WORLD championship silver medallist Rachel Neylan will guest ride for the Bendigo-based Building Champion Women’s Squad in Saturday’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
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The 113km cycling event that starts in Geelong and takes in Barwon Heads, Torquay and Moriac is the second stage of the 2015 National Road Series.
Neylan finished sixth overall in the general classification of stage one - the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under this month, where she was the local squad’s leading rider.
“I’m feeling very positive,” she said this week. “It’s going to be quite dynamic due to the nature of the roads, the winds, the openness and the sharp, steep climbs towards the end of the race.”
Neylan will be joined on the road this weekend by BCWS team-mates Minda Murray, Emma Pane, Amy Cundy, Veronica Micich and Lydia Rippon, riding in red, white and black.
Rippon, 17, is one of two New Zealand teenagers to sign on with the Bendigo squad for the 2015 season.
She was also in the saddle at the Tour Down Under and finished a respectable 38th overall in her NRS debut.
Team manager Nicole McNamara said BCWS was extremely lucky to have a guest rider the calibre of Neylan, who claimed silver in the women’s road race at the 2012 world titles.
The NSW native also finished second behind Bendigo star Peta Mullens in this year’s Australian road race championship.
“We are really excited to be riding with someone who has represented Australia many times and has had so much international exposure,” McNamara said.
The Cadel Evans women’s race gets underway at 11.30am with a field of about 70 elite female cyclists.
