How Essex lad bagged bike deal (From Echo)

How Essex lad bagged bike deal

6:30pm Wednesday 25th January 2012 in Other Sport By Frazer Clark

FORMER Olympic bike racer and Commonwealth Games medal winner Ben Luckwell has put his faith in a south Essex teenager to make it as a professional road racer.

Chafford Hundred’s Ben Lamb – who celebrates his 17th birthday on Wednesday – has been given a sponsorship deal to ride for a prestigious team managed by Luckwell, who rode alongside Chris Boardman in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

The Somerset-based Wilier/ Live2Ride team is giving Lamb a £7,000 Italian Wilier Cento 1 bike and slot on their 12-strong team.

Ben Luckwell, 45, said: “I saw something in Ben which impressed me. He’s got a good mental attitude to training, the sport and being part of a team.”

Lamb said: “I knew that Ben Luckwell was looking for new young riders and I have met him before at events. I told him about myself and what I was doing and he asked me to ride for the team.

“I know that I can learn a lot from him because he’s done it all in the sport.”

As well as bagging a Commonwealth medal, Luckwell is also a former sprint winner in the Kellogs Tour and was a triple stage winner in the Milk Race.

Ben Lamb said: “I cannot wait for the bike and the sponsored kit to get here. It will be tempting to keep the bike in my bedroom, but I think it will have to be kept downstairs.”

“I am averaging about 700km a week at the moment.

“It is hard at this time of year because of the weather, but you’ve got to do it – and now I have an even bigger incentive.”

Lamb, a former pupil at Grays School, now studies for two days a week at South East Essex College’s Wood View Campus in Grays, where he is learning to be a carpenter and joiner.

He said: “Being there gives me the time to do lots of training so it fits in very well with my ambition to make it as a professional bike racer. My main strengths are in hill climbing.”

The law says that only cyclists over the age of 17 are allowed to compete in full road races in this country last season the youngster had to go abroad to Belgium to compete. He took on Europe’s famous Koppenberg climb and Antwerp’s famous Diamond Race.

This year Lamb will be taking part in both the national cycling series and the national championships in May.