SILVER CITY, NM – DNA Professional Biking, which received the factors classification at the Tour of the Gila 2023, will convey a squad of six riders to the 37th Tour of the Gila this April.
Final yr, DNA Professional Biking attended 31 occasions in 8 nations, incomes spots on over 55 podiums and ending the yr because the top-ranked UCI Continental Girls’s Staff within the Western Hemisphere. With staff members from the U.S., Canada, Colombia, Mexico and Nice Britain, DNA had 5 riders, representing three nations, on the 2023 UCI World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. “We’ve been assembly our aim of being an internationally aggressive ladies’s biking staff,” DNA Professional Biking Staff Principal and Sports activities Director Catherine “Cathy” Fegan-Kim says.
In its twelfth yr, DNA Professional Biking has raced Tour of the Gila 9 instances, bringing riders in the course of the staff’s inaugural season. “We began this staff to provide alternatives for ladies to race stage races within the U.S. comparable to Gila which have difficult competitors and logistics,” Fegan-Kim says. “What we’ve realized since then is that Gila is as stunning as it’s difficult.”
Ranked 37th worldwide, together with Girls’s WorldTour groups, DNA ranks twenty second amongst UCI Continental groups alone. “As a U.S,-based skilled staff, it’s necessary for us to have alternatives to get UCI factors nearer to house. Our funds limits us to solely three or 4 worldwide journeys. Tour of the Gila is considered one of solely two highway occasions within the U.S. which can be UCI [the other being Joe Martin Stage Race],” Fegan-Kim says. “We’re actually grateful that Gila continues to register as a world UCI occasion.”
On a person stage, Tour of the Gila is the place riders achieve road cred. “It’s a monumental race, particularly for climbers and this goes into plenty of our determination making on rosters,” Fegan-Kim says, divulging that DNA riders like Heather Fischer and Colombian Nationwide Champion Diana Peñuela have each received phases of Tour of the Gila and stay extraordinarily pleased with these victories. “For lots of riders, Gila is an enormous aim. In the event you podium or win the Gila Monster, it’s bragging rights.”
This yr, DNA Professional Biking has its sights set on successful the Common Classification. “That could be a huge aim for the staff,” Fegan-Kim says. “We’re simply going to be daring and say it: We’re going for it. We’ll take the perfect squad we will presumably have for it.”
Whereas Fegan-Kim wouldn’t affirm the roster on the time of this interview, potential riders embrace the two-time Colombian highway champion and present time trial champion Peñuela, 2023 Gila Factors winner Shayna Powless, former Mexican Highway and Time Trial Champion Anet Barrera, 2023 Tour of the Gila alumna and 2023 Vuelta a Colombia stage winner Kaitlyn Rauwerda, and the present Canadian U23 Highway Champion Sarah Van Dam. Different potential DNA riders on this yr’s Tour of the Gila squad embrace Maeghan Easler and Nadia Gontova, who’re each becoming a member of from the UCI Continental Staff Roxo Racing. Easler made her mark in U.S. stage racing in 2023 with two podiums on the Tour of the Gila, whereas Gontova additionally was an element within the Tour of the Gila ladies’s discipline final yr. Sara Poidevin, who joined DNA this yr from the Girls’s WorldTour staff, EF Training-Tibco-SVB, together with her climbing and breakaway prowess, can be a possible choice.
Every spring Tour of the Gila sometimes brings DNA Professional Biking’s riders and employees to southwest New Mexico for about eight days complete. “We love the world, from the unbelievable surroundings to the nice and cozy welcome from Silver Metropolis residents to the burritos and occasional within the native retailers,” mentioned Fegan-Kim. “Even past the competitors, there are at all times good tales we will take house with us.”
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Tour of the Gila is an iconic American highway bicycling race that’s famend throughout the globe for its 5 difficult phases. As a UCI-sanctioned stage race, Tour of the Gila is the proving floor the place professional and elite newbie racers showcase their expertise. Additionally sanctioned by USA Biking, Tour of the Gila attracts newbie cyclists desirous to expertise southwest New Mexico’s notoriously steep and scenic roads whereas testing their bodily limits. Since 1987, Tour of the Gila has highlighted the state’s wealthy historical past and panorama, together with the area that impressed the creation of the Wilderness Act, its strong farming, ranching and mining heritage, a rising artistic group, and mountains that make for a bike owner’s dream playground.
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