The launch of a new road racing season – A guide to Australia’s 2025 sun-drenched opening block

A new season of racing once again starts in Australia, with the repeating pattern of National Championships, Santos Tour Down Under and then the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race forming the backbone of the nation’s summer of cycling but with some fine-tuning to add new elements into the mix.

For a start the AusCycling Road National Championships has left its long-time home of Ballarat to go west for the next three years, a decision which may tinker with the race dynamics for a whole generation of riders that have only chased the green and gold bands in Victoria.

Then it’s onto a landmark Tour Down Under, where the winners of the last two races – Stephen Williams and Jay Vine – will be back to battle it out on what is expected to be a challenging route for the 25th edition. The women’s peloton will have an added day of UCI racing in South Australia with the Schwalbe Women’s One-Day Classic. Riders then move on to Victoria for the run up events to the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and there is also another addition to the calendar and UCI points on offer in Victoria, with the women’s 1.1 ranked Surf Coast Classic this year also making its debut. The one-day WorldTour races will then play out on the first weekend of February to provide a suspense filled ending to the Australian block of the international season.

Cycling News will be providing coverage across the summer events, with members of our team on the ground in South Australia and Victoria to deliver race reports, news, analysis, interviews and features throughout the coming weeks. For now, however, you can find out more about what’s in store by reading on.

AusCycling Road National Championships – A Western Australian opening stanza

• Time trials – Wednesday January 8 and Thursday January 9
• Criteriums – Friday January 10
• Road races – Saturday January 11 and Sunday January 12

For decades it has been the city streets of Ballarat, the roads branching out from Federation University and the shaded climb of Buninyong which opens up to a view of the rolling countryside that has played host to the criterium, time trials and road races that decide who will get to wear the jersey of an Australian champion. However, in 2025 the Swan River and skyline of Perth will provide the background to the battles for the national stripes, providing an element of the unknown beyond form for this year’s opening volley.

The time trials will first unfold on a 9.8km loop around Bold Park with a relatively flat start and a hairpin turn as the race against the clock takes in a short up and back  section on Underwood Avenue, then rolling hills to the finish of the course which is right near the coast. The U19 categories and U23 men will kick off the proceedings on Wednesday and then Thursday the U23 women and elite riders will take on 3 laps for a 28.8km test in the afternoon, quickly followed by the elite men who will take on four laps for 38.4km.

It should be a charged battle for both categories, with Brodie Chapman – out for the first time in her new UAE Team Emirates colours – among the most likely of contenders to replace the now retired Olympic and world champion Grace Brown in the green and gold. Defending men’s elite champion Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) will have some serious competition on his hands with the return of 2023 winner Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates).

The criteriums will play out with laps of a 1.2km course in Northbridge on Friday and then the weekend will bring the road races, where riders will take on laps of a 13.6km circuit with an uphill drag in the parklands before it opens up to views of the Swan River before sweeping into the CBD. The short, sharp climb up William Street and Malcolm Street peaks 400 metres before the finish back in Kings Park.

Sunday morning’s women’s U23 and elite will see defending champion Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Jayco-AlUla) lining up on a course that plays to her strengths but former valued teammate Alex Manly could now prove a key rival with her switch to AG Insurance-Soudal) plus the experienced players of 2024 silver medallist Lauretta Hanson (Lidl-Trek) and 2021 winner Sarah Roy (EF-Oatly-Cannondale) could also make the most of the change in venue. In the 177km road race Plapp will be chasing a fourth title in the final race of the event though is quick to point out that the course means it will be a tactical race. Plus the Tour Down Under this year is his big goal but  “I’ll still hopefully have really good legs for nationals”. 

The change of course, however, will be enough to give plenty of other riders hope that perhaps in 2025 it could be someone else’s turn. 

