Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

[May0maniac]

Re: Re:

Dombrowski has been saving himself for the mountain stages but it's still good that he has done well on the climbs today. His descending on Valparola though....really poor specially with perfect racing conditions.

Formolo on the other hand just looks the be a decent prospect for a medium climbing domestique at best. Really poor today losing 27min behind Kung or Rojas for instance. Jungels is no climber but at least he's consistent and only Henao can take the white jersey from him.

Formolo went backwards after 2014, he was one hell of a neopro and both his climbing and TT skills were impressive back then, if we ignore he was the only guy who improved/had a great season on that Cannondale (ex Liquigas) team. That team was a mess and yet Formolo was one of the best neopros when it came to gc prospects, only Adam Yates and maybe Sebastian Henao had a better season, so you'd assume that he'd do even better on a more organised team, but Cannondale seems to be a strange team.
Dombrowski has always been a fragile pure climber who could loose time on the descents and on the flat stages, he always had great recovery and is at his best in the high mountains.

Formolo still has time on his side but today was a big disappointment for me, a GC climber just can't lose 27min in one stage for apparently no reason. Nevertheless I look forward to see him on the attack somewhere this Giro
Also what happened to Villela? He was a great prospect as well but I haven't noticed him on the climbs.
Yeah Dombrowski is as pure climber as they come, but at this point it's already great he's riding healthy and building strength for the future.

2014 Cannondale (ex Liquigas) happened, that team was a mess, Slongo left and the whole team started falling apart. Villela isn't riding the Giro because of a knee injury.

 

[trevim]

Re: Re:

Dombrowski has been saving himself for the mountain stages but it's still good that he has done well on the climbs today. His descending on Valparola though....really poor specially with perfect racing conditions.

Formolo on the other hand just looks the be a decent prospect for a medium climbing domestique at best. Really poor today losing 27min behind Kung or Rojas for instance. Jungels is no climber but at least he's consistent and only Henao can take the white jersey from him.

Formolo went backwards after 2014, he was one hell of a neopro and both his climbing and TT skills were impressive back then, if we ignore he was the only guy who improved/had a great season on that Cannondale (ex Liquigas) team. That team was a mess and yet Formolo was one of the best neopros when it came to gc prospects, only Adam Yates and maybe Sebastian Henao had a better season, so you'd assume that he'd do even better on a more organised team, but Cannondale seems to be a strange team.
Dombrowski has always been a fragile pure climber who could loose time on the descents and on the flat stages, he always had great recovery and is at his best in the high mountains.

Formolo still has time on his side but today was a big disappointment for me, a GC climber just can't lose 27min in one stage for apparently no reason. Nevertheless I look forward to see him on the attack somewhere this Giro
Also what happened to Villela? He was a great prospect as well but I haven't noticed him on the climbs.
Yeah Dombrowski is as pure climber as they come, but at this point it's already great he's riding healthy and building strength for the future.

2014 Cannondale (ex Liquigas) happened, that team was a mess, Slongo left and the whole team started falling apart. Villela isn't riding the Giro because of a knee injury.

Villela is due a breakthrough ride somewhere because the talent seems to be there with 16th in Lombardia and 3rd in Emilia. Let's see what he can do when he's healthy

 

[Moviefan1203]

Another fine ride by Dombrowski today. Maybe Cannondale can send him to the Vuelta to see what he can do on GC.

 

[perico]

Re:

Another fine ride by Dombrowski today. Maybe Cannondale can send him to the Vuelta to see what he can do on GC.

Should've been the co-leader anyway, or at least protected. According to some, he's supposed to be very similar to Hampsten. Obviously he can climb with the best, but they completely wasted his GC chances on the flat stages.

 

[jmdirt]

I think that JD is still a bit off from 100% recovered, although today's result might say otherwise.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Re:

Obviously he can climb with the best, but they completely wasted his GC chances on the flat stages.

