News for February 2003

LAST YEARS TOP UK ROAD TEAM STRENGTHENS LINE-UP

Above: Tanner and Lovatt in England colours last year. 2002 BBAR winner, Kevin Dawson. UK Junior Champ, Stefan Wilson. Two of the best from the World of womens racing, Rachel Heal and Emma Davies. Two top juniors who have represented their country, Mike Jolley and Matt Brammeier.

by Larry Hickmott

Last years top team on the road last season in the UK, has a new name and a strengthened line-up as the 2003 season gets underway. The Life Repair Cycle Racing team, formerly known as the Compensation Group Racing Team will be racing in anger in the next few weeks and as a taster of what the competition should expect, I spoke to team manager Phil Leigh who has had a busy winter, moving house, organising new sponsors for his team, getting his PhD and taking a trip to the Arctic Circle. The latter was a strange thing to do I would have thought knowing how cold its been in the UK but I expect Phil had his reasons!

Leaving behind the achievements in the Leigh household, the Life Repair CRT will again feature some of the top riders in the UK. Leading the way will be John Tanner, one of the sports nice guys who knows how to win bike races and has been doing so for many years now. John, who has twice represented the sport at the Olympics and at last years Commonwealth Games, was also last years top rider in road cyclings top competition in the UK, the Premier Calendar. Backing him up is a rider who also distinguished himself last year by riding for England in the Commonwealth Games, Mark Lovatt. Mark is also a former winner of the Premier Calendar in the UK and one of the sports most colourful riders, livening up most races he rides, and often wins. The British Best all rounder, Kevin Dawson, one of the countries top time trialists and road riders, also lines up with the team again.

Backing up these riders are many young hopefuls as the team sponsor and management strive to find the talent who will in the years to come, replace the likes of Tanner, Lovatt and Dawson at the top of the sport. Riding for Life Repair will be Under 23 riders, Ben Greenwood, Stefan Wilson (last years national Junior Champion), Mike Jolley and junior Matt Brammeier, the latter two representing Great Britain in the World Junior road race in Belgium last year. Graham Briggs, an under 23 rider who Kevin Dawson has taken under his wing in an effort to help Graham go further in the sport, also joins the team.

WORLD CLASS ADDITIONS
Life Repair have also signed two of the worlds top women cyclists, Emma Davies (number 4 in the world in the individual pursuit) and Rachel Heal, silver in the national road race championship and bronze in the Commonwealth Games as well as a regular columnist here on British Cycling.org.uk. Both these riders are also part of the Great Britain team.

Life Repair will be riding the well known and respected bikes from the Litespeed (UK) stable. Litespeed, more known for their lightweight titanium bikes, will be providing the team with a number of different models equipped with Shimano components (Dura Ace and Ultegra), TIME shoes and pedals, Michelin tyres, accessories from Planet-X (Bars, stems and so on), heart rate monitors and computers from Ciclo Sport while all the equipment kept well lubricated with SK22 products.

One of the first competitions for the team will see it split as some of the riders take part in the Eddie Soens classic at Aintree in Liverpool while others such as John Tanner and Kevin Dawson ride the first round of the National Criterium Series, the Simon Hook memorial being held at London's Eastway cycle circuit. Both events are on March 1.

These events kick off another season for the team where they have a number of major goals. The Premier Calendar will again be a target as will the other national series for Under 23s, Women and Juniors. The national road race championship (Elite Men and Women, Junior and Under 23) will also be another goal for the teams riders. They will also be competing abroad in Ireland (Tour of Munster and RAS for example) and Europe where they will target some of the smaller European stage races. They were due to ride the Tour of Arabia but that was cancelled.

On the domestic front, Kevin Dawson is apparently not satisfied with seven wins in the BBAR series and will again be targeting that series for time trials. All in all says Phil, the team will be aiming to build on the success they had last year and he's very pleased with the new signings that brings the number of riders in the team up 10. Many of them will be off to Majorca in the next week or so while Mark Lovatt and Mike Jolley have been in Tenerife preparing for the new season.

Finally, Phil says that he'd like to thank all the sponsors that have come on board or returned to support what was the best road team in the UK last year. Monthly magazine Cycling Plus from Future publishing continues its support as does Ciclo Sport heart rate monitors and computers.

Enervite energy products will be helping to keep the riders energy levels up while Briko glasses and helmets will offer them protection from the elements. TIME provide shoes and pedals while Michelin provide the tyres. Well known UK distributor Planet-X will supply cycle accessories (handlebars, stems etc) and lubricants come from SK22. Clothing the riders will be Bienne Clothing.

Good luck to Phil and the riders for 2003.