Manuka Performance is proud to sponsor the Liv Awol Spok'd team from the United Kingdom. We will be highlighting all of the ladies from this U23 Women's Cycling team. Kia kaha (stay strong) from Aotearoa, New Zealand!
A racer who is at home on almost any bike, joining Admiral Liv AWOL for 2019 is the former Cycle Team OnForm rider, Emily Ashwood.
Emily’s love for cycling started at the age of 8 when she joined Sutton Cycling Club, but was inspired to race bikes after meeting former Sutton CC member, Olympian Joanna Rowsell when she returned to visit the club after her success at the 2012 Olympics in London.
The disciplines that Emily rides are mountain bike XC, cyclo-cross and more recently road. In both the 2016 season as a Youth A (U16) and the 2017 season as a Junior, she finished 3rd overall in the National MTB XC Series and finished 2017 ranked 2nd on the British Cycling rankings. About mountain biking, Emily explains “I love the thrill of the challenging courses with rock gardens, drop-offs, and steep descents.”
The highlight of her cyclo-cross career so far was in 2017, winning round 4 of the National Cyclo-Cross Trophy at Cyclopark in Kent (her home ground) in the Junior category. Road racing is a newer discipline for Emily and what she really likes about it is the comradery of being in and racing with a team group, which is quite different from the other disciplines. She considers her strength in road racing to be her sprinting ability and this helped her to win the Velo Club Norwich Women’s Road Race in 2017 and 3rd place in the Bourne Wheelers Junior Girls race in 2017.
Another highlight for Emily was taking part in the Jeugdtour Assen in 201, racing against many other nationalities in such a superbly organised tour and on day 2 making the podium for winning the most sprint laps.
Unfortunately, during the National MTB XC Championships at Hadleigh Farm in July 2018 in what was a freak accident Emily broke her leg, so realistically she is unlikely to be competing in this year’s cyclocross season. On this Emily says, “However, with rehabilitation and physio, as well as lots of hard training I am hoping to make a full recovery and am very excited to be riding for Admiral Liv AWOL as an Under 23 and looking forward to the opportunities that 2019 will bring. I already know many of the other girls in the team and often go out on training rides with them around the Surrey Hills.”
When Emily is not riding my bike, she enjoys working in her local bike shop, fixing and selling bikes as well as talking to customers about bikes!!
Emily’s previous teams/clubs include: Cycle Team OnForm, Sutton Cycling Club. Emily will continue to ride MTB XC for WXC World Racing alongside her Admiral Liv AWOL road teammate, Charlotte McGreevy.
She will be riding on Road and Cyclo-cross for Admiral Liv-AWOL.
Photo and content credit to her team at Liv-Awol