Nopinz RT is closing its elite team after two seasons, and six of its riders have already found a new home at Draft Racing. The Bristol team has lost its only financial backer but is growing anyway: its men’s squad goes from six riders to 18, and its women’s side adds eight. Aero CLCTV also doubles in size for its second season, with Sam Nisbet and Archie Peet among nine new riders.
Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team has signed Anna van Wersch from Lotto Intermarché Ladies, Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team has named the rest of its road squad, and Simpson Nouvelles, The Hera Project, and Wold Top Pactimo RT have confirmed who stays. RideRevolution Coaching CT has started naming its 2027 riders, with Harper Johnson its first new signing, and Prologue Racing Team has kept Isaac Oliver, the Yorkshire U23 Classic winner. Abroad, Tomos Pattinson steps up to the WorldTour with EF Education–EasyPost, Seb Grindley and Oliver Gill stay with Lidl–Trek Future Racing and C’Chartres Cyclisme, and Jacob Mauger joins Alex Foster at Team Deux-Sèvres.
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Team news
Nopinz RT will close its elite men’s team at the end of the season, two years after setting it up, as we reported on 2 November. Lui Pollastrone, who co-managed the team with Joe Reeves, said that without cash sponsorship “it becomes increasingly difficult to provide riders with the opportunities and support they need to fulfil their potential”. The club goes back to its old name, Reflex Racing, under the masters rider Marcus Williams. Most of this year’s squad now has a team for 2027. Pollastrone, Reeves, Tom Bowden, Harvey Thomas, Dan Burt, and Jamie Francis join Draft Racing, and Josh Hall joins Aero CLCTV (both below), while Matt Gilmour, the team’s leading rider this year, joins Stolen Goat 4Endurance. Jack Beveridge, Dom Horsfield, Ben Millar, and Callum Orchard have not announced their plans.
Domestic
Anna van Wersch (Lotto Intermarché Ladies to Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team, confirmed 1 November) joins Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team after three seasons with the Belgian team, and is the UCI Continental team’s 11th new signing for 2027. The 25-year-old Dutch rider was 8th overall at the Tour de Pologne Women in 2025 and 10th this year, and her best one-day results are 2nd at the Grote Prijs Beerens in 2024 and 2nd at the Grote Prijs CHW Beveren in 2025. She rode the Tour de France Femmes in 2024, and this season the Tour of Flanders, the Amstel Gold Race, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and La Vuelta Femenina, as well as finishing 5th at Dwars door de Westhoek. Her programme for 2027 has not been announced.
Draft Racing has signed 12 men and eight women for 2027, as we revealed on 3 November, and will race without a sponsor. KLM Taxis, which paid for the men’s entries, accommodation, and some logistics this year, has gone, and founder Charlie Parry said the subs paid by the team’s 70 or so riders will cover its costs. Six of the new men come from Nopinz: Pollastrone and Reeves, who are “joining just as riders for the time being”, Parry said, and Bowden, Thomas, Burt, and Francis. Toby Coates joins from Pronto Bikes Race Team, Will Mitchell from the Spanish team Equipo Finisher, Frank Kilsby from League-Fortè Chiropractic, and Reuben Trotter from 54/11 Coaching, and Frank Schefer and Eli Tucker complete the intake. Tom Adby, Will Deely, Will Jewitt, Adam Lightfoot, Will Wilson, and Alex Montero stay, taking the men’s squad from six riders to 18, and Ollie Cadin leaves.
The women’s side, led by the 2025 women’s CiCLE Classic winner Lucy Harris, adds Ellen Inglis and Ellie Mitchinson from Brother UK–Team OnForm, Libby Wallace from Liv CC–Halo Films, Clare Ablett from PDQ Property Elite, Amy Cantelo from Nova Race Team, and Jessica Bush, Zoe Bainbridge, and Elizabeth Chng. Six stay, among them Niamh Murphy and Kim Baptista, and Hayley Lenton leaves.
