Welcome back to part 2 of the ‘Meet Aprire Bicycles / HSS Hire Women Cycling Team series.
Name: Sophie Jane Lankford
Age: 21
Hometown: Cambridge
Speciality: Sprinting
Best Result: 14th London 6 day 2016, revolution 55 points race 6th and Hopton RR 1st
Favourite Place to Ride: Hard choice, either Norway for abroad or my local roads in Cambridge and Cardiff.
Guilty Pleasure: Gossip girl and Guylain chocolate
What are you most looking forward to this season: Racing with this fabulous team and helping get our team the results we deserve. ☺
Name: Nicola Toms
Age: 47
Hometown: London
Speciality: Unknown
Best Result: Gold Medal World Masters Scratch
Favourite Place to Ride: The Military Road – Isle of Wight
Guilty Pleasure: Having a good old faff.
What are you most looking forward to this season: Riding with my Aprire team mates
Name: Lauren Humphreys
Age: 22
Hometown: Rugby
Speciality: Circuit racing
Best Result: 2nd at Shrewsbury Grand Prix
Favourite Place to Ride: the country lanes around home, and in the Vosges region in France
Guilty Pleasure: Chocolate! Cadburys mini eggs are my current weakness!
What are you most looking forward to this season: having fun racing and making lots of memories with my Aprire HSS family!
Name: Julie Elder
Age: 32
Hometown: Originally from Hexham, Northumberland but currently living in Nottingham
Speciality: Punchy Crit Races
Best Result: This is my first full season on the road having spent the last 5 years racing XC and Marathon Mountain Bikes. My best result is a 12 at the National XC Champs 2016 and a 10th at a round of the World Marathon Series held in Romania in 2016 which qualified me for the 2016 World Marathon Champs.
Favourite Place to Ride: My home roads of Northumberland and County Durham, awesome hills and endless views, make every ride a pleasure.
Guilty Pleasure: Grey’s Anatomy, I have now watched all episodes of all series and am debating on a second run through, I feel like I know all of the characters personally and am completely hooked! I could quite easily watch 3 episodes without moving.
What are you most looking forward to this season: I am really looking forward to being part of the Aprire/ HSS team and pushing my boundaries into another cycling specialism. I think that being on a team and having a team goal will give more substance to each race; having spent the last 5 year on my own racing through forests and rocky single track it will be exciting to race and work hard for others. I also think that the women’s road racing scene is becoming more visible Nationally so I am looking forward to doing my bit to increase this even more. I think the Tour series is playing a big part in the popularity and image of women’s road racing mainly due to the televised highlights show and the national spread of venues, this is one of my major aims of the season and I am very motivated to race hard for the team.
Name: Isla Aimee Rush
Age: 18
Hometown: I’m originally from Caterham in Surrey, but now live near Holt in Norfolk
Specialty: I’m better-suited to the flatter and slightly rolling courses, like a lot of races in Belgium. As I’m still a junior, I’m looking for my exact specialty as I progress and my racing style develops.
Best Result: As an U16, I won several National TT titles and came second in the Junior Women’s British Best All Rounder competition.
Favourite Place to Ride: Where I live is pretty spectacular and is recognised as an area of outstanding natural beauty, so wherever I train close to home is always enjoyable. One of my other favourite places to train it Catalonia in Spain; along the coast it has some really beautiful views and everyone is so friendly.
Guilty Pleasure: I absolutely love pizza and anything with chocolate!
What are you most looking forward to this season: I can’t wait for the first EVER standalone Junior Women’s National Road Race Championships; it’ll be so special to ride the inaugural event! I’m also looking forwards to working hard to help my teammates in races, as it’ll be my first proper experience of being in a large team environment.
See Part 1 of #MeetAprireHSS here.
Massive thanks to all the girls for taking the time to tell us about themselves. Good luck for the season!
The Domestique Cycling Collective 