In 2016, Team MTN-Qhubeka will be known as Team Dimension Data. Many were surprised that the African charity Qhubeka, which provides bikes to underprivileged kids, was no longer going to be in the name. Team principal Douglas Ryder has explained the reason to CyclingTips in a recent interview.

“The team will be called Team Dimension Data. Qhubeka is not going to be in the title and neither is Deloitte,” he explained to CyclingTips.

“I have seen quite a lot of comments about it on social media. People love the team because Qhubeka was in the title and this team isn’t like any other team. But we did some research with Qhubeka and the feeling was that with its name in the title, lots of people who are not close to the team think that the charity is so wealthy that it is a sponsor of the team.”

Ryder confirmed that the team will still race for Qhubeka in 2016. He also released some numbers that the charity received while the team was riding the Tour de France.

“This is not Unicef sponsoring FC Barcelona,” he continued. “This is Qhubeka, which doesn’t fund a team. It is a complete and utter charity that we raise funds for. We raised 550,000 euro during the Tour de France, nearly 600,000 euro – that was absolutely brilliant.”

“In fact, that is one of the reasons why all of these riders are part of this team: it is racing for the greater good, the greater cause and it has a purpose. But it is not going to be in the name for the pure fact that people had the wrong impression. And that was negatively affecting the charity, to be frank.”