Aero CLCTV doubles its squad to 12 for its second season, as we revealed on 2 November. Sam Nisbet, 4th overall at the Peak 2 Day this year, joins from Team Tactic U23, and Archie Peet, who won the PB Performance Espoirs Road Race in 2024, comes with Max Duckworth from O’Neills Spirit Racing Team, an Elite Development Team. Josh Hall, 6th at the National Hill Climb Championships in October, joins from Nopinz, Joe Bearman from League-Fortè Chiropractic, Nick Makin from Mid Devon CC, and Brion Thomas, a first-year under-23, from Team Pau. Patrick Crump was unattached this year, and George King, 33, is a former distance runner who has never ridden a British Cycling bunch race. Elliott Colyer and Archie Wright stay, and Matt Downie, who will keep racing, becomes team manager and directeur sportif. Alex Stanley, who founded the team with Colyer, has stepped away, and Oscar Hoult, Charlie Palmer, and Bobby Buenfeld, who joins Stolen Goat 4Endurance, have left. The team plans to ride every round of the National Road Series, paying riders’ entries and accommodation, and Colyer puts the cost of 2027 at £50,000 or more.
Harper Johnson (360cycling to RideRevolution Coaching CT, confirmed 4 November) is the first new signing RideRevolution Coaching CT has named for 2027. The team told us on 31 October that it had signed 10 riders, nine of them first-year under-23s, for a new International Development Programme, and would name them over the coming weeks. Johnson steps up after his final junior season with 360cycling, in which, the team says, he was 4th in the British national junior road race championships and 3rd on a stage of La Ronde des Vallées in France. Last month he was also 4th in the junior race at the National Hill Climb Championships. The team began its announcements on 2 November with Jake Hales (RideRevolution Coaching CT, staying, confirmed 2 November), who founded it in 2023 and will keep racing in 2027 as well as acting as a rider mentor.
Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team has named the other six riders in its road squad, after Chloe Elvin and Izzy Rodriguez on 31 October. Sian Marsh (Team Boompods in 2025 to Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team, confirmed 1 November) is the team’s road captain, and runs it with Kate Hoy, who owns the Frome shop with Justin Hoy. Bexy Dew (Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team in 2025 to Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team, confirmed 1 November) raced for Rick Lister’s team for three seasons until 2025, when she won the North Lincolnshire Women’s Classic. Rebekah Nash (Jadan Vive le Velo p/b Glasdon to Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team, confirmed 1 November) arrives after four seasons with the Jadan team. Emily Tillett (Nopinz RT to Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team, confirmed 1 November), Emma Dickson (360VRT in 2025 to Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team, confirmed 1 November), and Eleanor Goodricke (University of Bath CC to Pronto Bikes Ladies Race Team, confirmed 1 November) complete the eight, who will race selected rounds of the National Road Series and National Circuit Series on programmes they plan themselves, with some racing in Belgium.
Simpson Nouvelles, the under-23 team David Walters set up in 2024, confirmed on 2 November that six of this year’s riders stay: Erin Avill, Greta Lawless, Megan Lloyd, Isabella Newell, Ella Tandy, and Freya Whiteside (all Simpson Nouvelles, staying, confirmed 2 November). With Megan Cherry and Áine Doherty, who signed in September, that makes eight, and the team plans to involve the New Zealander Mya Wolfenden again around her track commitments.
Eleanor Dixon (The Hera Project, staying, confirmed 4 November) is the fourth rider The Hera Project has kept for 2027, after Liv French, Amy Scott, and Sophie Holmes. Dixon, 24, had only recently started racing when she joined the team in March, and in August she was 3rd at the Scottish road race championships, three seconds behind Melanie Rowe. “She’s come such a long way this year, and we can’t wait to see what she can do in 2027,” said Christine White, the team principal.
