Isle of Man cyclist Becky Storrie will ride in the prestigious Tour de France Femmes which gets underway next week.

One of the biggest races on the women’s calendar, the event will begin with a Grand Depart in the Netherlands on Monday, August 12 when the peloton heads from Rotterdam to the Hague over 124 kilometres.

The second day of racing sees two mini stages (2a and 2b), the latter of which is an individual time trial over 6.3km.

The following day sees the race head to the Ardennes hills in Belgium before heading over the border into France where it will remain over the next few stages before the race ends on the iconic Alpe d’Huez.

Manxwoman Storrie, 25, has been named in an eight-strong line-up for Team dsm-firmenich PostNL alongside Francesca Barale, Barbieri Rachele, Pfeiffer Georgi, Franziska Koch, Charlotte Kool and Juliette Labous.

On announcing the team, coach Albert Timmer commented: ‘We have performed well in the first two editions of the Tour de France Femmes and we are aiming to continue that this year. 

‘It is exciting to be able to start on home Dutch soil and we will be targeting those opening sprint stages with Charlotte as our finisher. 

‘We have a really strong lead-out group to support and position her for those finales to give us the best chance possible in the all-out efforts to the line. 

‘Like last year, we also have the combined goal of going for a top GC result with Juliette; we’ve performed consistently on that front this year and with good climbing support, we believe that we can do so once again at the Tour. 

‘In the more transitional stages, we will ride smartly and if an opportunity presents itself then we will also continue our aggressive and attacking approach to hunt for those stage results, before we tackle the high mountains in the final weekend. 

‘We will need to ride well as a team throughout the week, but everyone is looking forward to taking to the start line in Rotterdam.’