BOURTON’S former national road race champion Sharon Laws is currently in the middle of a two-week training camp with her new Bigla women’s pro cycling colleagues on Fuerteventura in the Canaries.

Laws and her team-mates are based at the Las Playitas resort which, coincidentally, was the temporary home before Christmas of the Loughborough University triathletes, including Cirencester’s para-tri world title holder Jenny Manners.

“It’s going really well on camp – one week down and one to go,” Laws told the Standard.

“I then have three days back in Girona before going to Switzerland for the team presentation on January 29.

“Then we are off to race in Qatar. We leave on February 1 and the four-day race starts on February 3.”

One of the highlights of Sharon’s 2015 schedule with her new team will be the second edition of the widely-acclaimed Friends Life Women’s Tour, whose inaugural race last year proved such a hit with crowds in the East of England. One hundred of world’s top female cyclists will take part.

The 2015 race takes place from Wednesday, June 17 to Sunday, June 21, again being run over five stages with daily highlights on ITV4.

This year’s event will start where the inaugural race finished, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.