WHILE Mark Renshaw spent yesterday enjoying a leisurely ride with fellow Australian Simon Gerrans, come this weekend the pair will be enemies and the Bathurst cyclist’s legs will be working a lot harder as he embarks on the seventh Tour de France campaign of his career.

Renshaw has been named in the Etixx-QuickStep team to contest this year’s Le Tour, the 102nd edition of the cycling epic getting underway on July 4 with a 14 kilometre time trial in Utrecht in the Netherlands.

He will then face 20 more days of riding before finishing in Paris, nine of them flat stages in which he will be trying to set up victory for his QuickStep team-mate Mark Cavendish.

“Happy to once again be selected for the @letour,” Renshaw posted on his Twitter account.

“It’s going to be one hell of race. Can’t wait to help the boys win some stages during the three weeks.”

Renshaw is one of six Australian’s who are already confirmed starters for year’s tour with Gerrans, Michael Matthews, Richie Porte, Rohan Dennis, Zak Dempster and Adam Hansen all set to tackle the 21-stage epic.

While former yellow jersey holder Gerrans and Porte are men to watch in the general classification, Renshaw’s mission is different.

He will be trying to replicate his 2011 Tour de France when helping Cavendish win the green jersey by a dominant 62 points.

Changes to the points structure this year means that pure sprinters such as Cavendish are a greater chance of winning the green jersey, so Renshaw is expected to feature heavily throughout the event.

The 2015 edition includes six sprint stages with a bigger reward for the victor – he will earn 20 points more than the runner-up as opposed to the regular 10-point gap.

Those ‘bonus’ days will be on stages two, five, six, seven, 15 and the finale on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on July 26.

Cavendish is likely to launch his attacks from Renshaw’s wheel, but QuickStep have a strong all-round sprint train with the squad also including Matteo Trentin, Zdenek Stybar, Tony Martin and world champion Michal Kwiatkowski.

“We are at the start of this Tour de France with a very talented and experienced team,” QuickStep’s sport and development manager Rolf Aldag said. 

Aldag expects the opening half of the tour to suit his team, who will also target the ninth stage 28 kilometre team time trial which starts in Vannes. 

Given the course will take riders into Belguim – where QuickStep is based – it offers Renshaw and his team-mates additional motivation.

“Our goal is to perform well in this first part of the race. We want to go into the first rest day happy with our overall performance. It will be important to perform, find results, and then [have] good confidence for the second part of the race starting with the 10th stage,” Aldag said.

“In the second part of Le Tour there are still some stages for the sprints, but also a lot of ground for climbers and attackers.

“We have a couple of stages for fast riders, where Mark Cavendish can be a protagonist. Mark will have the team at his service these days.”

Another change to this year’s Tour de France sees no penultimate stage time trial – instead the field will feel the burn up the slopes of the Alpe d’Heuz in stage 20.

In this leg the QuickStep rider most likely to feature is Rigoberto Uran, who placed 14th in this year’s Giro d’Italia.

Overall Renshaw and his QuickStep team-mates form a strong unit who may not only challenge for the green jersey, but possibly hold the yellow jersey for some stages.

“We want to be consistent over the three weeks and try to be present on multiple levels,” Aldag said.

“We want to be present in the stages, and why not try to get the yellow jersey for a few days? Wearing that jersey even for few days is always a big achievement. 

“The guys prepared well for this race, and we are confident that all the jobs we’ve done in the last weeks will pay off at the right moment. 

“We believe in our selection formed by riders of eight different nationalities. Our ultimate goal is to leave a mark in this Tour de France, and we believe we have the potential to do it.”