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Teams & Riders Team Visma - Lease a Bike

Page 88 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
At least the races are not suffocated like with Sky.

Doing 40km solo's or duo attacks isn't better to me imo, but I get where you're coming from. Sky Train was definitely really boring but atleast we didn't see them in the classics

They are not way richer. That is simply not the dynamic that's going on here. They were the worst team in the Worldtour just 5 or 6 years ago, and they've worked their way to the top not by outspending everyone but by outsmarting everyone. And of course they have a bigger budget now than they had then, because success attracts sponsor money... but as we can see from Jumbo potentially pulling out, maybe not as much as you would think.

Oh come on, yes Jumbo probably has some good riders that are being lowballed a bit cause they want the Jumbo effect, but just look at their selection. It's insane. They have a huge budget. Not UAE or Ineos budget, but they're definitely 3rd and miles ahead on 70% of the teams. They literally contracted the Paris Roubaix winner of last season, Kelderman and Tratnik are also not cheap. The year before they got expensive Dennis. And then I'm not talking about the - apparently - pretty good contracts their 18y old youngsters are already on. That's like Lefevere saying year in year out their budget is small and everyone is doing charity work for them and not earning anything. Everyone knew that was just BS.

Ofcourse they were smart and they deserve props for how they build up their team, but they do things other teams simply can't do because they have a way more limited budget. Like the massive amount of altitude camps for example, or take on the best trainers, or get their riders the best supplements, etc. The positive thing is that it isn't just a rich Arab guy who just randomly blasted in 50 milion euros, but they they had an organic growth, but you can't deny that - right now - they are one of the richest teams in the peloton and are benefitting from it.

That being said, I don't care how rich they are, they dominant, so boring to me and yes than I rather see some other teams beat them. You can call that dumb, but it seems like a lot of people are really dumb then.
 
Oh come on, yes Jumbo probably has some good riders that are being lowballed a bit cause they want the Jumbo effect, but just look at their selection. It's insane. They have a huge budget. Not UAE or Ineos budget, but they're definitely 3rd and miles ahead on 70% of the teams. They literally contracted the Paris Roubaix winner of last season, Kelderman and Tratnik are also not cheap. The year before they got expensive Dennis. And then I'm not talking about the - apparently - pretty good contracts their 18y old youngsters are already on. That's like Lefevere saying year in year out their budget is small and everyone is doing charity work for them and not earning anything. Everyone knew that was just BS.
According to Plugge they are 5th or 6th in terms of budget. We don't have to believe that, but on the other hand, if you see that Jumbo's total sponsor budget is 20 million euros, including the budget for Max Verstappen, speedskating, women's cycling and every other event they sponsor, then at least the main sponsor isn't paying a stratospheric amount of money. And the team clearly went scrambling for every bit of money they could get last winter, changing a lot of suppliers, most notably the groupset from Shimano to SRAM. You don't do that if you have a huge budget anyway, why would you.
 
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As long as it's not done by simply outspending every other team, or through other nefarious means, I don't mind. These eras of dominance always end. And then there's a new team that everybody hates.

You think they are just smarter than others. Likely not.
And there were eras of team's dominance before... but in the Postal years I didn't watch, and Sky and Quickstep at least had a special field they excelled at... Jumbo is simply everywhere.
 
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Ehm, no. There are winners I actually like... but at one point it's enough. I am not excited by pure domination and this, for several reasons, is an especially bad case of domination.
In the races against the best riders in the world, they actually aren't that dominant. You'll see on Sunday (strange thing is, most 'haters' expect this to happen, so they don't really believe Jumbo are that dominant either :))

You think they are just smarter than others. Likely not.
And there were eras of team's dominance before... but in the Postal years I didn't watch, and Sky and Quickstep at least had a special field they excelled at... Jumbo is simply everywhere.
And what exactly does this prove?
 
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"There are no dumb sentiments, any feeling is valid..."

I mean, seriously, feelings are feelings. Sometimes you just don't like someone, don't enjoy something, etc. How can that be dumb?
You say you have several reasons, and several opinions. Okay, then I'm interested to hear what they are. It turns out you just don't like them. That's fine, but don't pretend there's any rationale behind it.
 
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This is big news.


It's over. 2024 will be the last year of Jumbo.

Vingegaard is contracted until 2024 (I checked, whereas Rog is contracted until late 2025 & WvA 2026), i.e. this means Vinge didn't extend his deal after winning the TdF last year (probably no real pay rise beyond performance bonuses). Imagine he wins the TdF 2023 & calls management asking for a new contract: "sorry, the sponsorship situation prohibits contract renewals right now, please leave a message after the beep".

...
 
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I know cycling isn't the easiest sport to attract 'big' sponsors to, but unlike some teams that run into these issues at least they are on the up at the moment and must surely be attractive to a potential sponsor.

Would like to see a few other teams step up and get more wins though, I can't say I enjoy the level of dominance we're seeing at the moment. Dumb sentiment or not.
 
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I know cycling isn't the easiest sport to attract 'big' sponsors to, but unlike some teams that run into these issues at least they are on the up at the moment and must surely be attractive to a potential sponsor.

