LOCAL racers Jon Mozley and Dan Davies have joined forces to spearhead a new Derby-based road racing team, Kuota-Road CC, for the 2010 season.

The team also sees vastly experienced local cycling management duo Eddie White and Cherie Pridham back in action after the demise of the Plowman Craven-Madison team last season, owing to the sponsors' financial problems.

For Mozley and Davies – a potentially formidable pairing – the circumstances behind them arriving on the same team are decidedly different.

For Mozley, 22, from Borrowash, it is another season in which he is working under the tutelage of White and Pridham after being with them since his junior days in three different teams, finally fulfilling a dream by signing his first pro contract for them last season.

For Davies, now 23, from Hilton, a first full season of racing on the domestic circuit beckons and he feels he has something to prove.

Davies won the under-23 national time trial championship in 2006, then tried his luck in the hard school of Belgian racing for two years.

He was back in Britain last summer, with a day-job in Walsall, but had his racing season seriously curtailed by the trauma of an armed break-in at his flat.

"Getting over that took pretty much the rest of the summer and ended with me calling it a season mid-September," said Davies.

"I wasn't sure how I was going to jump back into cycling, fitness-wise, but I had started training by the end of September and, by the winter, I was putting out feelers.

"Now I'm really looking forward to working with Cherie and Eddie.

"There's a wealth of experience to be learnt from and some extremely talented riders on the team.

"It will be a very good set-up and one with a very good ethos.

"And yes, I feel I have something to prove.

"The few races I have done in the UK before have not gone according to plan but I think I can mix it with the best in this country on my day."

Kuota-Road CC – Kuota are bike manufacturers and Road CC is an on-line cycling magazine – will hope to be very strong on the burgeoning criterium scene in the UK in 2010.

And Mozley says his aim will be to play to his strengths in that field.

As well as Davies, he teams up again with Dutch rider Jeroen Janssen, who has also worked with White and Pridham before.

"JJ and I decided to stay with Cherie and Eddie and to lead the team into the 2010 crit races, as a core to build the team around – but I wouldn't discount us in road races," said Mozley.

"I've known Dan Davies for years.

"As he's been living and racing in Belgium, he has no problem with fast racing.

"He's a very reliable rider and I'm glad he's on the team.

"This is a new start for the team and for myself.

"No more will I try to be a jack of all trades, by trying constantly to lose weight in a battle to improve my climbing.

"I'm naturally a powerful flat land sprinter and crit rider, so I'm going to build on my strengths by doing very specific training, in the hope of proving I'm the quickest sprinter in Britain."

The rest of the Kuota line-up are Andy Tinsley from Burscough, Martin Smith, from MIlton Keynes, and another Dutchman, Jefte de Bruin, who was an international speed skater before switching to cycling.