Hoskins wins stage two of the Santos Women's Tour.

Melissa Hoskins won stage two of the Santos Women's Tour ahead of national criterium champion Kimberly Wells and track Commonwealth Games champion Annette Edmondson with a sprint finish deciding the winner. Hoskins' teammate Valentina Scandalora retains the overall race lead by six seconds with two stages to come.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been able to throw the hands in the air, so I’m pretty stoked to be able to start the season off on such a good run,” Hoskins said after her win.

San Luis favorites: Everybody is saying it’s tranquillo.

At the same Tour de San Luis pre-race press conference where Mark Cavendish reflected on journalists' sexual behaviors, last year's winner Nairo Quintana as well as his countryman Carlos Betancur and Thomas Voeckler reflected on their expectations towards the upcoming event.

In case of both Colombians, who underwent preparations for the new season in South America and require more undulating terrain to show their full potential, a choice between Tour de San Luis and Tour Down Under was no brainer.

“It’s a nicer temperature here. In Europe, it’s much colder right now so it’s a better race to start out with for me, especially as I have other objectives later in the year,” Quintana said at the official pre-race press conference. “But it’s good to race in January, and it gives us the opportunity to prepare better for what is to come.”

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.

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 ...

San Dimas Stage Race slated for March 27-29.

Registration has opened for the 2015 San Dimas Stage Race, scheduled March 27-29.

The three-stage race begins with an individual time trial on a 4.25-mile course that winds up Glendora Mountain Road, boasting grades of 4.5 to 6.5 percent and a total elevation gain of 1,257 feet.

Stage 2 is a road race around Bonelli Park, run on a rolling, twisting 7-mile circuit that’s been changed slightly from previous editions.

The stage race concludes with a criterium on a 1.2-mile, six-corner circuit in Old Town San Dimas. A long, slightly downhill stretch feeds into a right-hand turn and onto the finishing straightaway.

Sagan confirms race schedule.

Peter Sagan will again focus on the cobbled classics. From Sanremo to Roubaix, the Slovakian from Tinkoff-Saxo will make every effort to win a big classic. The Tour de France will be the goal in the second half.

Sagan has confirmed his schedule: Tour of Qatar, Tour of Oman, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo, E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders, Scheldeprijs, Paris-Roubaix, Tour of California, Tour of Switzerland, the Slovakian Championships and the Tour de France.

The Slovakian will again start his season in Qatar as he did in 2012 and for the fourth year in a row, he will also ride in Oman. Tirreno-Adriatico in which he has won four stages, will be the first big test for the major objectives: San Remo (2nd in 2013), E3 Harelbeke (1st in 2014), Ghent-Wevelgem (1st in 2013), Tour of Flanders (2nd in 2013 and 5th in 2012), Scheldeprijs and Roubaix (6th in 2014).

Mollema and Schleck to share leadership at Trek.

They are two of best riders for the grand tours and the Ardennes classics. However, new Trek signing Bauke Mollema and veteran Fränk Schleck do not regard themselves as rivals as they announced in a conference call, according to radsport-news.com

Both emphasized that they will be riding for the strongest rider. "If that is Bauke, then I am the first one to work for him," 34-year-old Schleck said. "It is important that the team has success." However, the Luxembourger also wants to add some kind o result to his palmares. “Last year I was at a high level but I can still improve. Until now, the preparation has gone according to plan.”

Mollema can’t complain about his winter training either. "I have done more than 1,000 kilometers more than I had at this time last year," said the 28-year-old Dutchman. Schleck and Mollema are expected to be good form already at the Mallorca Challenge and the Vuelta a Andalucía. "With two summit finishes, the Ruta del Sol looks very nice to me this year.”..

UCI World Cup: Great Britain take men's team pursuit gold.

 Great Britain have been crowned men's team pursuit champions in the UCI Track World Cup series after taking bronze in the final round in Cali, Colombia.

Germain Burton, Matt Gibson, Chris Latham and Mark Stewart beat Denmark in the third-placed race by just under half a second.

GB won in the London round in December and finished with 810 points, ahead of Australia with 780 and Denmark on 662.

It is their fourth World Cup trophy, with wins in 2005, 2008 and 2010.

The 16-person squad for the Colombian round includes several Olympic academy program riders to give them top-flight international competition experience.

PEZ Down Under: Into McLaren Vale by Bike.

