They’re off! European early road racing calendar kicks off in Spain this weekend

The curtain rises on European road racing this Saturday, with the early season program forming a five-week-long build-up all the way to the first WorldTour-level events for men and women on the continent, the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium on March 1.

The intensity of modern-day racing is such now that it seems hard to believe that there was once a popular notion that these late January and February events were simply ‘training with race numbers.’ But that concept is long since dead and buried.

“Training is something you do at home,” Joxean Fernández Matxin, sports manager at UAE Team Emirates-XRG recently told Cyclingnews. “Whenever we race, it doesn’t matter what level the event, we race to win.”