A NEW look women’s cycling team is looking to put the North-East on the map.

The Boompods EDCO NRG team is made up of 12 women and four junior riders and will be based on Teesside.

The team made its debut in 2017, racing as the EDCO Continental team and registered some outstanding results on the road, track and cyclo cross.

Now with their new sponsors in place, the team has refreshed its line-up to feature a mix of rider strengths.

Team spokesman, Tony McDonagh said: “We retained a core of quality riders including the team’s top point scorer Ellen McDermott, who once again lines up alongside Hannah Farran, Jenn Batey, Laurie Pestana and Sarah Walker from the 2017 team.

“With the demise of Sunsport Velo, we were able to capture a highly talented trio with Liz Burrows, Hannah Larbalestier and Rosie Walsh joining us.

“We also wanted to team to register better crit racing results so recruited for this purpose. Jane Hellewell joined us from NCC Group-Kuota-Torelli and we were also able to add talented younger riders Miriam Jessett and Rachel Jary to form an impressive senor team.

“The junior team remains a four rider team with North East riders Anna Armstong, Marie Lynn and Olivia Fawcett joined by talented Welsh junior Cadi Jones.”

The team will target the Women’s National Road Series, Women’s Team and Tour Series in 2018 as well as other flagship races at home and overseas.

McDermott, originally from Ireland, but now living in Whitby, said: “It is exciting, there is a lot of hunger for the season ahead.

“It will mean when we go to the Women’s Team Series and international series we will have a few more of us in the bunch, which is great to have.”

McDermott said it was good for the region to have an elite women’s team based here.

“I think it gives people in the area something to follow, with faces they recognise, and it may inspire them to get into cycling, especially the younger kids,” she said. “They will see people racing at this level and think ‘I can give that a go’. Especially for women, having a full team based in the North-East will hopefully lead to more people getting out on their bikes and racing them.”

Team-mate Hannah Farran is originally from Cumbria but studied at university in the North-East.

“I think we have great depth in the team,” she said. “We have track riders, crit specialists, hill climbs, TTs, I think we can be well represented across all the disciplines and have good showings at the Tour Series, Women’s Team Series and hopefully the national road series.”

Farran said the area was a great place to train.

“We are right on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors so you can have a flat ride, a really grippy hilly ride, you can practice hill climbings or TTs – the roads are really versatile.”

As for the team’s aspirations, McDermott said: “I am really looking forward to doing the Tour Series this year as we didn’t get invited last year. This year there are quite a few of us set up to do it.

“Then there’s the Women’s Team Series, we had a good showing in Bedford last year so we are really looking forward to giving it a good shot this year.”