Our official first week of 2016 operating is almost in the books and it’s been a positive start to the year. As we do, we took some time out to recharge over the holiday period and are now looking ahead to an epic 2017.

I’ve put some time during the break into developing some of our structures and am also in the final stages of completing our roster at Foremost Media, which should enable us to continue advancing with a strong mix of contributors and result in world-class content for our audience to enjoy.

In terms of road racing, New Zealand superbikes are underway, however the season from our local standpoint truly kicks off at Phillip Island for the WorldSBK/ASBK openers on 24-26 February.

Source: Supplied.

That event is one of my personal favourites of the year, so it’s a neat way to kick things off both internationally and here in Australia. Following a lengthy off-season, we’re all amped for the season to get underway.

In particular, the Australian Superbike Championship is looking like it will be better once again this year, as Kawasaki BCperformance comes over from the Australasian series, as will Michael Blair and Matt Walters, to name a few.

The factory teams are all locked in now that Yamaha finally announced Glenn Allerton and Wayne Maxwell will be back aboard the official R1Ms, plus we’re also hearing that Cru Halliday is pulling together his own private team to race-on despite losing his seat at YRT.

It appears Crankt Protein Honda Racing will start the season with the current CBR1000RR SP that Troy Herfoss claimed the title aboard last year and it will be fascinating to see how Bryan Staring goes upon return home. Over at DesmoSport Ducati, Callum Spriggs will have a lot to learn, but should make a decent amount of progress.

Herfoss has been doing great things during the pre-season in cycling, as we’ve come to expect by now, and has received a good dose of television coverage for that as well, which in turn has shined light on his superbike career as well. It’s a win, win.

Image: Keith Muir.

By the way, right before Christmas we released Issue 1 of Road Dirt Digital, which is a digital magazine Foremost Media has put together to further create exposure locally.

Since we have road and dirt bike websites, it is important for us to showcase just how interesting the sport is in Australia and we’re committed to creating content at a level unmatched by anybody else in the industry across the board.

Anyway, that’s it from me for this week, thanks for stopping by as usual! Make sure you check out all of CycleOnline.com.au’s social networking channels and be sure to Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for even more behind the scenes insights. Just search CycleOnline.