Omega Pharma – Quick Step team certainly is expected to be the one to beat in the upcoming year, while the Belgian squad once dedicated exclusively to several campaigns in a springtime continued to significantly strengthen their versatile roster by some major signings of the last transfer season.

In order not to change the winning formula completely, the Belgian team, consisting of both riders and staff, will traditionally start their pre-season preparations on a training camp in Spain. According to Omega Pharma – Quick Step official website, the first meeting ahead of 2014 season is planned for Monday, December 9th, taking place in the Hotel Oliva Nova, where team should stay until 19th of December.

As usual, the first training camp will be an important chance for the athletes to socialize, especially concerning some significant additions to the team in the likes of an undisputable leader Rigoberto Uran, explosive Jan Bakelants or new-old Cavendish’s wingmen Mark Renshaw and Alessandro Petacchi. The first days of the retreat will mostly be dedicated to preparing promotional material like photos and videos for the communication strategy of the team and their sponsors as they look forward to a new season.

But there will certainly be plenty of training sessions on the schedule.

"We chose this location because it's quite flat over there and it's the best way to start training," OPQS Trainer Koen Pelgrim said.

"There we can put together some easy kilometers and if we want we can also go inland to look for some more challenging routes. As we always do in December, we'll ride lots of kilometers at a relatively low intensity to build up basic endurance but we'll also do some more specific work. During the camp we'll simulate some sprints and ideal combinations of our athletes for the Cavendish train and we'll work on the time trial bike, both individually as well as for the team time trials we'll be facing during the year. The schedule will be completed with fitness training an evaluation of the current condition with a lactate threshold test that we'll be performing with the staff from the Bakala Academy. Last but not least, some of the athletes from the team will be busy on the track in Valencia in some aerodynamic and development tests with our partner Specialized, which is always very attentive to technical details and the development of our bicycles."