Mercato, 30 October: Richardson joins Lidl–Trek’s new development team
Kate Richardson is the only British rider in Lidl–Trek’s new women’s development team, Francesca Ryde moves from On Form to FTP, and John Bardsley joins VCA Saint-Quentin. The latest transfers and rider moves for 2027.
Kate Richardson’s next team, which Bob Lyons could not name when he confirmed her departure from CAMS Alba in our interview with him on Monday, is Lidl–Trek Future Racing Women. The 2025 national circuit champion is the only British rider in the first squad of the WorldTeam’s new women’s development team.
At home, Francesca Ryde switches to FTP–Fulfil The Potential Racing a fortnight after On Form named her among their riders for 2027, Sophia Sammons leaves Smurfit Westrock for Liv AlUla Jayco’s Continental team, and Rowan Baker’s national hill climb bronze looks to have been his last race for JAKROO Handsling Racing. DAS Business Furniture follows Richardsons Cycles in stepping down as a title sponsor of DAS Richardsons, Solas Race Team and Zappi Racing Team add new riders, and Amy Scott stays with The Hera Project. Abroad, John Bardsley joins VCA Saint-Quentin, Isabel Darvill’s move to Belgium is confirmed, Matthew Kent stays at Dovy Keukens FCC, and Joe Pidcock has stopped racing at 24. Lee Valley Youth CC have also named their 2027 junior squad.
Drop us a line at info@thebritishcontinental.co.uk if you have news you want us to add.
Team news
DAS Richardsons will need a new name for 2027. Three days after Richardsons Cycles said it was stepping down as title sponsor, as we reported on 27 October, the team said on 28 October that DAS Business Furniture is going too. The furniture company has been a title sponsor since 2020, and the team said its backing had “allowed the team to develop, provide greater support and help riders follow an improved race programme”. DAS is also a title sponsor of DAS–Hutchinson, whose Continental programme closes at the end of the year. The Essex team has not said what it will be called.
Domestic
Francesca Ryde (Brother UK–Team OnForm to FTP–Fulfil The Potential Racing, confirmed 27 October) has changed teams since our 16 October edition, in which Duckworth Motor Group–On Form, as her team becomes, named her among five riders staying for 2027. FTP have now added her as the 16th rider in the squad they announced with us on 6 October. Ryde is 28 and joined the On Form team this season. She was fourth at the Banbury Star Women’s Road Race in May, and 12th at the Lancaster Grand Prix and 15th at the South Molton Grand Prix in July. Both teams are in our women’s team guide.
Sophia Sammons (Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team to Liv AlUla Jayco Continental Team, confirmed 28 October) is 21 and from Perth, and has signed a two-year contract with the development team of the Australian WorldTeam. She won the under-23 time trial at the Australian championships in Perth this year, and her new team say she finished in the top 10 overall at the Volta a Portugal Feminina. “I chose to join Liv AlUla Jayco because I really wanted to be a part of a development squad,” she said. She is the second rider to leave Smurfit Westrock for 2027, after Elena Day, who joins CAMS Alba.
Rebecca Trimble (Dundee Thistle RC to Solas Race Team, confirmed 29 October) is the first new rider Solas Race Team have named for 2027, and joins their Development Team. She was fifth at the Scottish road race championships in August, where Lydia Louw, now in the Solas Performance Team, was second. The next day she was fourth in the 19 to 34 age category at the first official British Gravel Championships at Ae Forest. In March she was 18th at the Gifford Road Race as a fourth-category rider.
Amy Scott (The Hera Project, staying, confirmed 29 October) is the second rider The Hera Project have kept for 2027, after Liv French. Scott, 21, had not planned to race on the road this year, the team said, but went on to win at Harvey Hadden in Nottingham and finish second at Ponteland in Northumberland. She was 27th at the Sheffield Grand Prix, which the team said is her favourite race. “The team made such a huge difference to my progress and all the support really drove my passion and desire to be better,” she said. Christine White, the team principal, put it more simply: “Every team needs an Amy.”
Mark Ketteringham (Prologue Racing Team to Zappi Racing Team, confirmed 29 October) is the fourth new rider Zappi Racing Team have named for 2027, and steps up from the juniors after two seasons with Prologue Racing Team. Ketteringham, 18, won the second stage of the Gipuzkoa Klasikoa in Spain in May and was second overall at both the Côte d’Or Classic Juniors and the Watersley Junior Challenge, all UCI junior stage races. At home he won the Clayton Spring Classic in February.
