Lauren Creamer leads the group in Rás na mBan in the green of Ireland; she’s heading to the US after signing with a new team there
By Caroline Martinez
Irish international Lauren Creamer has signed for US elite team ISCorp Cycling and next week will travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to embark on the latest part of her cycling career.
The 21-year-old started cycling six years ago, mainly training for triathlons. It was only in 2011 that she decided to concentrate solely on bike racing. Last year she represented Ireland at the European U23 Road Championships in the Netherlands.
Her new squad is a small one, but will give her plenty of opportunity for quality racing.
“There are five riders; an American, two Colombians, a Kiwi and me,” she said
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She believes the bigger and more competitive women’s racing scene in the US will help her find her strengths.
“The US racing circuit caters for someone like me as I don’t have a specialist strength. My racing schedule has plenty of variety with one-day road races, crits, stage races and even crit stage races so it’s going to be one fun summer.”
“We’ll mainly focus on racing in the Mid-West and NRC (National Racing Calendar) races with a couple of UCI stage races thrown in for good measure too.”
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ISCorp is fully sponsored and Lauren will ride one of their SRAM equipped Trek Madone 6 Series bikes for the season.
No stranger to elite racing, in 2011 she tackled the Belgian UCI 1.2 Erpe-Mere with GSD Gestion, which last season counted former Irish national champion Siobhan Horgan as part of its roster.
“It was an incredibly useful opportunity to learn what potentially the future could hold for me,” she said of the Belgian encounter. “When I look back now, considering it was my first season I was quite a bit out of my depth but it was still an enlightening experience.”
Last year she also rode in the Tour de Free State in South Africa with the British team Escentual For Viored alongside top British rider Sarah Storey.
“With training and racing on similar roads in the UK I wanted to race further afield, having different and more challenging chances along the way,” she said.
Although Creamer will focus on US racing for the season ahead, she will be back in Ireland to take part in the National Road Race Championships in June in Dundalk, Co Louth.
“Hopefully I’ll be back in Europe for the European U23s and perhaps the Worlds. I guess you have to aim big.”
“For the season ahead, I’d love to adapt to the US circuit and achieve a podium at the National Road Race Championships. Also, If I had the opportunity to represent Ireland at the European U23 Championships I’d be delighted. At the latter end of the season I see a podium at the Ras na mBan to be a big target.”
“A selection for the World Championships would be one to finish the season off but with them being many months away, realistically the hard work has only just begun.”
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