Wiggle Honda send competitive team to Bay Cycling Classic

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Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling Team will send a highly competitive team to Australia's Mitchelton Bay Cycling Classic which starts next week. The women’s team will be led by Giorgia Bronzini and completed by Linda Villumsen, Peta Mullens, Charlotte Becker and Emilia Fahlin.

The four-day criterium series, which starts on January 2, will also include defending champions Orica-AIS and an Australian national team.

"This will be the first Bay Cycling Classic for all of our athletes except Peta Mullens,” said Wiggle Honda team manager and three-time series winner, Rochelle Gilmore.

“We've tried to prepare them for the intensity and speed of these criteriums but it's something they will not be able to comprehend until they actually experience the first day.

"They will never have experienced this type of pain in January. It's impossible to mentally prepare them for what will happen on day one of the Bay Crits!"

Peta Mullens, the only Australian on the team, is the national cross country mountain bike champion but has a strong road pedigree too, having won the U23 national road race in 2009. She finished second in the Criteriums in 2013 while riding without a team and hope she, or one of her teammates, can go one better.

"We've come in with a strong team - a combination of world and national champions - because that's the sort of firepower you need to win the Bay Crits," Mullens said.”

"The series is held in great locations, on great courses, in summer sunshine, with an awesome atmosphere and with this year's international presence, the calibre of the field hits an all-time high."