ONE Pro Cycling are aiming to become Britain’s first ever Pro Continental team and they want to do so by keeping a lot of their British riders on the team.

“We’re confident, having spoken to the UCI, that there shouldn’t be any problems. It’s really exciting and it will be the first time that a British team has stepped up to that level,” team manager and former England cricketer Matt Prior told Cyclingnews.

This is just a stepping stone on the way to the team’s big objective, which is a WorldTour spot and riding the sport’s biggest races: Monuments and Grand Tours. But Prior says that for now, they would be very pleased to step uo just one level.

“Our goal and ambition has always been to step up. For us the end game is the Grand Tours, the Tour de France and the other biggest events in cycling. We needed to put in place a plan of how we could get there. We didn’t want to just jump in at the deep end. We wanted a structure in place so we made a decision to start at Continental level. That was the right call but we’ve learnt a huge amount and we have great infrastructure and management system in place. We feel we’re now in a good place to make that next step up. The time is right.”

“We have the finance in place to do this and the time is right. We want to do this all properly, like we’ve done at Continental level. I hope people see us as professional team who have done things in the right way.”

Prior says the team has a good roster already and they wont get rid of the riders they have this season, aiming to keep a strong British core and adding some international and British riders that will improve the team.

“We picked our riders carefully last year, not just on ability but also character. It would be a shame to make the step up and then cast them aside. We have trust and faith in the riders that we have. Also, we’re a British team and we don’t want to lose our identity as we move up. It’s important that we develop young British riders. So if our goal is to be at the Tour de France imagine if we had twenty-year-olds who came with us on that journey,” he told Cyclingnews.

“Of course we need to increase our rider roster and you need to strengthen your squad because we want to be competitive. We don’t just want to turn up and be another squad. We want to make sure that we’re pushing hard for podiums and getting in the breaks and looking for jerseys. We will have to bring people in but the core of the team will be what we’ve started with.”

“You need guys who have been there and done it at both the WorldTour and Pro-Continental level. That’s one of the best ways of developing your young talent, by allowing them the ride with the guys who have that experience.” 

The team already has a WorldTour race winner in their ranks after Polish TT champ Marcin Bialoblocki won the TT in the Tour of Poland yesterday while racing for the Polish national team. This should give Prior and ONE Pro confidence they can hold their own at a higher level.