Your Dream Team

[pmcg76]

Bored of the Tour? Lets start a little game, imagine we are all super-millionaires and we are the owners of our own pro team. Who would you have on your team? What would the sponsor be? What would the race programme be? Objectives? Any special anti-doping initiatives? AOB Just to make it a little more interesting and test our cycling knowledge, the budget will be set at a maximun of 5-7million euro so no Astana-like teams.

After that, we can all criticise each other and our teams as we like, are they realistic, will they be within the set budget, etc. Let the fun begin.

 

[phillop]

id make a team full of strong climbers, no real leader, just several strong riders that can do something interesting in the mountains. Id try sign up jose rujano, maricio soler, zubeldia, pozzovivo. id also target barloworlds stronger riders, because obviously barloworlds not strong enough to get them in to the races they deserve to be in. so add in john-lee augustyn, and chris froome. sign cobo and de la fuente.
may have to sign a few frenchys and itais to make sure its gets invited to le tour and the giro.
A le tour team of:
Rujano, Soler, Zubeldia, Pozzovivo, Augustyn, Froome, Cobo, De la Fuente

 

[runninboy]

My dream team basically consists of any rider that Phil can't pronounce proper
...starting with tyler Farrar

 

[ak-zaaf]

only 5-7 million?

first of all i would try anything to get vino to make his comeback with my team.

i'd pick a nice team for the races until may, guys like:
langeveld
burghardt
van impe
hoogerland
quinziato
maes
kolobnev
gerrans
fedrigo
kroon
willems
vanendert

not too expensive i guess.

for the grand tours i'd pay heavily for a young talent like gesink or kreuziger (schlecks don't come apart, so no budget) and get some no-nonsense former commies with experience to help him (valjavec, botcharov, szmyd)


don't know what ll sanchez makes, but if there's money for him he's a good pick.
some neo-pro's preferably from non-traditional cycling countries.
if there is any money left a sprinter to top it off. farrar prolly won't ask that much. de jongh as a lead-out man and we have a team

maybe too little real domestiques, but this should work

 

[pmcg76]

The reason the budget limit is low is that anybody can put a great team together with unlimited funds. This way, a bit of knowledge about cycling is necessary. I like the teams so far although I dont know how a team of climers would do season long.

My own team would be an Irish backed team promoting my beautiful region.

Team leaders would be Heinrich Haussler(Classics) Andre Greipel(Sprints) and upcoming Irish rider Dan Martin for stage races. Irish guys Nicolas Roche and Philip Deignan would be decent domestiques/stage winners along with Aussies Simon Gerrans and Matthew Lloyd.

I would also include Lars Boom & Sven Vanthourenhout for Cyclo cross season as I love the winter season, they could also double up as classic riders. I would also pick up a few guys from the Sean Kelly team, Irish riders David O'Loughlin, Paidi O'Brien and Ronan McLaughlin and Belgians De Schroeder & Van Vooren for the classics.

Michael Barry, Roger Hammond & Greg Henderson would provide much expreience for all sorts of races. I would also be aiming for the US racess so maybe US riders like Tom Zirbel & Ted King would be useful.

 

[Polka Dot Punter]

I'd probably try and assemble a team with an Australian flavour that can be competitive all year round.

Heinrich Haussler
Mark Renshaw
Julian Dean
Simon Gerrans
Tony Martin
Johan Van Summeren
John Lee Augustyn
Danny Pate
Jens Voigt
Brett Lancaster
Sebastian Lang
Matt Lloyd
Bert Grabsch

Not really too sure of salaries there though Tony Martin there ahead of Evans as he should be cheaper and IMO a superior talent. Voigt and Haussler, being half german and aussie in nature will help him and Lang integrate into the team nicely, with the rest of the guys already speaking English. A few helpers there to help reel in the breaks, but also to help Haussler in the classics. Guys like Grabsch and Martin will also take their fair share of TT wins just to keep the wins ticking over. A little short in Mountains support, with budget permitting I'd probably add some Frenchies to help with the TdF wildcard, Brice Feillu and Pierre Rolland would be ideal. As a 2nd strategy one of them could contest for KOTM if Martin can't deliver, whilst still focusing on stage wins with HH.

 

[luckyboy]

No idea about how much this'd cost, but...

Thomas Voeckler
Sylvain Chavanel
Samuel Dumoulin
Remi Pauriol
Remy Di Gregorio
Brice Feillu
Sebastien Joly
William Bonnet
Laurent Lefevre
Jerome Coppel
Pierre Rolland

Amets Txurruka
Gorka Verdugo
Mikel Astarloza
Alan Perez

Not sure about the language barrier Anyway, this team would be focused on having everyone attacking - obviously on French & Spanish races. The Tour would be the main one - stage wins, combativity prize, wear a jersey for a few days. There's not really a clear leader, but the others will protect Chavanel & Voeckler when they have to. Fun

 

[ilillillli]

1 Lance Armstrong
2 Alberto Contador
3 Levi Liephiemer
4 Andreas Klöden
5 Mark Cavendish
6 Tyler Farrar
7 Tom Boonen
8 Barack Obama
9 A Ferrari

 

[benpounder]

the budget will be set at a maximun of 5-7million euro so no Astana-like teams.

