It’s been a week of firsts for Simon Gerrans last week. On Sunday he completed his first one-day race for 2015 and for five days, the 34-year-old was racing at his first stage race since the 2014 Tour de France almost nine months ago.

The Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco is notoriously known as one of the hardest, if not the hardest, week-long tour on the calendar. Held in the Basque Country of Spain, the constant climbs are unforgiving and not for the faint-hearted.

Still very much on the comeback trail, Gerrans expected a rude awakening but instead emerged at the other end with a pleasant surprise.

“I got through the race a heck of a lot better than I was anticipating,” he said in a report on his personal website.

“I thought with a limited preparation I was going to really struggle this week, but I was able to make some contribution to the team’s goals everyday.

“I really felt like my form was progressing as the race went on as well so I was able to push myself further and further as the stages went past.”

His ORICA-GreenEDGE team went into the Spanish tour with a successful history at the event, high ambitions to repeat that trend and a top-class roster to achieve it.

It was a job well done for the outfit, winning the opening stage courtesy of Michael Matthews and Simon Yates finishing fifth overall.

“We obviously got off to a really good start with Michael winning the first stage, so we checked the stage result box on day one,” Gerrans said.

“Going into stage two, the stage into Vittoria which is a stage we have done really well at in the past, we were really hoping to back it up and get another stage win. Unfortunately it didn’t quite pan out for us but Michael hung onto the yellow jersey so he had a couple of days in the lead.”

“Then as the week went on and the general classification began to sort itself out, Simon Yates found himself at the pointy end. He has ridden fantastically all week and has given himself every shot going into the time trial to pull off a really really big result," Gerrans said on the eve of the final time trial.

Having achieved his goals and contributed to those of the team’s Gerrans returned home one day early to begin his recovery and preparation for the next phase of racing, opting with the team not to race the final time trial.

“I am really happy with how the past six days of racing I have done has unfolded,” he said.

“I have made a huge progression in my form this week and it’s really put me into the right direction for this next block of racing. My next race now will be the Amstel Gold Race next Sunday.

“I have the opportunity to go home and recover for a few days, put in a bit of training and get into Amstel in what I think will be pretty good condition.”