The Drops Cycling Team made their racing debut this year with the ambition of being one of the top amateur teams in the elite ranks. The 2016 season exceeded their expectations with rides at the Tour of Flanders, the Women's Tour and the Tour of California as well as several other WorldTour races.
They ended the season 33rd in the UCI's rankings, having started plum last with zero points as a new entrant. With a year of experience under their belt, team manager Bob Varney is looking for more from his relatively young squad and hopes to climb the rankings in the process.
"We're ambitious, I've said that every time we get interviewed, and I think that we've demonstrated that," Varney tells Cyclingnews. "We've invested in three international riders, which I think are going to bring a lot of experience. That's going to be really important for the development of the girls. We want to be in the top 20 in the world, and we want to be in more WorldTour races. We want to be getting into a few breaks, we want to have our faces shown a bit more and be more aggressive."
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Varney has been busy this winter, and from being almost entirely British in 2016, he has added Belgian Ann-Sophie Duyck, Italian Susanna Zorzi and former Austrian national champion Martina Ritter. The 19-year-old Abby-Mae Parkinson also joins the team, as does Isle of Man rider Anna Christian.
The team's calendar is beginning to take shape, and they have already secured a start at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. They are also expecting to race at the Tour of California again, while starts at the major British races, the Tour de Yorkshire, Women's Tour and RideLondon Classique are all likely. Chrono des Nations winner Duyck will be key for one of the team's big targets, the team time trial at the World Championships in Bergen, Norway.
It will be the team's first appearance at the World Championships, and Duyck explains that the team is yet to put a number on their ambitions. "I think the aim for next year will be to have a good team that performs well," she says. "We don't have to put the pressure on our shoulders and say that next year at the World Championships we want to be on the podium. Team time trialling needs expertise and experience but also we are also lucky that we are supported by Trek, which is one of the high-level brands.
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