Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

[yaco]

Not a strange time - It indicates they want to win a punchy stage and have one or two ride for GC.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

Not a strange time - It indicates they want to win a punchy stage and have one or two ride for GC.

It is also worth noticing that most of these guys are weak in TT and Tirreno has a TTT, so they're possibly better to send them to P-N if they want some mileage in their legs.

 

[roundabout]

half of the team in the last group today. Somehow seems like a very Cannondale thing now

 

[Alexandre B.]

They were very Cannondale in Italy too.

 

[burning]

http://www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/cqRankingTeam.asp?current=0&year=2017

It is really impressive to be 25th on CQ ranking at the moment.

 

[davebqvst]

Uran 8th overall in TA and climbing well, that's some good news. After having been cautiously optimistic prior to the TDU this year, the last months it seemed like Cannondale's season would go like 2016, especially with races like PN where they bring a stacked squad and do nothing at all, gettin dropped all over the place.
Looking forward to see what Vanmarcke and the rest of the cobbled squad can do in the coming weeks.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Formolo was doing well during P-N, but he crashed.

Now with Vanmarcke struggling with rib pain, the prospects for Cannondale are not looking good for the forthcoming races. They can easily lose over 3 minutes in that ridiculous TTT in Catalunya.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Formolo was doing well during P-N, but he crashed.

Now with Vanmarcke struggling with rib pain, the prospects for Cannondale are not looking good for the forthcoming races. They can easily lose over 3 minutes in that ridiculous TTT in Catalunya.

Their time trialling has been abysmal so far, apart from Mullen. I rather optimistically thought that it was one area where they could only get better. Of course, ITTs are a little random in terms of who happens to have an interest, but even still you'd expect someone other than a neopro to bring in an occasional top 10 or top 15. They rarely trouble the top 30 or 40. It's hard even to tell who is trying and who is just resting for the next stage, their results have been so uniformly bad. Uran's T-A ITT was embarrassing. Hopefully this will improve when Phinney and Talansky start their seasons in earnest.

God help them in Catalunya if Phinney and Mullen aren't both in the team. It could get very ugly.

 

[Anderis]

Phinney will likely do Catalunya according to the team (still, with recent knee problems it's not certain he will be in good enough shape to be a big help) but I think that Mullen will ride the cobbled races at the same time. That's the problem with Cannondale. Apart from Talansky and Craddock, pretty much anyone who can TT would rather ride cobbles than Catalunya. But they didn't hire Vanmarcke and claim northern classics would be more of a focus this year only to throw half of the cobbled team to rescue the result of TTT in Catalunya. Leaving plenty of climbers with nothing to race...

Cannondale had 3 riders in the top40 in the final ITT during Tirreno. That's... more than average for over 20 teams participating. I'm not sure why their TTT was that bad.
The only hope for Catalunya is that the other teams will also have weaker rosters, since many of the strong TT-ists will have interest in cobbled races and the teams will be forced to take more climbers instead of them. And the fact that Cannondale did surprisingly well during the TTT in last year's Vuelta with a roster full of poor TT-ers.

No wins in mid march and only two noticeable performances (Vanmarcke at Omloop and Uran at Tirreno). I can imagine that this season will go even worse than the previous one. Especially with Phinney and Vanmarcke experiencing health issues just before the most important cobbled races.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Cannondale's roster for Catalunya:
Talansky, Formolo, Canty, Rolland, Villella, Carthy, Howes, Woods

No Koren and no Phinney out of those who were supposed to be there. Man, this will be a disastrous TTT. Apart from leaving Talansky, they couldn't line-up much worse team TT-wise. They didn't even include Craddock or Brown.

And I wonder what about Phinney and his health now. He clearly stated on twitter that he was going to ride Catalunya as his first race after a minor knee injury.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Cannondale's roster for Catalunya:
Talansky, Formolo, Canty, Rolland, Villella, Carthy, Howes, Woods

No Koren and no Phinney out of those who were supposed to be there. Man, this will be a disastrous TTT. Apart from leaving Talansky, they couldn't line-up much worse team TT-wise. They didn't even include Craddock or Brown.

Mother of God they will still be doing the TTT by the time everyone else is finished the whole race.

 

[deValtos]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Carlton Kirby has assured me that Si Clarke is a shoe-in for the big win on the Via Roma tomorrow! Get your bets in fast!

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Re:

So are Cannondale going to Paris-Nice with 8 leaders? :lol: Seems like an interesting tactic either way.

http://inrng.tumblr.com/post/158323806508/prize-money-per-team-for-the-2017-paris-nice

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

To be fair, a team full of lightweight climbers with very little in the way of a big lump escort was always going to be in serious trouble once the weather went nuts.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Mother of God they will still be doing the TTT by the time everyone else is finished the whole race.

They seem to be aware of the fact and they state that they go to Catalunya for stage-hunting.

 

[Brullnux]

Re:

To be fair, a team full of lightweight climbers with very little in the way of a big lump escort was always going to be in serious trouble once the weather went nuts.

And the only lightweight climber who was doing well then crashed.