Would like to see a few other teams step up and get more wins though, I can't say I enjoy the level of dominance we're seeing at the moment. Dumb sentiment or not.

Nothing in sport lasts forever. People should know this by now, especially in cycling.

Sky didn't exactly maintain its dominance when it became Ineos (despite their disgustingly enormous budget), so IMO people shouldn't get too fidgety about Jumbo Visma. It's a perfect cycling team right now with the right people in the right places & the correct rider staff with the right mentality. I mean without the advent of superperformers like Pogacar & Evenepoel, Jumbo could have had a clean sweep of TdF's & Vuelta's for 3 years now. Plugge, Zeeman, Heijboer etc. know what they're doing & are the best in the business.

But the sponsorship situation is something Plugge needs to overcome.

Jumbo literally got tired of winning

Jumbo was Roglič, Roglič was Jumbo. I feel when the sponsor changes it'll be like the end of that chapter, i.e. Jumbo's arrival as main sponsor is integrally timed with Rog signing for the team & becoming a race winning machine for LottoNL-Jumbo & Jumbo Visma, before the rise of WvA, Vingegaard & the others. The team learned how to win with Rog & also how to avoid defeats due to Rog's own misfortunes.

4d1d3d38-cc5b-47a5-bf8e-fbd36e7d59fc.jpg


It's going to be a hell of a nostalgia trip when this era comes to an end.
 
Sunday afternoon, Flandres: WVA and Laporte cross the line together 5 minutes ahead of Pog and MVP. Laporte was dragging Wout for 100 kms of epic breakaway. Wout is preparing for celebrations but...Laporte decides to cross the line first. At the finish he says that one can't give a monument and cites Eddy's recent words. Wout ends his career immediately.
 
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Sunday afternoon, Flandres: WVA and Laporte cross the line together 5 minutes ahead of Pog and MVP. Laporte was dragging Wout for 100 kms of epic breakaway. Wout is preparing for celebrations but...Laporte decides to cross the line first. At the finish he says that one can't give a monument and cites Eddy's recent words. Wout ends his career immediately.
I prefer the version where Roglic appears from behind the bushes while Laporte and Van Aert are too busy hugging before the finish line.
 
Nothing in sport lasts forever. People should know this by now, especially in cycling.

Sky didn't exactly maintain its dominance when it became Ineos (despite their disgustingly enormous budget), so IMO people shouldn't get too fidgety about Jumbo Visma. It's a perfect cycling team right now with the right people in the right places & the correct rider staff with the right mentality. I mean without the advent of superperformers like Pogacar & Evenepoel, Jumbo could have had a clean sweep of TdF's & Vuelta's for 3 years now. Plugge, Zeeman, Heijboer etc. know what they're doing & are the best in the business.

But the sponsorship situation is something Plugge needs to overcome.



Jumbo was Roglič, Roglič was Jumbo. I feel when the sponsor changes it'll be like the end of that chapter, i.e. Jumbo's arrival as main sponsor is integrally timed with Rog signing for the team & becoming a race winning machine for LottoNL-Jumbo & Jumbo Visma, before the rise of WvA, Vingegaard & the others. The team learned how to win with Rog & also how to avoid defeats due to Rog's own misfortunes.

4d1d3d38-cc5b-47a5-bf8e-fbd36e7d59fc.jpg


It's going to be a hell of a nostalgia trip when this era comes to an end.
I think the team has the problem that even though they're very successful, their home market doesn't really care. Viewing numbers for cycling and cyclocross are declining rapidly in the Netherlands. And most of Jumbo's success comes from foreign (i.e. non-Dutch) riders. Dutch riders won all 5 monuments in the last 8 years... but none of them rode for this team. Just like the Dutchman who won a grand tour didn't.

BTW something like Cervélo-Jumbo is still a possibility. They'll quit as main sponsor, whether they will stay on as a co-sponsor hasn't been decided yet.
 
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I think the team has the problem that even though they're very successful, their home market doesn't really care. Viewing numbers for cycling and cyclocross are declining rapidly in the Netherlands. And most of Jumbo's success comes from foreign (i.e. non-Dutch) riders. Dutch riders won all 5 monuments in the last 8 years... but none of them rode for this team. Just like the Dutchman who won a grand tour didn't.

BTW something like Cervélo-Jumbo is still a possibility. They'll quit as main sponsor, whether they will stay on as a co-sponsor hasn't been decided yet.
Don't feel like interest in cycling has declined, it may be the overall sports landscape.

Problem for Jumbo I think is they were already a very known brand over here so as a supermarket chain there's weirdly little to gain from the sponsoring a cycling team.
 
Don't feel like interest in cycling has declined, it may be the overall sports landscape.
Gent-Wevelgem was on tv the whole afternoon. It barely made the 25 most watched tv programmes on Sunday. That's really poor. Same goes for the few cyclocross world cups that were broadcast on national tv.

If you compare it to speedskating, the difference is huge. That sport is way more popular with the Dutch tv audience. Which sort of undermines my argument of course, since there Jumbo also leaves as a sponsor.