The men and women of Rally Cycling officially launched their 2017 seasons this week with a team presentation at the Honda Automotive Museum in Torrance, California.
The men were coming off two weeks of training in Oxnard before heading to Europe for their first race of the season at the Vuelta a La Murcia starting February 11. The women's training camp is currently underway in Oxnard through February 12.
The program run by the Circuit Sport management company out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, is entering its 11th year, with the men's Continental team starting up in 2007 as Kelly Benefits-Medifast and the women's team taking shape in 2013 as Optum. Rally took over title sponsorship of the teams in 2016.
ADVERTISEMENT
The 2017 Rally women's team is a mix of experience and youth, with four new riders joining four returning riders as the team rebuilds flowing the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The men's team lost veterans Tom Zirbel and Will Routley to retirement but added three young riders to fill the void. Reigning junior World Champion Brandon McNulty joins the team for 2017, along with Redlands Bicycle Classic winner Matteo-Dal-Cin from Silber and Tour of Alberta stage winner Colin Joyce from Axeon Hagens Berman.
"It's definitely a younger group, and that's the direction we want to go, to bring in more young guys," Rally Performance Director Jonas Carney told Cyclingnews. "I think it's a good balance. We kept a lot of our core dudes from last year, and we brought in some really powerful young guys. That's kind of the route we want to go, to keep our core rout together - kind of the backbone of the team - and then every year reload with a few really badass young guys."
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2l0t65s
No comments:
Post a Comment