The full lineup of 10 invited teams have been confirmed by organisers of the National Cycling League, now in the home stretch before the opening round of the NCL Cup criterium series on April 8 at the Miami Beach Invitational. Across four competitions this summer in the US, the new series requires women’s and men’s teams to partner together in a points-based format using combined scoring for a $1 million prize purse.
A total of five squads support both men and women with a unified, or ‘co-ed’ affiliation, including Team Skyline, on the US Continental level on the men’s side, and established US domestic elite programmes Fount Cycling Guild and Team SupraBars.com. The other two teams, Denver Disruptors and Miami Nights begin their first season on the domestic elite level and were created by the league itself.
The balance of roster spots in the invitation-only racing series has been filled by partnerships between existing men’s-only and women’s-only DE or club teams. Two of those pairings, Foundation Cycling (men) with CCB-Alpine Carbon p/b LLG (women) and Texas Roadhouse Cycling (men) with Goldman Sachs ETFs (women), are all DE teams.
Kelly Benefits Strategies Cycling, a men’s DE team, will partner with the women’s club team Primeau Velo Racing. Team Mike’s Bikes p/b Equator Coffees (men) with Monarch Racing (women) and Voler Factory Racing (men) with Roxo Racing (women) complete the lineup, and all four are club teams.
Women and men compete separately in 30-lap races, with the points scored on laps in each respective race being combined to determine overall scores. The team scores determine winners at each event and series standings, so athletes are rewarded equally.
“That was one of our founding principles, it's everybody's equal. So it's not a women's team and a men's team. We have ‘a’ team. So just little things like that make a big difference in the happiness and general buy-in for all the athletes,” said Reed McCalvin, vice president of teams for the NCL.
“One of our key things is we're trying to build up American bike racing. We wanted to support teams that actually support our actual mission statement. So we have Texas Roadhouse and CCB that represent regions and clubs that have been around for decades and decades and constantly have given back to the sport through local rides through having teams supporting these races. And Supra Bars has something like a 150-person club attached to their team.”
SupraBars.com entered the US racing scene with a co-ed team four years ago, founded by Debbie Milne, a 17-time Masters National Champion in road and track. She said they welcomed the “genuine interest in creating something unique” from NCL Cup organisers and join the quest for earning opportunities where safety is a major concern.
“We are pretty excited to be one of the teams who get to take a stab at this new format. They voice a genuine interest in creating something unique for our sport. We would love to see more Americans interested in the sport of cycling, so we are excited to see if this format can accomplish that,” Milne, a veteran criterium racer who is the current masters (50-54) track World Champion in the Scratch Race, told Cyclingnews.
“They’ve made it clear that they welcome our input as a competing team to provide feedback for continuing improvements as they build this league and racing format. We really appreciate that course safety and professionalism within the competition arena are [among] their priorities.”
SupraBars.com’s mission is to mentor upcoming team members by developing individual and team-based skills and by providing top-level racing experiences -for both women and men. Joining Milne for NCL Cup competitions will be Owen Shott, a two-time US masters road national champion and Hana Hermanovska of Czech Republic, who was fourth on day two of Salt Lake Criterium and 10th on day two of Saint Francis Tulsa Tough last year.
Team Skyline is the only team with Continental-level riders (men) to accept an invitation to the NCL Cup. The domestic elite women’s squad features Colleen Gulick, who had 10 road victories last year, including the Wilmington Grand Prix.
Fount Cycling Guild has both pro and club teams, and for the women include co-founder Jennifer Wheeler, who had two podiums at Redlands Bicycle Classic last year, including a stage win.
Lauren LeClaire, team manager for CCB-Alpine Carbon p/b LLG, said the women’s-only team was approached by several men’s teams about collaboration with the NCL Cup, but existing team sponsorships and team calendars were top consideration. The alignment with Foundation Cycling came together as the clear choice.
“Working with Foundation was an easy connection for us to collaborate on this Series due to the history and long-standing relationship between them and the former CCB U23 Continental men's program, where Foundation was a key sponsor for several years,” LeClaire explained to Cyclingnews. The CCB team dates back to 1976 when it began as a club in the Boston, Massachusetts area, and now has 300 members worldwide, with a women’s multi-discipline racing team.
”We're geared up to work side-by-side with the Foundation racers to achieve a common goal and find success together at these races while still maintaining our identity as a stand-alone women's team. There will be overlap in some staffing and support, such as mechanics, and some shared logistics in each race weekend as we go forward, and I expect that overlap will grow and develop throughout the Series.”
The most explosive rosters belong to the Denver Disruptors and Miami Nights. Former WorldTour veterans Leah Kirchmann, who represented Canada at two Olympic Games, and Sergio Henao, a two-time Colombian national road champion and overall winner of Paris-Nice in 2017, lead the Denver Disruptors. The team also features a pair of riders from the now-defunct Wildlife Generation Continental-level team, Serghei Tvetcov, a seven-time road champion for Romania, and Noah Graningan, second on GC at the 2022 Joe Martin Stage Race.
Miami Nights have an international roster of sprinters that on the men’s side include Venezuela’s Clever Martinez, who was second overall in the 2022 American Criterium Cup men’s rankings with seven top 10s, three of those podiums, in nine races, Colombian Bryan Gómez, who five top 10s in the series including a win at IU Health Momentum Indy, and Mexican Alfredo Rodriguez who won both the Sunny King Criterium and Harlem Skyscraper Cycling Classic last year. Paola Andrea Muñoz rode for five seasons on the Continental level, and the Chilean rider won a stage and the points classification at the 2022 Vuelta a Formosa Femenina.
McCalvin said the organisation made some ‘human decisions’ over business decisions related to the teams, from creating a schedule that does not overlap major criteriums already on the US calendar to assisting teams financially with travel logistics and with race payouts throughout the field at the four races (all 10 teams receive cash prizes). He hopes the new formula is a win-win for teams and fans.
“There's no entry fees, everybody's getting travel money, which no one else does in the US, and then there’s TV coverage,” McCalvin said. “We're [NCL] here to support teams and to help grow the sport and let them get something better back to their sponsors.”
