A new British elite team is seeking £50,000 in sponsorship to help its riders pursue their goals in European competition.
South London-based Raptor Factory Racing has qualified former St Pirans players Rowan Baker, Dylan Hicks and Bradley Symonds, This follows the closure of their former team last fall.
The team aims to compete in a series of major national A and B competitions domestically, while also setting its sights on several races on the African continent. The Raptor is backed by the Putney-based start-up bike brand of the same name, but lacks significant sponsorship elsewhere.
Team owner David Struhl told Cycling Weekly He is enthusiastic about the project after receiving a large number of rider applications, but says the team will need significant investment to help them move forward into 2025.
He said: “We would love to go on a few overseas trips but they really depend on finding more money. I don’t want to overpromise and underdeliver and I realize to do that it will take a big sponsor and we have seen To other teams trying to do it on Peanuts, it just pisses people off.”
“If someone comes to us with £50, I’ll put their name on the jersey,” he added. “I would give them partial naming rights to the team. That would be enough for us to take five international trips this year.”
(Image source: Raptor Bikes)
Streule explained that the project started out fairly low-key, but that changed when Saint Piran and Trinity Racing closed.
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“All of a sudden, all of our riders are available and it’s become bigger and better than we could have hoped or believed,” he said. “I think my concern is that I now have all these great riders “
Several World Tour racers have previously spent time at both St. Piran and Trinity. EF Education-EasyPost’s Jack Rootkin-Gray spent more than a year at Saint Piran and riders including Tom Pidcock, Ben Healy, Thomas Gloag and Luke Lamperti have all raced in Trinity.
Struer said that over time he hopes his project can become a new stop for rising stars of the World Tour to ride and start their careers in the UK. He also expressed frustration that a team like Trinity can’t get support from the top of the pyramid heading into the new year, given the team’s past history.
“This is actually a new Trinity or Saint Piran that we hope to develop, which is actually a development team of one of the larger professional teams. How much does it cost to let me do a little better,” he said. There isn’t much of a game plan that can be promised at the moment.
“It makes no sense that so many promising riders in the UK have nowhere to go and no help.”
“I just feel like, people like Ineos, they’re giving money to some German Conti team or other development teams, I just don’t understand why they can’t come to some kind of agreement with Trinity and help fund Trinity,” he added.
