Launceston cyclist Richie Porte is set to return to racing for the first time in six weeks.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The 34-year-old has been named in the Trek-Segafredo team to contest the Tour of California which begins on Sunday.
Porte has been hindered by illness since a successful start to the season when he won the Willunga stage of the Tour Down Under for the sixth year running, and narrowly missed out on the overall race title.
He then raced the Herald-Sun Tour but was feeling the effects of illness during the UAE Tour and Volta a Catalunya and has not raced since March.
Trek-Segafredo announced its seven-strong team on Monday with Porte headlining a powerful line-up including Germany's former Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix winner John Degenkolb.
The six-day tour starts with a 143-kilometre leg beginning and ending in Sacramento. It finishes on May 18 in Pasadena.
Porte told Cyclingnews in March that California represented "an unprecedented" road towards Le Tour but fitted in with his recovery.
In a departure to the two-time Paris-Nice winner's normal Tour de France preparations, he is also provisionally listed to ride the Hammer Stavanger in Norway at the end of the month before the Criterium du Dauphine in early June.
Porte began a two-year contract with Trek this year having previously raced with Saxobank, Sky and BMC in the elite WorldTour.
This year will be his ninth involvement in the Tour de France, his best finish being fifth in 2016.
Rob Shaw
Heralding the impact of Tasmanian sport without saying "punching above its weight" is not as easy as it sounds.
Heralding the impact of Tasmanian sport without saying "punching above its weight" is not as easy as it sounds.
