A new U.S. professional cycling team was recently announced that will compete in the 2008 season. And Team Type 1 won’t be riding under the name of a product or sponsor, but rather a cause. Type 1 refers to a type of diabetes.
Team Type 1 founders Phil Southerland and Joe Eldridge both have diabetes. They set out to compete at the highest level to show what people with diabetes can do.
“Our goal is to inspire people with diabetes around the world to take control of their health through diet, exercise and proper health care,”Southerland said in a prepared statement in the Dec. 20 team announcement. He has been a type 1 diabetic since he was seven months old. “As a professional team, racing against the world’s best cyclists, we’ll be able to deliver that message to a much wider audience.”
Four of the 13 riders on the professional squad have diabetes. The teamwill be funded by pharmaceutical companies.
Andy Mead, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is probably Lancaster’s closest geographic connection to the new team. Mead, 30, will be a member of the Type 1 developmental team. He was a member of the Type 1 eight-rider team that won its division of last year’s Race Across America.
Mead also led a metric century ride last fall in Hershey in October. Proceeds from that ride benefited juvenile diabetes research.
Mead is one of 10 members of the Type 1 ddevelopmental team. All of them have diabetes. Mead was diagnosed with the disease when he was 16. The developmental team will participate in amateur races.
The new professional squad hopes to get a spot on the start line of the Tour of California in February.
