2026 Florrie Newbery Classic and Andrews Trophy: preview and startlists
Essex plays host to a double-header of iconic Nat B races on Sunday 19 April as the Andrews Trophy and Florrie Newbery Classic put on a show, the latter as Round 1 of the British Women's Team Cup
This weekend, a pair of domestic road racing icons take to the roads of Essex as the Andrews Trophy and Florrie Newbery Classic put on a double-header of Nat B action – the latter also serving as the opening round of the British Women’s Team Cup.
This is our full preview, complete with route details, riders to watch, and provisional startlists for both races.
Featured image: Mark James
What is it?
The Andrews Trophy and the Florrie Newbery Classic are two distinct National B road races, run by the same club on the same day over the same course — one in the morning, open, one in the afternoon, women’s. This year, both will be broadcast live on Monument Cycling TV, which for a pair of National B races is unusual enough to be worth flagging up front.
The Andrews Trophy has roots going back to 1963, when Romford RC created it in memory of Tony Andrews — a club member and former Southend Wheeler who died from leukaemia. The trophy passed from Romford RC to Chelmer CC and eventually to Southend Wheelers, who now promote it each spring. In 2024, James Ambrose-Parish took the honours. Last year, Clay Davies won from a late, measured acceleration on the penultimate lap that rendered the chasing group powerless. He returns on Sunday as defending champion.
Credit: Mark James
The Florrie Newbery Classic is newer and still building its identity. Named after Florrie Newbery — who became Southend Wheelers’ first female member on 3 February 1937 and went on to lead club runs and serve as the club’s first female committee member — the race was inaugurated in 2024 as a Regional A event. In 2025 it stepped up to National B and took its place as Round 1 of the British Women’s Team Cup. That is its role again on Sunday: first points on the board for the 2026 series.
This season brings a structural change to the Team Cup. A new Combativity Classification awards bonus team points for breakaway racing: 100 points per rider if a move of up to eight riders holds a 30-second gap at halfway, and a further 100 points per rider if the race is won from a breakaway. The aim is to reward attacking rather than passive racing, and it could shape how teams approach a course that has historically proved selective through attrition rather than explosive climbs. Brother UK – On Form are the defending Team Cup champions, having won the 2025 series ahead of FTP – Fulfil The Potential Racing and London Academy.
Route
Both races use the same core circuit: a rolling, sinuous loop through the quiet lanes around South and East Hanningfield in Essex. The race HQ is South Hanningfield Village Hall, from which a neutralised section leads riders out to the race circuit at Pan Lane, where the racing proper begins.
The Andrews Trophy covers 117.4 kilometres; the Florrie Newbery Classic 98.8 kilometres. Neither is mountainous, but neither is it forgiving. The lanes roll persistently — barely a section that permits genuine recovery — and the course has a way of accumulating fatigue across laps that a flat circuit simply does not. Rhythm is the currency here, and the ability to disrupt it at the right moment is what tends to decide the race.
Pan Lane is the circuit’s most significant feature. It is a drag rather than a true climb, and on the first lap it passes largely without consequence. By the final circuits, when legs are heavy and the bunch has thinned, it is the natural place to probe and attack. Clay Davies exploited exactly that dynamic last year, going off the front with two laps to go and holding the gap from there. The finish arrives shortly after, on a straight that tends to reward those with something left in reserve rather than those simply holding position to the line.
Timings and coverage
The Andrews Trophy starts at 9.00, with riders expected to finish at around 12.00; the Florrie Newbery Classic begins at 14.00, with an estimated finish of 16.30. Both races are live on Monument Cycling TV — the Andrews Trophy here and the Florrie Newbery Classic here.
Riders to watch
Andrews Trophy
Clay Davies (Ride Revolution Coaching) is the rider to beat, and he is in familiar surroundings. The defending champion won here with a precise, well-timed solo move last year that caught the peloton in a moment of collective hesitation. He understands the course, understands how the race tends to develop, and arrives as the only man in the field with proof that he can win here. His 2026 season has continued in much the same vein — Davies is a perennial presence near the front end of domestic racing and remains one of the sharpest judges of when to go.
