Revolution Champions League to feature riders from Velon teams

A new track series is to launch towards the end of the year, featuring riders from the various professional teams who together make up the Velon group. The Revolution Champions League will see the top riders from the existing Revolution Series pitted against those better known for their exploits on the road.

Velon, an association of 11 WorldTour teams, is a commercial joint venture which is looking to bring greater stability to professional cycling through reducing reliance on individual sponsors.

Its CEO, Graham Bartlett, said: "At Velon we are excited by linking up with the Revolution Series extending our goals in cycling beyond the road and onto the track. Revolution is already a very well established and successful race series and this new partnership will enable the series to expand internationally as the new Revolution Champions League."

The racing will feature 12 teams, eight of which will be from the WorldTour and four of which will be qualifiers. It will run across three successive weekends in the autumn.

James Pope, CEO of FACE Partnership, owners of the Revolution Series, said: "Velon and FACE are united in the aims of providing more entertaining racing for cycling fans, and a better narrative to the race season. With Velon’s support we will bring the world’s best road teams to Revolution and create a new exciting format for track cycling."

Velon has pioneered the use of live on-bike camera footage during road races and has recently been working on broadcasting live race data. Although they don’t state what specifically, this will apparently be something employed during the Revolution Champions League. Earlier in the year, Reuters reported that while various data would be accessible as a result of an agreement with Infront Sports Media, what would be publicly visible on TV screens was still subject to discussions with riders, teams, organisers and the UCI.