 

[Davesta]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Carlton Kirby has assured me that Si Clarke is a shoe-in for the big win on the Via Roma tomorrow! Get your bets in fast!

:lol:

I was sure it'd be between him & Sebastien Reichenbach...

 

[IndianCyclist]

To think that this team used to be a TTT powerhouse in 2007-8-9

 

[Anderis]

Even as late as 2011.

They would never be as high in team classification in GTs then as in 2016 though. The switch from sprinters and TT-ers towards climbers in their roster over years is evident.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Has Vaughters been leading this team since it's founding date?

 

[Colonel]

To me this team is a sunk ship, it kills me cause I love the brand (Cannondale) and think there is a lot of talent come into this team over the years, but Vaughters doesn't develop ***. Talent goes to this team to die. When he had Ryder, Danielson etc he had his little group of favourites who were paid well and given leader status regardless of who was or had more potential. Rohan Dennis is a fine example. Always under Danielson or Ryder or even Tolansky and had no major results to his name. He leaves and has only flourished. Other to.

Rolland has gone backwards, Formolo hasn't progressed personally and Im waiting for McCarthy to become Rolland 2.0.

Maybe I am completely wrong here but Vaughters may be a very good business man and talent spotter, but does nothing for development.

My rant is over.

 

[May0maniac]

Yes, JV is good a signing talent, but the team isn't very good at developing them.
He's coaching Dombrowski himself and he seems to be back on track, so maybe JV himself actually knows how to work with a young, pure climber, but the team as a whole doesn't seem to be a great place to develope riders.
Someone like Formolo would a lot of help and guidance when it comes to his TT-skills, he still hasn't found a good positition on the TT-bike that allows him to produce the same kind of wattage that he's able to produce on a roadbike.
I don't like JV, but they've got many talented and likeable riders, I feel bad for them.

 

[Colonel]

Re:

Yes, JV is good a signing talent, but the team isn't very good at developing them.
He's coaching Dombrowski himself and he seems to be back on track, so maybe JV himself actually knows how to work with a young, pure climber, but the team as a whole doesn't seem to be a great place to develope riders.
Someone like Formolo would a lot of help and guidance when it comes to his TT-skills, he still hasn't found a good positition on the TT-bike that allows him to produce the same kind of wattage that he's able to produce on a roadbike.
I don't like JV, but they've got many talented and likeable riders, I feel bad for them.

Correct, a lot of talented likeable riders you want to back and get behind but thats often where it ends. 1 rider, (Dombrowski) is hardly enough to justify the many that have done worse than before coming onto the team.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

Rohan Dennis is a fine example. Always under Danielson or Ryder or even Tolansky and had no major results to his name. He leaves and has only flourished. Other to.

I don't think it's fair assesment regarding Dennis. He was riding for Garmin only for 1,5 years starting as a neo-pro. It's a normal thing that he didn't manage to reach his peak during this time and continued to develop after. But you can't accuse the team of not giving him chances to ride for himself. He was allowed to ride for GC in 2013 Dauphine (finished 8th overall) and 2014 California (finished 2nd overall and won one stage). He was also a nominated leader for 2014 TdU but failed to meet expectations. That was about as many leadership opportunities as a rider of his age and skillset could get at this level.

I don't think there are many examples of riders leaving Garmin/Cannondale later flourishing in other teams as well.

Rolland has gone backwards, Formolo hasn't progressed personally and Im waiting for McCarthy to become Rolland 2.0.

Is it really a right thread for that statement?

There are riders who are developing well at Cannondale. I think Bettiol has exceeded any expectations last year. The problem is that there are many riders who manage to have one good season in this team but they are unable to mantain that level in the following years. Slagter is a great example. What a spring he had in 2014 but has become completely invisible since then. Craddock and Woods really started well last year but seem to be nowhere near it nowadays. Talansky looked like a great prospect in 2012-2013 but he completely has lost any consistency since then. There will happen a period of 2 or 3 months when there are a few riders having the best moments of their career every now and then but the results of the whole team are abysmal every other time. There is something not working regarding training methods in this team. It's a shame, because they used to be great overachievers in not so distant past. But I've read that Cannondale has the smallest budget among WT teams in 2017, so maybe it's not realistic to expect it to be a solid mid WT level team anymore.

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Yes, JV is good a signing talent, but the team isn't very good at developing them.
He's coaching Dombrowski himself and he seems to be back on track, so maybe JV himself actually knows how to work with a young, pure climber, but the team as a whole doesn't seem to be a great place to develope riders.
Someone like Formolo would a lot of help and guidance when it comes to his TT-skills, he still hasn't found a good positition on the TT-bike that allows him to produce the same kind of wattage that he's able to produce on a roadbike.
I don't like JV, but they've got many talented and likeable riders, I feel bad for them.

Correct, a lot of talented likeable riders you want to back and get behind but thats often where it ends. 1 rider, (Dombrowski) is hardly enough to justify the many that have done worse than before coming onto the team.

Yu're right, I just picked him as an example because JV is coaching him, but he really had a horrible start as a neopro at Team Sky.