Second year, serious intentions: Elijah Kwon and the team redefining Scottish men’s road racing
In his first season, Elijah Kwon set out to give young Scottish riders somewhere to race. Twelve months and forty applicants later, Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT arrive at Gifford on Saturday with a fully Scottish roster, UCI racing on three continents, and ambitions that have long since outgrown the student project they started as.
Elijah Kwon spent a significant part of last winter writing emails to bike companies. The response was consistent, if not especially encouraging. Come back when you’re Continental.
“Even if you’re doing the same races and getting the same results,” he explains, “they want that Conti badge so they can say they’re being ridden by a professional team.” Kwon, who founded Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT ahead of the 2025 season, is matter-of-fact about it. There is no bitterness in the way he says it – it is simply how things work, and he has learned to work around it.
Now into his second season, the picture is more complete than it was twelve months ago. Forty applications arrived over the winter for a squad that started life with six riders. Thirteen have been signed for 2026. A title sponsor that looked certain in January fell through – expectations on both sides too far apart, Kwon the one who ultimately walked away – but Edinburgh Bike Fitting have stayed on board, DM Hall Surveyors have increased their contribution, and a Chinese helmet brand, PMT, have come in as the team’s only cycling-specific partner giving both product and money.
We’ve stepped up the budget a little bit. Not massively. But we’re in a better position than we were
“We’ve stepped up the budget a little bit,” he says. “Not massively. But we’re in a better position than we were.”
The size of the squad brings its own pressure. Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT will field 12 of their 13 riders at the Gifford Road Race on Saturday – the opening round of the Alba Road Series and, for all practical purposes, the team’s season debut. “It’ll either be a great day,” Kwon says, “or anything less than a great day will be a disappointment.”
He means it literally. With 12 riders in the race, the expectation is not just to be competitive but to win. Kwon is candid about what the numbers demand. “If the first two riders across the line are not from our team, then we’ve made a mistake racing,” he says. Last year, at the Drummond Trophy, the team went third, fifth, and sixth. “That was different,” he acknowledges, “because John Archibald is in a different league to the rest of us, really.” At Gifford, with a full squad, there will be no such mitigation available.
“We’ll be nervous,” he admits. “Nerve-wracking, for sure.”
Elijah Kwon. Image: supplied
A fuller squad
When The British Continentalspoke to Kwon a year ago, Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT was a six-rider student project filling a gap left by the closure of The Cycling Academy – a deliberately low-cost setup, built around the academic calendar, focused on keeping young Scottish talent in the race. The 40 applications that landed over the winter told Kwon something had shifted. This year, riders were coming to them. The 13 signed for 2026 are not all students – the squad is now roughly half and half – and the student-first identity that defined the team’s first year has quietly evolved into something broader. “I tried to just really select based on form,” he says, “and building a team structure that’s both enjoyable and with guys who are looking to really race abroad.”
I tried to select based on form, building a team structure that’s both enjoyable and with guys who are looking to really race abroad
The headline signings are Matti Dobbins, who joined guested for the team last year in Lithuania and won the following week – as a private member – at the Mennock Pass stage race. “I thought, right, I f***ed up there not signing him already,” Kwon jokes. Dobbins is now on the full roster and also racing for Ireland on the track – Commonwealth Games, Europeans, Worlds. “It’s nice to have a rider who’s away racing internationally,” Kwon notes. Ahron Dick has returned after a year racing in Spain. “I think he’s one of those riders who maybe struggled a bit abroad,” Kwon reflects, “with living abroad as a first-year U23 straight out of juniors.” Elliott Bain, a former Zwift Academy contender, completes the more experienced end of the roster. Liam Scott Douglas and Ciaran McSherry also join, both consistent National B performers. At the other end, Barnaby Walkingshaw – new to the sport but, in Kwon’s assessment, showing real potential – is the squad’s most speculative pick.
The core of the squad, though, are the riders who were already there. These include Kwon himself, of course, as well as Finn McHenry and 2025 Scottish road race champion Sam Chisholm.
The squad is 100% Scottish, Kwon says, and marks a step in quality and depth compared to 2025. “We’ve got some pretty good riders this year,” Kwon reflects.
