Five weeks of intense racing kick off early season in Europe and beyond

An echelon attack at the 2023 UAE Tour
An echelon attack at the 2023 UAE Tour (Image credit: Getty Images)

The 2024 road racing season steps up another level this weekend with the opening men’s and women’s races on the European calendar overlapping with the final stages of the men’s Tour Down Under and the Benidorm cyclocross World Cup.

The men’s Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana 1969 and the Trofeo Felanitx-Colònia Sant Jordi in Mallorca kick off a packed five-week unofficial ‘early-season’ calendar of racing that runs through February to the Spring Classics, that begin with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium on February 24.   

Stephen Farrand
Head of News

Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.