Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

[Anderis]

Re:

Still, finishing 3rd and 4th in a 4 man group...

The finish was downhill and very technical, slipstream wasn't that important. It was very little advantage to have more than one rider from the same team. Valverde was expected to win.

Too bad the time gaps weren't bigger because both Uran and Woods can lose a lot of places in GC tomorrow.

If Woods keeps going like that, he has a good chance of improving his 12th place from last year's Fleche Wallone.

It was expected that Bettiol wouldn't ride Roubaix. I doubt he would do better on pavé than on hellingen but he can be the team's best bet for AGR (although I don't know how is the new route, but it used to be a race in which riders like Uran or Woods wouldn't do much against better roulers and finishers) and for such a young rider to ride everything from MSR to Ardennes would be too much. I'm a bit disappointed that Skuijns didn't ride Flanders. He was doing well last year considering how little experience he had on cobbles and he seems to be in good form recently.

Vanmarcke's signing didn't really pay off for Cannondale. He isn't a rider who I can see doing much in 2nd half of the season (even Eneco Tour rarely has a course that really suits him- either too much climbing or TT). Hopefully he proves his worth for Cannondale next year as I'm sure he is among the best paid riders in the team.

 

[movingtarget]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Woods was great at PV today

Yes very good performance.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

Why don't they have Bettiol in this race though?

I just realised that Koren isn't riding. That's more surprising for me. Considering that Vanmarcke and Phinney are injured, he should be like 4th best man available in the team for this type of race. He's had a decent spring so far and he shouldn't be skipping Roubaix in order to focus on other targets.

I see his last race was DNF in GW. Maybe that's the answer?

 

[Valv.Piti]

Woods beat Henao in Indruain for 2nd comfortably, at this point it was easy to tell he was going really well, but it was still a bit surprising to me to see him animate the race like that yesterday. His potential for shortish efforts and steep climbs is as good as anyone's right now.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

I wonder who will be their best rider for each of the Ardennes races.

Amstel: Bettiol
Fleche: Woods
LBL: Uran
?

 

[therealthing]

Ooh Uran down by 1:30 at the intermediate- just after a climb!

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

To be expected. Both Uran and Woods lost a lot of places. It's a shame that the race was so TT-heavy this year because they both had the form to fight for more on a more suiting course. Of course TT is also a part of the sport and they have only themselves to blame for their performances.

Nonetheless, it was not as big disaster as I was afraid of. They both beat Bardet in the end. So that's an improvement over what Cannondale did in ITT last year in Romandie.

 

[jaylew]

Actually pretty damned good for Cannondale at Flanders and Roubaix, especially considering Sep wasn't in the mix.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Yep, a brilliant performance by Cannondale today. Highly visible and a nice podium placement.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

Actually pretty damned good for Cannondale at Flanders and Roubaix, especially considering Sep wasn't in the mix.

And Phinney also missed Roubaix, all in all it went really well for them.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

They've really stepped up considering the injury of Vanmarcke. Even guys like Wippert, Scully and Clarke rode a better race today than I would've expected for their limited capabilities. Some of them wouldn't even make the roster if all riders were healthy. Vanmarcke's injury could have really been a blessing in disguise. It's not certain that Cannondale would've got better results if they were riding exclusively for Sep.

It's a shame they can't get some WT wins out of all those fine performances. It's strange that the team which managed to podium in 2 out of last 4 monuments (and top4 in 3 out of last 4) can't even get a lucky win from a breakaway in some 2nd rate WT event.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re:

Actually pretty damned good for Cannondale at Flanders and Roubaix, especially considering Sep wasn't in the mix.

They really have a very deep cobbled squad. Even with all of Vanmarcke, Phinney, Bettiol and Koren not riding, they had Langeveld on the podium, Van Baarle in the chase group and all of Wippert, Mullen, Clarke and Scully in the main peloton. Arguably only Quickstep have a better supply of riders who would be expected to be capable of actually being useful at some point in a cobbled race. A guy like Clarke is maybe their tenth or eleventh best cobbled rider.

That they have so many guys who are good to very good on cobbles makes their TTT awfulness more remarkable.

Edited to add: Beaten to just about every point by Anderis!

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Disappointing to see Clarke and Skujins dropped so easily from the breakaway today. I'm puzzled because Skujins seemed to be in really good form recently but he dropped like a stone (maybe tiredness is getting him?).

Bettiol seemed strong (I think I saw him leading the pack for the entire final climb) but couldn't do more considering how the race unfolded. Luckily, that wasn't Cannondale's strongest roster. Maybe with Slagter, Woods, Uran and Villella they'll do better.

 

[ThePirate81]

I think Woods has a good chance for top 5 at FW.

 

[SafeBet]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

Disappointing to see Clarke and Skujins dropped so easily from the breakaway today. I'm puzzled because Skujins seemed to be in really good form recently but he dropped like a stone (maybe tiredness is getting him?).

