Mercato, 25 September: two Britons to French Continental teams, and Zappi open for 2027
Tom Portsmouth and James Hartley will race at UCI Continental level in France next season and Noah Bleteau steps up to N1. Callum Twelves leaves his Spanish team of four years, Zappi announce their first 2027 signing, and Ryan Williams leaves Cycling Sheffield.
James Hartley and Tom Portsmouth will both be racing at UCI Continental level in France next season. Hartley leaves Team Bricquebec Cotentin for Véloce Club Rouen 76 on the back of five wins this year, and Portsmouth joins SCO Dijon from the amateur club Guidon Chalettois, back on a UCI team for the first time since he rode at ProTeam level in 2025. Max Krasinski, Hartley’s team-mate at Bricquebec this year, is staying put, and Noah Bleteau is moving up a division to ride for Team Lockimmo.com.
Callum Twelves has also left his Spanish team of four years, and at home Zappi Racing Team have named their first rider for 2027 while Ryan Williams has left Cycling Sheffield after two seasons. Neither Twelves nor Williams has said yet where he goes next.
Britons abroad
Tom Portsmouth (Guidon Chalettois to SCO Dijon, confirmed 23 September). Readers who were here in 2021 will know the name. Portsmouth was one of ten riders keeping a journal for us that year, a 19-year-old on Rayner Foundation support writing from Belgium about what Brexit and Covid were doing to British under-23s trying to build a career abroad. He made it: Bingoal WB’s development squad in 2023, then two seasons as a professional with the ProTeam, latterly as Wagner Bazin WB, riding into televised breakaways at Dunkerque, the Circuit Franco-Belge and the Baloise Tour. Then the contract ran out. He wrote about the search that followed for Daniel Benson last December, as a rider acting as his own agent because the agents he approached were full, and the answer when it came was not a professional team but Guidon Chalettois, a French amateur club. He is a better writer than most riders who try it: his newsletter, He Who Learns, is a genuinely good read on the texture of racing in France. Now 24, he is back on a UCI team with SCO Dijon on the back of a season that earned it, and the team’s own announcement undersells him: second overall at the Essor Breton, the win at the Grand Prix des Marbriers, seventh in the national road race championship, and a bronze medal in the national circuit race championship.
James Hartley (Team Bricquebec Cotentin to Véloce Club Rouen 76, confirmed 21 September). Bricquebec announced six signings for 2027 and led on what they are losing. La Presse de la Manche called Hartley the much sought-after Briton and a heavy loss, which is the plain truth: five wins this season, among them the Caux Tour, a round of the Coupe de France N1 that the club called its best day since it was founded. He goes to the team the paper rates the best in France for three seasons running, and it is a step up in more than reputation. Rouen took a UCI Continental licence in 2025 after years as a DN1 club. Bricquebec wanted to keep him; he wanted the bigger races. When we spoke to him in July, after three wins in eight days in May, he was already talking about what it does to a rider when rivals start marking him.
Hartley. supplied by Team Bricquebec Cotentin
Max Krasinski (Team Bricquebec Cotentin, staying, confirmed 21 September). The third Briton in the story, and the one staying put. Krasinski and Hartley were team-mates at Cycling Sheffield in 2023 and 2024 before both crossed to France, and they found each other again at Bricquebec this year after Krasinski’s season at Apogé Charente-Maritime, where he won four times, including the Tour des Landes and the Tour des Mauges. This year was quieter: 20th in the national road race championship and 28th overall at the Ronde de l’Oise. At 23 he has another season in Normandy to put that right, now as the team’s senior British rider rather than the second one.
Noah Bleteau (Team All Cycles Meaux to Team Lockimmo.com, confirmed 25 September). A step up to Nationale 1, the top tier of French amateur racing, for a 19-year-old who joins the Nogent-sur-Oise club after two seasons in France, the first at Paris Cycliste Olympique and this one at Meaux. His best of the year came at home: a stage win and third overall at the Mennock Pass in June, with second in the prologue. In France he was third at the Prix Souvenir René Huel in July and fourth at the Grand Prix de Saint-Quentin in April, and in August he rode the Tour de Guadeloupe for an Île-de-France selection, finishing 78th overall. He told his new team he had been looking for a structured set-up and bigger races, and that N1 was the next step.
Callum Twelves (leaving Torres-Sobato, announced 21 September). Twelves is leaving the Huesca team he joined in 2023, four seasons and three title sponsors ago, when it still went by Torres-Fernando Barceló Team. The 22-year-old Scot went to Spain straight out of the juniors, after a year racing in Belgium with Team Ohten Aveas, and has been on Rayner Foundation support this season. He finished 12th at the Campeonato de Aragón the day before he posted; sixth at the Gran Clásica Terraferma in April was his best result of the year. When we spoke to him in 2024 he was working out how to hold a Spanish road programme and his track ambitions together. He has not said where he goes next.
Domestic
Ben Archer (MitoQ / NZ Cycling Project Devo to Zappi Racing Team, confirmed 23 September). Zappi have their first rider for 2027, and he comes from Auckland. Archer is a junior who rode this year for the development arm of MitoQ / NZ Cycling Project, and he joins the academy Flavio Zappi has run since 2009, affiliated to British Cycling and based in Italy, which is where Zappi riders spend the season. Applications for the rest of the squad are still open, which is how that team has always worked: riders write in, and a few get the year in Tuscany that changes what they think is possible. We know little else about Archer yet.
Ryan Williams (leaving Cycling Sheffield, announced 17 September). Williams, 20, has left Cycling Sheffield after two seasons, having come through BCC Race Team before that. He has not announced where he goes next, and his farewell post thanked the team for the support that got him back on track at the start of 2025. We will update the tracker when there is a destination to add.