Image: Tour of Kosovo
The sponsor that wasn’t
The title sponsor that collapsed in January is something Kwon is prepared to talk about, though he does so carefully. It was not a deal falling through at the last moment. It was a case of realising, once negotiations were properly underway, that the two sides wanted different things. “It was more of a mix of personal opinions and expectations from the sponsor that I just thought were far too much,” he says. “It was actually me who stepped out of it.”
It is a version of something that has become familiar across domestic cycling in recent years – the long approach, the promising conversations, the yes that does not quite hold. Kwon has moved on. Edinburgh Bike Fitting remain as title sponsor. DM Hall Surveyors are back on the sleeves. Cycle Law Scotland and Highlands Transfers have come on board, and Kwon himself has set up a small custom kit brand, Proton Lab, to cover the team’s kit requirements. PMT, the helmet company, are the one partner providing both product and cash.
“There’s hardly any teams in the UK who get bikes,” he says. “How many teams have a bike sponsor that gives them bikes?” He went looking abroad, he explains, on the basis that that is where the money is. Most came back with interest, and then a condition. The UCI Continental badge, not the racing, is what they are buying.
It is a closed loop, and Kwon knows it. The commercial support that would help the team grow is contingent on a status the team does not yet have. In the meantime, he is building with what is available – Scottish sponsors, a helmet deal, a kit brand he runs himself – and treating the constraint as a fixed feature of the landscape rather than a problem with a near-term solution.
The geography problem
Kwon is thoughtful when the conversation turns to domestic ambitions. He thinks Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT can finish the season in the top five to seven of domestic team, can be competitive at National A level, and is hopeful of coming away with at least one podium from the National Road or Circuit Series. “The first race Matti raced for us in 2025, he was fifth at Colne,” he notes. But he is also alert to a structural problem that sits behind any simple comparison of results.
“When you look at the points, it changes a lot,” he says. “Guys like RideRevolution are racing every single National B in England with four to six guys. But guys in Scotland just don’t get the chance to race.” A Scottish rider accumulating points for their category licence is doing so against a smaller pool of available races. The comparison with a southern-based team that can field a full squad at every weekend fixture is, Kwon suggests, not quite apples and apples.
I want to be one of the teams that gets mentioned, gets watched, week in week out, especially at the National Series later in the season
It is a structural disadvantage that Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT cannot resolve, only navigate. The plan is to be present at the key domestic races later in the season, to make sure the team is seen and counted at the events that matter for rankings and reputation. “I want to be one of the teams that gets mentioned, gets watched, week in week out,” he says, “especially at the National Series later in the season.”
Image: Tour of Guizhou Eco-Province
Home and away
The foreign programme is, if anything, more ambitious than last year, and Kwon has learned from experience which races are worth the investment. Lithuania is likely to return – “it’s a high-quality field,” he says – a race the team has now attended, knows how to prepare for, and where their credibility as a club team doing serious UCI racing was established. The prospect of Belgian and French 1.2s is on the radar, dependent on invites, though Kwon is clear-eyed about the financial reality. “The 2.2s in France don’t have any obligation to give start money or subsidise hotels for club teams,” he says, “which makes it really expensive.” The races that subsidise travel – further afield, in Eastern Europe or Asia – become attractive precisely because the economics work.
We picked up more prize money than we spent on it. The racing is high quality. You get massive fields. People come to watch
China is the clearest example. Kwon took four riders to a national-level race in October and came back ahead of budget despite the flights. “We picked up more prize money than we spent on it,” he says. “The racing is high quality. You get massive fields. People come to watch.” Fifteen Continental teams and three national teams in a field that would dwarf anything on the British domestic calendar. “It’s just about looking at the quality of racing,” he says. Late-season stage races in Kosovo, Armenia, or Romania occupy the same bracket – good competition, manageable costs, the kind of experience that develops younger riders in ways a National B cannot.
