FOR THE RECORD
In winter 2016, Dan Bigham – a speed-hungry cyclist training at Derby Velodrome – thought it would be fun to enter the team pursuit at the National Track Championships. With a masters in motorsport engineering from Oxford Brookes, Bigham had been working in aerodynamics for the Mercedes F1 team and racing on the road for Planet X-Northside. He roped in fellow riders Charlie Tanfield and Jacob Tipper, as well as Jonny Wale, a psychology student at Loughborough. The team had no money or coach. But in January 2017 these talented mavericks shook up the cycling world by becoming national champions, in a new competition record time of 4 minutes 4 seconds.
“We just did it for fun but we were pretty nerdy in our prep,” recalls Bigham, 28, tinkering with his Argon 18 Electron Pro bike before a recent track session in Derby. “Everyone’s progressive so we try to get a jump on the rest with a good application of science, physiology, aerodynamics and kit. I was an engineer, Jonny knows psychology, Tippers did sports science at uni.”
Named after local charity the Karen Green Foundation, Team KGF was eager to enter UCI World Cup races, where independent ‘trade teams’ could race alongside national squads. “We’d missed the deadline for
