Alice Wood (née Barnes) will bow out as a professional cyclist at the end of the 2024 road season, with her final competition on home soil coming this week at the British National Road Championships in North Yorkshire.
The 28-year-old from Oxford raced on the road for three teams across nine seasons, most of that time on the Women’s WorldTour, first with Canyon-SRAM and then Human Powered Health.
After early success as a junior in mountain biking and cyclocross, including seventh at the Mountain Bike World Championships as an U23 in cross-country, Barnes punctuated her road career in 2019 when she notched double British national titles at the elite level.
“At the end of 2024, I will be ending my professional racing career. I feel grateful that I have been able to do my hobby as my job for so many years. I’ve raced my bike since I was 8 years old, where I was never very good but kept turning up for the love of the sport and the people I met. Step by step, I kept progressing to a point where cycling became my profession, which I could never have imagined would be possible all those years before,” Wood wrote on Instagram on Monday.
“I still am very passionate about the sport, so I won’t be hanging my bike up for good. Just not pinning a number on anymore.”
Wood was part of a formidable duo with her sister Hannah Barnes during four of her five years at Canyon-SRAM. Two years before they joined forces as pros, Barnes won the elite women’s British road championship in 2016 and Wood finished second overall, which also gave her the first of two U23 road race titles. She signed to race for Drops Cycling for her first two pro seasons and never looked back at other disciplines.
“The proudest for me personally placing 2nd on stage 3 and 6th overall in the OVO Womens Tour and also winning stage 1 on the BeNe Ladies Tour in a two-up sprint with Marianne Vos,” she wrote on her website about her career.
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In 2018 she signed with Canyon-SRAM and won a stage in the Thüringen Ladies Tour. But her best memory was again when she raced in the national jersey and this time earned a gold medal at the Road World Championships in the Team Time Trial alongside Barnes.
“By far the most successful and memorable moment of my career came at the end of 2018 when we won the Team Time Trial World Championships in Austria. A goal that we put a great deal of time and effort into. The feeling to step onto the podium together was one that I will never forget, especially alongside my sister,” she wrote.
Hannah Barnes retired from pro cycling last season at the age of 30, so this year only one sister will take part in nationals. Wood will line up for the time trial on Wednesday in Catterick, a total of 30km on a two-lap course that includes the Throstle Gill climb. At the road race on Sunday that starts and ends in Salturn-By-The-Sea, she will take part on the technical 26km loop, completed five times by the elite women over 130km.
Wood will also compete for a fourth time in her career at LOTTO Thüringen Ladies Tour after nationals, and the balance of her season is yet to be determined.
“I have so many people to thank who got me to where I am. To start with my parents. They put so much time and money into taking us to races and training camps from such a young age. We raced everything when we were younger, which isn’t a cheap way to go about it with 3 kids, but that helped me on my way to competing for Great Britain at the world championships in 4 different disciplines.”