Not. He was nowhere near good enough on some medium mountain stages as well. Certainly something more than just saving legs because he was simply not there at any point if Uran needed some kind of help.

I don't know how Uran can be this pathetically bad on every ITT this year, even on a mountainous one, despite being fairly decent on mountain stages. Nonetheless, it looks like he will finish this Giro outside of the top5, which is rather big failure both for him and the team considering lack of results in 1st half of the season. Cannondale really seemed to start this season clearly better than the last one, but as the season progressess, it seems they will barely get anything more from big races than they did last season. Well, last year they got a stage win and the top5 overall in the Giro...

Formolo disappointed me yesterday big time. It's really sad to think he is not even a fraction better than he was during his neo-pro season 2 years ago.

The only good news is that Talansky has finally found some form, even if it still not the level that could be expected from him based on his results when he was between 22 and 25 years old.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

And I've just realised Cannondale is the only WT team without WT win within the last 12 months.

And they really perform solidly as a team this Giro, together with Movistar and Astana they have the most guys left at the front during late parts of mountain stages and that's even without Michael Woods, whose presence would probably make this team looking even better in this aspect. But what's the point if you neither win stages nor have the leader who delivers a GC result...

 

[trevim]

It's about time they put everyone in the breaks either to win or to help another team mate. Moser, Clarke and Navardauskas can win one of the "easy" stages of the 3rd week; Dombrowski and Cardoso can win one of the big alpine stages.

Regarding Dombrowski and GC, he's doing well now but it seems like the only thing he can do his climb. He seems to tire too much in the flats and have hard time with downhills, rainy weather.... Too many flaws to be a viable GC contender at this point.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

Maybe it's the time for Navardauskas to start contesting for sprints. For goodness' sake, the guy was once 3rd on Champs-Elysees in a straight sprint! There should be 2 opportunities in 3rd week. And there are not many spinters left. Kittel, Greipel, Demare, Ewan, Viviani, Hofland, Tsatevich and Pelucchi all have left and I can't see many noticeable sprinters still remaining in the race apart from Nizzolo and Modolo.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

It's about time they put everyone in the breaks either to win or to help another team mate. Moser, Clarke and Navardauskas can win one of the "easy" stages of the 3rd week; Dombrowski and Cardoso can win one of the big alpine stages.

Regarding Dombrowski and GC, he's doing well now but it seems like the only thing he can do his climb. He seems to tire too much in the flats and have hard time with downhills, rainy weather.... Too many flaws to be a viable GC contender at this point.

Yeah, Joe is a vulnerable pure climber (186cm tall and only 62kg heavy) with great recovery, but I still wonder what would have happened if he turned pro with a team that's actually good at developing young climbers. Joe will probably find his place as a pure mountain goat that goes stagehunting in the high mountains and can fight for a mountains jersey. Maybe a bigger team would like to have him as a strong climbing domestique for a strong gc contender in the high mountains, that would probably be a good deal for him.

 

[Jancouver]

Re: Re:

Obviously he can climb with the best, but they completely wasted his GC chances on the flat stages.

Nonetheless, it looks like he will finish this Giro outside of the top5, which is rather big failure both for him and the team considering lack of results in 1st half of the season.

Top 5? Keep dreaming, he will be lucky to make Top 10.

My guess, he will quit and make up some "I was sick" excuse.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Re:

Top 5? Keep dreaming, he will be lucky to make Top 10.

Read my post again.

I said top5 would be the worst result not seen as a failure in these circumstances, not the place where I think he will finish. Moreover, I stated it's where he will most likely NOT finish.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

Uran has been very bad so far. He will probably finish between ninth and seventh, barring injury or illness.

At least the Tour of California, despite the supposed leader, Craddock, also performing below expectations, has made their season so far look far more acceptable. Five wins at this point of the season isn't great but at least it isn't embarrassing. And just as importantly there are signs that Talansky is alive.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

Hard to get excited about California stage wins when they are waiting for their WT win longer than any other WT team.

