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[Green Edge] Shayne Bannan, Gerry Ryan and an Aussie Pro Team for 2012?

Page 49 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Aug 17, 2011
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Yeah 18 is to many teams. 12 would be perfect with maybe a Divison 2 of ProTour and have a promotion/relegation system.

However if they do reduce the number of pro teams then they would need to improve the Pro Conti system. For example at the TDF this year all the invite teams were French. Their would have to be incentives and invites to good races for the ProConti teams (esp the non Euro) or their would not be any growth.
 
Green_&_Gold said:
Yeah 18 is to many teams. 12 would be perfect with maybe a Divison 2 of ProTour and have a promotion/relegation system.

However if they do reduce the number of pro teams then they would need to improve the Pro Conti system. For example at the TDF this year all the invite teams were French. Their would have to be incentives and invites to good races for the ProConti teams (esp the non Euro) or their would not be any growth.

Ya, 12 teams would be a good number with regards to ProTeams, then 6 teams would get invitations to races based on results in all races for the last 12 months so for Giro it would check results from April to April and for the Tour it would be from June to June etc. Finally the last 2-4 places should be given as wild cards.
 
ingsve said:
Ya, 12 teams would be a good number with regards to ProTeams, then 6 teams would get invitations to races based on results in all races for the last 12 months so for Giro it would check results from April to April and for the Tour it would be from June to June etc. Finally the last 2-4 places should be given as wild cards.

Thats probably the best idea i have heard on this forum. wacky. Pretty good idea though and that way you could avoid having EE and this type of one dimensional teams (and GE is gonna be one of these big time) in races that they clearly should not be in...

And to me that makes sense having teams who want to be there and be somewhat competitive, unlike GE whenever the road goes up...

Still really looking forward to seeing GE in the classics though, hopefully being a bit of a force, actually, hopefully being a big force.

And hats off to Jack last night, great great ride... made me think what he can achieve over his career... lets hope bucket loads...
 
Apr 9, 2011
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ingsve said:
Well, it makes sense that with all the sprinters and sprint train riders they have they also need multiple lead outs and Dean and Lancaster are two of the best in the business. Still makes me sad that we are sure to get a mirrored opposite to Euskaltel in the WT next year.

True but with greater point scoring ability than EE. If you look at the calendar. More point for the WT are scored in 1 day races, sprint stages, rolling hill days, TT days .GE will go well on these days the mountains no but these days bring less points over the whole season . So for a new team when thinking WT not a bad idea .

As a team for people to watch 1 sided.
 
ingsve said:
Well, it makes sense that with all the sprinters and sprint train riders they have they also need multiple lead outs and Dean and Lancaster are two of the best in the business. Still makes me sad that we are sure to get a mirrored opposite to Euskaltel in the WT next year.

I agree there not very well rounded at all but as you mentioned so are EE and they do ok and get very little criticscm. If they weren't getting a PT licence Greenedge with the makeup of there team would he great concentrating on 1 or 2 area(s) and getting really good at it. Ofxourse its going to be strange to see Greenedge TTT the grupetto up the Galiber but I'm sure they will sign better climbers ad they progress.
 
Jul 20, 2011
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Midnightfright said:
I agree there not very well rounded at all but as you mentioned so are EE and they do ok and get very little criticscm. If they weren't getting a PT licence Greenedge with the makeup of there team would he great concentrating on 1 or 2 area(s) and getting really good at it. Ofxourse its going to be strange to see Greenedge TTT the grupetto up the Galiber but I'm sure they will sign better climbers ad they progress.

EE are exciting though. always attacking even in races that do not suit them like TDU. and they are exciting when they do not intend to be. which other pro tour team can have 6 riders crash warming up for a race. My 8 year old only knows two teams. Sky (because of his dads bias) and the Carrots
 
daveinzambia said:
EE are exciting though. always attacking even in races that do not suit them like TDU. and they are exciting when they do not intend to be. which other pro tour team can have 6 riders crash warming up for a race. My 8 year old only knows two teams. Sky (because of his dads bias) and the Carrots
I certainly don't find them always exciting, a lot if the time yes but not always. And u never know Greenedge could be super aggresive and exciting.
 
