Bos joins BEAT Cycling Club

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Theo Bos has joined the newly formed BEAT Cycling Club, an innovation in the Netherlands to attract new talent to cycling and provide a platform to break into pro cycling. BEAT is organized as a cycling club, rather than a business-sponsored team.

Still in its very early phases, BEAT will set up two club teams, one each for the road and track. This year the riders will all be treated as amateurs, with the hopes of turning the club onto the professional level in 2018.

Bos will be on the track team, as well as serving as an ambassador for the club. The 33-year-old turned pro on the road in 2009. He rode for Dimension Data in 2015 and 2016, but he did not renew with the team for 2017 after spending most of last season on the track. His association with track racing goes back further, as he took his first world title as a junior in 2001. Bos has a long list of national, European and world titles.

With his road career over, the Dutchman is ready to return his concentration to the track. “I will focus on track cycling again for the next few years. I have the ambition to compete for medals. I would also like to take responsibility to help improve the continuity of track cycling and bring the sport to a higher level via a professional track team.”

His first goal will be the track World championships in Hong Kong in April. “I want to prepare for the kilometer, where I intend to compete for a medal.”

The club format opens things up for riders and fans to come together and compete together. As an ambassador, Bos’ “membership in the club already creates a unique opportunity for any cycling fans to be his clubmate and to experience his adventures up close.”

The club’s second ambassador, who will not ride, is Bobbie Traksel, who rode professionally from 2000 to 2013. Those two veterans are balanced out by the first rider in the road club, Piotr Havek. The 22-year-old Dutchman rode for the Rabobank Development team for two years and with Team 3M last year. He aims to join the pro ranks next year when the team itself becomes professional.

BEAT “aims to be the first international cycling club to establish a professional cycling team through which cyclists and fans can experience the sport at the highest level,” according to the press rlease.

“We are in our start-up phase right now and plan to be fully functional in 2018,” spokesman Geert Broekhuizen told Cyclingnews. “In the long term (2018) we are building professional cycling teams, on the track as well as on the road. Indeed, with sponsors like every other team and also soccer clubs for example.”