movingtarget said:They have done better so far than most people expected. Much better than some of the so called elite teams. They will get found out in the grand tours I think. That is where the younger riders will struggle but they could still get stage wins with Goss and Gerrans. So far so good for GreenEdge.
Look at the date I posted that - February 9. They've come a long way since then too.
I do think that as the season goes on they'll get found out a bit more and run out of steam - as you say the GTs is where they're pretty weak, so hopefully they can stagehunt and provide a better contribution to their first Tour than Sky or Katyusha (OK, Ivanov got a stage win, but nobody remembers anything they did at that race). Gerrans looks like he's turning into more than just placement fodder - my criticism of him was that he used to attack and pick moves and stagehunt really well, now he seems happy to sit in the pack and come 7th in the finale - but this year he's turning more into the rider he should be.
They've also got a lot riding on some young riders and hitting the ground running. It will be interesting to see if they run out of steam after the Olympics or if those get in the way of some of their road goals; they've had major riders peaking all the way from January, so it may be that they're down to bare bones by the end of the season.
Mission's going very well for them so far, though. Achieving results far in excess of what the unspectacular roster would suggest, thanks to riders making big leaps forward, good solid tactics (something that really hamstrung some of the other new teams in the péloton recently), and occasionally a big old slice of luck (Port-Ainé cancellation).