Clay Davies taking victory last year Credit: Mark James
Elliott Colyer (Aero CLCTV Race Team) is an interesting proposition without the safety net of a squad around him. The rider-entrepreneur founded Aero CLCTV earlier this season on a self-sufficient model, and his first-category standing reflects genuine ability. On a circuit where solo moves from unlikely sources can succeed — as last year proved — Colyer is exactly the kind of rider who might make the race awkward from the front.
Nathan Levitt (Foran CT) steps up fully from the Junior ranks with a point to prove. Triumph at the Junior Tour of Ireland was one of many strong results in 2025, and as he moves into the U23s this year he’s already taken top tens at the Portsdown Classic and in the GC at Dornan Rás Mumhan. Don’t count out the Foran rider as he looks to lay down a marker for his more experienced competition.
JAKROO Handsling Racing bring Thomas Heal and Conor White — the latter one of several former Muc-Off–SRCT–Storck riders dispersed across the domestic scene at the end of last season. Both are capable of featuring in the business end of a National B race, and JAKROO enter 2026 as one of the most powerful squads in the domestic Elite Development Team landscape.
Conor White at the Peak 2 Day Credit: Joe Hudson
Callum Laborde (Ornata Factory Racing) finished fifth here last year from an unattached position and will have motivation to improve on that result. And Joshua Horsfield (Cycling Sheffield), sixth at the Portsdown Classic this season, is a rider who proved in 2025 that he is always a threat at National B road race level.
Jordan Giles (DAS Richardsons) marks his first start at this race with form on his side. Despite a slightly lighter programme than some of his competition, he’s been making it count. He’s taken podiums at the Royal Navy Cup and Kennel Hill Classic, and took sixth at the always brutal East Cleveland Classic. Currently third in our National Road Race Rankings, he’ll be looking to add more points to his tally as he looks to close in on Davies.
Giles’ team-mate Olly Curd adds more firepower to the squad’s team in Essex, and with a triumphant sprint victory at the Jock Wadley marking himself out as a rider who knows how to preserve that final burst of energy, he could very well be leaving with another victory on his results sheet.
Florrie Newbery Classic
Noémie Thomson — whose solo victory here last year, in her first-ever road race, became one of the domestic season’s more memorable stories — is not in the 2026 startlist. That leaves the race without a returning individual champion to plan around, and with a field in which the hierarchy is genuinely open.
Emilia Fletcher (London Academy) arrives as the outstanding unknown quantity in the field. She won the 2026 London Academy Easter Road Race at Alconbury — in only her first National B outing — soloing clear on lap four and riding the final four laps alone after an acceleration the field could not answer. Her own assessment afterwards was disarmingly frank: a triathlon background means she defaults to time-trialling rather than racing tactically, which in that instance proved devastatingly effective. Two earlier moves had been closed down before that decisive third effort, and her ability to read her own physical state — committing only when she had genuine margin — suggests more race intelligence than a limited palmares implies. Whether London Academy can provide the same organised chase coverage they offered at Alconbury will depend on how many of their eight-rider contingent arrive in good order; regardless, Fletcher changes the calculus of this race.
Isabella Johnson (left) taking second in 2025 Credit: Mark James
Isabella Johnson (Jadan Glasdon pb Vive le Velo) has the strongest recent claim. She finished second last year, four seconds behind Thomson, after emerging as the best of the chasers when the eventual winner went up the road on the penultimate lap. An eighth place at the 2024 National Under-23 time trial championships confirms she has the engine to compete across formats; returning to the same circuit that brought out her best twelve months ago, she is tone to watch.
Amelia Staunton (Brother UK – On Form) knows this race. She finished sixth here last year as a junior, a result that would be respectable for a senior domestic rider and all the more so given her age. Now a second-category senior, a year older and with a full season of competitive racing behind her, improving on that sixth place is a realistic ambition rather than an optimistic one.
