Alice Wood racing British Road Nationals in the last pro season before retirement

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Alice Wood racing British Road Nationals in the last pro season before retirement

Alice Wood (Nee Barnes) will bow as a professional cyclist at the end of the 2024 road season.The last competition at Home Soil will take place this week at the British National Road Championship in North Yorkshire. 

The 28・year-old from Oxford raced on the road for 9 teams over 3 seasons, most of which were women's world Tours, first at the Canyon Slam and then at Human Powered Health. 

After early success as a junior in mountain bike and cyclocross, including 23rd place in the Mountain Bike World Championship as a cross-country U7, Barnes suspended his road career in 2019 and won 2 British National titles at the elite level. 

"By the end of 2024, I will end my professional racing career. I am grateful that I have been able to do my hobby as a job for many years. I've been racing bikes since I was 8 years old, and although I was never very good, I kept going up because of the love of the sport and the people I met. Step by step, I kept going to the point where cycling became my profession, which I couldn't imagine writing on instagrammable all those years ago," Wood wrote on Monday Instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrammable instagrams.

"I don't hang my bike for good because I'm still very passionate about the sport. It's just not fixing the numbers anymore.

Wood was part of a formidable duo with her sister Hannah Barnes for 5 out of 4 years at the Canyon Slam. 2 years before joining as a professional, Barnes won the Elite Women's British Road Championship in 2016, Wood finished in 2nd overall and won the U23 Road Race title. She signed a race for Drops Cycling for her first 2 professional seasons and never looked back on other areas.

"What I am personally proud of is that I won the overall 2nd Stage 3 and 6th stage on the OVO Ladies Tour and won the 1st stage on the BeNe Ladies Tour in the two-up sprint with Marianne Voss," she wrote on her website about her career. I am writing to you.

In 2018 she signed with Canyon-SRAM and won the stage on the Thüringen Ladies Tour. But her best memory was again when she raced in the National Jersey, and this time she won a gold medal at the Road World Championships in the Team Time Trial with Barnes.

"The most successful and memorable moment of my career came at the end of 2018, when I won the Team Time Trial World Championship in Austria. The goal we put a great deal of time and effort into. The feeling of being on the podium together was unforgettable, especially with my sister," she wrote.

Hannah Barnes retired from professional cycling last season at the age of 30, so this year there is only one sister to join the Nationals. Wood will line up for a time trial on Wednesday with a total Catterick of 30 km on a two-lap course including the Throstle Gil Climb. In Sunday's road race, she took part in a technical 26km loop that starts and ends at Salturn-By-The-Sea, completed five times by elite women over 130km. 

Wood will also compete for the fourth time in her career on the Lotto Thuringian Ladies Tour following the Nationals, and Balan for her season

"I have so many people to thank who got me where I am. To start with my parents. From such a young age, he spent a lot of time and money taking me to races and training camps. We raced everything when we were young, but it's not an inexpensive way to go with 3 kids, but it helped my way to compete for England at the World Championships in 4 different fields.”

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