Closer to home, the Rás Tailteann is under consideration depending on whether the team can field a complete squad. The CiCLE Classic is a target, though one that will require difficult decisions – 13 riders, four available spots, and a race that demands experience of sustained, aggressive road racing over a long day. “Everyone wants to do it,” Kwon says simply. The City of London Nocturne holds particular appeal, both for Kwon personally and for what it represents in terms of exposure. “We do need that sort of stuff for teams to get a bit of visibility,” he says – the kind of race that puts a kit in front of cameras and reminds sponsors that the investment has a public face.
Image: Campbell David Parker
The crit versus road balance runs through all of it. Kwon has developed, in his own assessment, into a sprinter and an able criterium rider – at home in the fast, tactical racing the National Circuit Series demands. That series is a genuine focus for 2026. But road racing remains the collective priority, and he is not asking riders who are built for five-hour days to reorient themselves around sixty-minute crits. “Not everyone feels they can compete” in that format, he says. Training for an hour full gas and training for a four-day stage race are, as he puts it, physiologically quite different propositions. The squad is broad enough, this year, to point people at the races that suit them. That, more than any single result, is what thirteen riders actually buys.
Rider, manager, sports director
Managing a team while racing for it is a balancing act Kwon describes plainly, though the plainness of the description should not obscure what it actually involves. “There are all these little things you’ve got to manage,” he says. “Riders have to be managed. Sponsor relations, finding sponsors – there is a significant amount of stuff that just pops up throughout the week.” He is still at university, working through the coursework phase of the academic year alongside a race programme that is expanding in almost every direction. At some point, something has to give.
When we’re going abroad, there’s a lot of work I’m putting in before the race, at the race, speaking with the organisers. I’m the one going to the race briefings, speaking to the riders
In the UK, he says, it is manageable. Domestic races do not demand the same logistical overhead; he can show up, race, and deal with whatever needs dealing with around the edges. It is abroad where the weight of the dual role becomes harder to carry. “When we’re going abroad, there’s a lot of work I’m putting in before the race, at the race, speaking with the organisers,” he says. “I’m the one going to the race briefings, speaking to the riders.” Then, having absorbed the race plan and communicated it to the squad, he lines up with them. “There have been times where it is hard,” he admits. “If I’m asking the riders to ride for our GC guy, I’ve also got to be there putting my head down.”
The team car is its own illustration of how this works in practice. In each of last year’s three foreign stage races, a different volunteer took the wheel – none of them having navigated a race convoy before. Kwon was not in the car for any of them. “It’s the same way that other domestic teams do it,” he says. “You’re just relying on family, friends, guys in your community to help out.”
Image: Campbell David Parker
The juggling act is one that has given him a sharper respect for domestic team managers. “Respect to all the other guys who are doing it,” he says, “especially those that are doing it without being a rider or a parent of a rider themselves.”
Respect to all the other guys who are doing it, especially those that are doing it without being a rider or a parent of a rider themselves
He is trying, this year, to distribute responsibility more deliberately. Running a 13-rider squad as a sole operator is not sustainable, and Kwon knows it. “I’d say it’s 50/50 now,” he says of the management split. “I’ve been trying to hand out roles to the guys this year. As we sort of develop, I can pick out guys who I know, if I ask them to take some responsibility, they’ll be able to do it.” The team is big enough, now, to have internal structure – people who can take ownership of specific tasks without everything flowing back through Kwon.
The relationships question – whether managing friends creates friction, whether the authority required to run a team sits awkwardly alongside the camaraderie required to race in one – is something he thinks about, even if it has not yet become a significant problem. “I’ve not had any significant issues personally,” he says, “but it’s always something that’s factoring into my thoughts.” The team dynamic matters to him beyond the obvious social reasons. “The team gets along really well,” he says, “which is really important to how we race as well.” A squad that trusts each other in the bunch is a different proposition to one that does not.
Selection is where the tension is most likely to surface. With 13 riders and four spots available for CiCLE, decisions will have to be made in the next fortnight. “Everyone wants to do it,” he says simply. His criteria are form and suitability for the parcours – and, for a race where 180 kilometres is a different story to a two-hour National B, a lean towards those who have been in that situation before. “Even if you’re really good in a two-hour road race,” he says, “being good for 180 is a different story.” Someone will miss out. That is, increasingly, what running a team that people actually want to ride for looks like.
