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Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

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I can't find info on PCS that Clarke and Cort are backups.

I'm also confused because EF appear to confirm riders one by one on their twitter and so far they've confirmed 2 out of 8- Uran and Higuita. Although the final roster may well be the same as on PCS, I would be surprised if it's already officially confirmed.
That's true about the backups. Who knows, maybe it's right but that lineup is a little surprising.
 
I don't think the line-up is surprising. The presence of Van Garderen is a little bit underwhelming considering his recent form and recent GT record but it's a perfectly Vaughters thing to take him and the rest of the squad totally makes sense.
I didn't expect Carthy to be at the Tour and thought Clarke would ride for sure. In general, I was more in line with your prediction of:

Martinez, Higuita, Uran, Woods, Kangert, Bettiol, Clarke, Keukeleire
 
I didn't expect Carthy to be at the Tour and thought Clarke would ride for sure. In general, I was more in line with your prediction of:

Martinez, Higuita, Uran, Woods, Kangert, Bettiol, Clarke, Keukeleire
Yeah, that what felt like making the most sence to me at the time but with hindsight the actual roster makes sense to me.

As I said, I wouldn't take Van Garderen but I'm not surprised he's taken. The biggest American name in the team. The same way Phinney was getting selected a few years ago even though his form was far from great and usefulness for the team was rather limited at the time. I assume he's taken the spot I suspected would have gone to Woods but Woods was my biggest question mark and I can definetely see they would not deem him ready to ride TdF so shortly after such a serious injury. I'm not happy with Van Garderen but I'm not surprised either.

Clarke is Uran's favourite domestique but since Uran no longer appears to be the biggest hope of the team, his omission is not that surprising. I think Keukeleire was brought to the team to fill the role of a "guardian" for Martinez and Bettiol can fill kind of a similar role to Clarke as someone who combines rouleur and hills/medium mountains skills and he is a much bigger name ATM. I assume his place has gone to Carthy, who is potentially clearly a better climber in high mountains so I can see the logic here. Maybe they also think Clarke will be better used as a leader in some other races.

Powless at the moment appears to be around as good as Kangert. I thought they would go with Kangert for the experience but Powless is a good choice too and since Kangert is leaving and Powless has a contract for 2021, it makes sense that they would like to award Powless with a TdF debut to boost his morale.

Carthy was meant to lead at the Giro and was way out of form at the Dauphine - not sure why he's been selected. Kangert should have gone instead imo.
Carthy was clearly better than Kangert on stage 1 and 5 of the Dauphine. While, similarly to you, I kind of saw him as a Giro leader rather than a TdF domestique, maybe he just wanted to be part of the TdF team after the calendar reshuffle.
The EF guys were a little bit underraced coming to Dauphine, maybe riders like Carthy will do better at the Tour with more mileage in their legs now.
 
Yeah, that what felt like making the most sence to me at the time but with hindsight the actual roster makes sense to me.

As I said, I wouldn't take Van Garderen but I'm not surprised he's taken. The biggest American name in the team. The same way Phinney was getting selected a few years ago even though his form was far from great and usefulness for the team was rather limited at the time. I assume he's taken the spot I suspected would have gone to Woods but Woods was my biggest question mark and I can definetely see they would not deem him ready to ride TdF so shortly after such a serious injury. I'm not happy with Van Garderen but I'm not surprised either.

Clarke is Uran's favourite domestique but since Uran no longer appears to be the biggest hope of the team, his omission is not that surprising. I think Keukeleire was brought to the team to fill the role of a "guardian" for Martinez and Bettiol can fill kind of a similar role to Clarke as someone who combines rouleur and hills/medium mountains skills and he is a much bigger name ATM. I assume his place has gone to Carthy, who is potentially clearly a better climber in high mountains so I can see the logic here. Maybe they also think Clarke will be better used as a leader in some other races.

Powless at the moment appears to be around as good as Kangert. I thought they would go with Kangert for the experience but Powless is a good choice too and since Kangert is leaving and Powless has a contract for 2021, it makes sense that they would like to award Powless with a TdF debut to boost his morale.


Carthy was clearly better than Kangert on stage 1 and 5 of the Dauphine. While, similarly to you, I kind of saw him as a Giro leader rather than a TdF domestique, maybe he just wanted to be part of the TdF team after the calendar reshuffle.
The EF guys were a little bit underraced coming to Dauphine, maybe riders like Carthy will do better at the Tour with more mileage in their legs now.
Wonder if they think the U.S. riders will perform a bit better than might be expected because they had very few restrictions that kept them from training outdoors?
 