All of the above is listed on Mercato 2027, our tracker of transfers and rider moves, along with everything else we have confirmed. Drop us a line at info@thebritishcontinental.co.uk if you have news you want us to add.
James Hartley and Tom Portsmouth will both be racing at UCI Continental level in France next season. Hartley leaves Team Bricquebec Cotentin for Véloce Club Rouen 76 on the back of five wins this year, and Portsmouth joins SCO Dijon from the amateur club Guidon Chalettois, back on a UCI team for the first time since he rode at ProTeam level in 2025. Max Krasinski, Hartley’s team-mate at Bricquebec this year, is staying put, and Noah Bleteau is moving up a division to ride for Team Lockimmo.com.
Callum Twelves has also left his Spanish team of four years, and at home Zappi Racing Team have named their first rider for 2027 while Ryan Williams has left Cycling Sheffield after two seasons. Neither Twelves nor Williams has said yet where he goes next.
Britons abroad
Tom Portsmouth (Guidon Chalettois to SCO Dijon, confirmed 23 September). Readers who were here in 2021 will know the name. Portsmouth was one of ten riders keeping a journal for us that year, a 19-year-old on Rayner Foundation support writing from Belgium about what Brexit and Covid were doing to British under-23s trying to build a career abroad. He made it: Bingoal WB’s development squad in 2023, then two seasons as a professional with the ProTeam, latterly as Wagner Bazin WB, riding into televised breakaways at Dunkerque, the Circuit Franco-Belge and the Baloise Tour. Then the contract ran out. He wrote about the search that followed for Daniel Benson last December, as a rider acting as his own agent because the agents he approached were full, and the answer when it came was not a professional team but Guidon Chalettois, a French amateur club. He is a better writer than most riders who try it: his newsletter, He Who Learns, is a genuinely good read on the texture of racing in France. Now 24, he is back on a UCI team with SCO Dijon on the back of a season that earned it, and the team’s own announcement undersells him: second overall at the Essor Breton, the win at the Grand Prix des Marbriers, seventh in the national road race championship, and a bronze medal in the national circuit race championship.
James Hartley (Team Bricquebec Cotentin to Véloce Club Rouen 76, confirmed 21 September). Bricquebec announced six signings for 2027 and led on what they are losing. La Presse de la Manche called Hartley the much sought-after Briton and a heavy loss, which is the plain truth: five wins this season, among them the Caux Tour, a round of the Coupe de France N1 that the club called its best day since it was founded. He goes to the team the paper rates the best in France for three seasons running, and it is a step up in more than reputation. Rouen took a UCI Continental licence in 2025 after years as a DN1 club. Bricquebec wanted to keep him; he wanted the bigger races. When we spoke to him in July, after three wins in eight days in May, he was already talking about what it does to a rider when rivals start marking him.
Max Krasinski (Team Bricquebec Cotentin, staying, confirmed 21 September). The third Briton in the story, and the one staying put. Krasinski and Hartley were team-mates at Cycling Sheffield in 2023 and 2024 before both crossed to France, and they found each other again at Bricquebec this year after Krasinski’s season at Apogé Charente-Maritime, where he won four times, including the Tour des Landes and the Tour des Mauges. This year was quieter: 20th in the national road race championship and 28th overall at the Ronde de l’Oise. At 23 he has another season in Normandy to put that right, now as the team’s senior British rider rather than the second one.
Noah Bleteau (Team All Cycles Meaux to Team Lockimmo.com, confirmed 25 September). A step up to Nationale 1, the top tier of French amateur racing, for a 19-year-old who joins the Nogent-sur-Oise club after two seasons in France, the first at Paris Cycliste Olympique and this one at Meaux. His best of the year came at home: a stage win and third overall at the Mennock Pass in June, with second in the prologue. In France he was third at the Prix Souvenir René Huel in July and fourth at the Grand Prix de Saint-Quentin in April, and in August he rode the Tour de Guadeloupe for an Île-de-France selection, finishing 78th overall. He told his new team he had been looking for a structured set-up and bigger races, and that N1 was the next step.
Callum Twelves (leaving Torres-Sobato, announced 21 September). Twelves is leaving the Huesca team he joined in 2023, four seasons and three title sponsors ago, when it still went by Torres-Fernando Barceló Team. The 22-year-old Scot went to Spain straight out of the juniors, after a year racing in Belgium with Team Ohten Aveas, and has been on Rayner Foundation support this season. He finished 12th at the Campeonato de Aragón the day before he posted; sixth at the Gran Clásica Terraferma in April was his best result of the year. When we spoke to him in 2024 he was working out how to hold a Spanish road programme and his track ambitions together. He has not said where he goes next.
Domestic
Ben Archer (MitoQ / NZ Cycling Project Devo to Zappi Racing Team, confirmed 23 September). Zappi have their first rider for 2027, and he comes from Auckland. Archer is a junior who rode this year for the development arm of MitoQ / NZ Cycling Project, and he joins the academy Flavio Zappi has run since 2009, affiliated to British Cycling and based in Italy, which is where Zappi riders spend the season. Applications for the rest of the squad are still open, which is how that team has always worked: riders write in, and a few get the year in Tuscany that changes what they think is possible. We know little else about Archer yet.
Ryan Williams (leaving Cycling Sheffield, announced 17 September). Williams, 20, has left Cycling Sheffield after two seasons, having come through BCC Race Team before that. He has not announced where he goes next, and his farewell post thanked the team for the support that got him back on track at the start of 2025. We will update the tracker when there is a destination to add.
All of the above is listed on Mercato 2027, our tracker of transfers and rider moves, along with everything else we have confirmed. Drop us a line at info@thebritishcontinental.co.uk if you have news you want us to add.
Featured image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com
Share this:
Discover more from The British Continental
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.