Luke Durbridge set to get the ball rolling for GreenEDGE at nationals

CYCLING'S green machine will bring a new look to the national road championships, which start in Ballarat on Wednesday.

Luke Durbridge competes in the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic. Picture: Colleen Petch.

CYCLING'S green machine will bring a new look to the national road championships, which start in Ballarat on Wednesday but nothing has changed in terms of intent and ambition.

Orica-GreenEDGE is determined to maintain the stranglehold it has exerted on the titles from the moment it came into existence, and should make a flying start in the men's time trial.

Emerging powerhouse Luke Durbridge, 22, a former under 23 world champion, is expected to win the "race of truth" for the third year after GreenEDGE boss Shayne Bannan declared him "100 per cent fit and raring to go".

Bannan was speaking at an unveiling of a new racing strip for the popular WorldTour outfit, the flag-bearer for the sport since Melbourne entrepreneur Gerry Ryan, now the president of Cycling Australia, established it three years ago.

The revamped gear should make the riders stand out more clearly in a crowded peloton, not that there is ever much risk of mistaking them at the business end of the nationals.

In the two years they have been racing GreenEDGE and its women's offshoot, Orica-AIS, have won 10 of the 12 titles available.

Simon Gerrans, now a star on the world stage, won in 2012 to kickstart the team and Durbridge added it to his time trial last year.

Luke Durbridge competes in the Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic. Picture: Colleen Petch.

Durbridge is in good early-season form, winning a stage of the Mitchelton Bay Classic criteriums last Saturday, but withdrawing from the finale with a sore throat from which he has now fully recovered.

Following Wednesday's contests with the clock, Thursday night's criteriums and Saturday's women's road race, the men's showpiece on Sunday is likely to attract the biggest audience, on-site and on TV, it has ever had.

Last year about 25,000 fans crowded into tiny Buninyong and the adjacent mini-mountain that forms the centrepiece of the course, an amazing result for an event that was little more than a blip on the mainstream sporting calendar a decade ago.

More are expected this weekend to see the greatest road racer Australia has ever produced, 2011 Tour de France champion Cadel Evans, ride the nationals for the first time since 2005.

Evans will headline probably the best field ever assembled, including Gerrans and his teammates Simon Clarke and Durbridge, and Richie Porte, who won the Paris-Nice classic and helped England's Chris Froome win the Tour last year.

"It's such a complete field, it highlights the depth we have in Australian cycling now," said Gerrans, who won individual and team stages and wore the yellow jersey at last year's Le Tour.

"I saw there are now 30 Australian WorldTour riders and I imagine the vast majority will line up.

"It is a really tough race to win, a prestigious race.

"It is a direct reflection of how much Australian cycling has grown as a whole _ how many cyclists you see out on the road, how many fans _ educated fans _ there are.

"It has gone through a massive boom and is only going to get stronger and stronger. It's an exciting time to be part of it."

The season-opening Bay crits was hailed as the best in that event's 25 year history, the Tour Down Under in Adelaide will also welcome Evans as well as a host of internationals who are no longer allowed to contest the nationals, and the Herald Sun Tour in early February has been upgraded in status and quality. Women's cycling is also on the move.

It is no wonder Cycling Australia, which has moved its headquarters from Sydney to Melbourne, is flying the "under new management" banner with great enthusiasm.

[e-mail]

Twitter: @Reedrw