Midnightfright said:
I agree there not very well rounded at all but as you mentioned so are EE and they do ok and get very little criticscm. If they weren't getting a PT licence Greenedge with the makeup of there team would he great concentrating on 1 or 2 area(s) and getting really good at it. Ofxourse its going to be strange to see Greenedge TTT the grupetto up the Galiber but I'm sure they will sign better climbers ad they progress.

Well, the criticism against EE exists and usually gets most visible around RVV and Roubaix.
 
ingsve said:
Well, the criticism against EE exists and usually gets most visible around RVV and Roubaix.

The criticism gets more viable with RVV approaching as they get less visible:D. I was more trying to point out that other teams as focused on certain areas with moderate success. How many teams truly competed for wins this year across all formats?. Not many.
 
Midnightfright said:
The criticism gets more viable with RVV approaching as they get less visible:D. I was more trying to point out that other teams as focused on certain areas with moderate success. How many teams truly competed for wins this year across all formats?. Not many.

Well, most other teams at least has a shot at competing for wins in most types of races but they don't all succeed of course since there may be other teams that are better. I think there is a difference though between not having success and giving up before the race even starts.

I don't have a problem with teams being specialized. The problem comes with the rule that forces all ProTeams to ride all the WT races. If teams like GE and Euskaltel were ProContinental I would have no problem with them at all. (Well, other than the nationalistic focus.)
 
ingsve said:
Well, most other teams at least has a shot at competing for wins in most types of races but they don't all succeed of course since there may be other teams that are better. I think there is a difference though between not having success and giving up before the race even starts.

I don't have a problem with teams being specialized. The problem comes with the rule that forces all ProTeams to ride all the WT races. If teams like GE and Euskaltel were ProContinental I would have no problem with them at all. (Well, other than the nationalistic focus.)

I agree with a most of what you said and personally hate "nationalistic" focus. I have no problem with teams having a high percentage of national riders that's fairly natural. I've noticied after only 2 years SKY are slowly moving away from it already. It seems to be coming the norm almost.
 
Midnightfright said:
I agree with a most of what you said and personally hate "nationalistic" focus. I have no problem with teams having a high percentage of national riders that's fairly natural. I've noticied after only 2 years SKY are slowly moving away from it already. It seems to be coming the norm almost.

I think Sky are on the limit of what I tolerate. They do still have a bit too much of a national team focus on their rhetoric and a little bit in their team selection too I think (I doubt we would ever see fewer than 3 brits in the Tour) but at the same time they only have 10 British riders on a 30 rider team which makes it more bareable.

Astana on the other hand goes too far when the government steps in and says there are too few Kazakhs on the team and force them to replace someone in the line up.
 
ingsve said:
I think Sky are on the limit of what I tolerate. They do still have a bit too much of a national team focus on their rhetoric and a little bit in their team selection too I think (I doubt we would ever see fewer than 3 brits in the Tour) but at the same time they only have 10 British riders on a 30 rider team which makes it more bareable.

Astana on the other hand goes too far when the government steps in and says there are too few Kazakhs on the team and force them to replace someone in the line up.


I don't think the Kazakh government do what any of the sponsors of the other big teams don't do. Rabobank, for example, aren't going to be very happy if the team they sponsored got rid of all of their Dutch riders for better foreign ones and chose not to turn up at the Eneco Tour. They just wouldn't allow this to happen. Similarly, the Kazakh government get good publicity and some excellent usable propaganda material if there's a load of Kazakhs riding in the big races. That's the return they expect for their investment.

Sky, despite Brailsford's mission statements, have to keep their sponsor happy. That, of course, is having a successful team with a number of high profile stars from their target markets. They'll do whatever it takes to balance this, same as all of the other teams.
 
King Of The Wolds said:
I don't think the Kazakh government do what any of the sponsors of the other big teams don't do. Rabobank, for example, aren't going to be very happy if the team they sponsored got rid of all of their Dutch riders for better foreign ones and chose not to turn up at the Eneco Tour. They just wouldn't allow this to happen. Similarly, the Kazakh government get good publicity and some excellent usable propaganda material if there's a load of Kazakhs riding in the big races. That's the return they expect for their investment.

