Eoin McCarthy in Belgium this year; he’ll ride the full 2013 season there with his new team
Irish development squad member, Eoin McCarthy has landed a place with the Belgian “Terra Footwear-Bicycle Line” team for next year and will ride with them full-time for the season.
The Fermoy rider is currently in Gran Canaria and told stickybottle he strongly believes the move to Belgium and to full time bike riding will take his career to the next level.
“It’s a top competition team so it’s a step up for me; it’s one of the top amateur teams in Belgium,” he said.
The team, he added, was effectively a Continental set-up without the UCI status and had lined up a series of UCI 2.2 stage races to ride throughout Europe next year, as well as races in Belgium where the squad is based.
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“There’s a lot of UCI 1.2 races in Belgium not to mention the kermesse scene. And then in terms of stage races, the team will be riding Tour de Savoie (UCI 2.2), Le Mi Aout En Bretagne (UCI 2.2) and Tour de Loire est Cher (UCI 2.2).”
“So as well as riding the top amateur races in France and Belgium and some pro events, there’ll be lots of races to make me stronger and in some of the bigger ones I’ll be lining up along with the likes of Tom Boonen.”
He believed the packed programme and the fact that 2013 would be the first season he will be full time on the bike have the potential to make the season ahead a big one for him.
McCarthy raced the last months of the 2012 season with the ASFRA-Flanders Racing Team. He felt he found his feet during that brief period and will know something of the Belgian scene when he travels out there in February to settle in for the year ahead.
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He secured the place in the squad after contacting a number of teams and after management at Terra Footwear-Bicycle Line saw him racing while in Belgium and began speaking to him about his plans for 2013.
“I’ll be primarily based in Belgium from February to October but I’ll be going home for races like the An Post Rás and National Championships; although the exact details of the races I’ll be riding are still not certain at this early stage.”
He said having watched the Rás closely for years he was very much looking forward to riding it for the first time next year and hopefully getting a place on a Irish-based team for the race.
“I’m hoping that racing at that level in the early months of the year will help me when it comes to the Rás,” he said.
In the latter part of 2013 he is hopeful of gaining selection for the U23 national team, having already ridden on a few development Irish teams.
“The personal goal generally is to keep moving forward as a rider,” he said.
“But if I got picked on the national team I feel I am a selfless rider and if they asked me to ride for someone else or go in an early breakaway; I’m a team player and there’s no problem with that.”
“I’ll try and ride a good Rás and being in the selections for the European and World Championships is a big thing. I was in Limburg this year at the Worlds and realised how big it was. I definitely want to be in Italy 2013.”
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