Continuing the team’s commitment to providing a junior rider with a place on the team, Matrix Fitness was delighted to add Isla Rush as its first new rider for 2016. As they entered a new phase for the team, in which they take a side step away from a traditional team environment and focus their support on helping developing riders realise their potential, Isla was one of the first riders that they considered. Isla had been a friend of the team for a long time. She\u2019d attended several team launches, and often watched the team in Belgium. Having chosen to take a different pathway to many others, Isla raced off her own back in Belgium regularly, gaining experience of the fast-moving European peloton as often as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to hear that Matrix Fitness have signed Isla Rush for the 2016 season,\u201d <\/em>said Huw. \u201cIsla attended the first of my novice women\u2019s race training sessions in 2012 at Cyclopark as a pretty worried-looking 14-year-old that\u2019d done a bit of triathlon and some local TT\u2019s. Matrix was instrumental in helping set up the initial novice women\u2019s race training sessions, sending team riders to a variety of freezing cold locations in the middle of the bleakest, off-season months and inspiring dozens of aspiring women racers along the way. Isla\u2019s elevation to the team three years down the line squares the circle for me, she\u2019s the first genuinely novice racer to emerge from those sessions to join a major team and underlines the importance of teams like Matrix in providing alternative pathways for non academy riders.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Isla hails from North Norfolk, was still in full-time education and continued to race around her school commitments. With races planned in the UK, France and Belgium already, it will be a busy 2016 but she likes getting away to race \u2013 on signing for the team she said, \u201cI love how the team races abroad regularly, especially in Belgium. I really enjoy racing out there and it\u2019s definitely something I\u2019d like to pursue in the future professionally. The racing scene is Europe is really cool. I can\u2019t wait for an exciting 2016 with a team I\u2019ve admired since I first picked up a road bike.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIsla is absolutely what we are looking for in a rider,\u201d <\/em>commented Stefan Wyman, manager of the Matrix Fitness team. \u201cEnthusiastic, talented and someone who simply loves racing. She races road, track and TT races and is a delight to be with off the bike. She\u2019s even started to help the next generation of riders by helping Huw at his training sessions as an expert advisor. It\u2019s going to be great seeing her in Matrix Fitness colours for 2016.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Continuing the team’s commitment to providing a junior rider with a place on the team, Matrix Fitness was delighted to add Isla Rush as its first new rider for 2016. As they entered a new phase for the team, in which they take a side step away from a traditional team environment and focus their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-womens-racing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p74t96-18","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2527,"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/2527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikesy.co.uk\/features\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/a>Isla<\/a> was more than just a new member; she was also confirmation that the team had moved full circle, being the first rider to have joined having been inspired into racing by the \u201cFan-Backed Women\u2019s Racing\u201d sessions started by Huw Williams<\/a> in conjunction with the Matrix Fitness team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n