Simon Yates blog: First races of the season were a success and a welcome boost for confidence

I'm writing this latest post from my new home in Girona, Spain. I moved here with my brother and Orica-GreenEdge team-mate, Adam, about three weeks ago because it's such a good base to train from all year round, particularly in the winter.

Still, we've both had good confidence-boosters early on in the season, which is very much welcome. We can go into our next races knowing we are capable of good results. I'll be honest, when I saw Adam's strong displays in Argentina, there was a definite feeling of sibling rivalry. He was away getting top 10s and I was stuck at home training. We're always vying for bragging rights, but it never gets to the point where there's any tension between us. It's all good-natured and it goes without saying that we're massive supporters of each other. My next outing is the one-day Citta di Lugano in Switzerland on March 2. A few of the older and more experienced guys in the team are racing, so I would assume I will be working for someone else, which is fine. That's part and parcel of the job and the learning experience.

Golden memories

It actually takes place on the same day as the last day of the Track Cycling World Championships in Colombia, which will mark the end of my reign as the world points race champion. I can't believe it's already a year since I won that gold medal in Minsk, but although I've got great memories of that day, there's no sort of sadness or regret that I won't be back again this year to try to do it all over again. I made a decision to move my career to the road and leaving the track behind was a sacrifice I needed to make. It's nice to have that win on my record, though. I might never be world champion again and, equally, no one can ever take that rainbow jersey away from me. Hopefully the British riders who are going to the worlds this year pick up plenty of world titles of their own and, at the same time, things go well for me on the road in the next few weeks as well. Visit Simon's website: www.simon-yates.com