Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling is pleased to announce the full staff for the new season. The staff consists of manager and team owner Rochelle Gilmore, Directeur Sportif Franky van Haesebroucke, mechanic Jarrod Moroni, Soigneur Rino Deraedt, PR & race reporter Ben Atkins and last but not least our PR, Content Manager and Photographer Bart Hazen.
Rochelle Gilmore (General Manager, Team Owner)
Rochelle Gilmore was born on the 14th of December 1981 in Sutherland, Australia. Gilmore was introduced to cycling at the young age of three on a BMX bike alongside her brothers. She also did motocross, waterskiing, gymnastics, tennis, athletics, cross country running, rock climbing, netball, surfing, surf life-saving, touch football, softball and many more sports.
At the age of 13 Rochelle decided to drop many sports and concentrate on a career in cycling. BMX was Rochelle’s favourite sport however at the time, it was not an Olympic sport, so cycling was her obvious alternate choice.
Rochelle’s increased focus on sport during her junior years sparked her desire to become a champion cyclist. As a junior, Rochelle had a successful period as a track cyclist, winning a number of junior National Championships and a junior World Championship silver medal. She then continued on the track to win senior/elite World Cups and two World Championship silver medals as well as winning two silver medals at the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games before turning her focus to road cycling.
Gilmore has since dedicated herselfpurely to the road, a decision which has seen her win a World Cup and claimmany World Cup podiums. Her most memorable result to date has been her win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. Rochelle’s road cycling achievements also include stage wins of the Route De France and Giro d’Italia.
Rochelle who is from a large familywith two brothers, two half sisters and one-half brother has for a few years now combined her racing career with a successful business career. Late in 2012, Rochelle Gilmore founded the impressive women’s professional cycling team – Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling which is made up of 16 athletes; 3 Olympic Champions, 6 World Champions and 13 National Champions from 8 different nations. (United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Spain, Japan, Australia, New Zealand & Sweden).
Over the past 15 years Rochelle has been busy travelling the world for cycling however she has continued to study her topics of interest by correspondence (Management & Marketing, Business, Sports Journalism, Fitness & Anatomy, Italian Language etc.)
Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling’s owner and manager hopes to raise the level of professionalism and profile of women’s cycling and, to offer her athletes the best possible environment, support, equipment and opportunities in order for each and every one of them to reach their full potential.
Will Rochelle’s business talent and aspirations soon see her change her race wheels and hard pumped tubular tyres for some softer more comfortable casual unintended training wheels with clinchers?
Franky van Haesebroucke (Directeur Sportif)
Franky van Haesebroucke was born on 31 july 1970 in Deinze, Belgium. He is married to cyclist Cindy Bauwens and has two kids: Lasse (5) and Lucca (8). In his household it is all about cycling, both on the road and in cyclocross. He now lives in Avelgem near Oudenaarde which is the centrum of cycling.
From his birth Franky was already going to cycling races, his father was a directeur sportif for several pro teams, and at the age of twelve Franky started to compete in cycling too. In 1994 he turned pro with the Australian Morgan Oils team and competed for several teams like Asfra, Collstrop and Navigators until 2001. After his active cycling career he immediately became a directeur sportif and worked for teams like Iteamnova, Navigators, Sparebanken Vest and the past two years for Champions System Pro Cycling.
From this year Franky is the new directeur sportif for Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling, succeeding Simon Cope, who is working with the U23 guys at British Cycling. “The deal with Wiggle Honda was completed quickly as I knew Rochelle from my Australian past as we both have mutual friends,” he says.
His goal is to try and win races with multiple riders, to make the team stronger and to finish in the top three of the UCI ranking for teams. To reach this, in his eyes, the riders need to ride like a team and not as an individual. His motivation is to build a team that is willing to work for each other all the time to accomplish the team goals.
Jarrod Moroni (Head Mechanic)
Jarrod Moroni (32) was born and bred in the town of Bendigo in Victoria, Australia. He work’s at a bike shop and enjoys riding his bike- CX, MTB, road and track in order of preference. His girlfriend is Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling athlete Peta Mullens.
Jarrod was introduced to cycling at a very young age when he rode his bike to and from school. He found out that he liked dirt, jumps and breaking things so he naturally fell into MTB’ing at the age of 14. A few years later his dad bought a sports store and 16 years later he owns a bike shop. Jarrod has been a mechanic there for most of that time, but wandered in and out with sport, travel, a bit of concreting, building and some home renovations. His own career highlights are winning the U19 Australian MTB Championships back in 1999 and representing Australia at the Junior World Championships in Sweden.
