Official Matrix Pro Cycling Team Launch

The Old Granada Studios in Manchester was the backdrop for the official launch of the Matrix Pro Cycling team on Friday evening…

And what a lovely launch… an intimate gathering of true supporters and genuine fans who have followed the team and watched on from the trackside over the years.

Sarnies, celebs… even a cake!

It was great to meet the whole team in one place… Laura Kenny, Elinor Barker, Laurine van Riessen, Lora Fachie, Corrine Hall and Amira Mellor.

In such relaxed surroundings, it was a unique opportunity to chat and find out the team’s aspirations for the year ahead…

The Matrix Pro Cycling jerseys of previous years were all on show, demonstrating the commitment of Matrix Fitness to the team and the four-year partnership with kit designer, Milltag.

The launch of this year’s jersey has some extra special features… it’s not dominated with sponsors’ logos this year – which makes it stand out from the earlier ones. The lines across the jersey represent the track and the ‘B’ logo just below the nape is of particular significance…

A tribute to Beryl Burton OBE – English racing cyclist – the logo serves to recall the amazing 12-hour time trial record of 277.25 miles she set in 1969, which saw her basically beat all the women… and all the men!

In fact, while setting the record, she caught and passed Mike McNamara – who was on his way to setting the men’s record at 276.52 miles – and gave him a Liquorice Allsort as she glided by.

The story goes that Mike quite enjoyed the sweet!

And there was also a special Milltag cycling jersey presented to Laura for Baby Kenny.

The launch was a great opportunity to find out what some of the cyclists have planned for the year ahead…

For Elinor, her focus is to return to the Time Trial in the elite World Championships in Bergen, Norway in September, which sees her steer more in the direction of road cycling rather than track.

A new collaboration with Specialized was revealed which will see Welsh gold medal winning Olympian Elinor Barker ride S-Works road and time trial bikes in 2017.

Elinor and her team, Matrix Pro Cycling, have put together a bespoke programme tailored across every aspect of her training, equipment and preparation to build on her success as part of the Great Britain team for the Rio Olympics where she won Gold in the Team Pursuit.

Central to this programme is the introduction of Specialized bikes as an official partner.

Elinor will be competing at the World Track Championships in April, followed immediately by a training camp in France at the team’s training base near Limoux.

Following that, Elinor will start road competition, with the British National Time Trial Championships as a focus of the first half of the season. From there the team will travel to Slovenia to support Elinor in the UCI time trial in Ljubljana, before looking to secure selection for the European and World Championships.

“I’m really excited to announce a new focus for the remainder of this year, after the upcoming Track Cycling World Championships in Hong Kong next month. After years of concentrating solely on the team pursuit on the track I think the time trial on the road is the perfect goal for me this year. I’ve had a huge amount of support already from Matrix and Specialized and can’t wait to properly get my teeth stuck into the challenge.” Elinor Barker, Matrix Pro Cycling

It’s going to be really exciting to see how these ladies perform this year…

Follow the team on Twitter @MatrixProCyc and on Facebook @MatrixProCycling.