Bettiol seemed strong (I think I saw him leading the pack for the entire final climb) but couldn't do more considering how the race unfolded. Luckily, that wasn't Cannondale's strongest roster. Maybe with Slagter, Woods, Uran and Villella they'll do better.

I was also very surprised to see Skujins drop that way. He looked great in Coppi e Bartali just a couple of weeks ago.

Bettiol still seems in very good shape. He was always close to the front in the final 30km. I think he lacks a bit of explosiveness for the Ardennes, but he was not bad last year in AGR. He can surely improve.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

I was also very surprised to see Skujins drop that way. He looked great in Coppi e Bartali just a couple of weeks ago.

He followed that by 10th in GP Miguel Indurain so it didn't look like one-off either. And that was only 11 days before De Brabantse Pijl.

Bettiol is a mystery. He was great in 2nd half of last year but his performances are still inconclusive about in which type of big race he could potentially shine. He has a bit of everything. Like Felline or young Kwiatkowski. I still think he can be the best Cannondale's bet for AGR because we don't know his limitations and the other riders from the team don't seem to be suited well to this race. But for FW and LBL I doubt Alberto can be a factor at this point of his career.

Interestingly, cyclingfever already has a provisional Cannondale's roster for Giro:
BETTIOL Alberto
CARTHY Hugh
CLARKE Simon
DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd
FORMOLO Davide
ROLLAND Pierre
SKUJINS Toms
VILLELLA Davide
WOODS Michael
Another climbing-oriented roster for the Giro foreshadows another flat-oriented roster for TdF. I have a theory that Cannondale is using TdF as a preparation race for their northern classics team. My bet is that we will see Vanmarcke, Van Baarle, Langeveld, Phinney and Van Asbroeck/Koren in France which makes little sense to have all of them in the team that doesn't have a rider who could be winning flat stages.

 

[42x16ss]

If that is truly accurate then it's a horribly balanced team and leaves no support for Uran at the Tour. At least two of the climbers should be dropped for the likes of Will Clarke, Phinney, Van Baarle or Langeveld. Nobody there is strong enough to keep Rolland positioned well on the flat and rolling stages.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

I've no problem with unconventional team lineups, particularly if there isn't a rider who can podium GC with an orthodox approach lined up. It didn't work last year, but if you roll the dice sometimes your numbers don't come up. That said I have difficulty understanding why a team would be quite this unbalanced - it's not obvious to me what advantage having just about every single rider in the team who can climb in one GT squad has over having one or two of them swapped with big lumps. I'm even less clear what a team of big lumps would be supposed to do in France in the absence of a sprinter. I mean maybe there will be howling crosswinds for three weeks and the Tour ends up being decided between them and Quickstep, but that doesn't seem like a very good bet.

I would guess that the final line up will contain at least one more guy from the classics squad and probably two.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale-Drapac

They've been using this approach since 2015, so I'm not sure the final roster will end up being more balanced that that.

This makes no sense. Let's imagine that Formolo or whoever else is going well in terms of GC in the Giro. He will be very vulnerable on flattish stages. Let's imagine that Bettiol abandons at some point of the race and then what? You will be chasing with all of the Carthys and Rollands on totally flat roads when there is a need? Good luck.

Then in France Cannondale can only realistically win a hilly/mountainous stage but will have only 3 guys it the whole roster who can do anything when the road goes up. This really looks like nothing else but using TdF as a preparation race for northern classics team.

 

[yaco]

That is a very unbalanced provisional start list for the Giro - My understanding is Formolo is riding for GC and Rolland is stage hunting - But to achieve these aims you need about three riders to protect these guys on the flat - The only rider in the current line up who can do this is Bettiol.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

Vanmarcke said he might do the tour after his failed classics season this year. Originally he was not planning on doing a grand tour.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

That is a very unbalanced provisional start list for the Giro - My understanding is Formolo is riding for GC and Rolland is stage hunting - But to achieve these aims you need about three riders to protect these guys on the flat - The only rider in the current line up who can do this is Bettiol.

I think Clarke is kind of okayish on flat but I agree that the team should bring one more guy to work on the flat, especially considering the fact that Bettiol could be a better use for the team having a free hand on some stages instead of protecting other riders. From all of the "flat" riders from Cannondale he has the best potential to win a GT stage IMO (maybe apart from in-form Phinney, but Phinney doesn't appear to be in form).

 

[staubsauger]

Apart from the “might try for gc“ pr talk their only chance at the Giro might be to send Dombrowski up the road at like every mountain stage and field enough climbing domestiques to assist him in the breakaways.

 

[Anderis]

I think that Woods has a better chance to win a stage than Dombrowski.

 

[Billie]

Great job by @sebaslangeveld.... super proud of you, buddy. Been a true honor coaching you this year.
.@DylanvanBaarle is the first rider I started personally training 2yrs ago. So, even though I prayed for more, today is a happy day for me.


Vaughters is hilarious. suddenly he started training his riders