Kendall Ryan and Laurel Rathbun have added group possession to their resumes for the brand new 12 months, co-founding the Aurea Racing model to launch as a six-rider US home elite group which can compete as Caldera Medical x Aurea Racing in 2026.
The California-based duo – Ryan a four-time US elite ladies’s criterium nationwide champion and Rathbun the reigning US Madison nationwide champion – transfer from two seasons collectively at L39ION of Los Angeles to steer the ladies’s squad as a “place that is supportive of Olympic desires”.
Ryan stated the complete roster and equipment announcement will happen subsequent week, with three riders proudly owning nationwide championship honours and one improvement rider to be revealed.
“We’ve not actually been engaged on it for that lengthy, and we have managed to return along with a profitable finances and sponsors, and we’re actually happy with what we have achieved in only a matter of months. We’re wanting ahead to showcasing the group. Now we have massive targets,” Ryan advised Cyclingnews.
“We wish to create a group that’s targeted on serving to riders fulfill their Olympic desires. I have been there myself, and I understand how laborious it’s to undergo that course of with out help out of your group. Now we have a number of riders with a number of potential to go to the Olympics [in LA] for 2028 and so we wish to assist them attain their targets.
“The group title, Aurea Racing, makes use of the Latin phrase for gold. That’s form of our theme, setting the gold customary for girls’s sports activities, chasing Olympic gold. So we are the ‘golden ladies’.”
Each Ryan and Rathbun began racing at age seven, although separated by 4 years, Ryan the older at 33. Between the 2, they’ve 9 gold medals from Street Nationals in junior, elite and collegiate divisions. Ryan was named a reserve for Group USA on the observe on the Tokyo Video games.
The most recent race content material, interviews, options, critiques and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
The precedence was to safe a co-title sponsor and Rathbun stated California-based Caldera Medical, which offers options to surgeons worldwide for improved ladies’s well being, particularly pelvic prolapse and incontinence, stepped up with sturdy help to make the undertaking occur. The corporate additionally makes use of humanitarian missions to coach and equip well being professionals in areas the place specialised pelvic healthcare has been restricted or unavailable.
Gear companions confirmed to Cyclingnews embody Specialised and SRAM, with Assos for group racing gear.
“Kendall and I met being teammates and the friendship was undoubtedly fast. We raced collectively very, very effectively and have been in SoCal and we needed to have extra management and construct one thing for the ladies,” Rathbun advised Cyclingnews.
“Coming from a spot of being very inventive and entrepreneurial, we needed to have full management of our group, our targets, our race schedule. We needed to do that to have an ideal group with nice companions, coming from inspiration and love, not as a result of we hated anybody.”
Each riders have included a heavy schedule of criterium racing in North America for a number of years. Ryan had massive wins at Manhattan Seaside Crit, the Blue Dome criterium at Tulsa Robust weekend and her fifth USPro criterium crown. Rathbun supported her teammate in lots of the one-day races however earned 9 prime fives herself, together with third total on the four-day Bommarito Audi West County Gateway Cup and two podiums at Chicago GRIT race week.
“We discover that crit racing enhances observe racing rather well. They each form of go collectively, like peanut butter and jelly. So it is smart for crit riders to even be observe riders, as a result of there are related energy bands. It takes a number of talent to be a observe rider and to be a crit rider is tremendous dynamic, excessive depth racing. So I believe they form of go hand in hand,” Ryan added.
Each co-owners attended USAC observe camps this previous 12 months and frolicked on the USA Biking coaching middle. They stated the UCI observe schedule and Pan-American Monitor Championships dates would decide the group’s calendar for subsequent season, and is underneath improvement.
With a mantra of “ladies supporting the ladies”, Rathbun stated they’d incorporate ladies’s rides and expertise clinics at a lot of their stops throughout the US.
“Simply reducing that barrier of a really male dominated sport and giving simpler entry to newer riders and girls, we’re attempting to do our half to present again. I believe it is only a actually thrilling time, not simply in ladies’s biking, however ladies’s sports activities generally.”