Kelly Murphy, the Irish road and track international, will ride for a new team next season having signed for Illi Bikes in Belgium.
It is highly likely Murphy will not be the only Irish rider on the team next year, when she will move it up a gear and aim to ride Belgian classics.
The team this year counted Mia Griffin – who won bronze
in the U23 individual pursuit in the Europeans at the weekend - in its ranks.
New Irish road race champion Lara Gillespie had planned to ride with Illi Bikes abroad this year until Covid-19 made traveling to race much harder.
Murphy told stickybottle she also hopes to ride some stage races among a programme of Continental European racing in 2021, when she will balance racing on the road with her track commitments with Ireland.
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Murphy (30), a Sport Ireland carded rider for track, has ridden for British team Storey Racing in recent years and having been a late-comer to cycling she has made rapid progress in the sport.
She took up racing in 2014 after her commute introduced
her to cycling and in the years since then has developed into one Ireland’s top
riders.
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She won the elite TT title at the National Road Championships last year and in 2018 and took silver this year; beaten to gold this time around by Eve McCrystal (Strata 3-VeloRevolution) in Co Limerick last Thursday week.
Murphy has ridden the TT at the Worlds and Europeans twice and last year she was 10th in the test at the European Championships.
That ride in Holland was the best performance by an Irish woman ever at a major international road championships.
She also rode the Tour de Yorkshire stage race last year
with Storey Racing and spent the opening stage in the breakaway.
As well as her road exploits, Murphy has represented Ireland on the track. She is currently a member of the Irish team pursuit set-up that has done so well over the past two years and also rides individual pursuit.
She holds the Irish individual pursuit record – 3:30.687secs set exactly 12 months ago when she rode to 4th at the European Track Championships - and was crowned Irish champion in the event in August.
Murphy was also a member of the team
pursuit line-up that set a new national record of 4:25.389, also set last October
at the Europeans, when riding with Griffin, Gillespie and Alice Sharpe.
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