Bahrain - McLaren

[EroicaStradeBianche]

Second year of life for this team and they're already one of the best WT teams.
Last season they were Nibali-dependent but this year they've really stepped up their game:
-Nibali has already won in Sanremo.
-Visconti 5th at Strade Bianche, ready to stage-hunt here and there
-Mohoric on fire
-Pozzivivo second in Trentino and he is a serious top 5 contender at the Giro
-The Izagirres 3th and 4th in P-N and 3th in Basque Country
-Bonifazio and Sioutsou winning in Croatia
-Gasparotto 3th at Amstel
-Young riders like Padun an Cortina stepping up
-Colbrelli won in the middle east, than top 10 in Sanremo and podiums in Brabantse and Kuurne
-Haussler back on form

They're doing great and above all with a big variety of riders, curious to see what their budget is. They're achieving much more than the likes of UAE, Katusha, EF, BMC, ecc

(Also for Liege B-M is one of the teams who could influence more the race)

 

[Valv.Piti]

Yeah, they are actually a great squad and have performed very well this season! Also have to remember Delfino, guy was amazing in last year's Vuelta, but I doubt he will have that much impact in the Tour this year (if he even will get selected now with 8 man-teams?). Nibali will have great support in that race and the Giro-squad good do pretty well also with Pozzo, Visco and Padun who all did great in Trentino.

 

[skippo12]

Re:

Yeah, they are actually a great squad and have performed very well this season! Also have to remember Delfino, guy was amazing in last year's Vuelta, but I doubt he will have that much impact in the Tour this year (if he even will get selected now with 8 man-teams?). Nibali will have great support in that race and the Giro-squad good do pretty well also with Pozzo, Visco and Padun who all did great in Trentino.

He was in France with Nibali and tested the cobbles so a selection seems likely. Even if his form isn`t great he could be part of the 8-man squad just because he is friends with Nibali. Agnoli and Vanotti were selected for a lot of Grand Tours just for that reason.

 

[Brullnux]

If only they weren't funded by the fresh prince of bahrain...

 

[Zama_Olyas]

Re:

If only they weren't funded by the fresh prince of bahrain...

This. They are an Italian team which i would happily support but i am not because of the Bahrain thing.

 

[Koronin]

It wasn't totally Nibali dependent last year, that was part of it, but it also didn't help that Ion Izagirre had a couple of injuries (first early in the season) and then a season ending injury at the Tour in the prolog after he crashed in the same corner that Valverde crashed in. So that didn't exactly help either.

 

[glassmoon]

WTF?

https://cyclingtips.com/2018/05/the-secret-pro-an-insiders-view-on-chris-froomes-crazy-giro-attack/

Even more annoying is that the team has so much money they keep booking the hotel on top of Teide for the whole year and just cancelling a week out, so no one can plan a training camp up there. Talk about dirty plays.

 

[EroicaStradeBianche]

One thing is sure. It tells a lot about the credibility of that "secret pro". It's not a pro writing it, not one who was at the Giro. The cyclingtips have something against the bahrain since they began, they were writing the same things some times ago already:

https://cyclingtips.com/2016/06/commentary-torture-allegations-too-big-for-cycling-to-ignore/

so their "secret pro" is thinking exactly the same way as the cyclingtips' journalists. The real pros know that they're doing a job and that someone has to pay them in order to live. If a pro would remain suddenly without team it's 100% sure that he'll accept to ride for that team without any other offers.

Moreover they don't seem to have problem with the israelis, the Kazaks, the russians, the UAEs or with the riders sponsorised by Murdoch's empire....

 

[lartiste]

WTF?

https://cyclingtips.com/2018/05/the-secret-pro-an-insiders-view-on-chris-froomes-crazy-giro-attack/

Even more annoying is that the team has so much money they keep booking the hotel on top of Teide for the whole year and just cancelling a week out, so no one can plan a training camp up there. Talk about dirty plays.

There is a lot of mistakes in the article and author is just proving, that he is not capable of basic google research:

He is discussing one of the sponsors: "The strangest thing is that they have been putting so much money into marketing that they seem to have forgotten to have their product available at shops." It is enough just to use google to find out, that the opposite is true. And it is the same with other topics as well, this mistake is only most obvious ... .-

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

One thing is sure. It tells a lot about the credibility of that "secret pro". It's not a pro writing it, not one who was at the Giro. The cyclingtips have something against the bahrain since they began, they were writing the same things some times ago already:

https://cyclingtips.com/2016/06/commentary-torture-allegations-too-big-for-cycling-to-ignore/

so their "secret pro" is thinking exactly the same way as the cyclingtips' journalists. The real pros know that they're doing a job and that someone has to pay them in order to live. If a pro would remain suddenly without team it's 100% sure that he'll accept to ride for that team without any other offers.

