American Cycling has taken flight for the 2023 road season in the US, making an announcement via social media on Saturday that the new men’s domestic elite squad would feature Michael Hernandez, who was the team leader with the former Best Buddies Racing team that folded in September. The team announced an eight-rider roster.
Best Buddies Racing were one of the most dominant men’s teams on the North American criterium racing scene the past two years, winning the men’s team standings in the season-long American Criterium Cup. That squad was led by Thomas Craven, who also directed the Hincapie Racing team for many years, and he returns to lead American Cycling, confirming to Cyclingnews that the squad will focus solely on criterium events.
“There’s so much momentum out there, with our team from last year, and I wanted to stay at the forefront of sponsorship as well as partners and the sport. We are for sure trying to build this team as a model for the future. We’re more than a one and done,” Craven told Cyclingnews.
“We’re trying to be much more strategic about where we’ll race. We’ll do the American Criterium Cup stuff as well as all these other independent, good races, like Arlington, Somerville and Athens. We’ll do all the crits, we will not do any stage races. We’ll go to amateur nationals, but again, there’s no benefit for us to go Pro nationals.”
Craven will reunite several of the Best Buddies alumni who competed alongside Hernandez, including Robert Sierra, Danny Summerhill and Ben Wolfe. Brendan Rhim last competed at the Continental level with Wildlife Generation, taking three victories in 2022 including the second at the Armed Forces Cycling Classic and a second on a stage at the UCI 2.1 Turul Romaniei. He also raced five seasons with the Hincapie programme.
Three Colombians will be on the team, including Jaime Castrañeda who had a solid year of racing with Emanuel Ibarry and 2NDBIKE last season with nine top 10s. Sebastian Cano is a former speed skater who is the reigning masters 35-39 Florida State road champion. Jordan Parra has a background in road and track cycling.
Hernandez will race in the stars-and-stripes US champion’s jersey having won the men’s amateur criterium title in early July. He then made headlines for a disqualification, and three-month suspension, for his involvement in a multi-rider fist fight after the Salt Lake Criterium. Sierra accepted a one-month suspension for his involvement in the same…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…