Wold Top Pactimo RT named 14 riders staying for 2027 on 1 November, 12 men and two women, and said new signings would follow. On 4 November it named the first of four, Ben Baker (Schils–Doltcini RT to Wold Top Pactimo RT, confirmed 4 November), a 19-year-old who raced for Schils–Doltcini this year. “After struggling to find some joy on the bike the past couple years this is the fresh start I needed,” Baker said. Toby Bartlett (Wold Top Pactimo RT, staying, confirmed 1 November), who won the VC Norwich Road Race in July, his first road race win in more than 10 years, will also be a directeur sportif for what he calls the team’s new Elite Road squad. Dan Barnes, who joined from Spectra Racing this year, was 5th overall at the Ronde van Wymeswold and 3rd at the BUCS road race championships. Mark Agent, Jason Bouttell, Calum Brown, Marcus Cockerill, Barney Hall, Phil Large, Ryan Manders, Josh Ravn, Max Sillifant, and Felix Wahlberg also stay, as do Daniella Cullum and Jas Townend. The Yorkshire club team, managed by Tom Ramsay of The Edge Coaching, is in both our men’s and women’s guides.
Isaac Oliver (Prologue Racing Team, staying, confirmed 5 November) is the first rider Prologue Racing Team has named for its senior squad for 2027. The 19-year-old joined from Harrogate Nova Race Team for his first season as an under-23, in the squad Prologue added for 2026, and in August won the Yorkshire U23 Classic, the biggest win of his career, from a three-man break. The team says he was also in the top 20 at the Dhofar Classic in Oman and the top 25 overall at the Tour of Salalah.
Britons abroad
Tomos Pattinson (EF Education–Aevolo to EF Education–EasyPost, confirmed 3 November) steps up to the WorldTour after one season with EF’s development team. The 21-year-old from Dudley, who came through Halesowen A & CC, as Ben Healy did, won the junior Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2023 and then spent two seasons with Visma–Lease a Bike’s development team, winning the British under-23 time trial title in 2024. This year he was 8th overall at the Circuit des Ardennes and 6th at the Visit South Aegean GP, and raced with EF’s WorldTour team at the Tour de la Provence, the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali, and the Tour of Austria. “This was definitely the place that I wanted to be,” he said. He is one of four riders EF has promoted from its development team for 2027, with Gavin Sherry, Roberto Capello, and Gavin Hlady.
Seb Grindley (Lidl–Trek Future Racing, staying, confirmed 2 November) is one of 16 riders in Lidl–Trek Future Racing’s squad for 2027, and one of three the team picks out for the Classics, with Thor Michielsen and Mats Vanden Eynde. The 20-year-old joined the development team from Fensham Howes–MAS Design at the start of 2025, and his contract now runs to the end of 2027. This year he won the North Yorkshire Grand Prix at Ampleforth, the final round of the National Road Series, and was 8th at the Beaumont Trophy. Harry Hudson and Leon Atkins are the other Britons in the squad.
Oliver Gill (C’Chartres Cyclisme, staying, confirmed 3 November) stays with the French club for a second season. The 19-year-old raced for Tofauti Everyone Active Majaco as a junior, and is in C’Chartres Cyclisme’s 2027 squad with Finn Mason, whose move from Hubo-Scott Cycling Team was in our 19 October edition.
Jacob Mauger (Crabbé–Dstny to Team Deux-Sèvres, confirmed 5 November) is the second Briton the French club has signed for 2027, after Alex Foster from Cycling Sheffield. The 18-year-old spent this season, his last as a junior, with the Belgian team, and was 3rd at the Classique Puisaye-Forterre. The club, whose N3 team is applying to move up to N2, will take a new name for 2027 that includes its main sponsor, Leul Menuiseries, and has no more signings planned, DirectVelo reports.
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 Jenny Holl and Arianne Holland joining Solas Race Team and Wolfox Styrkr Le Col Race Team closing.
