Its official, UK cycling is on the up, as news of three new UK based professional teams is announced.
Metaltek Racing Team, Endura Racing and Pendragon Sports/Le Col/Colnago will all look to compete at national level racing in the UK throughout next year.
The Metaltek Racing Team is supported by online cycle accessory retailer www.cyclepremier.com, Leicestershire based Metaltek and Infinis Ltd, a Northampton based renewable energy company.
The team will comprise of a ten man squad with its four support staff, and is set to hold its first training camp at Champneys Springs in Leicestershire next month. The team will ride Basso bikes, with other sponsors yet to be announced.
Team Director, Rod Freeman said, "We believe we have assembled a team of some of the best elite riders around and the training camp will be a very informal opportunity for them to get to know each other. We have another training camp in Majorca in February and are looking forward to racing from March onwards. It has been quite a challenge to assemble, what will be a high profile team, with riders living all over the country, but we are all really excited about next season!"
Pendragon Sports/Le Col/Colnago is a South West based team with 11 riders featuring a mix of experienced and up-and-coming talent. The team are targeting the Premier Calendar, Nocturne Series, National Circuit series and the Tour Series (pending invite) along with a mix of international and regional races.
The team has grown from the current Pendragon Kalas squad which finished 6th in the national team rankings for 2009. The team will be lead by Dave Clarke and new signing, former GB International Yanto Barker. "I'm looking forward to having Yanto and the new guys in the team and together with our existing riders we can get stuck in to the races next year and really mix it up" said Clarke.
Yanto is also showing his commitment in the team by becoming one of the title sponsors with his Le Col clothing brand. "I returned to racing in 2009 and fell in love with the sport again "says Barker. "I'm training for a full season on the road next year and wanted to put something back into the sport and the Pendragon Sports / Le Col / Colnago team is the perfect vehicle for this".
Jack Adams
Yanto Barker
David Clarke
Kieran Frend
Steve Lampier
Rhys Lloyd
Casey Munro
Chris Opie
George Richardson
Richard Tanguy
James Williams
Endura Racing boasts a 14-man squad including captain Rob Hayles and Ian Wilkinson. Following these final signings the talking will stop and the work will start in earnest for team captain Rob Hayles, alongside the team management, to mould the highly-talented squad into a highly-competitive team. With early-season continental goals starting at the Tour of the Mediterranean in February, Hayles knows that the Endura team will need to be focussed from the outset of 2010:
"I am really pleased with the squad of riders that we have assembled here at Endura Racing", says Hayles, "there is a great mixture of youth, experience and abilities across all disciplines. The guys will be highly charged when they come together in the next few weeks, as the squad is very talented, and after a long career I am as excited about next season as at any time in the last few years.
"Next week we start on the team kit - bikes, product, clothing and the like - along with finalising the early-season programme. Then there will be a team get together, followed by the full-team launch in January, then we are into racing!"
Rob Hayles (Eng, Captain)
James Moss (Eng)
Jack Bauer (NZ)
Evan Oliphant (Sco)
Jason Christie (NZ)
Rob Partridge (Wal)
Ross Creber (Sco)
Scott Thwaites (Eng)
Gary Hand (Sco)
Callum Wilkinson (Sco)
David Lines (Sco)
Ian Wilkinson (Eng)
James McCallum (Sco)
Alexander King (Sco)