Rowan Baker (JAKROO Handsling Racing, expected to leave, 29 October) has called the national hill climb championships, where he took bronze in the open competition on 25 October, his “final race in red”. That suggests he is leaving, though he has not said so directly, and he is “not sure what 2027 will bring yet”. Baker, 24, has been with the team since it launched as Raptor Factory Racing, and this year won the Kennel Hill Classic and was eighth at the Rutland-Melton CiCLE Classic before a crash at the start of June damaged tendons and cartilage in his knee. He turned to hill climbs in September, and entered the championships a month out after being told the climb averaged only 5%. He “never expected” a medal, he said.
Britons abroad
Kate Richardson (Handsling Alba Development Road Team to Lidl–Trek Future Racing Women, confirmed 28 October) is 24 and Scottish, and the only British rider among the ten, from eight countries, in the first squad of Lidl–Trek’s new women’s development team. Lidl–Trek say it will give riders the time and support to develop before they step up to the Women’s WorldTour. Fränk Schleck, who manages the women’s WorldTeam, said they had looked beyond results in choosing the squad: “Potential, attitude, a willingness to learn and what each rider could bring to the group were all important.” The team mirrors Lidl–Trek Future Racing, the men’s development squad, which will have the British junior time trial champion Leon Atkins next season.
Richardson races on the track as well as the road. She first rode for Alba in 2022, when she won Rás na mBan, and spent the next two seasons with Lifeplus-Wahoo, winning the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix and the national individual and team pursuit titles in 2024. Back with Alba in 2025, she won the Tour de Feminin and the national circuit title. This year she won the Tour of the Reservoir in June to stay top of the women’s National Road Series, before injury problems disrupted the second half of her season. Read our interview with her from last season.
Isabel Darvill (O’Shea Development Team to Op Kop Cycling Team, confirmed 27 October) has had her move confirmed by her new team. She announced it herself on 8 October, and our 9 October edition gave the Belgian club the name it races under, Révvi-EGS Group-Velopro; Op Kop Cycling Team is the Aalst club behind it. Darvill is 25 and was fifth at the Guildford Women’s Grand Prix in July.
John Bardsley (Atom 6–ADWD to VCA Saint-Quentin, confirmed 28 October) joins the French N3 club, the second British rider it has signed this autumn after Denholm Edwards of Cycling Sheffield. He raced for 360cycling in 2024 and 2025 and started this season with Atom 6–ADWD. His best result came as a private member in August, when he won the sprint for third at the Beaumont Trophy, a round of the National Road Series. He was also eighth at the Yorkshire U23 Classic. DirectVelo reported him as the club’s fifth signing for 2027.
Matthew Kent (Dovy Keukens FCC, staying, rider-announced 18 October) will spend a second season with the Belgian club as he goes into his second year as an under-23. He came through Tofauti Everyone Active as a junior, and racing at home this year he was 10th at the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix in May and eighth at the Sheffield Grand Prix in July.
Joey Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5, retiring, rider-announced 29 October) has stopped racing at 24. “I tried. I tried to be good at it and I tried to enjoy it,” he wrote, adding that in other years he had wanted to quit at the end of the season, “but this year I don’t hate cycling. And I don’t want to hate it.” His brother Tom had already called the Tour of Guangxi earlier this month Joe’s “last pro race”. Pidcock came through Fensham Howes–MAS Design as a junior and raced for Groupama–FDJ’s development team before joining Trinity Racing in 2023, and won stages of the Ronde de l’Isard and Rás Mumhan with Trinity in 2024. He turned professional with Q36.5 in 2025 and was fourth overall at the Tour de Kyushu that year.
Juniors
Lee Valley Youth CC have named 11 riders for 2027 and applied for UCI junior races as a mixed team with VC Londres, as we reported exclusively on 29 October. Noah White, seventh in this year’s junior national road race, is one of five riders staying, with Sam Genazzini, Henry Jago, Gaspard Robertson, and Jack Wright. Alex MacInnes (Team Ohten) steps up from youth racing, and the other newcomers are Bayley Woodger (Grouwels–Watersley R&D Cycling Team), Finley Staunton and Ben Fiennes (both Sprockets Cycling Club), Daniel Branford (Poole Wheelers), and Cooper Barkey (Portsmouth North End CC), all confirmed 29 October. Noah Wheller has joined a Spanish under-23 team that has not been named, and team manager Bob Griffiths said George Collins is moving to Schils–Doltcini RT and Isaac Starmer to Colchester Rovers. Thomas Heap and Ben Jones stay with the club as under-23s, Archie Sewell-Gaiger has left as he moves up to under-23, and Harry Skinner, Harry Tozer, Luca Geddes Gasco, and Joe Tysoe have left for university. The squad is in our men’s team guide.
All of the moves above are on Mercato 2027, our tracker of transfers and rider moves, and the domestic moves are in our 2027 team guides for women’s and men’s teams. If you missed it, the last edition had Richardsons Cycles stepping down as DAS Richardsons’ title sponsor and Solas Race Team naming their first Performance Team riders.
