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Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

Page 91 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
What do you think about Nathan's decision to leave Cannondale-Drapac?
• It makes sense, he is still very young and has plenty of time to go for GC in the future.
• I'm sad to see him go and I'm worried about the future of Cannondale-Drapac.
• It was obvious he would leave at some point, it was just a matter of time.
• He's crazy if he thinks he can win a Grand Tour in the near future.
Excuse me, I don't really understand the reference, can you explain, please? :)
 
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Vuelta Startlist

61 URÁN Rigoberto
62 CAICEDO Jonathan Klever
63 CARTHY Hugh
64 CHAVES Esteban
65 KUDUS Merhawi
66 PADUN Mark
67 SHAW James
68 VAN DEN BERG Julius

I wonder if this is Cofidis early season strategy? Try to place multiple riders in high placings for points reasons? They could put three in the top twenty for GC if all goes well.
On the other hand, if they get caught behind a split, there is no coming back without intercession from another team. They have exactly one rider for the flat.
 
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I wonder if this is Cofidis early season strategy? Try to place multiple riders in high placings for points reasons? They could put three in the top twenty for GC if all goes well.
On the other hand, if they get caught behind a split, there is no coming back without intercession from another team. They have exactly one rider for the flat.
I’d be surprised if EF have had much of a strategy when it comes to points until recently.
 
It was to be expected with this squad. The selection was extremely climbing oriented and the only rouleur included is like the 8th best rouleur on the team actually.

They took all the rouleurs to TdF where they were not really neded and here, where there's actually a TTT, they have almost none. But I still think it was the right decision to have a climbing oriented team for the Vuelta.
 
Why do everybody always presume that Movistar are bad at every single aspect of cycling?

Movistar has been pretty disastrous the past years.
It used to be my favourite team, but I have been shocked how bad they approach things. This year I think they changed some of the background staff? and the talk before the season sounded like things might be turned around with a different approach, but I don't see any results - either they didn't change much after all or the results are not yet visible. Anyway, they have been relying pretty much entirely on "we do things as we always have done/ Valverde". No ideas for the future, no interest in up to date approaches, endless "education" by "watching and following" Valverde of Enric Mas, not always but often questionable tactics, everyone works on their own before the races, relying on "feeling", no real leadership from the top etc. And then complaining about the big budget teams - while they themselves have at least a decent mid budget which comes to them very reliably. Is it a wonder people don't rate them high anymore?
The TTT didn't look great, too, with them losing 3 riders early - I don't know the reasons, might have been tactics or just bad luck, but it didn't look impressive, and yes, after they have done things pretty badly the last years, people didn't expect better (apart from them being more climber orientated as well).

EF indeed, like Anderis said, came with a complete climbers team. Nobody can really expect a team of Chaves-like riders to do better in a ttt.
 
Just read that Alex Howes is starting for EF in the new Maryland 1.pro race. Does anyone know how this works? I thought he and Lachlan had to be removed from the WT team in order for EF to add Piccolo and Cepeda in season?

Link here
Maybe they're moved to the development team? The WT teams are allowed to use the riders from their devo teams in lower category races as far as I'm aware. Though, the UCI website doesn't have Howes on EF's devo team.

Or maybe velonews are using an outdated preliminary startlist to tell who's going to be there.

Or perhaps my attempts to explain the situation are wrong and a third option is true.
 
Maybe they're moved to the development team? The WT teams are allowed to use the riders from their devo teams in lower category races as far as I'm aware. Though, the UCI website doesn't have Howes on EF's devo team.

Or maybe velonews are using an outdated preliminary startlist to tell who's going to be there.

Or perhaps my attempts to explain the situation are wrong and a third option is true.
Velonews is using an outdated start list, Howes didn‘t move to the development team and according to PCS he‘s not on the startlist. The US is starting a national team so perhaps he might ride for them.
 
So Bettiol rides the Deutschland Tour instead of Bretagne Classic.

That doesn't seem like a good strategy to maximise the UCI points.

Agree entirely - especially given that he was second in the race. In addition, Guerrero has had several top tens in Bretagne.

Perhaps they realize that if they looked at their team - Cort and Bissenger might be able to score almost as many points. Alternatively, either of the above could perhaps make a last-minute switch to fill the last slot.

Also, I suspect that a few teams, will be interested in making it a hard race - I doubt they want a sprint finish with De Lie in the mix. (perhaps the length is too long). We haven't seen negative racing yet, but it could happen where if you can't win, you at least want to make it hard for certain other teams to not score big.

As expected the points competition tightened up, which also makes for an interesting conundrum - as the races during Wollongong might be less competitive - which would thus require a bigger buffer vis-a-vis De Lie's penchant for 1.1 sprints.
 
Perhaps they realize that if they looked at their team - Cort and Bissenger might be able to score almost as many points.
They might but it's not very likely. Bissegger hasn't even been top20 in any proper classic as a pro, yet and the same can be said of Cort if we only include the last few years. Certainly "hey, we have Cort and Bissegger" doesn't seem like an argument to change Bettiol's calendar.
Bettiol almost won this race in the past so I think he has more chance of finishing on the podium or even in the top10 than the rest of the riders that will be actually sent to the race combined and I don't think he has a good chance for winning Detuschland Tour, as the queen stage seems too mountainous for him. Also I think Guerreiro has a better chance for a good result in Germany than Cort and Bissegger have in Bretagne, so it doesn't seem like a right way to balance the team. Also Bretagne gives 400 points for the win and Deutschland Tour only 200.

It only makes sense for me if you think that Bettiol needs more race days in his legs and that's more important at the moment than maximising UCI points. Alternate theory could be that they want a strong support team in Germany but that would be very far fetched to send your biggest classics star to do some domestique duties in such an unimportant race.

All in all, it doesn't make sense unless you think it will pay off with Bettiol having better results later in the year.
 
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