Tour Down Under – A celebration of 25 editions

• Women’s Santos Tour Down Under – Friday January 17 to Sunday January 19
• Villawood Men’s Classic – Saturday January 18
• Men’s Santos Tour Down Under – Tuesday January 21 to Sunday January 26
• Schwalbe Women’s One-Day Classic – Sunday January 26

The first edition of the South Australian race was run 25 years ago, with now race director Stuart O’Grady claiming the win at its debut in 1999 . Plenty has changed since then, with the event now hosting both the Women’s WorldTour and men’s WorldTour opener each season, but the format of exploring the best roads in and around Adelaide in some of the most scenic locations continues.

The three-day Women’s WorldTour event opens the proceedings on Friday January 17 and the competition is wide open, particularly with the 2024 winner Sarah Gigante (AG Insurance – Soudal) recovering from iliac artery endofibrosis surgery. The 2023 winner Grace Brown has also now retired, but 2020 winner Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) and three-time victor Amanda Spratt will be on the start line, but she is perhaps most likely to be using her race know-how in support of others given Lidl-Trek is bringing an option packed team, with new recruit Niamh Fisher-Black, Clara Copponi and Lizzie Deignan among the squad. Neve Bradbury, (Canyon-SRAM) who finished third last year at the Tour Down Under and continued on with a stellar season is also right at the top of the list of riders to watch, especially with the Willunga Hill climb now on the menu twice on stage 2. 

The six-stage men’s race is serving up some new twists this year – including the addition of the steep Wickhams Hill to add to the all-important Willunga climbs on stage 5 – but it also has a heavy dose of the familiar. The race is bringing back the riders who have reigned supreme for the last two editions, Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) and Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), though of course the competition will run far deeper at the event. Jayco-AlUla will be prominent among those trying to put their best foot forward, with Luke Plapp and Mauro Schmid leading the team for the squad at its home race – which it has won five times – and then of course there are always those new faces who seem to come out of the woodwork in South Australia, making the most of the fresh start and a new season.

On top of the WorldTour event, there will be the Villawood Men’s Classic to start off the competition for the men on Saturday January 18 and there will also be a 1.Pro race –  the Schwalbe Women’s One-Day Classic – which will play out in Adelaide before the final stage of the men’s WorldTour event on Sunday January 26.

Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Catching the final wave

• Women’s Surf Coast Classic – Wednesday January 29
• Men’s Surf Coast Classic – Thursday January 30
• Women’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Saturday February 1
• Men’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Sunday February 2

The final chapter of the top-level early season racing in Australia takes the peloton further east, with riders this time taking the flight from Adelaide to Victoria where they will settle on the coast around Geelong, a regional city close to the Victorian capital of Melbourne.

The racing begins beachside with the 1.1 Surf Coast Classic and the newly added 118km women’s race will begin the competition on the final Wednesday in January. The race heads out from Lorne and winds its way inland and then back toward the ocean for a Torquay finale. The 157km men’s race, last year won by Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), then takes place on the Thursday. The biggest climb comes early in the mid-week event, with the shorter ascents through the rest of the course providing more opportunity for the hardy fast finishers to regroup and make it a reduced bunch battle at the line. 

The weekend races, however, are a different story with the WorldTour events that start and finish in Geelong looping out by the windswept coast and through rolling countryside but finishing with loops in the regional centre that include the field splitting short and sharp Challambra climb. The 142km women’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on Saturday February 1 tackles the circuit – and therefore the climb – twice. Its location less than 10km from the end usually makes for a nail-biting finale with individual or small groups out the front and a charged pursuit behind. Hesitation once that final pass of Challambra is done can be fatal to the chances but so too can an early leap in the race for the line.

That rings just as true for the men’s edition of the unpredictable 184km race, which takes on four circuits and four climbs of Challambra Crescent, topping out with a gradient that touches 11% in the final section. Still a charged small bunch sprint is an outcome more often in the men’s event, whereas the women’s race is more inclined to end with a solo victor or much smaller group.

 Rosita Reijnhout and Laurence Pithie were victorious in 2024 but given the neither the women’s or men’s edition has delivered a repeat winner the most predictable outcome for this race is that an unexpected name will once again ride to the top step. If the history of the race is anything to go by, the suspense is likely to remain high right through to the final metres of international road racing in Australia for 2025.