Team Ohten and WattShop today announce that their racing teams are joining forces. From the 2027 season they will race as WattShop Ohten: one team from under-14s to masters world champions, competing on road, track and time trial at national and international level.
Start at the end
Both teams were built the same way: decide the goal, then work backwards. WattShop grew out of Dan Bigham’s HUUB Wattbike, a team that took on national programmes with spreadsheets, wind-tunnel data and a refusal to accept “that’s how it’s done”. The same approach built WattShop into a performance brand whose products are proven in racing, with its race team delivering multiple national titles in 2026.
Team Ohten was founded in 2019 as a masters track team with a simple ambition: to be the best masters track team in the world, with a professional approach, hard training and the right technology. WattShop has been its technical partner from day one.
Solve the whole equation
Speed is only half the problem. Ohten founder Richard Oakes’ book The Equation is about the other half: the thinking, relationships and habits that turn ability into performance. In the past 12 months Team Ohten has applied that to youth and junior racing, launching a development squad that won eight national titles in its first season. Places are offered on commitment, not race times. Sessions are free. Coaches get on the track and ride with the riders. And every rider learns to give back to the sport, from volunteering at events to mentoring the next intake.
WattShop brings the physics. Its engineers and race simulation tools will support riders across the whole team, from a first youth track session to the masters world championships. The approach for young riders is deliberate: invest early in what compounds over a career: bike fit, technical capability, bike handling, tactical awareness and good habits, and leave the quick wins until riders need to perform. Last year 10 of Ohten’s young riders spent a day in the wind tunnel, not chasing seconds but learning why riders go fast.
One team
WattShop Ohten is gender neutral, age neutral and discipline neutral. A 14-year-old at their first track session and a masters world champion wear the same colours and are held to the same standard: be the best you can be. For some that means international medals. For others it means a 26-minute ten.
WattShop CC continues as the open community club alongside the race team, bringing together club riders, families and supporters under the same shared identity. From 2028, a phased alignment of the community club and race team colours will further strengthen that connection.
The team's first event under the new name will be the WattShop Ohten Olympic Omnium for youths at Derby Arena in January 2027.
A shared vision
Richard Oakes, founder of Ohten and author of The Equation:
“WattShop has been part of our journey from the very beginning, and we have always shared the belief that convention is there to be questioned. Our teams have each built something special. Put WattShop’s engineering together with the human side of performance and you have the whole equation, and the chance to build riders and people who will still be getting better in twenty years.”
Dan Bigham, director of WattShop and author of Start at the End:
“I have spent my career starting at the end: decide what the finish line looks like, then let the numbers tell you how to get there. The finish line here is a pathway where a kid’s first track session and a masters world title are the same team, the same method and the same standard. Richard’s work on the person and our work on the physics are two halves of one equation. From 2027 we get to solve it together.”
