News: Metaltek Kuota to do 2017 Tour Series

Gordon Wiseman spoke to former World Champion Colin Sturgess about his team Metaltek Kuota competing in the 2017 Tour Series

RST Cycle Clothing & Trigon Bikes

News: Metaltek Kuota to do 2017 Tour Series

As was reported by veloUK.net on Thursday, organisers SweetSpot announced details for this year’s Tour Series – the ninth year the televised series has been held – at Wembley Park on Thursday morning.

Amidst all the innovative ideas that will continue to keep the Tour Series as a hugely significant part – some would argue the highlight – of the British racing calendar, a buoyant Race Director Mick Bennett was clearly delighted to highlight to those present, the previous day’s launch by Velon of their Hammer Series which underlined what an impact the concept of a team based series was having on the worldwide race calendar.

Present at the launch was Colin Sturgess (Metaltek Kuota) – the 1989 individual pursuit World Champion, who has been working with the Metaltek team in recent seasons and will be taking a more front-line role in 2017 as their team manager, Director Sportif and any other job that needs covering!

“With only 11 riders, we’re only small team so everyone has to muck in to get things done” Colin explained. “It all goes to making the new season an exciting time for us all.”

“The Tour Series is a very important part of the season to us and we’ve pretty much based our season around all the Premier Calendars and the Tour Series. The series gives a lot of TV coverage so it’s important to the sponsors, prospective sponsors and the riders alike. Get a good result at a Tour Series race and that rider is hopefully looking at better things next year, so for them it’s a stepping stone as well”.

“We’re looking to go bigger in 2018, take a few more riders on so if we can pick up that additional sponsorship as a result of the Tour Series coverage, it’s a Win-Win situation. The team has been regrouping and last year we only had a handful of riders but, hey, ‘from small acorns…’. We want to grow slowly and just be realistic”.

The steed for the Metaltek-Kuota riders – the Khan in Red and White ….

Zach May was accompanying Colin at the event as a team rider. “Zack is a very quick rider on the track having taken two bronze medals at the recent Track champs in the Points and Scratch.”

“And having lost a few kilos over the winter, we think he’ll be an ideal rider for the Tour Series and will have now improved his climbing so he has the makings of a good all-rounder. And having raced some of the Tour Series rounds with NFTO – he brings experience about how the racing develops and so has respect from the other riders. Which is exactly what we want him to bring to our Tour Series plans.”

2016_ShuttVeloRapideAdvert

AlpsCyclesMidstory

 

Send your results as well as club, team & event news here

Cero

Other Results on VeloUK (including reports containing results)

Other News on VeloUK

Tags: