On the banks of the Thames in Putney, Rowan Baker is poised at the brink of a career-defining season with Raptor Factory Racing. After battling uncertainty from Saint Piran's sudden collapse, Baker's relentless determination and standout early performances hint at a breakthrough year ahead.
On the banks of the Thames in Putney, the Clubhouse hums with early spring energy. Outside, lycra-clad characters mingle by a newly-wrapped team car, assembling for photos. It’s team launch day for Raptor Factory Racing, and amid the select throng, Rowan Baker stands in new team kit, absorbing the scene. Just months ago, the 23-year-old’s racing career was adrift; today he is all smiles but visibly intent, a young man on the verge of a pivotal season.
That Baker is here at all, grinning in Raptor white, is a quirk of fate. This time last spring he was announcing his arrival as a new recruit for Saint Piran, one of only two UK UCI Continental teams at the time, with a thumping win at the East Cleveland Classic. Baker continued expanding on his potential after that win, learning the ropes in his first UCI road races, winning the Under-23 Open National Road Series, securing victories at the 360 Tour of the Northwest and the Victor Berlemont Trophy, culminating in a strong performance at the Tour of Britain Men. Baker’s consistent performances across the season – his first at UCI Continental level since stepping from the London Dynamo Race Team – marked him as a standout talent.
The week after Saint Piran folded, it was just… I didn’t train for a week. I didn’t know what I was going to do
But when Saint Piran abruptly folded in late November, Baker’s best-laid plans unravelled. “The week after Saint Piran folded, it was just… I didn’t train for a week. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he recalls candidly. For a few disconsolate days, he was a talent without a team – potential blossoming, calendar empty. Then a lifeline appeared. Baker got talking with David Streule, a London cycling figure assembling a new elite team. Streule’s proposition was modest but clear: Raptor Factory Racing, a small London-based outfit, would put together funding and entries to deliver the one thing Baker needed most: race days. “He was like, what do you need from a team? I was just like, I need UCI race days,” Baker says of that critical conversation. Streule delivered. He pulled in a few other stranded talents – fellow Saint Piran refugees like Dylan Hicks and Brad Symonds – and suddenly Baker had a new home.
Rowan Baker (left) at the Raptor Factory Racing team launch. Image: Mark James
Raptor launched earlier this year with just eight riders, big on heart and ambition if short on budget. Baker admits this wasn’t where he expected to find himself: a fledgling team, a step down in support. But rather than sulk, he reframed 2025 as an all-or-nothing gamble. “I sort of look at it as this is my first year out of under-23, so if I’m going to make it professional, it’s either probably this year or maybe next,” he explains.
This is my first year out of under-23, so if I’m going to make it professional, it’s either probably this year or maybe next
At 23, he knows the clock is ticking. “After that, once you’re 25 plus, unless you’re winning big races, no pro team is really that interested… So, yeah, it’s sort of all in for this year.” The phrase comes out steady and matter-of-fact, but you can sense the weight behind it. This season isn’t just another campaign; it could decide whether his pro dream fades or finally catches fire.
If there’s pressure in that realisation, Baker wears it lightly. Training full-time now – “like I was last year. I do some part-time work, but principally I’m training full-time” – he has structured his entire life around making these next races count. A training camp in Spain, countless solo hours on Norfolk lanes, careful tapering for key targets: everything is oriented toward delivering results that might turn heads beyond Britain. In a way, the low-stakes environment of a club team has freed him. “We’re doing the best with what we’ve got,” he says about Raptor’s humble programme. No fancy bus, no salaries – but no distraction either. Baker knows exactly what he’s riding for this year, and that clarity is its own kind of motivation.
Baker at the 2025 Jock Wadley Memorial. Image: Mark James
If the winter was fraught, the early season has brought validation. Baker’s form flickered to life in the opening races on home roads, as if to signal that he belongs at the front, team or no team. It began in February at the Portsdown Classic, Britain’s traditional season opener, where rotten luck struck: a puncture ended his day early. A few weeks later came the Jock Wadley Memorial. Baker felt strong but found himself closely watched. With the course pancake-flat and no wind to split the bunch, every move he made was marked by rivals – a backhanded compliment, proof that his 2024 exploits put a target on his back. “It’s hard to get separation when you’re heavily marked,” he notes of that frustrating day.
It’s hard to get separation when you’re heavily marked
But Baker didn’t have to wait long to truly flex his legs. In March, under the bleak peaks of Yorkshire, he lined up at the Peaks Two-Day, a hilly stage race tailor-made for a rider with something to prove. There, on a windswept moorland circuit, Baker let fly. The decisive move came on the final stage: “It all came together how I wanted it… I was able to get away solo and felt great, just pushing on quicker than everyone else,” he says, the satisfaction still fresh in his voice. With a powerful solo break, Baker rode clear to victory – dropping the entire field, finishing an incredible four and a half minutes clear, confirming his place as one of the strongest men in the domestic peloton. The image of him standing just over the finish line, bike held aloft, spoke volumes: Rowan Baker was back at the front, and on his day, unstoppable.
That spring success was more than just another win; it was a badly needed confidence boost. Baker knows these domestic victories are stepping stones – essential, but not sufficient alone to reach the next level. Still, every podium, every solo win builds his case. It also steels him for the bigger tests on the horizon. Standing inside the Clubhouse, he talks through his race schedule with a mix of enthusiasm and steeliness. Next up is the East Cleveland Classic, a special race for Baker.
I’d obviously still like to win there again
Last year, clad in Saint Piran’s black, he seized a stunning solo victory atop Saltburn Bank, announcing himself as a star of the national series. Now he returns as the defending champion – and a litmus test. “I’d obviously still like to win there again,” he says with a determined grin. Early April might not find him at absolute peak fitness – “I might be ten watts off where I want to be”, he laughs – but he refuses to treat the race as a mere training exercise. “I’m not going to be doing a six-hour ride the day before… It’s going to be taken seriously. It’s a Nat A at the end of the day,” Baker insists. The East Cleveland Classic is the first National A of the year – the first time all the big domestic hitters line up together – and Baker relishes the chance to gauge himself against everyone. This is where he’ll find out.
In the UK peloton, Baker’s rise has not gone unnoticed. With Saint Piran’s demise, the domestic racing scene has lost its lone kingpin; there is no single team to boss the races anymore. Raptor and a few other squads – Wheelbase, Foran, Muc-Off – now share the mantle of favourites. It’s a dynamic Baker understands from both sides. Last season, as part of a Conti team, he often felt the bunch’s eyes on his jersey. Now, as just one strong rider among many, he expects a more free-for-all dynamic. “It’ll be interesting to see. We’ll obviously be looked at more, but you’ve just got to adapt… It’ll be a lot more up for grabs, basically,” he says of the new order. In practical terms, that means aggressive, chaotic racing – exactly the kind of scenario a rider like Baker can exploit. If no team has numbers to control the peloton, a well-timed attack by a powerhouse engine could stick. The Peaks raid was proof enough: give him an inch, and he’ll go alone.
2024 East Cleveland Classic. Rowan Baker wins. Image: Andrew Smith/SWpix.com
But pulling off big wins also requires tactical maturity, something Baker is fast developing. Raptor’s manager Streule describes him as “tactically calm” – not a rider who panics when races explode. That composure comes in part from hard lessons learned in UCI races last year. As a UCI Continental rookie in 2024, Baker got his first taste of racing abroad: one-day races in Belgium, stage races in Europe, even a ride in the Tour of Britain. “I learned a huge amount,” he reflects. Feeding from the team car, fighting for position, mastering crosswinds – it was baptism by fire. In Northern Europe’s gutter crosswinds, he discovered how many Brits “have no idea which side to be on”; he was dropped a few times before figuring it out. But figure it out he did. “Hopefully this year is less of a learning experience on that front and more just cracking on trying to win,” Baker says. In other words, no longer content merely to survive in UCI races, he’s aiming to thrive – to convert that knowledge into results.
His opportunities to do so will be limited, which circles back to the pressure weighing on 2025. Raptor’s race calendar is ambitious but lean: a few domestic National Series races and select UCI events. Baker has circled the Rutland-Melton CiCLE Classic, Britain’s notoriously gruelling one-day UCI race in late April, as a major goal. A week later comes a block of European UCI 1.2 races in early May, and possibly a UCI stage race in Poland in June. More UCI races may be added to the calendar but Baker knows that each start line is a chance to impress scouts and sponsors – and there won’t be many. “It does add an element of pressure,” he admits. In a full pro team with a packed calendar, a bad day is easier to shrug off, knowing another opportunity is around the corner.
There is more pressure… but hopefully I can perform under it and it’s not an issue
For Baker, every UCI day is precious. There’s no hiding the stakes: deliver now, or maybe never. Does he feel that weight? He pauses, choosing words carefully. “There is more pressure… but hopefully I can perform under it and it’s not an issue,” he says finally. He knows fortune also plays its part – “a lot of cycling is luck”, as he sagely notes – crashes, illness, timing, they all matter. Baker’s approach is to control what he can and not dwell on what he can’t. “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen,” he says with a philosophical tilt of the head, “I’ve been given the best opportunity I’m going to get from a team… I really haven’t been able to do much more so far with what I’ve got”. In that pragmatic resignation, there’s a hint of both confidence and caution: he’s doing everything possible, but he won’t be crushed if fate has other ideas.
Baker being interviewed at the Raptor Factory Racing team launch. Image: Mark James
Spend any time with Rowan Baker and one thing becomes clear: he genuinely loves the grind of cycling. This isn’t an all-or-nothing year out of desperation, but out of passion. Just two years ago, Baker was still a relative newcomer to top-level racing, a former rower with a huge engine and an even bigger appetite to improve. (His backstory is now well-known on the UK scene: a rowing talent sidelined by a heart scare, he pivoted to bike racing in 2021 and found his true calling.) In a 2023 interview with The British Continental, Baker revealed that unlike rowing – which at times he pursued simply because he was good at it – cycling gave him a purer joy. “To be honest, I enjoyed the sport a lot more than I enjoyed rowing… I liked riding my bike, winning or losing,” he reflected then.
Success? I guess… if I leave everything out there. If I know I’ve done all I can. And maybe win a big one
Inside the Clubhouse, with the Raptor team launch winding down, the conversation turns to what success would look like for him by season’s end. He pauses. “Success? Hard to say,” he replies thoughtfully. “I guess… if I leave everything out there. If I know I’ve done all I can. And maybe win a big one.” He flashes a grin. Win a big one. It hangs in the air – tantalising, within reach, yet uncertain. This year is his race to win, or lose.
On the banks of the Thames in Putney, the Clubhouse hums with early spring energy. Outside, lycra-clad characters mingle by a newly-wrapped team car, assembling for photos. It’s team launch day for Raptor Factory Racing, and amid the select throng, Rowan Baker stands in new team kit, absorbing the scene. Just months ago, the 23-year-old’s racing career was adrift; today he is all smiles but visibly intent, a young man on the verge of a pivotal season.
That Baker is here at all, grinning in Raptor white, is a quirk of fate. This time last spring he was announcing his arrival as a new recruit for Saint Piran, one of only two UK UCI Continental teams at the time, with a thumping win at the East Cleveland Classic. Baker continued expanding on his potential after that win, learning the ropes in his first UCI road races, winning the Under-23 Open National Road Series, securing victories at the 360 Tour of the Northwest and the Victor Berlemont Trophy, culminating in a strong performance at the Tour of Britain Men. Baker’s consistent performances across the season – his first at UCI Continental level since stepping from the London Dynamo Race Team – marked him as a standout talent.
But when Saint Piran abruptly folded in late November, Baker’s best-laid plans unravelled. “The week after Saint Piran folded, it was just… I didn’t train for a week. I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he recalls candidly. For a few disconsolate days, he was a talent without a team – potential blossoming, calendar empty. Then a lifeline appeared. Baker got talking with David Streule, a London cycling figure assembling a new elite team. Streule’s proposition was modest but clear: Raptor Factory Racing, a small London-based outfit, would put together funding and entries to deliver the one thing Baker needed most: race days. “He was like, what do you need from a team? I was just like, I need UCI race days,” Baker says of that critical conversation. Streule delivered. He pulled in a few other stranded talents – fellow Saint Piran refugees like Dylan Hicks and Brad Symonds – and suddenly Baker had a new home.
Raptor launched earlier this year with just eight riders, big on heart and ambition if short on budget. Baker admits this wasn’t where he expected to find himself: a fledgling team, a step down in support. But rather than sulk, he reframed 2025 as an all-or-nothing gamble. “I sort of look at it as this is my first year out of under-23, so if I’m going to make it professional, it’s either probably this year or maybe next,” he explains.
At 23, he knows the clock is ticking. “After that, once you’re 25 plus, unless you’re winning big races, no pro team is really that interested… So, yeah, it’s sort of all in for this year.” The phrase comes out steady and matter-of-fact, but you can sense the weight behind it. This season isn’t just another campaign; it could decide whether his pro dream fades or finally catches fire.
If there’s pressure in that realisation, Baker wears it lightly. Training full-time now – “like I was last year. I do some part-time work, but principally I’m training full-time” – he has structured his entire life around making these next races count. A training camp in Spain, countless solo hours on Norfolk lanes, careful tapering for key targets: everything is oriented toward delivering results that might turn heads beyond Britain. In a way, the low-stakes environment of a club team has freed him. “We’re doing the best with what we’ve got,” he says about Raptor’s humble programme. No fancy bus, no salaries – but no distraction either. Baker knows exactly what he’s riding for this year, and that clarity is its own kind of motivation.
If the winter was fraught, the early season has brought validation. Baker’s form flickered to life in the opening races on home roads, as if to signal that he belongs at the front, team or no team. It began in February at the Portsdown Classic, Britain’s traditional season opener, where rotten luck struck: a puncture ended his day early. A few weeks later came the Jock Wadley Memorial. Baker felt strong but found himself closely watched. With the course pancake-flat and no wind to split the bunch, every move he made was marked by rivals – a backhanded compliment, proof that his 2024 exploits put a target on his back. “It’s hard to get separation when you’re heavily marked,” he notes of that frustrating day.
But Baker didn’t have to wait long to truly flex his legs. In March, under the bleak peaks of Yorkshire, he lined up at the Peaks Two-Day, a hilly stage race tailor-made for a rider with something to prove. There, on a windswept moorland circuit, Baker let fly. The decisive move came on the final stage: “It all came together how I wanted it… I was able to get away solo and felt great, just pushing on quicker than everyone else,” he says, the satisfaction still fresh in his voice. With a powerful solo break, Baker rode clear to victory – dropping the entire field, finishing an incredible four and a half minutes clear, confirming his place as one of the strongest men in the domestic peloton. The image of him standing just over the finish line, bike held aloft, spoke volumes: Rowan Baker was back at the front, and on his day, unstoppable.
That spring success was more than just another win; it was a badly needed confidence boost. Baker knows these domestic victories are stepping stones – essential, but not sufficient alone to reach the next level. Still, every podium, every solo win builds his case. It also steels him for the bigger tests on the horizon. Standing inside the Clubhouse, he talks through his race schedule with a mix of enthusiasm and steeliness. Next up is the East Cleveland Classic, a special race for Baker.
Last year, clad in Saint Piran’s black, he seized a stunning solo victory atop Saltburn Bank, announcing himself as a star of the national series. Now he returns as the defending champion – and a litmus test. “I’d obviously still like to win there again,” he says with a determined grin. Early April might not find him at absolute peak fitness – “I might be ten watts off where I want to be”, he laughs – but he refuses to treat the race as a mere training exercise. “I’m not going to be doing a six-hour ride the day before… It’s going to be taken seriously. It’s a Nat A at the end of the day,” Baker insists. The East Cleveland Classic is the first National A of the year – the first time all the big domestic hitters line up together – and Baker relishes the chance to gauge himself against everyone. This is where he’ll find out.
In the UK peloton, Baker’s rise has not gone unnoticed. With Saint Piran’s demise, the domestic racing scene has lost its lone kingpin; there is no single team to boss the races anymore. Raptor and a few other squads – Wheelbase, Foran, Muc-Off – now share the mantle of favourites. It’s a dynamic Baker understands from both sides. Last season, as part of a Conti team, he often felt the bunch’s eyes on his jersey. Now, as just one strong rider among many, he expects a more free-for-all dynamic. “It’ll be interesting to see. We’ll obviously be looked at more, but you’ve just got to adapt… It’ll be a lot more up for grabs, basically,” he says of the new order. In practical terms, that means aggressive, chaotic racing – exactly the kind of scenario a rider like Baker can exploit. If no team has numbers to control the peloton, a well-timed attack by a powerhouse engine could stick. The Peaks raid was proof enough: give him an inch, and he’ll go alone.
But pulling off big wins also requires tactical maturity, something Baker is fast developing. Raptor’s manager Streule describes him as “tactically calm” – not a rider who panics when races explode. That composure comes in part from hard lessons learned in UCI races last year. As a UCI Continental rookie in 2024, Baker got his first taste of racing abroad: one-day races in Belgium, stage races in Europe, even a ride in the Tour of Britain. “I learned a huge amount,” he reflects. Feeding from the team car, fighting for position, mastering crosswinds – it was baptism by fire. In Northern Europe’s gutter crosswinds, he discovered how many Brits “have no idea which side to be on”; he was dropped a few times before figuring it out. But figure it out he did. “Hopefully this year is less of a learning experience on that front and more just cracking on trying to win,” Baker says. In other words, no longer content merely to survive in UCI races, he’s aiming to thrive – to convert that knowledge into results.
His opportunities to do so will be limited, which circles back to the pressure weighing on 2025. Raptor’s race calendar is ambitious but lean: a few domestic National Series races and select UCI events. Baker has circled the Rutland-Melton CiCLE Classic, Britain’s notoriously gruelling one-day UCI race in late April, as a major goal. A week later comes a block of European UCI 1.2 races in early May, and possibly a UCI stage race in Poland in June. More UCI races may be added to the calendar but Baker knows that each start line is a chance to impress scouts and sponsors – and there won’t be many. “It does add an element of pressure,” he admits. In a full pro team with a packed calendar, a bad day is easier to shrug off, knowing another opportunity is around the corner.
For Baker, every UCI day is precious. There’s no hiding the stakes: deliver now, or maybe never. Does he feel that weight? He pauses, choosing words carefully. “There is more pressure… but hopefully I can perform under it and it’s not an issue,” he says finally. He knows fortune also plays its part – “a lot of cycling is luck”, as he sagely notes – crashes, illness, timing, they all matter. Baker’s approach is to control what he can and not dwell on what he can’t. “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen,” he says with a philosophical tilt of the head, “I’ve been given the best opportunity I’m going to get from a team… I really haven’t been able to do much more so far with what I’ve got”. In that pragmatic resignation, there’s a hint of both confidence and caution: he’s doing everything possible, but he won’t be crushed if fate has other ideas.
Spend any time with Rowan Baker and one thing becomes clear: he genuinely loves the grind of cycling. This isn’t an all-or-nothing year out of desperation, but out of passion. Just two years ago, Baker was still a relative newcomer to top-level racing, a former rower with a huge engine and an even bigger appetite to improve. (His backstory is now well-known on the UK scene: a rowing talent sidelined by a heart scare, he pivoted to bike racing in 2021 and found his true calling.) In a 2023 interview with The British Continental, Baker revealed that unlike rowing – which at times he pursued simply because he was good at it – cycling gave him a purer joy. “To be honest, I enjoyed the sport a lot more than I enjoyed rowing… I liked riding my bike, winning or losing,” he reflected then.
Inside the Clubhouse, with the Raptor team launch winding down, the conversation turns to what success would look like for him by season’s end. He pauses. “Success? Hard to say,” he replies thoughtfully. “I guess… if I leave everything out there. If I know I’ve done all I can. And maybe win a big one.” He flashes a grin. Win a big one. It hangs in the air – tantalising, within reach, yet uncertain. This year is his race to win, or lose.
Featured image: Mark James
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