Perhaps, but I think there is a difference between having a roster with good dutch riders and a sponsor specifically overruling the team management on a team decision like that.
 
ingsve said:
I think Sky are on the limit of what I tolerate. They do still have a bit too much of a national team focus on their rhetoric and a little bit in their team selection too I think (I doubt we would ever see fewer than 3 brits in the Tour) but at the same time they only have 10 British riders on a 30 rider team which makes it more bareable.

Astana on the other hand goes too far when the government steps in and says there are too few Kazakhs on the team and force them to replace someone in the line up.

I think it has a small influence on selection but particuarly large with regards to SKY certain no more so than a lot of teams. alot of the perception of them being nationalistic comes from the "british tour winner within 5 years"remark.
 
LukeSchmid said:
Of course it matters that GE is going to almost totally one demensional. With 28 riders a team should be able to have a balanced squad. FDJ for example have a well rounded squad yet they are not PT. GE should have signed more climbing talent. I wish GE well and hope they are successful but sadly they are going to be exposed hugely in mountains. This should not happen in a PT squad.
GE look even more one-dimensional than Team HTC-Curl Up And Die And Never Darken My Screen Again High Road. In a sense this is good (HTC-CUADANDMSA High Road would find themselves interjecting themselves into really good races, whereas we can pretty much forget about the presence of GreenEdge at races like País Vasco or Trentino), but in a sense it's pretty depressing, when you realise that Bob Stapleton has produced a team which is more rounded than yours.
LukeSchmid said:
Peter Velits, Kanstantin Sivtsov, Nairo Quintana, Jose Rujano, Remi Di Gregorio, Thomas Rohregger (who might still be available), Linus Gerdemann, Kevin Seeldrayers, Francis De Greef, Morris Possoni, Lachlan Morton (might be too young), Lachlan Norris are all climbers of differing abilities. If they had wanted to have more climbers in the squad I am sure they could have signed more. The names I have mentioned would be worth looking at and enquiring about.
Velits has gone to OPQS, and I'd be very, very surprised if Quintana went. Rujano even more so after his disastrous QuickStep experiment.
Midnightfright said:
I certainly don't find them always exciting, a lot if the time yes but not always. And u never know Greenedge could be super aggresive and exciting.
And what exactly are they going to excite with a team that looks like it consists solely of sprinters and leadout men? My only hope for them providing excitement is that they have too many leadout men and not enough TT-specialist type people to do the break controlling job that people like Grabsch and Siutsou do at HTC and so continually mismanage the break.
Midnightfright said:
I think it has a small influence on selection but particuarly large with regards to SKY certain no more so than a lot of teams. alot of the perception of them being nationalistic comes from the "british tour winner within 5 years"remark.
The problem with Sky was that they deliberately whipped up national fervour to bring support, and you live by the sword you die by the sword, so they are perceived and dismissed as a pseudo-national team even when their selection policies are a lot less overtly national than the likes of GE, Astana, Katyusha or even Movistar - but then, one wonders how much of that is due to the thinner talent pool (as opposed to, say, Movistar or Rabobank, as though those Britons at the top may be at the very top in the case of Wiggins and Cavendish, we'll see wrt Froome, there are more Spaniards and Dutchies who are of WorldTour calibre, and only the most ardent of patriots could possibly disagree with me there) and how much is due to a less nationality-based selection policy full stop.
 
I was being tounge and cheek about Greenedge being exciting but just because you and other people find Sprint stages boring I actually really enjoy them so could in that regard I think a well polished Greenedge train would be quite entertaining, as for Sky being pseudo-national I can understand people thinking that but there selection policy isn't overtly national biased altough as you said it may be down to a diminished pool. There are so many many that are some degree of pseudo-national I personally can't have a problem with anyone team for showing this tendencies unless its blatant and unjust such as Katushas all Russian tour team.
 
