerseys and helped team-mate Bjarne Riis to the yellow jersey.

Denmark's Riis also this year admitted to taking EPO during that Tour and has since been renounced as champion by Tour organisers.

The 37-year-old set a deadline of "two or three weeks" to make a definitive decision about next season, but is widely tipped to return to T-Mobile where he would serve as a mentor for compatriot and former world under-23 champion Gerald Ciolek.

Zabel will next travel to Paris to race in the Paris-Tours one-day classic on October 14, a race he has won three times.

Eurosport