Do you think EF will actually sign anybody for 2021? :tearsofjoy:

A few months ago I was hopeful that their 2021 roster would be stronger than their 2020 one. Reasons? They've got Martinez and Higuita locked up on long term contracts, probably under their actual market value, but the contracts of riders like Uran and Van Garderen, that were signed at values probably well above their current value, are ending after 2020, relieving their salary budget a good chunk of money they could spend to strengthen their 2021 roster. Uran's current contract was signed just after his 2017 TdF podium and it was certainly a big one. His previous contract alone had been taking at least around 20% of the entire salary budget of the team and the current one might have been even bigger as it was signed right after a big result. His next one will surely not be anything near it.

I guess the covid crissis might have caused them to make cuts and not make the best out of this promising situation. Otherwise they would have signed a biggish name or two by now already. Or at least be linked to them through rumours.
 
So Woods was left out of the Tour team, but he's also not riding the Giro because of the Ardennes classics. I get that he's coming back from an injury, but in the 3rd week he would have been more useful than TJVG...
I also get that it's a odd season and that they are throwing all of their legit gc riders at the Tour because of Sponsors and the risk of the season ending early because of the virus, but this would have been the perfect year to send Dani Martinez to the Giro.
He always has problems with allergies durning May and the route is perfect for him, lots of TTs and big mountain stages at altitude.
 
It's interesting today how, when Martinez crashed, nobody waited for him and not even Bettiol was ordered to wait and help to bring him back to the bunch. After where the riders stood with their form during Dauphine, I thought it made sense to have Martinez as the main leader and Uran and Higuita as free role riders. But after today it seems like it has never been the plan.

I'm disheartened now because I thought that if someone from EF really had a good GC campaign in them, it was Martinez. I don't have much trust in Uran's and Higuita's GC capabilities at this point (regarding 2020 TdF) and plain stage hunting doesn't simply satisfy me. Today was also a good stage to win with Higuita or Bettiol but they didn't seem to have a good plan on how to make it happen. Frankly speaking it might have been the best stage of all 21 stages for the team to take a stage win!

It's also a fricking joke how Martinez ended up to be the first and only GC hope to lose time after almost everyone had crashed yesterday.
 
It's interesting today how, when Martinez crashed, nobody waited for him and not even Bettiol was ordered to wait and help to bring him back to the bunch. After where the riders stood with their form during Dauphine, I thought it made sense to have Martinez as the main leader and Uran and Higuita as free role riders. But after today it seems like it has never been the plan.

I'm disheartened now because I thought that if someone from EF really had a good GC campaign in them, it was Martinez. I don't have much trust in Uran's and Higuita's GC capabilities at this point (regarding 2020 TdF) and plain stage hunting doesn't simply satisfy me. Today was also a good stage to win with Higuita or Bettiol but they didn't seem to have a good plan on how to make it happen. Frankly speaking it might have been the best stage of all 21 stages for the team to take a stage win!

It's also a fricking joke how Martinez ended up to be the first and only GC hope to lose time after almost everyone had crashed yesterday.
I, too, thought Martinez looked like EF's best GC hope. Weird how they didn't look after him better after the crash. Between Uran and Higuita, I think maybe the young guy has more upside in this year's TDF, but for overall GC maybe not.
 
It's interesting today how, when Martinez crashed, nobody waited for him and not even Bettiol was ordered to wait and help to bring him back to the bunch. After where the riders stood with their form during Dauphine, I thought it made sense to have Martinez as the main leader and Uran and Higuita as free role riders. But after today it seems like it has never been the plan.

I'm disheartened now because I thought that if someone from EF really had a good GC campaign in them, it was Martinez. I don't have much trust in Uran's and Higuita's GC capabilities at this point (regarding 2020 TdF) and plain stage hunting doesn't simply satisfy me. Today was also a good stage to win with Higuita or Bettiol but they didn't seem to have a good plan on how to make it happen. Frankly speaking it might have been the best stage of all 21 stages for the team to take a stage win!

It's also a fricking joke how Martinez ended up to be the first and only GC hope to lose time after almost everyone had crashed yesterday.

I'm also a bit disappointed by their treatment of Martínez. Then I thought they are probably going for the stage win, but as far as I saw Higuita never really tried, despite this looking like a good possibility for him. So they must be going for GC with him, I cannot understand this in another way.
 
I'm also a bit disappointed by their treatment of Martínez. Then I thought they are probably going for the stage win, but as far as I saw Higuita never really tried, despite this looking like a good possibility for him. So they must be going for GC with him, I cannot understand this in another way.
It doesn't mean that they must be going for GC with him. I think by waiting for the sprint he had a decent chance to win the stage. But why was Bettiol doing nothing then? Neither trying to chase after Alaphilippe and the rest for Higuita or trying to attack himself so that Higuita can wait in the bunch... They didn't have a plan how to win the stage, just passively waiting.
Uran, however, definetely looks like going for GC as he was not trying to help the team win the stage today in any way.
 
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