Several years ago Jarrod was a mechanic for the German Gerolsteiner team for one season. Since then he has been on and off living the dream as one should. Things slowed down a little bit when he met Peta. But now Peta signed with Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling for 2014 he found out there was an opportunity to tour with the team as head mechanic. It isn’t that strange that both Peta and Jarrod are on the team as they have worked with Rochelle Gilmore before in Australia.
Jarrod is looking forward to the season with Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling and the upcoming adventures.
Rino Deraedt (Soigneur)
Rino Deraedt was born on 20 february 1969 in Kortrijk, Belgium. At the age of 14 Rino turned into cycling and is active in the sport ever since. In 1993 he was a trainee for the Morgan-Oils team and was a professional cyclist for Tonnisteiner-Colnago-Saxon from 1996 to 1998.
After 26 years on the bike it was time for Rino for a new challenge. After following the necessary training courses at Syntra, in cooperation with Bloso, WBV and the Flemish Community, he graduated as sport soigneur and is one of the fifteen licensed cycling soigneurs in Belgium.
In the meantime he was directeur sportif for a Belgian clubteam and a Greek continental team. Soon after he became one of the regular soigneurs for soccer club Cercle Brugge and is still working for them. The past two years Rino worked for the Champions System Pro Cycling Team together with Directeur Sportif Franky van Haesebroucke but after the team folded the two had to search for new opportunities. That new opportunity is Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling where his main goal is to help the athletes in the best possible way. For Rino it is an honor to work for such a professional team and hopes he can be part of another succesful season.
Ben Atkins (PR & Race Reporter)
Ben Atkins was born and bred in the UK and currently lives in Hereford, Herefordshire. Ben is a father of two, and is responsible for writing and distributing news about the Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling Team. He is really happy that his six-year-old daughter, has heroes like Giorgia Bronzini and Marianne Vos to look up to.
Like most of the people in the UK he got into cycling through the coverage of the Tour de France. Having watched it casually for a few years, he got really hooked in the mid 1990s. His own racing career has been restricted to a bit of 4th category road racing and a few slow time trials, but the stuff he really loved was riding in Europe doing Gran Fondos and Etapes, as well as loads of cyclo sportives in France and Belgium.
Before Ben got into journalism and writing he used to have a “proper job” – that used to pay quite well – but he began writing features for Cyclingnews, back in 2002, about the Gran Fondos he used to ride. This got more frequent every year, and he moved into other areas including other features, tech, interviews and race reporting. Having covered a number of women’s races in the previous years, Cyclingnews asked him to cover the whole season in 2008, and he decided to become a full time journalist. Unfortunately, his work with Cyclingnews dried up in 2009, but he continued to work for VeloNation.com, as well as magazines like Peloton and Road Bike Action. Last season he also had a great time making some short news videos for the UCI at the World Cup races and the World Championships.
Since the start of the team in the end of 2012 Ben has been involved with Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling. For him it is huge honour to be asked to be involved in such an exciting project. And when it turned out to be a fantastic first year it made it even more special. His motivations and ambitions are to do his part to make the women’s peloton, and the racing that it takes part in, as professional as the men’s side of the sport. The new regime at the top of the UCI is prioritising the women’s sport, which is a huge leap forward considering that the women’s sport seems to be on the rise again, with the Tour of Britain and La Course de la Tour de France on top of the Classic races we already have, and hopefully more races will follow.
Bart Hazen (PR Manager & Photographer)
Bart Hazen was born on 18 september 1984 in Schimmert, The Netherlands. From a young age Bart was involved in sports, first with gymnastics, followed by table tennis before turning into competitive cycling at the age of 13. The choice for cycling wasn’t that strange as his father was riding his bike every day and took him to many races like the Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Every weekend Bart went out on his bike to do long rides with his father and uncles.
After having visited a local race Bart decided to join a local club (TWC Maaslandster) and raced for them until he was 20 years of age. The 29 year old also completed two studies in ICT and Communications & Multimedia Design and started photography as a hobby. In recent years he attended lots of races on the road, track and in cyclocross for several magazines and cycling websites. Since the end of 2013 he has been involved with Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling. The combination of Communications, Multimedia and sports photography has brought him where he is now.
Bart has been involved in women’s cycling for the past 8 years now and has seen the development of the sport over the years. When Rochelle asked him for Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling, in the end of 2012, and told what she wanted to accomplish he didn’t have to think about it. The love for the sport, the ambition to develop women’s cycling, to get equality in the sport are his motivations and also ambitions. It is just an honour to work for such a professional team.
