Radioshack-Leopard Trek

[Michielveedeebee]

I guess he means that nowadays, unlike 2009, there are several guys in the field who can drop AC on a serious climb on a good day, even if he tries to keep up with them. At least that is how I understood not only that sentence, but this year's Tour in a whole...

No, just no. Not if he's in peakform anyway. Nope, nope nope

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

I guess he means that nowadays, unlike 2009, there are several guys in the field who can drop AC on a serious climb on a good day, even if he tries to keep up with them. At least that is how I understood not only that sentence, but this year's Tour in a whole...

If AC have 2 broken legs mybe...

 

[LaFlorecita]

If AC have 2 broken legs mybe...

Exactly.

 

[La Pandera]

remember that in this years tdf, andy made the idiotic mistake of going with contador's attack on the first climb, and therefore spent a huge chunk of time in the wind, fatiguing him significantly before alpe d'huez. evans went initially, but then had his mechanical and dropped back to the peloton.

even a motivated contador was dropped by sanchez and pierre rolland at the end of that stage.

A motivated Contador after being on a solo attack for all but 15 km of a mountainous stage, getting dropped near the finish by Sanchez and Rolland?
How many riders in today's peloton would anyone of any sense have expected to still finish 3rd after being on the attack for so long? I agree Andy was fatigued and why wouldn't he be? I'm surprised that he and Contador didn't lose major, major minutes by the finish at Alpe d'Huez.

 

[Waterloo Sunrise]

Andy already said he went into this year's Tour heavier than usual because of increased muscle mass ... didn't hurt his climbing but didn't really help his ITT either

He couldn't drop Cadel when he needed to, and ascent speeds were down on previous years, so that (or something else.....................) was hurting his climbing.

 

[La Pandera]

I guess he means that nowadays, unlike 2009, there are several guys in the field who can drop AC on a serious climb on a good day, even if he tries to keep up with them. At least that is how I understood not only that sentence, but this year's Tour in a whole...

Are you saying an at peak Contador or an injured, fatigued Contador? Who are these several guys that you hint towards and with Contador in peak form and them the same, what are examples of this? Contador isn't a god but he's shown that he is the best climber in the peloton at this point in his career.

 

[theyoungest]

They list Ben King and Jesse Sergent as one rider but count them as two.

Too bad, Ben King Jesse Sergent is a helluva cool name.

 

[Spider1964]

rtl.lu posted a list of 29 riders on their site:

In the video they say the last rider is supposed to come from HTC High Road ... if that is true I guess it would have to be Craig Lewis or Caleb Fairly, right? All the others have already anounced their new teams as far as I know.

Could it be one of the neo pro's that has been doing some races with them since August? Zak Dempster or Lachlan Norris?

 

[Polish]

he left that deal in the ditch last july

Johann signed Horner up for 2 years AFTER his crash.
But before his takeover of Leopard.
Helped Chris's recovery no doubt.
Took away the worries....

All of the riders Johann signed up for 2012 before the takeover ended up on the team.
Did not have to break any contracts.
Except maybe Jani.
And I think that is because of Becca

 

[ghostofjoy]

No, Andy spent a huge chunk of time in Contador's wheel.

And what exactly do you mean with the second bolded part?

there's nothing ambiguous in what i wrote. contador was clearly motivated, meaning he went all in on a huge effort to get a stage win. thanks to that huge expenditure of energy so early on, sanchez and rolland were able to drop him in the last few k's. was contador at his best? of course not, the cumulative efforts of the giro and the stage before had obviously taken quite a bit of wind out of his sails.

i agree with la pandera that it's a miracle and a testament to andy and bert's strength that they didn't lose huge chunks of time on alpe d'huez. i was contesting the suggestion that cadel had somehow managed to equal andy's climbing prowess because andy was unable to drop him on that ascent.

 

[LaFlorecita]

there's nothing ambiguous in what i wrote. contador was clearly motivated, meaning he went all in on a huge effort to get a stage win. thanks to that huge expenditure of energy so early on, sanchez and rolland were able to drop him in the last few k's. was contador at his best? of course not, the cumulative efforts of the giro and the stage before had obviously taken quite a bit of wind out of his sails.

i agree with la pandera that it's a miracle and a testament to andy and bert's strength that they didn't lose huge chunks of time on alpe d'huez. i was contesting the suggestion that cadel had somehow managed to equal andy's climbing prowess because andy was unable to drop him on that ascent.

I was just asking what you meant and now I understand.

