Cavendish, Kwiatkowski and Quintana ready for the Tour de San Luis.

When the Tour Down Under began life in 1999, it was the only game in town for riders looking to shorten the winter by racing beneath the sun at a time when the majority of their rivals were still training in frigid temperatures in Europe.

The landscape has changed emphatically since then, of course, amid cycling’s ongoing globalization and its ever-expanding calendar. Rather than a novelty, the early start is now bordering on de rigueur as far as some are concerned, and the Tour Down Under is by no means the lone show in the southern hemisphere in January.

Now in its ninth edition, the Tour de San Luis has enjoyed an upsurge in its popularity in recent years and its status is now such that when the 2015 season gets underway this week, attention will be divided more or less equally between Argentina and Australia.

Nairo Quintana, Mark Cavendish and world champion Michal Kwiatkowski are among the riders who have opted to kick off their campaigns at the Tour de San Luis, and they explained their reasoning at the pre-race press conference at the Vista hotel on Saturday morning.

2015 Tour de San Luis LIVE.

Monday's (January 19, 2015) Tour de San Luis Stage 1 departs San Luis at 1:49pm local (11:49am U.S. Eastern, 17:49 CET) and is expected at the finish at Villa Mercedes at around 6:15pm local (4:15pm U.S. Eastern, 22:15 CET).  Tour de San Luis live video streaming is expected for the start and the finish.

Santos Women’s Tour: Valentina Scandolara holds off fast-chasing bunch to win stage one.

Italian Valentina Scandolara turned a perfectly timed late race attack into a solo victory on the opening stage of the Santos Women’s Tour. Crossing the line six seconds ahead of a decimated bunch, Scandolara punched the air in celebration. Lauren Kitchen edged out Melissa Hoskins in the bunch sprint to take second place.

“I feel very happy,” said Scandolara. “I was excited to race. I watched my teammates race at the Bay Crits and the Nationals, and I was ready to begin my season in Australia.”

2014-15 Races & Results.

Santos Women's Tour 2015 - Jan 17-20 (Stages),

Santos Tour Down Under 2015 - Jan 18-25 (Stages),

Tour de San Luis 2015 - Jan 19-25 (Stages),

Dubai Tour 2015 - Feb 4-7 (Stages),

Giro d'Italia 2015 - May 9-31 (Stages),

Tour de France 2015 - July 4-26 (Stages),

UCI Road World Championship 2014 - Sept 20-27 (Results),

Vuelta a España 2014 - Aug 23-Sept 14 (Results),

Tour de France 2014  - July 5-27 (Results),

Giro d'Italia 2014 - May 9 - June 1 (Results),

More ...

So, who really is better - Team Sky or Tinkoff-Saxo?

Tensions have been rising for quite some time between Team Sky boss David Brailsford and his opposite man at Tinkoff-Saxo, the provocative Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov.

During a difficult season for the British team in 2014, Tinkov took his Sky-bating to a whole new level by rubbing each and every one of Tinkoff-Saxo's victories into the virtual face of Brailsford on Twitter.

While Sky actually notched more wins than their rivals (27 to 26), Tinkoff-Saxo struck seven times in Grand Tours - with Sky failing to get on the score sheet once. Making matters worse for Sky, Contador convincingly beat Froome to the red jersey after a commanding three weeks in the saddle after both men made their comebacks from injuries sustained during the Tour.

Merida Agile road helmet.

BikeRadar verdict: 3 out of 5 stars. "Decent fit and finish, and excellent venting on a budget."

Scandolara claims solo victory in Santos Women's Tour opener.

Cyclo-cross career in question for Tim Johnson.

Trimmed-down Richie Porte looking to ‘step up’ in 2015.

Richie Porte enters 2015 with something to prove, and he knows it’s time to deliver.

The Tasmanian rider stayed off the Boags beer over the winter, and rolls into the Santos Tour Down Under as a favorite, looking trimmer than he’s been in his career.

“You can count the nights out on the piss on one hand,” Porte said Saturday in a press conference. “I came back to Tazzie [Tasmania] in November, and I’ve had a few good months of training. I’ve been on it.”

After shedding kilos off his lean frame to trim his race weight down to 62kg (137 pounds), he barreled to an impressive time trial victory in the Australian national championship last week ahead of Jack Bobridge and Rohan Dennis, two riders preparing for a run at the hour record, proof that Porte is upping his game.

“It was good to put a good TT like that. I haven’t done that in a long time,” Porte said. “I need to believe that I can start winning these races.”

2015 Tour Down Under LIVE.

Tuesday's (Monday evening North America) Tour Down Under Stage 1 (Hostworks stage) departs Tanunda at 10:30am local (7:00pm U.S. Eastern, 1:00am CET) and is expected at the finish at Campbelltown at around 1:49pm local (10:19pm U.S. Eastern, 4:19am CET).  Tour Down Under live streaming video should get underway at around 12:00pm local (8:30pm U.S. Eastern, 2:30am CET).