Photog David Pearce is on the ground for the Tour Down Under, and as an accomplished travel and wine journo, was keen to visit the McLaren Vale region to ride and have a look at some of the roads that will be ridden on stage 4, with the requisite stops for food & drink along the way.

"For a UK cyclist it does not get much better than working at the Santos Tour Down Under (TDU) and escaping the freezing conditions back home mid January. It is the season opener and raced over 5 days attracting global names. It acts as a great opener for the World Tour teams with increasing importance for domestic teams being THE race of the season and crucially important to them and their sponsors."

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

Marcel Kittel wins People's Choice Classic.

Marcel Kittel claimed his first win of the 2015 season with a comprehensive victory in the People’s Choice Classic in Adelaide on Sunday. The German sprinter finished off a fine leadout from his team to beat Juan Jose Lobato and Wouter Wippert to the line.

In a thrilling opener to the Tour Down Under, Kittel blew away the winter cobwebs in what proved to be chaotic and frantic dash for the line.

Tour Down Under: Aggressive racing by Hayman signals Orica-GreenEdge approach.

With defending champion Simon Gerrans forced to watch the Tour Down Under from the sidelines due to a broken collarbone, Orica-GreenEdge's approach to the the race shifted from GC to stage wins. Aggressive racing by Mat Hayman at the pre-race criterium, the People's Choice Classic, won by Marcel Kittel, looks to be sign of the team's new approach.

"Matt [White] didn't put any pressure on us but somebody had to do something to show the jersey," Hayman said after the race..

Lobato confident of Tour Down Under success.

Second place to Marcel Kittel at the Tour Down Under pre-race People's Choice Classic criterium has given Juan Jose Lobato confidence of success during the WorldTour event which starts Tuesday.

The 26-year-old led out the sprint at the conclusion of the 51km race around Adelaide's East End but was unable to match the speed of Kittel as he won the race for a second straight year.

"I felt I had good strength and good sensations, although perhaps I misjudged the decisive moment with 500 meters to go when at the corner there was a lurch and I was forced to ride in the slipstream of the Lotto riders," Lobato said after the race. "Then I decided to try to launch the sprint from far out to see if I could do a good job."

2015 Santos Tour Down Under Preview.

The 2015 World Tour starts on Tuesday with the Tour Down Under. The TDU is now an established race, what was once a training race in the sun is now a tough competition where the only concession is the short stages.

Here’s a preview for the Tour Down Under with stage profiles, contenders, TV times and more.

The action begins on Sunday evening with the “People’s Choice Classic”, a 50km criterium by Adelaide University. It’s a separate event and the Tour Down Under starts on Tuesday.

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 news shorts: Tinkoff-Saxo to support Rogers at WorldTour kickoff.

Edmondson leads Santos Women's Tour sprints, IAM's Haussler 5th at People’s Choice Classic and Trek's Watson enjoys the break.

WorldTour kicks off this week with Santos Tour Down Under.

The 2015 UCI WorldTour kicks off this week in Australia with the 17th edition of the Santos Tour Down Under.

A six-day stage race in and around Adelaide, the TDU has grown in the past few years, and the parcours has developed along with it. Heavyweight sprinters have won the overall, but these days, a hillier route favors the more capable climbers in the peloton.

Simon Gerrans won the 2014 edition, but his absence due to a broken collarbone will make what is already a very open race even more unpredictable.

Strade Bianche becomes three - and you could take part.

The classic Strade Bianche race will become a triple event this year, with three races taking place across the weekend in March.

Running between a Unesco heritage city, the Crete Senesi region and breath-taking scenery, the weekend of events kicks off on Saturday 7th March with the UCI Women Elite 1.1 category race, which departs from Tuscany’s San Gimignano and finishes, after 103 kilometres, in Siena’s Piazza Il Campo.

This will be followed on the same day by the classic men’s edition, a UCI Europe Tour 1.HC rated cycling race of 200km.

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

PEZ: Daily Distractions.

Pro Womens Cycling: Gethin and Nikki at the Tour Down Under – Stage 2.

O'Grady: At the end of the day I know what I did and didn't do.

One year after laying low at the Tour Down Under in the aftermath of his doping confession a few days after the 2013 Tour de France, former Australian rider Stuart O'Grady has officially stepped out from the shadows of the controversy.

The occasion was the launch in Adelaide on Saturday of his new business venture, Stuart O'Grady Cycling that provides various services related to the sport that range from coaching to customised cycle touring.

