One of the new signings is Jesse Ewart. The 27-year-old comes from Newcastle, on the beautiful coast of New South Wales in Australia. More than 16,500 kilometers linear distance separate his hometown from Saarland and yet the paths crossed with BIKE AID.
For a cyclist, the childhood of the Australian, with an Irish passport, was anything but ordinary. At the age of 10, Jesse started riding his bike so he could go surfing before school. In high school, he played rugby, one of the national sports. He also tried water polo, soccer and skateboarding.
At just 16 years old, Jesse had already graduated from high school. From then on, he began working full time as a carpenter. No one could have imagined that this job would be the starting point for his cycling career.
Since Jesse didn't have a driver's license yet, he had to ride his bike 30 kilometers to work every morning. At the age of 17, the passion for cycling finally took hold of him and hobbies like surfing took a back seat. Jesse quit his job and started racing for the Philippine team 7-11 Sava RBP in 2016. " My grandfather also raced bikes and inspired me. In addition, my father owns a bike store, so a certain affinity for bikes has probably always existed." So says Jesse Ewart.
In just his first year with 7-11 Sava RBP, the Australian finished fourth in GC at the Tour de Filipinas. In 2018, Jesse joined Malaysian continental team Sapura Cycling and won the overall classification at the Tour de Singkarak that same year and again in 2019. With BIKE AID, he now moves to a European team for the first time.
The second new signing is 22-year-old Dutchman Wesley Mol. He, too, tried one or the other thing before discovering bike racing for himself. Like many other kids, he got into sports by playing soccer. A little later he started playing tennis and running. At the age of 12, also cycling was added. Two years with four sports at the same time became too much for Wesley and at the age of 14 he decided to focus completely on racing bikes.
He did his first races in Belgium with his local club from the Netherlands. The races there inspired him and Wesley moved to the Belgian club Balen BC, where he raced for six years with names like Jasper Philipsen, Jordi Meeus, Ward Vanhoof and Florian Vermeersch.
In the U23 class, he moved to Alberto Contador's team Eolo-Kometa, followed by a move to CT Team Differdange-GeBa and further on to De Jonge Renner in the Netherlands. In 2021 Wesley again raced for a CT team called XSpeed United. He first met BIKE AID in person at Belgrade-Banjaluka, where he barely missed out on the white junior jersey. Just eight months later, he is now joining the team for the 2022 season.
Wesely Mol in the first picture. Jesse Ewart in the second picture on the right.