Nicola Cranmer, founder of successful development team Twenty24, on tough beginnings: "We would make money on the entry fees and fans, and riders’ parents would bake things"

Nicola Cranmer, herself a former professional mountain biker, started the Team Twenty24 back in 2004 and is now officially the longest running women’s cycling team ever. Nineteen years later, it’s also one of the winningest teams ever, having developed and fostered the likes of Jennifer Valente, Chloe Dygert and Coryn Rivera. All in all, her riders have earned 18 Olympic and Paralympic gold medals and 17 world championship titles. 

"My feeling is I’m not a special person; I work hard, I’m able to see opportunities, and there are just people who need only opportunity. You present it to them and they can thrive," she tells CyclingWeekly. "But a lot of girls and women just don’t even get an opportunity."

"When I started the team, I definitely was not looking at this as a career," she says. However, Cranmer realized that to allow the team to keep growing, she would have to give up her other jobs to put all her energy into the team. "Which isn’t the best financial decision I’ve ever made, but I've been very lucky."

Sometimes it wasn't easy, but the team always found a way to make things run in the right direction. "We would make money on the entry fees and fans, and riders’ parents would bake things. We literally had a bake sale to fund our World Cup races," Cranmer says with a laugh.