 

[Valv.Piti]

And when Urán has picked up bronchitis for the 33rd time

 

[May0maniac]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

Uran has been very bad so far. He will probably finish between ninth and seventh, barring injury or illness.

At least the Tour of California, despite the supposed leader, Craddock, also performing below expectations, has made their season so far look far more acceptable. Five wins at this point of the season isn't great but at least it isn't embarrassing. And just as importantly there are signs that Talansky is alive.

Talansky recently said that he wants to focus more on one week races to get back on track, Tour de Suisse is one of his biggest goals, so he's probably riding into shape right now.
Formolo is an odd chase, but when he had his great neopro season he was a bit heavier, 65. Before turning pro he was really thin (I mean Jan Hirt thin, under 60kg), but he was struggling and suffering a lot on the flat and lacked raw power, so the team wanted him to bulk up a little bit and he had a great season as a neopro.
After the merge with Garmin he lost some weight, now he's about 62kg, so perhaps he's lacking a bit of power and becoming to fragile at that weight.
He also rode a decent hilly ITT in the 2014 TdS, 13th and only 4 seconds behind Evans, 7 seconds behind Pinot and 14 seconds behind Ion Izagirre in a 24.7km long ITT and hasn't performed well in an ITT since then, so maybe being a bit too thin and loosing too much power is one of the main problems.

 

[portugal11]

They should send formolo to breakaway tomorrow. Uran won't do top 5 and they need a stage win

 

[Escarabajo]

They should send half the team on the breakaway. One is not enough. No reason to wait.

 

[SafeBet]

Stage finish is very close to Moser hometown. He will sure try to be in the break.

 

[Anderis]

Re:

They should send formolo to breakaway tomorrow. Uran won't do top 5 and they need a stage win

I think both Dombrowski and Cardoso have bigger chance of stage win than Formolo. I think Pinerolo stage is the one that suits Formolo best. He seems to perform better in medium mountains than in high mountains recently.

And when Urán has picked up bronchitis for the 33rd time

I have no problem with this. It's the consistent lack of results that bothers me, not disappointment in a single race that is inevitable to happen from time to time.

I would take the repeat of Uran's last season with failure in GTs but with a WT race win and top20 in both CQ and WT rankings without hesitation.

Stage finish is very close to Moser hometown. He will sure try to be in the break.

He will spend more time in breaks than in the peloton at this rate.

 

[SafeBet]

Re: Re:

He will spend more time in breaks than in the peloton at this rate.

Which should always be the case unless he's got a captain to work for.

 

[CheckMyPecs]

Tomorrow is breakaway territory.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

Hard to get excited about California stage wins when they are waiting for their WT win longer than any other WT team.

Their season so far certainly isn't anything to get excited about, but wins in California probably mean more to them than something like a stage of Poland, TDU or Romandie. "World Tour" is quite an arbitrary distinction when it comes to week long stage races and various teams will put more value on some of the bigger non-WT races than the smaller WT ones, particularly when the comparison involves a race in their own country.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

Their season so far certainly isn't anything to get excited about, but wins in California probably mean more to them than something like a stage of Poland, TDU or Romandie. "World Tour" is quite an arbitrary distinction when it comes to week long stage races and various teams will put more value on some of the bigger non-WT races than the smaller WT ones, particularly when the comparison involves a race in their own country.

I get your point. I don't disagree that Tour of California stage win might be worth more for some within the team than TDU or Pologne stage win but that also takes a bit value off from this wins since they apparently go to this race with more motivation than most of other teams at this level who don't really care about this race.

They have won Tour of Utah 3 years in row and I don't doubt it's important for an American team but it's not good for a WT team when they don't provide results from bigger races to outshine these achievements.

 

[Anderis]

Re: Cannondale Pro Cycling

They had 6 riders in first 2 groups today at the point when Astana had 4 and no other team had more than 3.

Despite that, Uran won't even finish inside top10 in this Giro.

Big shame that they can perform well as a team, but they leaders can't for some reason.