My name is Elin - A pro cycling lover's reflections

The season start is getting closer. For Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) the season will begin at the Challenge Mallorca (January 29-February 1).

The French sprinter has left FDJ to join Cofidis. A team that has actually been awarded a wild card invitation to the Tour de France this year. This means that Bouhanni may actually get the chance to sprint against Marcel Kittel (Giant-Alpecin), Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep) and Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) in that race this summer. He has earlier raced the 2013 Tour de France with FDJ, but he abandoned the race on stage six.

According to L’Equipe, Nacer Bouhanni will participate in the following races before that:

Challenge Mallorca (January 29-February 1), Tour of Qatar (February 8-13), Tour of Oman (February 17-22), Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (March 1), Paris-Nice (March 8-15), Milan -San Remo (March 22), Dwars door Vlaanderen (March 25), Ghent-Wevelgem (March 29), Route Adélie (April 3), Paris-Camembert (April 5), Circuit de la Sarthe (April 7-10), Critérium du Dauphiné (June 7-14) and the French Championships (June 28).

With FDJ, Bouhanni never got the chance to do the big one-day races, as the team focused on Arnaud Demare in those races. But with a new team, he'll finally gets the chance to do them. Changing team was a good decision, because finally the team actually focuses on him and gives him opportunities to challenge himself and explore his dream races. It will interesting to see how he handles the life as the undisputed leader of his new team.