Reigning world team pursuit champions Laura Trott, Joanna Rowsell and Katie Archibald will join multiple Paralympic and world champion Dame Sarah Storey at round two of the 2014 British Cycling Women’s Road Series, the Cheshire Classic, on Sunday 27 April.
Trott and Rowsell will ride for Wiggle Honda with track teammate Katie Archibald riding for Pearl Izumi Sports Tours International alongside Storey.
Trott’s sister Emma, will ride for the Boels Dolmans pro team will further bolster an already strong domestic field.
A regular fixture on the calendar for over 30 years, the Cheshire Classic features an extended race distance of 92-kilometres for 2014, with two extra laps of the 7.7-kilometre circuit and the return of the Delamere Dairy intermediate sprint on lap six.
Course map
Racing begins at 9:30am at Grange School Sports Pavilion on the outskirts of Northwich with the opening section taking riders onto the circuit near the village of Weaverham.
Highlight of the race will be the Acton Bridge Hill climb, which the riders will face 12 times and with the race finishing on the slope, colloquially known as ‘the Cliff’, it will favour a rider with a strong uphill sprint. Previous winners include Dame Sarah Storey, Lucy Garner, Lizzie Armitstead and Nicole Cooke.
Course video
Pearl Izumi Sports Tours International rider Nicola Juniper easily had the best of her breakaway companion Alexie Shaw in round one, the Alexandra Tour of the Reservoir on 13 April, also on an uphill finish.
Karla Boddy, riding for MG Maxifuel took the narrowest of victories in 2013, coming from under the radar to pip Emma Grant and Emily Kay to the win, in a race which saw crashes in the early stages.
Boddy returns this year with a strong Epic Cycles Scott WRT team, which took second, third and fourth at the opening round of the series. Round one runner-up Alexie Shaw is absent from the Epic line-up for Cheshire but Mollie Weaver and Hannah Walker, third and fourth in round one, are present alongside junior world team pursuit champion Emily Kay.
Matrix Fitness – Vulpine also send a strong squad including Great Britain para-cycling tandem pilot Corrine Hall and Louise Borthwick, fifth in last year’s series.
Starley Primal Cycling’s Eileen Roe, third overall in the 2013 series, will also look to put some points on the board and get her 2014 challenge on track.
