Mikel Landa, between Altea and Luis Puig

While the great teams move their runners for the first battle of the year, Tour Down Under in Australia, the Spanish Mediterranean coast is filled with professional cyclists.

The Bahrain McLaren 2020 is already training together on the roads of Alicante, although its runners alternate road training (some six-hour day) with aerodynamic tests in the veldromo Luis Puig de Valencia, directed by engineers of the car firm. These measurements are complementary to those already taken in the wind tunnel of the Boardman Performance Center, in England, more than a month ago.

Mikel Landa has started his training this week around Altea (Alicante) along with most of his teammates. All but those who will make their debut on the 19th in the Tour Down Under and other races in the antpodas, which are already in Australia. One of them, Rafa Valls, who has followed the alavs climber from the Movistar Team. Mark Cavendish, which was missing from the previous concentration of the team in Croatia, is part of the group that works in Spain.

This Thursday, Matthew Williams, principal engineer of the McLaren Group in charge of aerodynamic tests, has pointed out the importance of sessions in the Valencian veldromo to extract data from each of the corridors and improve their performance. “We want to use the technique of Formula 1 to optimize teamwork,” he said in a video published by the sports group on social networks.

BERNAL LEADS A LATIN AMERICAN INEOS

Under the leadership of the Colombian Egan Bernal, the last winner of the Tour de France, Team Ineos show its every Latin American in the Tour Colombia 2.1, which will be held in the Boyac and Cundinamarca regions between February 11 and 16. Absent Chris Froome -which is concentrated in Tenerife with no date of reappearance- and the European figures of the team, the cast also presents the Giro 2019 champion, Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, his compatriot Jonnathan Narvez and Colombians Ivn Sosa, Sebastin Henao and Brandon Rivera. The director be the Spanish coach Xabier Artetxe.

MOVISTAR TEAM IN AUSTRALIA

The only Spanish WorldTour team has displaced its gladiators for the first fight of the year, the Tour Down Under (January 19-23). We will have to get used to hearing and reading their new and little known names, two of them, the German Juri Hollmann and the British Gabriel Cullaigh, with little reference worldwide. Next to them, veterans Llus Mas, Jurgen Roelandts (BEL) and Edu Prades, With Jorge Arcas Y Sergio Samitier.