 

[masking_agent]

I can't wait to see what the team kit is gonna look like

 

[Christian]

I can't wait to see what the team kit is gonna look like

I wonder if they will keep some of the Leopard cyan

 

[ansimi]

I wonder if they will keep some of the Leopard cyan

It's the colour from the Luxembourg flag right? I can see them trying to keep some sort of Luxembourgish touch.

2010 Radioshack kit was horrid but I thought they looked pretty good in 2011 and did a nice job on their championship kits. At least the new team should have the challenge of representing all their sponsors in the kit which is a better challenge than the giant blank space on the Leopard jerseys this year.

 

[Thomsena]

I can't wait to see what the team kit is gonna look like

Let me know if you thought of something a bit different.
Of course - ignore the Leopard text. The rest should be realistic enough.

 

[theyoungest]

Let me know if you thought of something a bit different.
Of course - ignore the Leopard text. The rest should be realistic enough.

Brajkovic doesn't ride for them anymore though.

 

[Christian]

It's the colour from the Luxembourg flag right? I can see them trying to keep some sort of Luxembourgish touch.

2010 Radioshack kit was horrid but I thought they looked pretty good in 2011 and did a nice job on their championship kits. At least the new team should have the challenge of representing all their sponsors in the kit which is a better challenge than the giant blank space on the Leopard jerseys this year.

It's not exactly the same colour, Luxembourg flag is just light blue. I am mostly looking forward to better national champions jerseys, that should be interesting!

 

[Chef_Vodnik]

It's not exactly the same colour, Luxembourg flag is just light blue. I am mostly looking forward to better national champions jerseys, that should be interesting!

This. One gajibizillion times this.

 

[Christian]

Interesting update from Bruyneel on how things are progressing:

http://johanbruyneel.com/blog/focusing_on_2012.html

DS's are Andersen, Michaelse and Guercilena from LEOPARD TREK and Demol, Azevedo and Gallopin from Radioshack, plus Bruyneel of course. Seems like a lot of DS's. Ekimov and Baffi did not make the cut, but at least Baffi is rumoured to lead the new Radioshack Continental team.

Ricardo Scheidecker (technical manager of LEOPARD TREK) and a lady named Barbara van Maeldergem (logistics manager) are also part of the team.

First get-together with the riders will be October 25th to 27th in Spa Francorchamps and will include meetings, team-building activities and working out first drafts for the riders' programmes.

There will be one training camp in December in Spain and one in January on Mallorca.



There is also a lively discussion going on between Bruyneel and a twitter user named "@michielveedeeb", a 19 year-old rider from Kortrijk that is pretty interesting ...

 

[La Pandera]

Interesting update from Bruyneel on how things are progressing:

http://johanbruyneel.com/blog/focusing_on_2012.html


There is also a lively discussion going on between Bruyneel and a twitter user named "@michielveedeeb", a 19 year-old rider from Kortrijk that is pretty interesting ...

There's someone that posts on cn forums that goes by the same name, likely the same person. Pretty knowledgable poster IMO.

 

[Zam_Olyas]

There's someone that posts on cn forums that goes by the same name, likely the same person. Pretty knowledgable poster IMO.

yea, he is.

 

[mewmewmew13]

yea, he is.

He knows cycling. Good for him...interesting.

 

[Christian]

With Meersman going to Lotto-Ridley, the final roster should be:

BAKELANTS, Jan
BENNATI, Daniele
BENNETT, George
BUSCHE, Matthew
CANCELLARA, Fabian
DIDIER, Laurent
FUGLSANG, Jakob
GALLOPIN, Tony
GERDEMANN, Linus
HERMANS, Ben
HORNER, Chris
IRIZAR, Markel
KING, Ben
KLODEN, Andreas
MACHADO, Tiago
MONFORT, Maxime
NIZZOLO, Giacomo
OLIVEIRA, Nelson
POPOVYCH, Yaroslav
POSTHUMA, Joost
RAST, Grégory
ROHREGGER, Thomas
SCHLECK, Andy
SCHLECK, Fränk
SELIG, Rüdiger
SERGENT, Jesse
VOIGT, Jens
WAGNER, Robert
ZAUGG, Oliver
ZUBELDIA, Haimar

 

[Michielveedeebee]

There is also a lively discussion going on between Bruyneel and a twitter user named "@michielveedeeb", a 19 year-old rider from Kortrijk that is pretty interesting ...

Woot, I'm famous now I just said the new team didn't respect signed contracts and blabla. He clearly didn't really like it

 

[luckyboy]

With Meersman going to Lotto-Ridley, the final roster should be:

SELIG, Rüdiger

Just seen him linked to Katusha. Also, is Bakelants confirmed?

And I thought Rohregger was supposed to be leaving..