SILVER CITY, NM – DNA Professional Biking, which received the factors classification at the Tour of the Gila 2023, will deliver a squad of six riders to the 37th Tour of the Gila this April.
Final yr, DNA Professional Biking attended 31 occasions in 8 international locations, incomes spots on over 55 podiums and ending the yr because the top-ranked UCI Continental Girls’s Group within the Western Hemisphere. With group 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 girls’s biking group,” DNA Professional Biking Group Principal and Sports activities Director Catherine “Cathy” Fegan-Kim says.
In its twelfth yr, DNA Professional Biking has raced Tour of the Gila 9 occasions, bringing riders through the group’s inaugural season. “We began this group to present 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 group, it’s essential for us to have alternatives to get UCI factors nearer to residence. Our price range limits us to solely three or 4 worldwide journeys. Tour of the Gila is certainly one of solely two street 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 avenue cred. “It’s a monumental race, particularly for climbers and this goes into plenty of our resolution 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. If you happen to podium or win the Gila Monster, it’s bragging rights.”
This yr, DNA Professional Biking has its sights set on profitable the Common Classification. “That could be a massive aim for the group,” Fegan-Kim says. “We’re simply going to be daring and say it: We’re going for it. We’ll take one of the best squad we will presumably have for it.”
Whereas Fegan-Kim wouldn’t verify the roster on the time of this interview, doable riders embrace the two-time Colombian street champion and present time trial champion Peñuela, 2023 Gila Factors winner Shayna Powless, former Mexican Street 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 Street Champion Sarah Van Dam. Different doable 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 Group 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 girls’s subject final yr. Sara Poidevin, who joined DNA this yr from the Girls’s WorldTour group, EF Training-Tibco-SVB, along with her climbing and breakaway prowess, can be a possible choice.
Every spring Tour of the Gila usually brings DNA Professional Biking’s riders and employees to southwest New Mexico for about eight days whole. “We love the realm, from the unimaginable surroundings to the nice and cozy welcome from Silver Metropolis residents to the burritos and low within the native outlets,” mentioned Fegan-Kim. “Even past the competitors, there are at all times good tales we will take residence with us.”
###
Tour of the Gila is an iconic American street 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 novice racers showcase their expertise. Additionally sanctioned by USA Biking, Tour of the Gila attracts novice 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 inventive group, and mountains that make for a bike owner’s dream playground.
Like PEZ? Why not subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter to obtain updates and reminders on what’s cool in street biking?
Supply hyperlink
Excellent write-up
great article
Insightful piece
great article