Alba Development Road Team had a busy month in April, despite several UCI race cancellations coming through.
The first event for the team was the Volta NXT Classic in the Netherlands and is quite often regarded as one of the toughest spring tests in the country. It’s a 118km race which circles the Dutch town of Eijsden over five laps.
The team found it to be a mixed event, El and Arianne were unable to finish the technical course with lots of hard riding and mechanicals, but the rest of the team remained visible at the front of the peloton. An unexpected bunch sprint concluded the race and saw Lauren Dickon able to claim 12th place!
Next the team tackled Scheldeprijs Womens, the oldest road race held in Flanders and often referred to as the sprinters world championships! 6 of the riders were in action in the race that starts and ends in the Belgian town of Schoten which also has little to no elevation across the 130km course. Amelia broke off just 15km into the race alongside another rider and held a steady gap of over 2 minutes from the peloton for the next 90km before 8 others bridged the gap with 21km to go. Finally, the peloton caught up in preparation for the bunch sprint and a crash just a few hundred metres stalled their progress.
The East Cleveland Classic followed a few days later, a 110km course of four laps in North Yorkshire, with each lap finishing on the infamous Saltburn Bank Climb. 8 of the team took part and it was a successful event with Amelia finishing in third place and the team overall finishing top of the team standings. This then brough them to the top of the overall team standings in the series!
The team travelled back to Belgium for the Ronde de Mouscron, again with 6 riders from the team taking part. They all pulled out great performances on the 125km course which gave them a high paced race and saw them tackling unique narrow Belgian lanes before culminating in a traditional bunch sprint.
To round off the month, it was announced that Alba Development Road Team will be joining 17 other teams on the start line at the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain on 5th-8th June, with the final two stages taking place in Scotland allowing the teams to ride on home roads!
Team Manager, Bob Lyons said: “The race is even more special to us this year, given we are a Scottish based team, as we will have two stages in Scotland. It is very exciting to be able to race in front of a home crowd on roads familiar to the team, riders and followers”
