May Round-Up

In early May, the team tackled a double-header in Luxembourg at the Elsy Jacobs races (May 4–5). The first race in Garnich featured a challenging 110km course with 1,500m of climbing. Despite a stacked UCI 1.1 field, the team remained composed, with Morven Yeoman finishing a strong 23rd, just 35 seconds off the winner, earning valuable UCI points. Day two of racing brought another tough course with repeated climbs. Tiffany Keep led the team in 26th, with Natalie Grinczer finishing in the same group.

A week later, attention turned to the Lincoln Grand Prix, a highlight of the National Series calendar. Under sunny skies, riders faced 100km of relentless laps featuring the steep, cobbled Michaelgate climb. Early in the race, Tammy Miller made it into the day’s first breakaway, giving the team a strategic advantage and forcing other teams to do the chasing. The pace remained high with constant attacks, and on the final lap, a decisive break of five formed. Robyn Clay, a former Lincoln winner, was part of the move and sprinted to 4th place, securing the National Series lead—a standout result on a tough and exciting day of racing.

A couple days after the Lincoln GP, the team travelled to the Czech Republic to race the Tour de Feminin (15th-18th of May). The race consisted of four challenging stages, totalling in 349.3km across the week. The opening stage was a 12.6km team time trial, the wet weather conditions on the day made the course slippy. It is very important to take this into account when taking corners at high speeds. Although it is not ideal to be cautious and slow down when you are racing the clock. In spite of the poor weather conditions the team rode to an impressive 5th place in a time of 19:22, just 42 seconds off of the race leaders and best British team. The second stage started and finished in Krásná Lípa. The riders tackled a brutal 2,300m+ of climbing across 121.5km of racing, arguably the toughest stage of the tour. The race was won by a rider in a small group sprint of 20 riders with the team's best result of 23rd place by Lucy Lee, finishing just 20 seconds off of the leading group. The 110.7km stage 3 started and finished in Rumburk taking the riders over 1,500m of climbing. The race lit up for the team when Robyn Clay attacked the peloton with just over 20km of racing left. Two other British continental riders from team Handsling Alba and CJ O’Shea joined Robyn in the breakaway. The trio stayed clear of the peloton until the finish pulling out 55 seconds from the peloton. Robyn used her ferocious sprinting power to storm to victory out-sprinting her fellow breakaway compatriots. Leading the peloton home, Tiffany Keep cleaned up the bunch sprint and bagged 4th place on the stage. A successful day for the team.

Additionally, a back-to-back victorious weekend for Robyn following obtaining the National series leaders jersey at Lincoln GP proving that “she is not back, she's better” after having achilles tendonitis at the beginning of the season. The Final stage of the Tour closed out with a 104.5km stage with over 1,900m of climbing on a point-to-point course from Varnsdorf to Krásná Lípa . The team worked as a unit to help Lucy finish the stage in 16th, with the leading group on the same time as the winner. This result rounded out a solid race for Lucy after securing consistently high results on every stage making her team's highest rider in the general classification with 12th overall.

Lizi Brooke was also flying the flag on the gravel at the demanding Gralloch in Scotland. Tackling a brutal course that opened with a 6km climb followed by 100km of relentless rolling hills, Lizi delivered a standout performance to finish 4th against a strong field. Her strong result means she has now qualified for the Gravel World Championships later this year in Limburg.

We’re looking ahead to an incredibly busy June, arguably our busiest and biggest month to date. We’ll be travelling to Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and of course, back home for the Tour of Britain Women. Stay tuned!

Cor Vos Agency

Tour de Feminin