BIGLA CYCLING TEAM

Photo: Bruno Meier/Bigla Cycling Team

Bigla Cycling Team opens season with a spectacular team presentation on the Glacier Express and at the foot of the Matterhorn.

After four years Bigla Cycling Team returns to professional women's cycling again

Team time trial world championships are the big goal for 2014!

The Bigla Cycling Team started its season with a spectacular and extraordinary team presentation at the Matterhorn.

photo Wikicommons

logo Courtesy Glacier Express.ch

Only for team members, their sponsors and journalists went on an extra train of the famous "GlacierExpress" from Visp to Zermatt, from where the trip went on with the “Gornergrat Bahn” to the foot of the Matterhorn.

There the team, which has twelve riders under contract, introduced itself to the public. Swiss cycling hero Franco Marvulli and Phil Zimmermann led the team presentation.

"It is fantastic, that the organisers of the Glacier Express made it possible that we could go by a special train to the Matterhorn. I am very thankful“, says Bigla's team manager Emil Zimmermann.

2014, after four years of abstinence, the Bigla Cycling Team returns to professional cycling again and has big goals for this season. The biggest one is the participation at the women's team time trial world championships in Ponferrada (Spain).

"For this, we must be one of the 15 best teams in the world rankings. At the moment we are in 15th place and we want to keep it or even want to improve", says Emil Zimmermann.

So it is very important "that we gain some good results in UCI races and finish in the top ten at road world cups."

For this big goal the Bigla Cycling Team signed some strong riders. Swiss women Emilie Aubry, Désirée Ehrler, Nicole Hanselmann, Sandra Weiss, Katarína Hranaiová from Czech Republic and Lotta Lepistö from Finland are joined by six new women. Former track world champion (U19) Vera Koedooder from the Netherlands, and German runner-up Elke Gebhardt captain the new squad. In addition two Australians Taryn Heather and Joanne Hogan, Austrian Jacqueline Hahn and Martina Zwick, who is also from Germany, join the Bigla Cycling Team in 2014.

The Bigla Cycling Team has a new sports director, too. The multiple German champion and former professional cyclist Mario Vonhof joins Ernst Meier, so the equipe from Switzerland has two experienced sports directors now.

Besides the professional riders the Bigla Cycling Team also has a amateur team with hopeful up-and-coming young talents: Martina Weiss, Larissa Brühweiler, Rita Imstepf and Stefanie Bochsler from Switzerland as well as Verena Eberhardt from Austria and Irishwoman Fiola Foley. They are supposed to learn from the established riders and shall achieve successes in national races.

Before the pros open their season at the Belgian race "Le Samyn des Dames" (UCI 1.2) on March 5th, they and the young riders will do a training camp in Benidorm, which is situated about 45 kilometres northeast from Alicante in Spain, starting on February 15th. Sports directors Ernst Meier and Mario Vonhof say: „There we find good training conditions. It is ideal to be well-prepared for the classic races in spring.“

The Bigla Cycling Team – both, pros and talents – are supported by the Swiss office furniture manufacturer "bigla",