Santos Women’s Tour is Taylor-made for Carlee at home

SA’s Carlee Taylor says the pressure of being a local and racing at home in front of her friends and family is an ideal but daunting start to her cycling season.

World women's world tour rider Carlee Taylor in her Liv Plantur team strip. Picture Mark Brake

SA’s Carlee Taylor says the pressure of being a local and racing at home in front of her friends and family is an ideal but daunting start to her new team’s 2017 women’s cycling season.

Taylor will finally make her race debut at the Santos Women’s Tour which starts on January 14, six days after the nationals in Victoria where she hopes to have a super road race before returning to SA.

She is confident the SA route which was released on Thursday would suit her particularly stage one and stage three, after this year’s race was upgraded to a 2.2 category from the UCI meaning the event is also open to regional and club teams.

“Being a home race this is the only one I actually do in the whole year,’’ Taylor said.

“No pressure, but a lot of pressure.

“I have actually been training for longer and had a solid last month and it’s only going to get more specific with high intensity leading into January.”

2017 SANTOS WOMEN’S TOUR

• View Stage 1 here
• View Stage 2 here
• View Stage 3 here
• View Stage 4 here

Taylor, 27, will headline her new team Alé Cipollini with a new bike the Cipollini NKIK.

She recently met one of the team’s principle owners, revered three-time Giro d’Italia points classification champion Mario Cipollini at the team’s presentation camp in Verona.

But the SA race is much tougher than this year’s version with stage one seeing the peloton leave from Hahndorf before finishing at Meadows 106.5km later.

Stage two is perfect for Taylor’s Australian sprint partner Chloe Hosking who finished second in the stage two Adelaide street circuit race this year and 13th overall in the GC for team Wiggle High5.

“For me it’s really special having the European team to come to Australia to race and they also know how important it is to us Australians,’’ Taylor said.

“Chloe Hoskings and I are going to having more of that leadership role in these races.

“I want to make the most out of that opportunity and like Chloe of course she will be great for the criteriums and sprint stages, she is one of the best sprinters in the world.

“Hopefully for me it will be good on the hillier days, that’s why I’m training quite hard.”

Taylor’s team will be part of the 10 international teams from Germany, US, United

Kingdom, Italy, The Netherlands and New Zealand and five national teams will contest the elite race.

Race director Kimberly Conte developed the 2017 edition of race after being involved in 35 UCI stage races across Australia, Canada and the US with Minister for Tourism Leon Bignell saying the race is an important part of women’s sport in SA’s sports landscape.

“There has been a huge amount of interest in the Santos Women’s Tour since it started,’’ he said. “We have worked hard to elevate it to be part of the UCI International Calendar as a 2.2 class race.

“We want to grow the women’s race to be as big as the men’s Tour Down Under.”

Originally published as Santos Women’s Tour is Taylor-made for Carlee at home