Ahead of the opening round of the NCL Cup Criterium Series at the Miami Beach Invitational on April 8, National Cycling League organizers have finalized the full lineup of 10 invited teams. The new series, which will span four events in the U.S. this summer, will feature women's and men's teams paired together for $1 million in prize money and will be contested on a points system based on overall points.

Supporting the unified, or "co-ed" affiliations of both men's and women's teams will be Team Skyline at the U.S. Continental level for the men, the Fount Cycling Guild, an established elite program in the United States, and Team Five teams total, including SoupLovers.com. Two other teams, the Denver Disruptors and Miami Knights, are in their first season at the national elite level.

The balance of roster spots in the invite-only race series are filled by existing men-only and women-only DEs or partnerships between club teams. Two of those partnerships, Foundation Cycling (men) and CCB-Alpine Carbon p/b LLG (women), and Texas Roadhouse Cycling (men) and Goldman Sachs ETFs (women), are all DE teams.

The men's DE team, Kelly Benefits Strategies Cycling, will partner with women's club teams Primo Velo Racing; Team Mike's Bikes p/b Equator Coffees (men) and Monarch Racing (women), Voler Factory Racing (men) and Roxo Racing (women) complete the lineup, with all four teams being club teams.

The women's and men's teams will compete in separate 30-lap races, and the number of laps in each race will be added together to determine the overall score. Team scores determine the winner of each event and the series standings, so athletes are rewarded equally.

"This is one of our founding principles: everyone is equal. So it's not a women's team and a men's team. We have "a" team. Little things like that make a big difference in the happiness and general acceptance of all the players," says Reed McCalvin, NCL's vice president of teams.

"One of the important things we do is try to elevate bicycle racing in America. We wanted to support a team that actually supported our mission statement. So, the Texas Roadhouse and CCB are teams that represent regions and clubs that have been around for decades and decades, and by having teams that support these races, we have always given back to the sport through local riding. The Suprabbers have a club of 150 members.

SupraBars.com entered the American racing scene four years ago with a mixed gender team founded by Debbie Milne, a 17-time Masters National Champion on road and track. She welcomed the "genuine interest" from NCL Cup organizers to create something unique and said she would join them in their quest for income-generating opportunities in racing, where safety is a major concern.

"We are very excited to be one of the teams that can take on this new format. They have shown a genuine interest in creating something unique for our sport. We want more Americans to be interested in the sport of cycling, and we are excited to see if this format can accomplish that," said veteran criterium racer and scratch racing masters (50-54) track world Milne, a champion, told Cyclingnews.

"They have made it clear that they welcome our input as a competitive team to provide feedback for continuous improvement as they build this league and race format. We appreciate that course safety and professionalism in competition are among their priorities."

SupraBars.com's mission is to develop individual and team-based skills and provide top-level racing experiences to mentor upcoming team members, both men and women. Joining Milne in the NCL Cup will be Owen Schott, two-time U.S. Masters Road national champion, and Hana Hermanovska (Czech Republic), who finished 4th on Day 2 of the Salt Lake Criterium and 10th on Day 2 of the St. Francis Tulsa Tough last year

Team Skyline is the only team with a continental level rider (men) to accept an invitation to the NCL Cup. The national elite women's team includes Colleen Gulick, who won 10 road races last year, including the Wilmington Grand Prix.

The Fount Cycling Guild has both a professional team and a club team, with co-founder Jennifer Wheeler on the women's team. She was on the podium twice last year at the Redlands Bicycle Classic, including a stage win. [CCB-Alpine Carbon p/b LLG team manager Lauren LeClair said that this women-only team was approached by several men's teams to collaborate with the NCL Cup, but existing team sponsors and the team calendar were the top priorities The team was approached by several men's teams to collaborate with the NCL Cup. A partnership with Foundation Cycling came together as the clear choice. [Working with the Foundation was] easy because of our history and longstanding relationship with the former CCB U23 Continental men's program, of which the Foundation has been an important sponsor for several years," Leclerc explained to Cycling News, "and to collaborate on this series. The CCB team began as a club in Boston, Massachusetts in 1976 and now has 300 members worldwide, including a women's multi-discipline racing team.

"We are poised to work side by side with the Foundation racers to achieve common goals and find success together in these races, while maintaining our identity as an independent women's team. There are areas of overlap, such as staff and support like mechanics, and shared logistics at each race weekend, but we expect that overlap to increase and develop throughout the series."

The most explosive rosters are the Denver Disruptors and Miami Knights. Former World Tour veteran Leah Kirchman, who represented Canada in two Olympic Games, and Sergio Henao, two-time Colombian national road champion and overall winner of the 2017 Paris-Nice, will lead the Denver Disruptors. Also joining the team from the now-defunct Wildlife Generation Continental-level team are seven-time Romanian road champion Sergei Tvetkov and Noah Graningan, who finished second in GC in the 2022 Joe Martin Stage Race

Miami.

The Miami Nights have an international sprinter lineup, with Venezuela's Clever Martinez on the men's side, second overall in the 2022 American Criterium Cup men's standings with seven top-10 finishes, including three on the podium, at the IU Health Momentum Indy The Colombian Bryan Gomez, who has five top-10 finishes, including a win at the IU Health Momentum Indy, and Mexican Alfredo Rodriguez, winner of last year's Sunny King Criterium and the Harlem Skyscraper Cycling Classic. Paola Andrea Muñoz has been riding at the continental level for five seasons, and the Chilean rider won a stage win and points prize at the 2022 Vuelta a Formosa Femenina.

McAlvin has made business decisions about the teams, such as scheduling the races in such a way that they do not overlap with major criteriums already on the U.S. calendar, logistics of travel, and race payouts to the entire field in four races (all 10 teams receive prize money). He said that the organization made "human decisions" rather than decisions. He hopes this new formula will be a win-win for teams and fans.

"There's no entry fee, and we'll pay for travel expenses, which no one else in the U.S. does. The NCL is there to support the teams, develop the sport, and give back better to the sponsors."