Georgina Oakley (Loughborough Lightning) has got a point to prove. After a winter and early 2026 focused on what was a successful track debut as a tandem pilot, she returns to the road with an increased appetite to continue a 2025 season which featured plenty of victories – especially on circuits. Illness led to a less than representative 45th at the East Cleveland Classic, but if she’s managed to get closer to full health, she could quite easily feature at the front.
Isabel Darvill (O’Shea Development Team) is a known quantity at this level and above. She took bronze at the 2024 National Circuit Race Championships, and has raced at Tour of Britain Women and RideLondon Classique against genuinely international fields — a register of experience that stands out in this startlist. Her 2025 season was disrupted by injury, from which she was still rebuilding; at her best she is precisely the kind of experienced, tactically astute racer that wins circuit-style events.
Hope Inglis (London Academy) is taking part in just her second race of the season, and after finishing just outside the top 20 at the Easter Road Race she’ll be wanting to keep up a positive trajectory and hit a peak in form that secured her second at the Maria Thompson last year. 18th at this race last year is a result she’ll be wanting to improve on with another season of racing under her wheels.
Georgia Huddleston (Saddle Up Frequency) just missed out on the podium at the London Academy Easter Road Race, and she’ll be wanting to put aside that disappointment to continue what has otherwise been a solid start to the season. Wins and podiums at the Regional level demonstrates she’s know what to do to get herself at the sharp-end, she just needs to make it happen again in Essex.
Ella Tandy racing for Tofauti Everyone Active in 2025. Credit: Olly Hassell/SWPix.com
Ella Tandy (Simpsons Nouvelles) could prove to be something of a dark horse. The 19-year-old continued to be a podium sitter in 2025 as she continued her trophy-filled rise from the junior ranks to the U23 level. The 2024 East Midlands Road Race champion is happy to get stuck in and force a move when needed, and has a useful turn of speed in a sprint finish.
Sophie Holmes (The Hera Project) is tackling just her third road race of the season as she gets back into the full swing of competition after a hit-and-run curtailed what was a promising 2025 with a string victories including at the Banbury Star Road Race. She’s a rider who can animate a race and will be looking for an opportunity to quickly get back into the form she was robbed of 12 months ago.
This weekend, a pair of domestic road racing icons take to the roads of Essex as the Andrews Trophy and Florrie Newbery Classic put on a double-header of Nat B action – the latter also serving as the opening round of the British Women’s Team Cup.
This is our full preview, complete with route details, riders to watch, and provisional startlists for both races.
Featured image: Mark James
What is it?
The Andrews Trophy and the Florrie Newbery Classic are two distinct National B road races, run by the same club on the same day over the same course — one in the morning, open, one in the afternoon, women’s. This year, both will be broadcast live on Monument Cycling TV, which for a pair of National B races is unusual enough to be worth flagging up front.
The Andrews Trophy has roots going back to 1963, when Romford RC created it in memory of Tony Andrews — a club member and former Southend Wheeler who died from leukaemia. The trophy passed from Romford RC to Chelmer CC and eventually to Southend Wheelers, who now promote it each spring. In 2024, James Ambrose-Parish took the honours. Last year, Clay Davies won from a late, measured acceleration on the penultimate lap that rendered the chasing group powerless. He returns on Sunday as defending champion.
The Florrie Newbery Classic is newer and still building its identity. Named after Florrie Newbery — who became Southend Wheelers’ first female member on 3 February 1937 and went on to lead club runs and serve as the club’s first female committee member — the race was inaugurated in 2024 as a Regional A event. In 2025 it stepped up to National B and took its place as Round 1 of the British Women’s Team Cup. That is its role again on Sunday: first points on the board for the 2026 series.
This season brings a structural change to the Team Cup. A new Combativity Classification awards bonus team points for breakaway racing: 100 points per rider if a move of up to eight riders holds a 30-second gap at halfway, and a further 100 points per rider if the race is won from a breakaway. The aim is to reward attacking rather than passive racing, and it could shape how teams approach a course that has historically proved selective through attrition rather than explosive climbs. Brother UK – On Form are the defending Team Cup champions, having won the 2025 series ahead of FTP – Fulfil The Potential Racing and London Academy.
