U.S. continental Team SmartStop moving to Canada

On Sunday, Team SmartStop announced that it would be bringing its general operations to Canada in 2015. The organization’s goal is to obtain a UCI pro continental licence, which will grant them Tour de France eligibility. Jamie Bennett, the Canadian owner of Premier Sports Group LLC, the parent company of SmartStop Pro Cycling, feels that Canada is the place with the best opportunity. After the collapse of the now defunct SpiderTech program at the end of 2012, there has been a void that Bennett hopes to fill.

In order to launch the team, the group hopes to raise an additional $500,000 in order to apply for the UCI licence, pay for biological passports and secure minimum salaries. the company plans to use crowd-source funding as the primary means to do so.

Despite the relatively short period of time the team has to transition from a continental U.S. team to a Canadian pro continental outfit, Pat Raines, Bennett’s managing partner, is optimistic that there is great interest within Canada for cycling. He points to the prowess of Canadian athletes at the sport’s highest levels despite there being no Canadian team in place at the continental level.

Currenlty, Team SmartStop is the top-ranked team in North and South America. They won the U.S. national road championships in May, the Winston-Salem Classic and the under-23 Canadian national time trial championship  among top performances at myriad other top level races.