Potential

I may be wrong but I would like to think that the selection of the GreenEdge team has been done by really competent people and would include input from experienced riders like O'Grady et al. They would consider a wide range of issues to put together their best available team. I am sure they would not be thinking one dimensional but working to the strengths and more importantly the potential of the team into the future.
Is it not more one dimensional to label the team this way as a supporter? As a supporter/commentator do you base your opinions on the score card of each rider from this year, or are you carefully analysing each and every rider to see what their potential may be?
At very young ages a number of the junior riders are following very similar paths to riders like Wiggins and Thomas to name a couple. Who would of thought that track riders of their calibre would develop into big name GT riders. Didn't Gilbert and Contador start their careers with wins in the TDU? Who is to say that one or more of these young people won't develop into our next Cadel Evans or that Richie Porte may be the one and he moves across to the team as it develops capable support riders or if the team wants to take that on as a direction.
I watched another thread on the forum where someone was laughed at for suggesting Bobridge as the winner of the ITT...they weren't correct but they were closer to the mark than the "experts" who said he had no chance of top 10.
How many commentators suggested that Europcar would be a major player in this years TDF?
My GreenEdge cup is half full and I think they will be competitive in many different forms of racing next year and the developing potential will be fascinating to watch. What a great platform for young Aussie riders to aspire too. I also think that the peer and country expectations within a "national" team will add 5 or 10% to development and performance.
 
Comparison

Whilst typing my last post I was thinking of a different sport comparison as an analogy. Of course comparing sports is like comparing apples to oranges but a lot of what the Gold Coast did in AFL this year is a similar model to GE.

Gold Coast put together a list that comprised a lot of young talent, some old wise heads and a few hardened pro's that could be classed as borderline players to do the heavy grunt work and take some pressure off the youngsters. Even though they finished 17th (wooden spoon) in their first year they were very competitive in a lot of games and are widely tipped to be top contenders in as short as 3-5 years. We will see about that but it is interesting to watch develop.

Watching the young talent and trying to predict who will surprise the most is very subjective in all sports. For GreenEdge my rider of interest is Simon Clarke, something about this young fella that is really interesting.
 
Wilba60 said:
I may be wrong but I would like to think that the selection of the GreenEdge team has been done by really competent people and would include input from experienced riders like O'Grady et al. They would consider a wide range of issues to put together their best available team. I am sure they would not be thinking one dimensional but working to the strengths and more importantly the potential of the team into the future.
Is it not more one dimensional to label the team this way as a supporter? As a supporter/commentator do you base your opinions on the score card of each rider from this year, or are you carefully analysing each and every rider to see what their potential may be?
At very young ages a number of the junior riders are following very similar paths to riders like Wiggins and Thomas to name a couple. Who would of thought that track riders of their calibre would develop into big name GT riders. Didn't Gilbert and Contador start their careers with wins in the TDU? Who is to say that one or more of these young people won't develop into our next Cadel Evans or that Richie Porte may be the one and he moves across to the team as it develops capable support riders or if the team wants to take that on as a direction.
I watched another thread on the forum where someone was laughed at for suggesting Bobridge as the winner of the ITT...they weren't correct but they were closer to the mark than the "experts" who said he had no chance of top 10.
How many commentators suggested that Europcar would be a major player in this years TDF?
My GreenEdge cup is half full and I think they will be competitive in many different forms of racing next year and the developing potential will be fascinating to watch. What a great platform for young Aussie riders to aspire too. I also think that the peer and country expectations within a "national" team will add 5 or 10% to development and performance.

We're not talking about 5-10 years down the line...We're talking about next year and none of the young aussie track cyclists will suddenly become viable climbers over night.

The team selection may be done by somewhat competent people but the problem is that the overall strategy is overshadowing everything else. There has been a command desicion from the team management (who are primarily track people) that the team will be focused on sprints and classics and that's the decision that is influencing every decision and in my opinion that is the big problem.
 
Sep 27, 2009
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Libertine Seguros said:
GE look even more one-dimensional than Team HTC-Curl Up And Die And Never Darken My Screen Again High Road. In a sense this is good (HTC-CUADANDMSA High Road would find themselves interjecting themselves into really good races, whereas we can pretty much forget about the presence of GreenEdge at races like País Vasco or Trentino), but in a sense it's pretty depressing, when you realise that Bob Stapleton has produced a team which is more rounded than yours.

