The Tour of Qatar, which started yesterday, and Tour of Oman have become the traditional start to the season for many of the top riders in the world.
While the races come well ahead of the spring classics and months before any of the three Grand Tours, they can offer an insight into which riders have wintered well and what young promising riders may be about to make the breakthrough.
Ireland's Sam Bennett took the young riders' classification jersey into today's stage 2 at the Tour of Qatar. Irish fans will be hoping that is a sign of things to come in the year ahead; his first riding for a Pro Continental team in the shape of NetApp-Endura, having signed from Continental-ranked squad An Post-Chainreaction in the off season.
This week's showdown in Qatar will suit the sprinters and should offer a form guide to those men looking to focus on the spring classics.
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Oman next week involves climbing and often indicates the form of those men aiming for Grand Tour success - and those with designs on the early season classics with hills.
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Bennett is the only Irish rider in the peloton in Qatar this week and he will stay in the Middle East to ride next week's Tour of Oman. He will be joined in that bunch by Nicolas Roche.
The Tinkoff-Saxo man has endured 10 weeks off the bike in the off season due to a knee injury.
And while today he wraps up a month-long training camp in Gran Canaria where, by all accounts, he has logged some quality miles, he told stickybottle in an interview last week that he would be going to Oman to ride himself into the season rather than aiming for a big result.
Oman will undoubtedly test his knee injury and he, along with Irish fans and the organisers of the Giro's visit to Ireland in early May, will be hoping that injury does not flare up and that Roche's plans to be at the Giro start line in Belfast on May 9th will come to pass.
In the video above, we profile 10 men to watch - along with Roche and Bennett - in Qatar this week and then Oman which kicks off on May 18th, just four days later.
This week's Tour of Qatar (715km)
1. Stage: Al Wakra - Dukhan Beach, 135.5km
2. Stage: Camel Race Track - Al Khor Corniche, 160.5km
3. Stage: Lusail - Lusail (ITT) 10.9km
4. Stage: Dukhan - Mesaieed, 135km
5. Stage: Al Zubara Fort - Madinat Al Shamal, 159km
6. Stage: Sealine Beach Resort - Doha Corniche, 113.5km
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