Afterwards, the 41-year-old former Orica-GreenEdge rider who admitted that he used the illegal drug erythropoietin for two weeks before the 1998 Tour in which he wore the yellow jersey for three days and won the 14th stage into Grenoble, sat down with a number of media outlets to discuss where he is at in his life, and also to reflect on the scandal that brought his racing career to a premature end.

Chad Haga Journal: The confidence game.

"I finished the 2014 race season confident in my ability to race at the highest level and told my team directors as much. They called my bluff and sent me to Australia for the Santos Tour Down Under. I suppose there’s no better way to know for sure than to take on a WorldTour race in January.

Training for a race in January is a tricky balancing act — arrive fit, but not too fit. Everything was going according to plan after a productive training block in December, at which point things got interesting when I came down with the flu just days before flying out. I kicked the flu just in time to board a plane and fly around the world in six days, with a stop in Berlin for the Giant-Alpecin team presentation. Apparently feeling that my body had not been through enough, I got sick from a hotel buffet in Malaysia.

And just like that, all the confidence that had been building was flushed away. My first bike ride of the new year was not until the 10th; I was pedaling squares in Australia on the left side of the road, jet-lagged, with a gurgling stomach and a chest full of phlegm from my bout with the flu. Yeah, 2015 was off to a wobbly start!"

Dave Brailsford's vision for Chris Froome and Team Sky.

If Brailsford had a coat of arms it would feature a magpie, a sponge and a Great White Shark.

A magpie to represent his talent for spotting shiny bits of knowledge, a sponge for his ability to retain it, and the world's most fearsome predator because of his appetite for more of it.

It would also be the best coat of arms in the world.

Brailsford's job title at Team Sky - arguably road cycling's most successful team over the last five years, and certainly the most influential - is team principal. That does not come close to describing what he does, though.

Cheerleader, spokesman, strategist, head of innovation, beating heart…the most shocking thing about this list is that until a year ago he was combining them with the job of running the British Olympic and Paralympic cycling teams.

Which Tour de France wildcard will make the biggest splash?

Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme announced the five wildcard entries for this July's Grande Boucle, giving the nod to the first African team to grace the race, plus three French teams and a German outfit.

Cofidis, Europcar and Bretagne-Seche were the predictable choices for the host nation, with Bora-Argon 18 (formerly known as NetApp-Endura) making the cut despite losing their star rider Leopold Konig to Team Sky in the winter.

But the biggest headlines were made by Africa's first professional cycling team, MTN-Qhubeka, whose aggressive strategy in the transfer market was rewarded with a berth in the world's biggest cycling race.

Although a North African national team appeared in the Tour for three years during the early 1950s, MTN-Qhubeka will be the first African trade team to perform in the race (South African-sponsored Barloworld rode the 2008 with Chris Froome, but were registered in the UK and based in Italy).

Quintana expects Contador to be chief rival at Tour de France.

For almost half an hour, Nairo Quintana had deftly smothered specific questions on his fellow Tour de France contenders with non-committal politeness. “I’ve been in races with all of them,” he said softly at one point of Chris Froome, Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali. “Sometimes I’ve won and sometimes they’ve won.”

It was only towards the end of his press conference in San Luis on Sunday morning that Quintana was finally coaxed into picking out one of that trio as his chief rival. The question came almost by way of provocation. Froome, he was told, had last week named Contador as the man to beat in July. What did he make of that?

Robbie Squire Gets PEZ’d!.

Robbie Squire is another young man who’s successfully made the jump from single track to tarmac; in 2010 he was on the podium at the U23 Pan Am X country MTB Champs and within a year was US U23 Road Race Champion.

That 2011 season also saw him take two top stage five placings in the highly rated U23 Valle d’Aosta stage race in Italy whilst with the Chipotle Development team. Still with Chipotle in 2013 there was a top 10 on GC in the Ronde de l’Isard d’Ariege stage race in France. Since then it’s been a roller coaster for the man from Salt Lake City with health issues to overcome and rides for two different teams in Italy during 2013. Season 2014 saw him ride a solid season with Jamis-Hagen Berman; but for 2015 he goes to a strong Hincapie Racing Team. He took time to chat just before the Hincapie announcement was made.

Canyon Endurace CF 8.0 road bike.

road.cc verdict:4 out of 5 stars. "Phenomenal in almost every way but just needs a bit of personality to make it fun."

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

Roads to Ride: Abetone.