My team is BMC not GE. I hope GE go well but I not a great fan of their recruitment strategy.

Libertine Seguros said:
Velits has gone to OPQS, and I'd be very, very surprised if Quintana went. Rujano even more so after his disastrous QuickStep experiment.

It was a list of possible climbers that GE could have looked at signing if there were looking for climbers 6 months ago. I know where Velits has gone.

Libertine Seguros said:
And what exactly are they going to excite with a team that looks like it consists solely of sprinters and leadout men? My only hope for them providing excitement is that they have too many leadout men and not enough TT-specialist type people to do the break controlling job that people like Grabsch and Siutsou do at HTC and so continually mismanage the break.

They could be prominant in cobbled races and some flat or hilly stage races. Also hilly 1 day races but beating Gilbert is going to be hard.
 
Oct 7, 2010
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ingsve said:
We're not talking about 5-10 years down the line...We're talking about next year and none of the young aussie track cyclists will suddenly become viable climbers over night.

The team selection may be done by somewhat competent people but the problem is that the overall strategy is overshadowing everything else. There has been a command desicion from the team management (who are primarily track people) that the team will be focused on sprints and classics and that's the decision that is influencing every decision and in my opinion that is the big problem.

Once GE lines up a title sponsor next year they can go shopping for a GC contendor. There arent to many legit ones around & they all are expensive.
Objectives get on the start line, win some races, gain some credibility, pursue title sponsor.
 
Jan 19, 2011
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Getting a bit sick of Greenedge constantly saying they are focusing on sprints and classics etc. with the view to letting the team develop and building a genuine all round team in a few years.

Whilst I completely understand that they are primarily focusing on one day races and stage hunting (after all that is Australias bread and butter) I can not see why they are completely giving up on luring GC riders or riders that might be able to develop into climbers with the view to developing them for the future.

When GE decide that they want to start going for grand tours and hilly stage races they are going to need to wait at least another 2 years on top of that to compile a squad for that. Because lets face it (Leotard trek withstanding) you can not just build a group of climbing talent overnight and at the moment GE has 0 climbers.

Bringing in some genuine climbing talent this year would have been the perfect oppurtunity to slowly build the team considering the amount of talent that is on the market due to unforseen circumstances whilst still having a strong classics/stage hunting focus. The amount of climbing talent that was available this year will certainly not been seen again for some time.

At the moment the team has not one rider who you could say has a genuine chance of winning let alone finishing in the top 15 of a hilly tour or GT and very few if any that you could say given a couple of years could develop into that.
 
Sep 27, 2009
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buster1 said:
Getting a bit sick of Greenedge constantly saying they are focusing on sprints and classics etc. with the view to letting the team develop and building a genuine all round team in a few years.

Whilst I completely understand that they are primarily focusing on one day races and stage hunting (after all that is Australias bread and butter) I can not see why they are completely giving up on luring GC riders or riders that might be able to develop into climbers with the view to developing them for the future.

When GE decide that they want to start going for grand tours and hilly stage races they are going to need to wait at least another 2 years on top of that to compile a squad for that. Because lets face it (Leotard trek withstanding) you can not just build a group of climbing talent overnight and at the moment GE has 0 climbers.

Bringing in some genuine climbing talent this year would have been the perfect oppurtunity to slowly build the team considering the amount of talent that is on the market due to unforseen circumstances whilst still having a strong classics/stage hunting focus. The amount of climbing talent that was available this year will certainly not been seen again for some time.

At the moment the team has not one rider who you could say has a genuine chance of winning let alone finishing in the top 15 of a hilly tour or GT and very few if any that you could say given a couple of years could develop into that.

I agree, except I think Weening counts as a climber, not a great one admittedly but still a climber. I am struggling to see what Mouris, Vaitkis, Tuft and Keukeleire bring to the squad that is extra to what the Australians bring. Four climbers instead, even not much better than Weening, and the squad looks far better balanced. They might not win much but at least there would be something there and a base of climbers to build on.
 

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