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Yanto Barker to captain Matt Prior's ONE Pro Cycling team

Full 12-rider line-up and staff announced

ONE Pro Cycling, the new Continental team founded by England cricketer Matt Prior, has revealed its line-up of riders and staff.

Team captain Yanto Barker will head a squad of 12 including Johnny Bellis, the 26-year-old who fought his way back to fitness after a disastrous crash on a scooter in 2009 that put him in a coma and raised fears he would be quadriplegic.

Barker himself is as well-known for his Le Col clothing brand as his exploits on the bike.  

The full line-up is:

Yanto Barker
George Atkins
Tom Baylis
Johnny Bellis
Marcin Bialoblocki
George Harper
Marc Hester
Josh Hunt
Jon Mould
Chris Opie
Pete Williams
Sam Williams

Matt Prior said: “Cycling is a huge passion of mine and I am delighted to be setting up ONE Pro Cycling with a team of experienced and dedicated people. It will be a big challenge but one I’m thoroughly looking forward to. The group of riders we have is an exceptional one - not only because of the team’s ability on the bike but also the spirit we have off it. We have a team that could potentially do something very special and that excites me.”

Steve Benton, a former human performance coach for Formula 1 and World Rally drivers - including England’s only World Rally champion, Richard Burns - is ONE Pro Cycling’s performance coach.

Matt Winston will join from 1 January 2015 as sports director, having spent the last eight years at British Cycling and most recently as the GB Olympic Development Coach.

Becky Frewing, who has worked in UK cycling teams for the past four years, will head up the squad as team manager.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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6 comments

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slam that stem | 10 years ago
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Bellis Barker and Opie are quite a handy crew. Is Bellis fully recovered from his scooter mishap? Hope so

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Manchestercyclist | 10 years ago
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That's a good line up for a new project, I wish them the best of luck.

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Super Domestique | 10 years ago
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Thanks

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Jimmy Ray Will | 10 years ago
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Cervelo

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Super Domestique | 10 years ago
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Which bike brand will they be riding?

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Simmo72 | 10 years ago
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Great news.
Fingers crossed they get a ride at the new yorkshire stage race and the tour of britain. Let the rising talent shine.

Isn't it about time Halfords put some cash into the sport?

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