BIKE AID pro team has concluded 2020 as one of the most successful UCI continental teams in the world. The team has impressed by running an intense and high quality racing schedule over the past years. The team bears a club name, though, and is not named after a sponsor. The team finds its foundation in club with about 1,200 club members that is named after the charity BIKE AID. In itself already a unique story in cycling.
For Matthias Deuble, founder and team manager of U23 team, this was the main reason for his decision to merge with BIKE AID: “Even smaller teams orient themselves on the common structures of professional cycling, where teams constantly change their names and are highly depend on their name sponsor. The approach of BIKE AID is something that I have never seen before. It creates a sustainable foundation that is solid and offers in the long term much more value for their sponsors. This concept has inspired me to continue as one team to create something bigger in the future.“
Deuble will lead the BIKE AID development team in the German „Rad-Bundesliga“ the next years. “Our main goal is to give talented U23 riders the possibility, to develop themselves step-by-step riding races in the elite class. We will compete in the „Bundesliga“ and smaller stage races, to give the riders a chance to grow, and show their abilities. They all aim to join the professional team later on in their careers.”
Under the direction of Matthias Deuble their will also be a women’s cycling team integrated in the BIKE AID structure. A selection of riders will compete in the 2021 women's „Rad-Bundesliga“.
Ingo Behrendt and René Conca have committed to promote the youngest BIKE AID talents. Over the past years Conca has established a successful cyclocross team for juniors and U17 riders. Reigning German junior champion Marco Brenner is part of his team. Brenner is currently considered the biggest talent in German cycling, and will transfer to the World Tour in his first year of the U23.
Conca will lead the team both in the Cyclocross Bundesliga and in the juniors „Rad-Bundesliga“. The mid-term goal is to register the cyclocross team also as a professional team at the UCI.
“For me this is an incredibly exciting step. Even as a small team, the effort is huge in terms of organisation. Every day you reach your limits or you have to go beyond. You have to align the development of the youngsters with your own professional and private life. This is not an easy process. The new framework offers opportunities to distribute tasks in the future, relieve ourselves and at the same time develop the whole project to the next level”, says René Conca.
Matthias Schnapka from BIKE AID pro team concludes: “we take part in races at the highest level with our team, and want to get things moving. At the same time, we are a community with our roots in the region, so we also want to support the development there. Especially for young riders the step to race with the pro team is huge. Often this is too much at a time. There are steps missing in between. With our new structure young riders can develop in the „Bundesliga“ or smaller stage races in France, Belgium and Luxembourg without having to face too high expectations. "
From 2021 there will also be clear and targeted support for talented MTB riders within the club, so that these rider do not have to leave to other teams in the future. This means that BIKE AID is represented on the road disciplines with a professional team and five „Bundesliga (development) teams“ for men, women and juniors as well as the cyclocross and MTB Bundesliga.
“What emerges as a whole is a concept of a consistent perspective from promoting young talent through to an internationally successful professional team. Embedded in a vital community for everyone that is sustainably and socially committed and depicts all facets of cycling", says Eric Haus, 1st chairman of BIKE AID e.V.
