In years past, racing in France to find a professional contract was a rite of passage for aspiring young British riders. In the modern era most riders are talent spotted in the junior ranks or national development programmes and are snapped up by the best WorldTour teams.
That makes Harrison Wood’s stint in France and Holland with support from the David Rayner fund and then his step-up to join Cofidis in 2023 stand out as a rather atypical route to the professional peloton. He took the road less travelled to the WorldTour.
Wood is currently racing the Tour of Oman as a rookie after an impressive two-year spell with the now-defunct SEG Racing Academy sandwiched between stretches at French club team AV Aix in the south of France and some time in the Soenens-Boom Belgian team.
Wood is not the only rider to thrive outside of British Cycling’s Academy system in recent years but he is one of the few who sought a different path from the very outset, opting to head abroad as a teenager rather than apply to his federation.
“The GB Academy and what they’ve done and how many of them have turned pro is pretty incredible but I’ve never done the track, so I thought I’m not really ever going to be a BC type of rider. I thought it would be better for me to go to France and take the plunge there, Wood tells Cyclingnews at the start of stage 2 of the Tour of Oman.
“It makes for a different kind of rider when you go away to Europe. James Knox (Soudal-QuickStep) did it to become a top, top WorldTour climber, while Matt Walls (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Ethan Vernon (Soudal-QuickStep) are top, top sprinters in the WorldTour after coming through the GB Academy. Different types of riders are created in different ways.”
Hailing from Torquay in south-west England, Wood didn’t start racing until he was “about 15 or 16” with local club Mid-Devon CC and then “through them the HMT Hospitals Junior team with Mark Barry and Tony Barrett. Then it was onto France, so I’ve been around the block a bit,” the 22-year-old suggested.
After a spell racing occasionally with the Belgian squad Soenens-Boom as well as in France, Wood joined the SEG Racing Academy in 2020. Their demise in 2022 was “maybe a blessing in disguise” as Wood went back to racing in France with his old club, using his experience to land a haul of wins and good results.
“From France, I could go on as a stagière with Cofidis and take the plunge from there. So in a way, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t do that third year with SEG,” he explained.
After Bradley Wiggins, David Millar and Rob Hayles in the nineties and noughties, Wood is just the fourth British rider ever to race with Cofidis. But there has been a gap of nearly 15 years since a British rider was last a member of the long standing WorldTour squad.
“When I see guys like that, Wiggins and Millar were part of this team, it’s quite impressive and a bit of pressure, because both of them won Tour stages and one of them won the Tour de France. So I’ve got a lot to live up to,” Woods admitted.
So far, Wood says WorldTour career is a voyage in the dark. He can climb but is tall and powerful, and so has still to find his niche and role in the peloton. He made his debut at the Tour Down Under but his race programme is still to be confirmed.
In Oman his main role is working for Cofidis leader, Jesus Herrada, currently in the overall race lead after winning stage 2. But his personal goals in the future remain very much in place.
“I’d like to go down the GC route if possible. I’m quite good at time trials, but obviously at WorldTour level these guys can climb very quickly too,” he reflected.
“I can do 10 to 20-minute climbs okay but I’ve not really done anything much longer than 30-40 minutes in racing. When it’s an hour, hopefully, it will go all right. I’ll just have to find out.”
“I had a big crash in June of 2022, so the second half of last season was just getting back into it. Now it’s more about getting as much racing in as I can and see what’s what, soak it up as much as possible and then next year look for a more definitive role.”