Moreover they don't seem to have problem with the israelis, the Kazaks, the russians, the UAEs or with the riders sponsorised by Murdoch's empire....

Cycling is full of scumbag sponsors, true, but only one of them that I’m aware of has a reputation for personally torturing people. Quite a lot of people, not just journalists, don’t like that and I’m sure that at least a few of those people ride bikes for a living.

I’ve no idea who “the secret pro” is. I suspect it’s more or less an interview with a rotating cast of riders, then written up by a journalist. It’s rather unlikely to be the personal opinions of Shane Stokes, the journalist who you note has expressed disapproval of the evil princeling before, given that the bulk of the column argues the exact opposite of Stokes clearly expressed views on Froome’s performance. Also I’ve just had a look at cycling tips archive and Stokes first wrote for them years after the column started.

 

[EroicaStradeBianche]

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/kazakhstan-torture-impunity/

Astana is sponsored by the kazakh state, haven't seen complains about them in many years.

Namedsport is a company who produces energy bars/drinks, etc.
"The strangest thing is that they have been putting so much money into marketing that they seem to have forgotten to have their product available at shops."
Their products are everywhere in Italy, in every supermarket: https://www.namedsport.com/en/mission
As lartiste said, who wrote that article isn't even capable of basic google research.

And trust me that every pro who would like to remain in cycling and maybe earning a live with his job would run to Copeland very fast if offered a contract.

 

[Leinster]

TSP doth protest too much when he says he “doesn’t have anything against Nibali.” He’s had an issue with Nibali since before there was a Bm team; https://cyclingtips.com/2016/06/the-secret-pro-nibali-the-giro-ditalia-and-the-importance-of-respect/

Unless it actually is cobbled together off-record interviews from multiple riders.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Who actually reads the secret pro? I remember i randomly read that article and boycotted it ever after, what a load of rubbish.

 

[Gigs_98]

I just find that article completely unrealistic. I just have a hard time imagining that a mediocre WT team is actually the richest of them all and spends money to make sure other teams can't make altitude training camps on Teide. If that was possible there are way richer teams who would do that and if those teams don't want to do the same they could still book the hotel long before they go there too so they don't have logistic problems. And anyway if there really was such a huge problem with BM why haven't we heard about it before. This whole article is bs

 

[Leinster]

There’s about a dozen hotels in Vilaflora, population 1,800, elevation 1,400m. I can’t see the Prince buying up every room in all of them just to cut off one training location from dozens of other teams, who can just go to the Sierra Nevada instead anyway.

 

[luckyboy]

Guess nobody cares but they have been fantastic at Hammer Limburg today. Sonny Colbrelli sprinting early and then having the stamina to stay in the lead group all day to sweep up points. Then Mark Padun breaking away with Sivakov with 5 laps to go, then solo for 3 for even more points and pulling out a gap all the time.

 

[SafeBet]

I know it's just the Hammer Series but man what a ride by Padun in Limburg.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeah. I'll be looking out for that kid in the future.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Yeah, I saw the last 3 laps or something. Padun was pretty incredible tbh, I look forward to watching and Mas in Suisse.

 

[sir fly]

McLaren's engagement sounds interesting and might be the mark of new trend in the sport.
The other team news are pointing in same direction. It's maybe the dawn of a new era.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

McLaren's engagement sounds interesting and might be the mark of new trend in the sport.
The other team news are pointing in same direction. It's maybe the dawn of a new era.

Apparently that was also the reason for the Cavendish rumour.

 

[sir fly]

Re: Re:

McLaren's engagement sounds interesting and might be the mark of new trend in the sport.
The other team news are pointing in same direction. It's maybe the dawn of a new era.

Apparently that was also the reason for the Cavendish rumour.

I'm looking forward to see what will this develop into.
Huge potential.

 

[Aimar16]

Re:

McLaren's engagement sounds interesting and might be the mark of new trend in the sport.
The other team news are pointing in same direction. It's maybe the dawn of a new era.

McLaren is owned by the Bahrain dictator. So nothing interesting is here, just a little free advertising.

 

[fmk_RoI]

Ok, so, with Rod Ellingworth's 'official' appointment just weeks away, today Rohan Denis breaks his silence and it looks like the team has pockets deep enough to just sit him on the bench as punishment:

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ro...ce-pull-out-has-been-blown-our-of-proportion/

 

[Mayomaniac]

It's interesting that he'll ride the WC on a bike given to him by the federation without a brand name on it and not with a Merida bike.
Back to the team, nobody seems to know who was actually in charge before Rob arrived, Nibali and his group apparently had some tension with the Slovenian staff members and nobody seems to know what Copeland actually did. The team looks like a mess.