Featured image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com. Kate Richardson at the 2026 national circuit championships.
Kate Richardson’s next team, which Bob Lyons could not name when he confirmed her departure from CAMS Alba in our interview with him on Monday, is Lidl–Trek Future Racing Women. The 2025 national circuit champion is the only British rider in the first squad of the WorldTeam’s new women’s development team.
At home, Francesca Ryde switches to FTP–Fulfil The Potential Racing a fortnight after On Form named her among their riders for 2027, Sophia Sammons leaves Smurfit Westrock for Liv AlUla Jayco’s Continental team, and Rowan Baker’s national hill climb bronze looks to have been his last race for JAKROO Handsling Racing. DAS Business Furniture follows Richardsons Cycles in stepping down as a title sponsor of DAS Richardsons, Solas Race Team and Zappi Racing Team add new riders, and Amy Scott stays with The Hera Project. Abroad, John Bardsley joins VCA Saint-Quentin, Isabel Darvill’s move to Belgium is confirmed, Matthew Kent stays at Dovy Keukens FCC, and Joe Pidcock has stopped racing at 24. Lee Valley Youth CC have also named their 2027 junior squad.
Drop us a line at info@thebritishcontinental.co.uk if you have news you want us to add.
Team news
DAS Richardsons will need a new name for 2027. Three days after Richardsons Cycles said it was stepping down as title sponsor, as we reported on 27 October, the team said on 28 October that DAS Business Furniture is going too. The furniture company has been a title sponsor since 2020, and the team said its backing had “allowed the team to develop, provide greater support and help riders follow an improved race programme”. DAS is also a title sponsor of DAS–Hutchinson, whose Continental programme closes at the end of the year. The Essex team has not said what it will be called.
Domestic
Francesca Ryde (Brother UK–Team OnForm to FTP–Fulfil The Potential Racing, confirmed 27 October) has changed teams since our 16 October edition, in which Duckworth Motor Group–On Form, as her team becomes, named her among five riders staying for 2027. FTP have now added her as the 16th rider in the squad they announced with us on 6 October. Ryde is 28 and joined the On Form team this season. She was fourth at the Banbury Star Women’s Road Race in May, and 12th at the Lancaster Grand Prix and 15th at the South Molton Grand Prix in July. Both teams are in our women’s team guide.
Sophia Sammons (Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team to Liv AlUla Jayco Continental Team, confirmed 28 October) is 21 and from Perth, and has signed a two-year contract with the development team of the Australian WorldTeam. She won the under-23 time trial at the Australian championships in Perth this year, and her new team say she finished in the top 10 overall at the Volta a Portugal Feminina. “I chose to join Liv AlUla Jayco because I really wanted to be a part of a development squad,” she said. She is the second rider to leave Smurfit Westrock for 2027, after Elena Day, who joins CAMS Alba.
Rebecca Trimble (Dundee Thistle RC to Solas Race Team, confirmed 29 October) is the first new rider Solas Race Team have named for 2027, and joins their Development Team. She was fifth at the Scottish road race championships in August, where Lydia Louw, now in the Solas Performance Team, was second. The next day she was fourth in the 19 to 34 age category at the first official British Gravel Championships at Ae Forest. In March she was 18th at the Gifford Road Race as a fourth-category rider.
Amy Scott (The Hera Project, staying, confirmed 29 October) is the second rider The Hera Project have kept for 2027, after Liv French. Scott, 21, had not planned to race on the road this year, the team said, but went on to win at Harvey Hadden in Nottingham and finish second at Ponteland in Northumberland. She was 27th at the Sheffield Grand Prix, which the team said is her favourite race. “The team made such a huge difference to my progress and all the support really drove my passion and desire to be better,” she said. Christine White, the team principal, put it more simply: “Every team needs an Amy.”
Mark Ketteringham (Prologue Racing Team to Zappi Racing Team, confirmed 29 October) is the fourth new rider Zappi Racing Team have named for 2027, and steps up from the juniors after two seasons with Prologue Racing Team. Ketteringham, 18, won the second stage of the Gipuzkoa Klasikoa in Spain in May and was second overall at both the Côte d’Or Classic Juniors and the Watersley Junior Challenge, all UCI junior stage races. At home he won the Clayton Spring Classic in February.
Rowan Baker (JAKROO Handsling Racing, expected to leave, 29 October) has called the national hill climb championships, where he took bronze in the open competition on 25 October, his “final race in red”. That suggests he is leaving, though he has not said so directly, and he is “not sure what 2027 will bring yet”. Baker, 24, has been with the team since it launched as Raptor Factory Racing, and this year won the Kennel Hill Classic and was eighth at the Rutland-Melton CiCLE Classic before a crash at the start of June damaged tendons and cartilage in his knee. He turned to hill climbs in September, and entered the championships a month out after being told the climb averaged only 5%. He “never expected” a medal, he said.
