In 2014 Simon Gerrans will return to the Herald Sun Tour that was the scene for some of his first big professional wins when he won the race overall in 2005 and 2006. The Australian hopes to take his third overall win in the race as he plans to come out with all guns blazing.

With wins in all three grand tours, a stint in the Tour de France yellow jersey and a Milan-Sanremo victory on his palmares, Simon Gerrans is now one of the best professional bike riders. However, it all started back home in Australia where Gerrans took his first major win on stage 9 of the Herald Sun Tour as a 24-year-old amateur rider.

He backed it up with overall wins in the event in his first two years as a professional when he triumphed in Australia's historic stage race in 2005 and 2006 while riding in Ag2r colours. In recent years, the event has, however, faced some difficulties that saw it being raced outside the aegis of the UCI in early 2013.

In 2014, the race has again be awarded its 2.1 slot and is moved away from its traditional position as a end-of-season race. Instead, it will be held from February 5 to 9 - in the middle of the Australian summer - and comes right on the heels of the Australian championships and the Tour Down Under.

This means that the Australian riders will now have the chance to contest a quality block of early-season racing on home soil and Gerrans wants to make the most out of the opportunity. Having ended his season early due to a fractured hip sustained in the Vuelta a Espana, Gerrans plans to come out with all guns blazing as he did in 2012 when he won both his national championships and Australia's premier stage race, the Tour Down Under. Next year he hopes to repeat those successes and add an overall win in the Sun Tour for good measure.

“The Jayco Herald Sun Tour is a race that I grew up watching as a kid and it was always such a big highlight of my season early in my career," he said. "So it’s always great to have the opportunity to go back and compete in the race again and with an Aussie professional team as well."

Preparations for the race are going well for Gerrans.

“The form coming into summer is good,” he said. “Obviously because I am in the middle of a heavy training load it’s hard to gauge exactly where I am at, but everything feels like it is on track at the moment and probably even slightly in front of where I would normally be at this time of year.

“We should have a really competitive line up with the team with a mix of experience and younger guys and we should have all bases covered. We expect to be competitive in all of the stages, from the sprint stages to the hillier ones. A couple of us will be coming off a block of racing in January so we should be in strong shape for the race.”

Gerrans won the Milan-Sanremo and the revised course for the Italian classic should make it even more suited to the Orica-GreenEDGE rider. Furthermore, he plans to be highly competitive in the Ardennes classics where he still hopes to take a big win.

The new Australian calendar should make for a perfect preparation for the major European races.

"Moving the Jayco Herald Sun Tour to the February timeslot has worked out really well because it has allowed me to stay in Australia in the good weather for an extra few weeks and miss a stage race over in Europe in the cold conditions,” he said. "The first thing I will be doing following the Sun Tour is having a little rest and travelling over to Europe. With such a heavy racing schedule to get things started it’s actually really important that you back things off a little bit again in order to peak again for the Spring Classics which will be the next big goal of mine in Europe."
 

The Jayco Herald Sun Tour will kick off with a prologue and ends with a summit finish on the Arthur's Seat climb.