Top Junior rider Liah Harvie joins The Cyclery-Opus, along with new support for the Ottawa-based squad
East meets west with a new makeup for the Ontario squad, as both talent and sleek wheels from Alberta join forces with The Cyclery-Opus for 2016.
With a new pairing in the world of Canadian cycling, east meets west, as The Cyclery-Opus—one of the top squads on the national scene, based in Ottawa—joins forces with Calgary-based Energy Lab Wheels, the latter becoming the team’s official, exclusive supplier of race wheels.
But that’s not all the news that’s fit to print about the Ontario team.
Energy Lab, notably, is a brand recognized for high standards of engineering and innovation when it comes to design. Their wheels are tested in a wind tunnel at the University of Calgary, incorporating a symmetrical toroidal wing foil construction intended to provide a high level of performance and comfort. Paired with long-time team sponsor Continental tires, Energy Lab’s VC60 series of wheels will be their primary gear, having received the UCI’s safety approval. As well, other wheels produced by the brand will be used, too, depending on course conditions and rider preference.
In terms of riders, meanwhile, the Ottawa team is announcing another new acquisition this year, sure to mean as much—if not more, no doubt—as the sleek, streamlined wheels produced by Energy Lab in securing success this season.
For the 2016 season, 19-year-old Liah Harvie joins the team, coming off a pair of decisively strong seasons recently. During those two seasons, she cemented for herself a solid reputation as the top junior rider in Canada, claiming a 19th-place finish in the road race of the 2014 junior world championships—her first year as rider in that category—and this year, rolling to a 10th place finish at the world championships’ individual time trial in Richmond, Virginia. Refined as a rider by her Banff, Alberta upbringing, the young rider also cashed in her talent with wins in both the road race and the criterium of 2015’s Canadian national championships.
Harvie joins a gilded roster of towering cycling greats, with Tara Whitten, Annie Forman-Mackey, Ellen Watters, Emily Flynn, Ariane Bonhomme, Amelie Brunueau, Carrie Cartmill and Miriam Brouwer all riding in The Cyclery-Opus colours.