Year two
A year ago, Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT was an idea between friends with a matching kit and a small pot of money. Now there are 13 riders, 40 applicants turned away, a race programme stretching to China, National Series podium ambitions and a kit brand Kwon has created himself. The team has a come a long way.
On Saturday at Gifford, with 12 riders on the start line and a squad good enough that anything short of a win will feel like underperformance, he will begin to find out what year two is actually worth.
Elijah Kwon spent a significant part of last winter writing emails to bike companies. The response was consistent, if not especially encouraging. Come back when you’re Continental.
“Even if you’re doing the same races and getting the same results,” he explains, “they want that Conti badge so they can say they’re being ridden by a professional team.” Kwon, who founded Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT ahead of the 2025 season, is matter-of-fact about it. There is no bitterness in the way he says it – it is simply how things work, and he has learned to work around it.
Now into his second season, the picture is more complete than it was twelve months ago. Forty applications arrived over the winter for a squad that started life with six riders. Thirteen have been signed for 2026. A title sponsor that looked certain in January fell through – expectations on both sides too far apart, Kwon the one who ultimately walked away – but Edinburgh Bike Fitting have stayed on board, DM Hall Surveyors have increased their contribution, and a Chinese helmet brand, PMT, have come in as the team’s only cycling-specific partner giving both product and money.
“We’ve stepped up the budget a little bit,” he says. “Not massively. But we’re in a better position than we were.”
The size of the squad brings its own pressure. Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT will field 12 of their 13 riders at the Gifford Road Race on Saturday – the opening round of the Alba Road Series and, for all practical purposes, the team’s season debut. “It’ll either be a great day,” Kwon says, “or anything less than a great day will be a disappointment.”
He means it literally. With 12 riders in the race, the expectation is not just to be competitive but to win. Kwon is candid about what the numbers demand. “If the first two riders across the line are not from our team, then we’ve made a mistake racing,” he says. Last year, at the Drummond Trophy, the team went third, fifth, and sixth. “That was different,” he acknowledges, “because John Archibald is in a different league to the rest of us, really.” At Gifford, with a full squad, there will be no such mitigation available.
“We’ll be nervous,” he admits. “Nerve-wracking, for sure.”
A fuller squad
When The British Continental spoke to Kwon a year ago, Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT was a six-rider student project filling a gap left by the closure of The Cycling Academy – a deliberately low-cost setup, built around the academic calendar, focused on keeping young Scottish talent in the race. The 40 applications that landed over the winter told Kwon something had shifted. This year, riders were coming to them. The 13 signed for 2026 are not all students – the squad is now roughly half and half – and the student-first identity that defined the team’s first year has quietly evolved into something broader. “I tried to just really select based on form,” he says, “and building a team structure that’s both enjoyable and with guys who are looking to really race abroad.”
The headline signings are Matti Dobbins, who joined guested for the team last year in Lithuania and won the following week – as a private member – at the Mennock Pass stage race. “I thought, right, I f***ed up there not signing him already,” Kwon jokes. Dobbins is now on the full roster and also racing for Ireland on the track – Commonwealth Games, Europeans, Worlds. “It’s nice to have a rider who’s away racing internationally,” Kwon notes. Ahron Dick has returned after a year racing in Spain. “I think he’s one of those riders who maybe struggled a bit abroad,” Kwon reflects, “with living abroad as a first-year U23 straight out of juniors.” Elliott Bain, a former Zwift Academy contender, completes the more experienced end of the roster. Liam Scott Douglas and Ciaran McSherry also join, both consistent National B performers. At the other end, Barnaby Walkingshaw – new to the sport but, in Kwon’s assessment, showing real potential – is the squad’s most speculative pick.
The core of the squad, though, are the riders who were already there. These include Kwon himself, of course, as well as Finn McHenry and 2025 Scottish road race champion Sam Chisholm.
The squad is 100% Scottish, Kwon says, and marks a step in quality and depth compared to 2025. “We’ve got some pretty good riders this year,” Kwon reflects.