Route
Both races use the same core circuit: a rolling, sinuous loop through the quiet lanes around South and East Hanningfield in Essex. The race HQ is South Hanningfield Village Hall, from which a neutralised section leads riders out to the race circuit at Pan Lane, where the racing proper begins.
The Andrews Trophy covers 117.4 kilometres; the Florrie Newbery Classic 98.8 kilometres. Neither is mountainous, but neither is it forgiving. The lanes roll persistently — barely a section that permits genuine recovery — and the course has a way of accumulating fatigue across laps that a flat circuit simply does not. Rhythm is the currency here, and the ability to disrupt it at the right moment is what tends to decide the race.
Pan Lane is the circuit’s most significant feature. It is a drag rather than a true climb, and on the first lap it passes largely without consequence. By the final circuits, when legs are heavy and the bunch has thinned, it is the natural place to probe and attack. Clay Davies exploited exactly that dynamic last year, going off the front with two laps to go and holding the gap from there. The finish arrives shortly after, on a straight that tends to reward those with something left in reserve rather than those simply holding position to the line.
Timings and coverage
The Andrews Trophy starts at 9.00, with riders expected to finish at around 12.00; the Florrie Newbery Classic begins at 14.00, with an estimated finish of 16.30. Both races are live on Monument Cycling TV — the Andrews Trophy here and the Florrie Newbery Classic here.
Riders to watch
Andrews Trophy
Clay Davies (Ride Revolution Coaching) is the rider to beat, and he is in familiar surroundings. The defending champion won here with a precise, well-timed solo move last year that caught the peloton in a moment of collective hesitation. He understands the course, understands how the race tends to develop, and arrives as the only man in the field with proof that he can win here. His 2026 season has continued in much the same vein — Davies is a perennial presence near the front end of domestic racing and remains one of the sharpest judges of when to go.
Elliott Colyer (Aero CLCTV Race Team) is an interesting proposition without the safety net of a squad around him. The rider-entrepreneur founded Aero CLCTV earlier this season on a self-sufficient model, and his first-category standing reflects genuine ability. On a circuit where solo moves from unlikely sources can succeed — as last year proved — Colyer is exactly the kind of rider who might make the race awkward from the front.
Nathan Levitt (Foran CT) steps up fully from the Junior ranks with a point to prove. Triumph at the Junior Tour of Ireland was one of many strong results in 2025, and as he moves into the U23s this year he’s already taken top tens at the Portsdown Classic and in the GC at Dornan Rás Mumhan. Don’t count out the Foran rider as he looks to lay down a marker for his more experienced competition.
JAKROO Handsling Racing bring Thomas Heal and Conor White — the latter one of several former Muc-Off–SRCT–Storck riders dispersed across the domestic scene at the end of last season. Both are capable of featuring in the business end of a National B race, and JAKROO enter 2026 as one of the most powerful squads in the domestic Elite Development Team landscape.
Callum Laborde (Ornata Factory Racing) finished fifth here last year from an unattached position and will have motivation to improve on that result. And Joshua Horsfield (Cycling Sheffield), sixth at the Portsdown Classic this season, is a rider who proved in 2025 that he is always a threat at National B road race level.
Jordan Giles (DAS Richardsons) marks his first start at this race with form on his side. Despite a slightly lighter programme than some of his competition, he’s been making it count. He’s taken podiums at the Royal Navy Cup and Kennel Hill Classic, and took sixth at the always brutal East Cleveland Classic. Currently third in our National Road Race Rankings, he’ll be looking to add more points to his tally as he looks to close in on Davies.
Giles’ team-mate Olly Curd adds more firepower to the squad’s team in Essex, and with a triumphant sprint victory at the Jock Wadley marking himself out as a rider who knows how to preserve that final burst of energy, he could very well be leaving with another victory on his results sheet.
