New Season, New Team

Evie Field

2023 is going to be a big year. A new team, new racing category, racing abroad and combining all this with my GCSE exams. For the past few years I’ve ridden for my local club Liverpool Century as a solo rider up and down the country. However, once you leave the Youth categories & become a Junior rider for National events and beyond, it’s generally teams that are selected rather than individuals. This meant taking the tough decision to tell my club that after all their help I would have to take the next step in my cycling journey elsewhere.

 JRC-Interflon Race Team Track Group

For the second half of last season most of the talk between riders was which team they would be racing for as a Junior. It seemed that everyone had sorted themselves out and I was beginning to feel a bit panicky. Fortunately after a few zoom meetings with the team managers I was offered a place on the all-girls, nine strong, JRC-Interflon Race Team. To use a very Euro cycling phrase I am “super happy” to be riding for JRC in 2023 as they are focussing solely on Junior girls for the future. In the Youth ranks JRC were the team to beat so it is pretty cool to be part of it.

The plan for the year is to ride the National Junior events, which for females are combined with Under 23s so it’s going to be pretty tough. In addition to this the team has a European programme. Yes! Racing in Europe at UCI Nations Cup Events. The team did quite well last year (winning the Grand Prix Ceratizit) so this really helps getting invites to the big races. The team has already been accepted for Gent Wevelgem & Tour of Flanders which is really exciting.

JRC-Interflon Race Team Group Ride

I knew most of the riders on the team having raced against them over the years, but it’s been good to get to know them as teammates. We have had quite a few get togethers over the winter. We all met up back in October to meet our sponsors, learn about our social media responsibilities & get measured up for kit. We also got free stuff! Helmet, sunglasses, leisure wear – it was like being a pro & Christmas all at once.

Since then we have had hilly training miles in the Peak District, hiking in the snow over Kinder Scout & even a day working on how to safely negotiate riding through the convoy of team cars that follow the peloton in bigger races.

So with the new season fast approaching we have one final pre-season training camp in……Girona! I’ll report back on how our training went in the Centre of the Universe for Cyclists next time.

Part 2 - Girona Training Camp - Cycling Nirvana

https://evelynfieldracing.wordpress.com/

https://twitter.com/evelynfield06

Also in Blog