The sponsor that wasn’t
The title sponsor that collapsed in January is something Kwon is prepared to talk about, though he does so carefully. It was not a deal falling through at the last moment. It was a case of realising, once negotiations were properly underway, that the two sides wanted different things. “It was more of a mix of personal opinions and expectations from the sponsor that I just thought were far too much,” he says. “It was actually me who stepped out of it.”
It is a version of something that has become familiar across domestic cycling in recent years – the long approach, the promising conversations, the yes that does not quite hold. Kwon has moved on. Edinburgh Bike Fitting remain as title sponsor. DM Hall Surveyors are back on the sleeves. Cycle Law Scotland and Highlands Transfers have come on board, and Kwon himself has set up a small custom kit brand, Proton Lab, to cover the team’s kit requirements. PMT, the helmet company, are the one partner providing both product and cash.
“There’s hardly any teams in the UK who get bikes,” he says. “How many teams have a bike sponsor that gives them bikes?” He went looking abroad, he explains, on the basis that that is where the money is. Most came back with interest, and then a condition. The UCI Continental badge, not the racing, is what they are buying.
It is a closed loop, and Kwon knows it. The commercial support that would help the team grow is contingent on a status the team does not yet have. In the meantime, he is building with what is available – Scottish sponsors, a helmet deal, a kit brand he runs himself – and treating the constraint as a fixed feature of the landscape rather than a problem with a near-term solution.
The geography problem
Kwon is thoughtful when the conversation turns to domestic ambitions. He thinks Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT can finish the season in the top five to seven of domestic team, can be competitive at National A level, and is hopeful of coming away with at least one podium from the National Road or Circuit Series. “The first race Matti raced for us in 2025, he was fifth at Colne,” he notes. But he is also alert to a structural problem that sits behind any simple comparison of results.
“When you look at the points, it changes a lot,” he says. “Guys like RideRevolution are racing every single National B in England with four to six guys. But guys in Scotland just don’t get the chance to race.” A Scottish rider accumulating points for their category licence is doing so against a smaller pool of available races. The comparison with a southern-based team that can field a full squad at every weekend fixture is, Kwon suggests, not quite apples and apples.
It is a structural disadvantage that Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT cannot resolve, only navigate. The plan is to be present at the key domestic races later in the season, to make sure the team is seen and counted at the events that matter for rankings and reputation. “I want to be one of the teams that gets mentioned, gets watched, week in week out,” he says, “especially at the National Series later in the season.”
Home and away
The foreign programme is, if anything, more ambitious than last year, and Kwon has learned from experience which races are worth the investment. Lithuania is likely to return – “it’s a high-quality field,” he says – a race the team has now attended, knows how to prepare for, and where their credibility as a club team doing serious UCI racing was established. The prospect of Belgian and French 1.2s is on the radar, dependent on invites, though Kwon is clear-eyed about the financial reality. “The 2.2s in France don’t have any obligation to give start money or subsidise hotels for club teams,” he says, “which makes it really expensive.” The races that subsidise travel – further afield, in Eastern Europe or Asia – become attractive precisely because the economics work.
China is the clearest example. Kwon took four riders to a national-level race in October and came back ahead of budget despite the flights. “We picked up more prize money than we spent on it,” he says. “The racing is high quality. You get massive fields. People come to watch.” Fifteen Continental teams and three national teams in a field that would dwarf anything on the British domestic calendar. “It’s just about looking at the quality of racing,” he says. Late-season stage races in Kosovo, Armenia, or Romania occupy the same bracket – good competition, manageable costs, the kind of experience that develops younger riders in ways a National B cannot.
Closer to home, the Rás Tailteann is under consideration depending on whether the team can field a complete squad. The CiCLE Classic is a target, though one that will require difficult decisions – 13 riders, four available spots, and a race that demands experience of sustained, aggressive road racing over a long day. “Everyone wants to do it,” Kwon says simply. The City of London Nocturne holds particular appeal, both for Kwon personally and for what it represents in terms of exposure. “We do need that sort of stuff for teams to get a bit of visibility,” he says – the kind of race that puts a kit in front of cameras and reminds sponsors that the investment has a public face.
