First Race, First Ace

The Torpado Factory Racing team has a fantastic palmares in XCM racing at the highest level and as the long distance discipline now becomes a UCI World Cup competition, the need for the performance and reliability of their components to step up to the next level arose. The arrival of the partnership with Hayes Group came at the perfect time and the confirmation that the decision to work together was the correct one came upon the first race of the season with a fantastic result at the Andalusia Bike Race from which the team hopes to construct the rest of the season. Hayes group provides Torpado Factory Racing with Manitou R7 and Mara Inline suspension, Hayes Dominion brakes, ProTaper stems and bars and Reynolds wheels and the combination of top athletes with top componentry made for the top result at the season’s first HC level international race.

After six stages, 18 hours of competition and endless challenges, the Torpado Factory Team’s Katazina Sosna claimed a season opening victory at the Haute Categorie Andalusia Bike Race, one of the most coveted and ruthless stage races of the international calendar. The long and arduous race was a crescendo through the six stages in Andalusia, Spain. Katazina, together with her courageous teammate, occupied every single step of the podium in this ruthless stage race. Not only did they lay claim to 6 podiums in six stages (third in the first stage, first in the second, second in the third stage, first in the fourth and fifth stages and second in the sixth stage) but also cemented the leadership in the general classification from the end of the third stage until the conclusion of the race.

From Katazina’s own words both the physical condition and the equipment she is using this year appear to be the perfect recipe for success. “We were aiming for the general classification and we focused on that. In the final there were very technical descents and our gap from the head of the thing was still a minute, in those moments we started to recover, I never left my teammate alone, while the opponents were not so united. Finally after 3 years I won Andalusia, I am extremely happy for this success that we wanted so badly. The physical condition feels great and we can build from here. Thebike was already great but with the new suspension from Manitou, amazing brakes from Hayes and amazingly competitive wheels from Reynolds it feels like a missile…one that I cant wait to take to more races this year!”