Alice Wooden (née Barnes) will bow out as knowledgeable bicycle owner on the finish of the 2024 highway season, along with her ultimate competitors on residence soil coming this week on the British Nationwide Highway Championships in North Yorkshire.
The 28-year-old from Oxford raced on the highway for 3 groups throughout 9 seasons, most of that point on the Girls’s WorldTour, first with Canyon-SRAM after which Human Powered Well being.
After early success as a junior in mountain biking and cyclocross, together with seventh on the Mountain Bike World Championships as an U23 in cross-country, Barnes punctuated her highway profession in 2019 when she notched double British nationwide titles on the elite stage.
“On the finish of 2024, I will probably be ending my skilled racing profession. I really feel grateful that I’ve been in a position to do my passion as my job for therefore a few years. I’ve raced my bike since I used to be 8 years previous, the place I used to be by no means excellent however stored turning up for the love of the game and the folks I met. Step-by-step, I stored progressing to some extent the place biking turned my career, which I may by no means have imagined can be attainable all these years earlier than,” Wooden wrote on Instagram on Monday.
“I nonetheless am very passionate in regards to the sport, so I will not be hanging my bike up for good. Simply not pinning a quantity on anymore.”
Wooden was a part of a formidable duo along with her sister Hannah Barnes throughout 4 of her 5 years at Canyon-SRAM. Two years earlier than they joined forces as execs, Barnes gained the elite ladies’s British highway championship in 2016 and Wooden completed second total, which additionally gave her the primary of two U23 highway race titles. She signed to race for Drops Biking for her first two professional seasons and by no means seemed again at different disciplines.
“The proudest for me personally putting 2nd on stage 3 and sixth total within the OVO Womens Tour and in addition successful stage 1 on the BeNe Girls Tour in a two-up dash with Marianne Vos,” she wrote on her web site about her profession.
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In 2018 she signed with Canyon-SRAM and gained a stage within the Thüringen Girls Tour. However her finest reminiscence was once more when she raced within the nationwide jersey and this time earned a gold medal on the Highway World Championships within the Staff Time Trial alongside Barnes.
“By far essentially the most profitable and memorable second of my profession got here on the finish of 2018 once we gained the Staff Time Trial World Championships in Austria. A aim that we put a substantial amount of effort and time into. The sensation to step onto the rostrum collectively was one which I’ll always remember, particularly alongside my sister,” she wrote.
Hannah Barnes retired from professional biking final season on the age of 30, so this 12 months just one sister will participate in nationals. Wooden will line up for the time trial on Wednesday in Catterick, a complete of 30km on a two-lap course that features the Throstle Gill climb. On the highway race on Sunday that begins and ends in Salturn-By-The-Sea, she is going to participate on the technical 26km loop, accomplished 5 occasions by the elite ladies over 130km.
Wooden will even compete for a fourth time in her profession at LOTTO Thüringen Girls Tour after nationals, and the steadiness of her season is but to be decided.
“I’ve so many individuals to thank who received me to the place I’m. To start out with my dad and mom. They put a lot money and time into taking us to races and coaching camps from such a younger age. We raced all the pieces once we have been youthful, which is not an affordable technique to go about it with 3 youngsters, however that helped me on my technique to competing for Nice Britain on the world championships in 4 totally different disciplines.”
