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New Zealand cyclist Lola Bryson-Boe sprung to attention when she was picked up by UAE-ADQ Development team, the feeder squad for the Women’s World Tour outfit. The former triathlete only moved full-time to the road a little over a year ago and has taken leaps and bounds in her development since concentrating fully on cycling.
The now-Christchurch resident grew up in a rural environment and spent a lot of time outdoors, she credits mountain biking, skiing, running, and swimming as all playing a part in her development.
The 2023 season saw her start her time in Europe with Black Magic Cycling, a New Zealand team that took Bryson-Boe to compete in France and the Netherlands. The dates then lined up so that when that block of racing finished, the Italian-based Down Under Cycling Academy had a new intake, giving Bryson-Boe an extra few months in Europe, where she flourished.
The following is Bryson-Boe’s interview about her time in Europe and with the Down Under Cycling Academy.
Question: What was the biggest surprise on racing in Europe compared with your previous experiences?
Bryson-Boe: “In New Zealand, our races were nine people, heading to Europe, some of them were 150 people. It was almost a different sport at the end of the day.
“It required completely different qualities, it wasn’t always the strongest person who won, but also the one with the best tactics and positioning, something that I hadn’t had to think about before.”
“It was the perfect thing to help me grow in the sport, by the end, I felt that I’d found my style of racing, understood how European racing goes and how much I enjoyed it. My learning curve for the sport was almost vertical from my European experience.”
Q: What was your experience like with the Down Under Cycling Academy and racing in Italy?
Bryson-Boe: “It was in a very supportive environment, I was brought into Valentina’s (Scandolara, Down Under Cycling Academy founder) family, it was almost a home away from home, going over to Valentina’s mum’s place for dinner at times.”
“(On racing) It was insane, very competitive. One of the races we did in Italy was 120km, and we averaged like 45km an hour. It was really competitive and hard.
“In the juniors, it would split up into groups and of course you try and stay with the strongest group. In Czech Republic, it was in a UCI women’s race, I would never have been able to get that experience otherwise, and a leg up into that racing that I’ll be doing more next year.”
Q: Was there a particular highlight for you in this first year in Europe?
Bryson-Boe: “My highlight race was definitely my final race in Italy. It was really a top-off, we had done all this racing in open races and our last race was a junior’s race. I brought all of this knowledge and experience from those races into this final junior’s race.
“My teammate, Tyree Robinson, won the race, and it was against girls that we had previously raced before the DUCA academy as Black Magic and we were really able to meet those standards. Tyree won and I was sixth out of 100 starters and only 15 finishers. I was just an insane improvement in a stunning location with great support.
“That was definitely my highlight.”
Q: Can you tell us how UAE-ADQ found you and offered you a spot for 2024?
Bryson-Boe: “Through my time at DUCA, Valentina was able to get some testing done through her contacts with UAE-ADQ, all of us got that testing done. I did some good testing and I got an offer from the UAE development team. It’s made me so much more eager to come back and keep doing this for years, now I can do that as a professional cyclist.”
You can find out more about the Down Under Cycling Academy in the below articles.
