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The hugely successful Arctic-Premier Race Team welcomes four new riders for its 11th season as a professional racing team. The 2009 season will see the additions of Ryan Bonser, Richard Hepworth, Richard Kent, and Richard Handley from the North West as Artic-Premier Race Team has been wishing to strengthen their squad with riders local to the north.
The team is competing in several races this year; their current top riders will be taking part of the Premier Calendar events, but the team will also be heading for new events such as the circuit series.
The 2009 Team are Danny Axford, Darren Barclay, Jody Crawforth, Matt Holmes, Andy Proffitt, James Dobin, Tim Bayley, Simon Wilson, Jon Kris Mason, David McGaw, Oliver Graham, Alistair Tullet and Junior Alec Briggs. With the Four New Riders it's a big 14 man Premier Senior Team.
The team will also move forward with their successful elite cyclo cross team featuring; Jody Crawforth, Matt Holmes, Darren Barclay and Alistair Tullet. The four will also race the criterium and road races in the spring and summer.
The team management is headed up by
Rob Finch (Team Manager for the last 7 years),
Peter Ruffhead (Team Founder and Director) and
Nigel Franklin (cyclo-cross and MTB director)
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Jody Crawforth reports on his first wins of the season in LondonCycleSport.com
December 1st 2009
Jody writes: I’ve now notched up my first wins of the cross season – one in the UK and one in Belgium.
Over the weekend of November 21/22 I went to Belgium for a GVA Trofee Race in Hasselt on the Saturday. The course was fast and had 3 sand sections in, which I feel like I’m learning to ride better (sort of). I didn’t feel great on the day but got stuck in, and after a bit of a lacklustre start I slogged round to finish in 27th position, not a great result but it all adds to the experience and training bank, and adds to my continental fan base!
On the Sunday I raced a Wessex Cross League in Southampton put on by the Hargroves Cycles team. After a race long dingdong with home team rider Ian Field, I managed to outdrag him on the last few corners of the muddy circuit, to win in style. The pit crew worked hard to give me a fresh bike each lap – it was starting to get heavy out there on the slightly drying course.
This weekend just gone it was the Belgian classic World Cup race in the sand dunes of Koksijde. A pretty wet day made the sand sections slightly easier to ride, though it’s still a very tough course with 3 run-ups, and 6 sections of sand to power through each lap. Trying to stay in the rut that gets built up through the sand is crucial, and the moment you go off line you bog down in thick sand, wasting precious energy as you try to keep pedaling to keep your momentum going. It builds lactic acid each time with hardly any recovery, which starts to hurt after a few laps! I had a pretty good start, managed to avoid the usual first lap crash like the scene from ‘Days of Thunder’, but then I started to fade and blew on the last couple of ronda’s to finish in 40th position. Still I enjoyed the race and the support from the crowd was unbelievable, lots of Brit’s out on the course shouting even louder than the Belgies!
I then went to a B cross in Drongen Baarle, near Gent – another muddy course similar to the one in Southampton. After a sluggish start I joined a chasing group and we caught the lone leader who had been 10 to 15 seconds in front for the first few laps. I put in an attack through one of the technical sections to soften the opposition up a little, then I rammed it to them on the next boggy riding section, and through a foot deep water ditch. I kept the lead up at about 30 seconds to the finish for my first win in Belgium, and enjoyed the spoils of flowers, podium girls and prizes.
Thanks again to my sponsors – The Cyclestore for Shimano groupsets and PRO bars/stem, and Upgrade bikes for Reynolds DV3KT wheels, TRP brakes and Crosslight EVO4 frames and the new RC09 fork.
Jody. |
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