I think Cervelo's budget is about 9 million Euros...

 

[palmerq]

Well i am not sure of how much riders are paid but i think my selection will come in under budget.

After hearing about how the japs are loving the two japanese fellows in the tour, my team has decided to base itself in italy but with strong ties to the japanese and asian market. A big part of this team would be to bring on young fellows from italy and japan/asia. This team will be sponsored by Hello kitty and wear a fetching pink shirt and this seasons must have brown shorts :S.. Main objectives will be the giro,other italian races and the bigger races in asia. We shall not partake in the tour de france in protest of its boring route instead focusing on the tour of qinghai lake. The anti doping programme will consist of a code of honour, anyone caught doping is expected to commit hari kiri.

the main fellows of this team would be

Pellizotti, Garzelli, Haussler, Joaquin Rodriguez, Ignatiev(he´ll get us on the gogglebox), Kolobnev, bosisio ,Leo Bertagnolli, Wegelius and of course the only two japs I know Beppu and Arashiro.

other fellows I would like for team mates would be Brice Feillu, Egoi Martinez, french man Roy from fdj, Quinziato, Hutarovich and Ben Swift.

I think it is not so bad for a not so huge budget, I have faith in pellizotti, and I think Garzelli is good for another year and then he can become a coach or something. Maybe there is too many big names though. I think it is a well balanced team, some good climbers and some team mates who have a history of getting in breakaways. Hutarovich I think might have a bit of potential for the future and swift looked good in the giro, although i think I lack a future gc contender, so if i could afford it i would take Van den broeck or seeldrayers, maybe they have a chance later in life... The rest of the squad I would make up of young italians and japanese fellows.

My plan to combat the langauge barrier is to remove the race radios in the traditional sense, and use these devices to translate all words spoken by the riders into dubbed english martial arts film style. Although they´d all have to understand english, so they could probably all speak english.....

If this is above budget then my plan would be to sack half the squad and make myself the highest paid rider on the squad and do a runner before preseason training, with all the sponsorship money.



ps

I am waiting till my clothes are finished in the dryer :S

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

A dream team , with restrictions?

I'd go for a team with good climbers (and TTr) who can help and support the leader. And then also capable of bringing results in smaller stage races.
also a sprinter (who can do it himself... doesn't need excessive team help) and a rider willing to go on the attack.

my tour team would be something like (probably over the budget )

Laurens Ten Dam
Jens Voigt
Micheal Rogers
Jose Ivan Guiterez
Janez Brajkovič
Fabian Cancerella
-----
Robert Gesink (GT/classics (ardenness) leader)
Sylvain Chavanel (attacking rider, potential in northen classics)
Heinrich Haussler
-----
Other riders (not in Tour sqaud)
Lars Boom
Bauke Mollema
Sebastian langeveld
Martijn Maaskant

Then i would fill the rest of the sqaud with decent/lesser known riders to help the main men in the season races (to not go over budget...)

 

[elapid]

I've been thinking about this for a few days, and it is difficult. No sprinters just because there are few Robbie-like sprinters than can do the job without needing some sort of train and detracting from the overall. GC contenders are young and have potential, particularly as the likes of Kreuziger can also TT. If I could fit him in, I would have included David Arroyo for further GC support in the mountains, but think Sørensen, Van Summeren, Lloyd and the GC contenders can do this well enough. Then the strong men like Cancellara, Voigt, Haussler and Maarksaant have a mixture of youth and experience, and are always helpful on the road, to get into and control breaks, and help in the mountains. Come classics time, I think this would be a good team too.

1. Roman Kreuziger (GC overall)
2. Vincenzo Nibali (GC overall)
3. Fabian Cancellara (TT, classics, GC support)
4. Henirich Haussler (classics, GC support)
5. Martijn Maarksaant (classics, GC support)
6. Jens Voigt (GC support)
7. Matthew Lloyd (mountains, GC support)
8. Johan Van Summeren (classics, GC support)
9. Chris Anker Sørensen (GC support, potential GC overall)

 

[unsheath]

I'll make a team under 'Bike Pure' and have all the riders sign the strictest mutha f*cking anti doping charter I could legally pass through. Something like transferring over 50% of the assets if ever found guilty of a doping violation.

Riders must pass bio passports, lie detectors and medical record scrutiny.
I'll find sponsors such as Kleenex, Evian, Vittel for their squeaky clean image and no pressure on results.

And after 3 years of not winning any races, I'll bring out a book titled, "I might as well not win"

 

[the_kman]

Lance Armstrong
Flloyd Landis
alexander vinokourov

id assemble a team round these dudes. would be awesome. most bad *** team since 2004 t-mobile team.