Florrie Newbery Classic
Noémie Thomson — whose solo victory here last year, in her first-ever road race, became one of the domestic season’s more memorable stories — is not in the 2026 startlist. That leaves the race without a returning individual champion to plan around, and with a field in which the hierarchy is genuinely open.
Emilia Fletcher (London Academy) arrives as the outstanding unknown quantity in the field. She won the 2026 London Academy Easter Road Race at Alconbury — in only her first National B outing — soloing clear on lap four and riding the final four laps alone after an acceleration the field could not answer. Her own assessment afterwards was disarmingly frank: a triathlon background means she defaults to time-trialling rather than racing tactically, which in that instance proved devastatingly effective. Two earlier moves had been closed down before that decisive third effort, and her ability to read her own physical state — committing only when she had genuine margin — suggests more race intelligence than a limited palmares implies. Whether London Academy can provide the same organised chase coverage they offered at Alconbury will depend on how many of their eight-rider contingent arrive in good order; regardless, Fletcher changes the calculus of this race.
Isabella Johnson (Jadan Glasdon pb Vive le Velo) has the strongest recent claim. She finished second last year, four seconds behind Thomson, after emerging as the best of the chasers when the eventual winner went up the road on the penultimate lap. An eighth place at the 2024 National Under-23 time trial championships confirms she has the engine to compete across formats; returning to the same circuit that brought out her best twelve months ago, she is tone to watch.
Amelia Staunton (Brother UK – On Form) knows this race. She finished sixth here last year as a junior, a result that would be respectable for a senior domestic rider and all the more so given her age. Now a second-category senior, a year older and with a full season of competitive racing behind her, improving on that sixth place is a realistic ambition rather than an optimistic one.
Georgina Oakley (Loughborough Lightning) has got a point to prove. After a winter and early 2026 focused on what was a successful track debut as a tandem pilot, she returns to the road with an increased appetite to continue a 2025 season which featured plenty of victories – especially on circuits. Illness led to a less than representative 45th at the East Cleveland Classic, but if she’s managed to get closer to full health, she could quite easily feature at the front.
Isabel Darvill (O’Shea Development Team) is a known quantity at this level and above. She took bronze at the 2024 National Circuit Race Championships, and has raced at Tour of Britain Women and RideLondon Classique against genuinely international fields — a register of experience that stands out in this startlist. Her 2025 season was disrupted by injury, from which she was still rebuilding; at her best she is precisely the kind of experienced, tactically astute racer that wins circuit-style events.
Hope Inglis (London Academy) is taking part in just her second race of the season, and after finishing just outside the top 20 at the Easter Road Race she’ll be wanting to keep up a positive trajectory and hit a peak in form that secured her second at the Maria Thompson last year. 18th at this race last year is a result she’ll be wanting to improve on with another season of racing under her wheels.
Georgia Huddleston (Saddle Up Frequency) just missed out on the podium at the London Academy Easter Road Race, and she’ll be wanting to put aside that disappointment to continue what has otherwise been a solid start to the season. Wins and podiums at the Regional level demonstrates she’s know what to do to get herself at the sharp-end, she just needs to make it happen again in Essex.
Ella Tandy (Simpsons Nouvelles) could prove to be something of a dark horse. The 19-year-old continued to be a podium sitter in 2025 as she continued her trophy-filled rise from the junior ranks to the U23 level. The 2024 East Midlands Road Race champion is happy to get stuck in and force a move when needed, and has a useful turn of speed in a sprint finish.
Sophie Holmes (The Hera Project) is tackling just her third road race of the season as she gets back into the full swing of competition after a hit-and-run curtailed what was a promising 2025 with a string victories including at the Banbury Star Road Race. She’s a rider who can animate a race and will be looking for an opportunity to quickly get back into the form she was robbed of 12 months ago.
Startlists
Andrews Trophy
Florrie Newbery Classic
Share this:
Discover more from The British Continental
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.