Race

Tuesday sees the start of the Santos Tour Down Under and with it the 2012 UCI WorldTour season and, of course, our Fantasy Cycling game, back for its second full season. Here’s our guide to this week’s race, which with its first ever hilltop finish on Stage 5 promises to be an intriguing 14th edition of the event.

Saturday sees the start of the final Grand Tour of 2011, the Vuelta a Espana, and as ever there promises to be an intriguing three weeks of racing on offer, both in terms of the overall title and other jerseys, and as preparation for the UCI Road World Champiosnhips in Copenhagen. Tour de France champion Cadel Evans may be missing, but the top prize in our Fantasy Vuelta competition, brought to you in partnership with Evans Cycles, is a £1,199 BMC BMC Street Racer SR02.

There's just four days to go till the 98th edition of the Tour de France gets under way in the Vendée and as ever there will be twists and turns in the three weeks ahead before the winner climbs on to the podium in Paris… Indeed such is the power of the drama and scandal that has habitually surrounded the world's greatest cycle race that who will be judged to have won the last edition is still the subject of controversy, with defending champion Alberto Contador racing despite his positve test for clenbuterol during last year's race, with an appeal against the decision of the Spanish federation to clear him not being heard until August.

The 2011 Giro d’Italia gets under way in Turin on Saturday, and some very tough stages particularly in the final week or so could see an epic battle develop for the maglia rosa – perhaps even going to the final day’s individual time trial in Milan. Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas, who rode the 2008 Giro with Barloworld, isn’t racing, but he’s looking forward to watching the action of what should be a thrilling three weeks’ racing every bit as much as the rest of us. Here’s our stage-by-stage guide to the race together with the British national champion’s expert analysis of the route.

It was quite easy really, across Kent as quick as possible, hot-tilt boogie through the Chunnel and out along the North coast of Europe for not long at all to a romantic dockland suburb of Gent and the even more romantic Fomule 1 hotel where the smell of Death stalks the corridors, or maybe it’s just the critical mass of B.O., for too little sleep and the standard Continental insufficient pre-ride breakfast of bad coffee and Nutella filled rolls.

In springtime, most Sunday afternoons would see me glued to the TV screen watching the drama of that weekend’s Classic unfold. Last Sunday, however, found me dipping in and out of Paris-Roubaix thanks to Team Sky and its sponsor, IG Markets, while acquiring an unexpected knowledge of the autoroute network of Northern France; it was a thrilling and unforgettable experience and also, as will be seen, an unexpectedly emotional one.

The Tour of Oman starts on February 15th. The Gulf state is readying itself for the event titularly organised by Eddy Merckx. A pre-Tour report from Our Man in Oman, Carlton Reid.

"Everybody is very excited," an Oman-based British journalist told me earlier this week. And there's evidence for this excitement all over Muscat, capital city of the Sultanate of Oman. The Tour of Oman will be here in a couple of weeks and already the place is awash with banners and posters celebrating the arrival of the five-day pro race.

It’s all coming together. The Viner Maxima RS road bike that we’ll eventually be reviewing on road.cc, that is. The made-to-measure carbon frame has just been crafted in Italy and we’re getting pretty excited about slinging a leg over the finished bike.

With less than a week to go before the 2010 UCI Road World Championships get under way, the elite of world cycling are now heading to the state of Victoria in Australia ahead of what promises to be one of the more intriguing recent editions of the event, first held in 1927.

So. I’m in Minehead, I’ve got a VIP pass. It’s access all areas and I’ve already chalked up a coffee, croissant and quick interview with Ned Boulting. I’d spotted him a week before, grabbing a cuppa in Honiton during the South West Tour Ride, so we’re practically family. Nice bloke. Then it all goes horribly wrong.