No fewer than four Irish riders will be racing in the colours of new American UCI Continental squad, APS Pro Cycling by Team Cadence Cyclery. The team is based in Texas and though it has a compact team of 11 riders, four of those are Irish.
They are the riders who competed in the colours of another US team, Skyline, over recent seasons plus a very promising young addition from the Irish peloton.
And in charge of the whole set-up, keen to guide his charges, is American road race legend Freddie Rodriguez, a four-time US road race champion, Grand Tour stage winner and runner-up, to Mario Cipollini, in Milan-Sanremo in 2002.
Moving over from Team Skyline are former Irish elite TT champion Conn McDunphy, former junior national road race champion Ronan O'Connor and regular winner on the home scene, Cian Keogh.
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That trio will be joined in their new team by Matthew Walls, who had an incredible breakthrough season last year when he won the Quanta Capital Junior Tour of Ireland, picking up a stage win along the way. Walls also won the five-stage Volta Portugal Juniores, among other victories.
Rodriguez, who wrapped up his pro career with in 2015, riding that final season with Jelly Belly p/b Maxxis, has said he is determined to ensure some riders who may have been passed over by bigger teams should continue to get their chance well into their 20s.
He believes the trend of World Tour terms recruiting younger and younger riders in recent years has resulted in some quality cyclist being overlook. However, he says he wants to guide them, in the belief they can still be picked up by pro squads.
Among the other riders in the team this year is Patrick Welch, the US TT champion from 2022 in the U23 category and Liam Flanagan, who was 3rd in the American U23 road race championships in the same year.
The team will ride in both North America and Europe in the coming season and one major race they are down to ride in the early season is Volta Comunitat Valenciana (2.Pro) against the top World Tour teams in the sport.