Britons abroad
Kate Richardson (Handsling Alba Development Road Team to Lidl–Trek Future Racing Women, confirmed 28 October) is 24 and Scottish, and the only British rider among the ten, from eight countries, in the first squad of Lidl–Trek’s new women’s development team. Lidl–Trek say it will give riders the time and support to develop before they step up to the Women’s WorldTour. Fränk Schleck, who manages the women’s WorldTeam, said they had looked beyond results in choosing the squad: “Potential, attitude, a willingness to learn and what each rider could bring to the group were all important.” The team mirrors Lidl–Trek Future Racing, the men’s development squad, which will have the British junior time trial champion Leon Atkins next season.
Richardson races on the track as well as the road. She first rode for Alba in 2022, when she won Rás na mBan, and spent the next two seasons with Lifeplus-Wahoo, winning the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix and the national individual and team pursuit titles in 2024. Back with Alba in 2025, she won the Tour de Feminin and the national circuit title. This year she won the Tour of the Reservoir in June to stay top of the women’s National Road Series, before injury problems disrupted the second half of her season. Read our interview with her from last season.
Isabel Darvill (O’Shea Development Team to Op Kop Cycling Team, confirmed 27 October) has had her move confirmed by her new team. She announced it herself on 8 October, and our 9 October edition gave the Belgian club the name it races under, Révvi-EGS Group-Velopro; Op Kop Cycling Team is the Aalst club behind it. Darvill is 25 and was fifth at the Guildford Women’s Grand Prix in July.
John Bardsley (Atom 6–ADWD to VCA Saint-Quentin, confirmed 28 October) joins the French N3 club, the second British rider it has signed this autumn after Denholm Edwards of Cycling Sheffield. He raced for 360cycling in 2024 and 2025 and started this season with Atom 6–ADWD. His best result came as a private member in August, when he won the sprint for third at the Beaumont Trophy, a round of the National Road Series. He was also eighth at the Yorkshire U23 Classic. DirectVelo reported him as the club’s fifth signing for 2027.
Matthew Kent (Dovy Keukens FCC, staying, rider-announced 18 October) will spend a second season with the Belgian club as he goes into his second year as an under-23. He came through Tofauti Everyone Active as a junior, and racing at home this year he was 10th at the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix in May and eighth at the Sheffield Grand Prix in July.
Joey Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5, retiring, rider-announced 29 October) has stopped racing at 24. “I tried. I tried to be good at it and I tried to enjoy it,” he wrote, adding that in other years he had wanted to quit at the end of the season, “but this year I don’t hate cycling. And I don’t want to hate it.” His brother Tom had already called the Tour of Guangxi earlier this month Joe’s “last pro race”. Pidcock came through Fensham Howes–MAS Design as a junior and raced for Groupama–FDJ’s development team before joining Trinity Racing in 2023, and won stages of the Ronde de l’Isard and Rás Mumhan with Trinity in 2024. He turned professional with Q36.5 in 2025 and was fourth overall at the Tour de Kyushu that year.
Juniors
Lee Valley Youth CC have named 11 riders for 2027 and applied for UCI junior races as a mixed team with VC Londres, as we reported exclusively on 29 October. Noah White, seventh in this year’s junior national road race, is one of five riders staying, with Sam Genazzini, Henry Jago, Gaspard Robertson, and Jack Wright. Alex MacInnes (Team Ohten) steps up from youth racing, and the other newcomers are Bayley Woodger (Grouwels–Watersley R&D Cycling Team), Finley Staunton and Ben Fiennes (both Sprockets Cycling Club), Daniel Branford (Poole Wheelers), and Cooper Barkey (Portsmouth North End CC), all confirmed 29 October. Noah Wheller has joined a Spanish under-23 team that has not been named, and team manager Bob Griffiths said George Collins is moving to Schils–Doltcini RT and Isaac Starmer to Colchester Rovers. Thomas Heap and Ben Jones stay with the club as under-23s, Archie Sewell-Gaiger has left as he moves up to under-23, and Harry Skinner, Harry Tozer, Luca Geddes Gasco, and Joe Tysoe have left for university. The squad is in our men’s team guide.
All of the moves above are on Mercato 2027, our tracker of transfers and rider moves, and the domestic moves are in our 2027 team guides for women’s and men’s teams. If you missed it, the last edition had Richardsons Cycles stepping down as DAS Richardsons’ title sponsor and Solas Race Team naming their first Performance Team riders.
Featured image: Olly Hassell/SWpix.com. Kate Richardson at the 2026 national circuit championships.
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