The crit versus road balance runs through all of it. Kwon has developed, in his own assessment, into a sprinter and an able criterium rider – at home in the fast, tactical racing the National Circuit Series demands. That series is a genuine focus for 2026. But road racing remains the collective priority, and he is not asking riders who are built for five-hour days to reorient themselves around sixty-minute crits. “Not everyone feels they can compete” in that format, he says. Training for an hour full gas and training for a four-day stage race are, as he puts it, physiologically quite different propositions. The squad is broad enough, this year, to point people at the races that suit them. That, more than any single result, is what thirteen riders actually buys.
Rider, manager, sports director
Managing a team while racing for it is a balancing act Kwon describes plainly, though the plainness of the description should not obscure what it actually involves. “There are all these little things you’ve got to manage,” he says. “Riders have to be managed. Sponsor relations, finding sponsors – there is a significant amount of stuff that just pops up throughout the week.” He is still at university, working through the coursework phase of the academic year alongside a race programme that is expanding in almost every direction. At some point, something has to give.
In the UK, he says, it is manageable. Domestic races do not demand the same logistical overhead; he can show up, race, and deal with whatever needs dealing with around the edges. It is abroad where the weight of the dual role becomes harder to carry. “When we’re going abroad, there’s a lot of work I’m putting in before the race, at the race, speaking with the organisers,” he says. “I’m the one going to the race briefings, speaking to the riders.” Then, having absorbed the race plan and communicated it to the squad, he lines up with them. “There have been times where it is hard,” he admits. “If I’m asking the riders to ride for our GC guy, I’ve also got to be there putting my head down.”
The team car is its own illustration of how this works in practice. In each of last year’s three foreign stage races, a different volunteer took the wheel – none of them having navigated a race convoy before. Kwon was not in the car for any of them. “It’s the same way that other domestic teams do it,” he says. “You’re just relying on family, friends, guys in your community to help out.”
The juggling act is one that has given him a sharper respect for domestic team managers. “Respect to all the other guys who are doing it,” he says, “especially those that are doing it without being a rider or a parent of a rider themselves.”
He is trying, this year, to distribute responsibility more deliberately. Running a 13-rider squad as a sole operator is not sustainable, and Kwon knows it. “I’d say it’s 50/50 now,” he says of the management split. “I’ve been trying to hand out roles to the guys this year. As we sort of develop, I can pick out guys who I know, if I ask them to take some responsibility, they’ll be able to do it.” The team is big enough, now, to have internal structure – people who can take ownership of specific tasks without everything flowing back through Kwon.
The relationships question – whether managing friends creates friction, whether the authority required to run a team sits awkwardly alongside the camaraderie required to race in one – is something he thinks about, even if it has not yet become a significant problem. “I’ve not had any significant issues personally,” he says, “but it’s always something that’s factoring into my thoughts.” The team dynamic matters to him beyond the obvious social reasons. “The team gets along really well,” he says, “which is really important to how we race as well.” A squad that trusts each other in the bunch is a different proposition to one that does not.
Selection is where the tension is most likely to surface. With 13 riders and four spots available for CiCLE, decisions will have to be made in the next fortnight. “Everyone wants to do it,” he says simply. His criteria are form and suitability for the parcours – and, for a race where 180 kilometres is a different story to a two-hour National B, a lean towards those who have been in that situation before. “Even if you’re really good in a two-hour road race,” he says, “being good for 180 is a different story.” Someone will miss out. That is, increasingly, what running a team that people actually want to ride for looks like.
Year two
A year ago, Edinburgh Bike Fitting RT was an idea between friends with a matching kit and a small pot of money. Now there are 13 riders, 40 applicants turned away, a race programme stretching to China, National Series podium ambitions and a kit brand Kwon has created himself. The team has a come a long way.
On Saturday at Gifford, with 12 riders on the start line and a squad good enough that anything short of a win will feel like underperformance, he will begin to find out what year two is actually worth.
Featured image: Campbell David Parker
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