Tour Down Under preview.

The days when the opening months of the cycling season can be used to ease into the races, are long gone and nowadays the first WorldTour points are on offer right from the beginning. For most riders, the Tour Down Under is the first competitive action of the year but it presents a great opportunity to open the points account already from the take-off. This turns the race into a hotly contested affair and with the days when the race was a sprinters' affair now belonging to the past, the overall classification shapes up to be decided in an exciting battle between puncheurs, climbers and classics specialists.
                                                        
2015 has barely begun but the times when January is a month for training and preparation at team training camps are now history. Nowadays, the best professional cyclists start racing earlier than they did in the past when they benefit from the globalization of the sport to get some early-season racing kilometers under their belt under distant and warmer skies.

Fabian Cancellara: “I want to get back racing…to kick ass and enjoy.”

Becoming world road race champion for the first time, or taking the trio of Milan-Sanremo, the Ronde Van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix? It’s a tantalising question, but one Fabian Cancellara is not willing to answer.

The powerful Swiss rider is clear on his general goal for the 2015 season – to have a much better year than in 2014 – but, on the subject of picking one win, or set of wins, over another, he is simply not willing to go there.

“I love those questions because they are questions that you can’t give answers to,” he said, answering a journalist’s enquiry during Friday’s Trek Factory Racing media conference session.

“Of course, winning all three would be a huge thing, but in the end also winning the worlds would be huge. Winning Flanders for the fourth time would be immense because nobody has reached that yet.”

Tech Roundup: Featuring Lightweight, SIS, Tortec, howies, Gevenalle, Victory Chimp, B’Twin, RRP and more.

"Another busy week for Tech Roundup, in this edition we've got cycling prints, clothing, bike mounts, lights, shifters, mudguards, custom cycle clothing, nutrition... and a carbon fibre phone case."

Zishy: Daily Distractions.

Steve Tilford: What’s with a the Hatred towards Cyclists in Australia?

Paolo Bettini considers 2014 a year ‘wasted’ trying to jump-start Alonso team.

Two-time world champion Paolo Bettini rues losing his job as Italy’s head coach and having “wasted” a year working to launch Fernando Alonso’s team in 2014.

The squad failed to materialize as Spain’s Formula One driver turned his attention to his new auto-racing team, McLaren.

“Had I known that the team would not take off, I would have remained with the Italian national team,” Bettini told Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper.

“It doesn’t make sense to talk about this now, however. I considered it a wasted year.”...

Roads to Ride: Abetone.

The first summit finish of the 2015 Giro d’Italia, the road up Monte Gomito to Abetone is something to look forward to but also a worry. It’s harder than the profile suggests and coming at the end of Stage 5 it could reveal who will win the race outright. Fanciful? Not really, it’s happened before.

But enough fretting about the future, it’s been a classic climb and the launchpad for Fausto Coppi’s first Giro win. But most of time the Passo dell’Abetone is a regular destination for thousands of cyclists in central Italy keen to test their form on a long climb.

Boogerd gets license to work as sports director.

Michael Boogerd has received a temporary license to work as a team manager from the Belgian Cycling Federation. He is now awaiting the outcome of a UCI investigation.

As Boogerd lived in Belgium during his career and still lives in the country, the fate of the Dutchman is in the hands of the Belgian Cycling Federation after he admitted to doping during his time as an active rider. Last month Boogerd’s future was still uncertain which made him highly frustrated. Now he has finally received a provisional license.

Boogerd will act as a sports director for the first time at the Etoile de Besseges (February 4). Alongside Jean-Paul van Poppel and Erik Breukink, he will form the team leader trio of the new Dutch Roompot team.

PEZ Talk: Mike Engleman.

From top pro on the American and International scene to director sportif, coach, mentor and more Mike Engleman has seen a lot in our sport. Now working on developing women’s racing we recently caught up with Mike to get his take on all apsects of our sport from tactics to wages and more.

Engleman was a pro for a dozen years; a gifted climber and prolific winner on the North American scene he also had wins in Europe and Australia. There was no, dreaded ‘one season too many’ for Engleman who quit when he was still winning.

Today’s Plan - training and virtual coaching software.

Today’s Plan is a new Australian software startup that launched today at the Tour Down Under. It seeks to bring the knowledge of a qualified coach to an affordable, cloud-based training and coaching subscription service.

Although there are businesses in this space already, Today’s Plan offers a range of unique features split into two distinct areas. The first is a computer-generated, yet personalised training plan that based on your riding history, fitness level and time available to train is tailored towards your exact event goal. The other area is in analytics, with endless data captured and displayed in easy to use graphs and summarized terminology.