2014 Pro-cycling season thread

Surprised to see Konig at Sky though

His old man is still faster than him. #oof

Because you find him suspicious? He was interviewed by Lemond after a stage at the Tour and he seemed very ambitious, implying he could win the Tour in future.

No. Sad that you would make that assumption.

I'm surprised he's there because he's ambitious - he's not going to get many opportunities to ride for himself there. He'll just be another worker bee for Queen Froome.

Dombrowski is off to Garmin-Cannondale

Cannonin?

Garmindale?

Sky can't win can they? Everyone slates them for not having a plan B, yet when they sign riders capable of being plan B, they get slated for wasting someone's talent by making them work for a stronger rider.

Actually, AFAIK Garmin won't remain a title sponsor so it could be

Slipindale?
Cannonstream?

Yeah exactly. Boooooooooo.

Come on Tim etc

In terms of strength in depth, I think their cobbled classics squad is amongst the best as they have the likes of Thomas, top ten finisher in both Flanders and Roubaix, Stannard, winner of Het Volk, Eisel, winner of Gent-Wevelgem, Wiggins, who impressed hugely in Roubaix this year, and a host of strong and talented domestiques like Rowe, Knees, Pate et al.

They are a bit short for the hillier classics, but Sergio Henao has showed huge promise in those so will be a factor next season.

^ they might have a decent squad of top 20 finishers for the classics, but they don't have anyone who looks like they might actually win one (with the exception of Stannard, but still.. he's hardly Boonen or Fab)

Thomas and Stannard both have the talent to win one, but need to be in the right move. But in my view they should be trying to sign Sep Vanmarcke as he looks like the rider most likely to dominate the next 5 years. They've lots of 3 star riders, but no 5 star one.

Poels will be useful if they're not having Boom(?)

Konig has been great.

Roche? Buying back some training tips? He's no M.Rogers.

How many people are Boonen or Fab quality? Not many people in the 'likely to win a lot of classics' category would want to go to a team like Sky over OPQS or a smaller unit that would be completely built around them.

Exactly.

Probably loathe to spend a sizeable chunk of their wage budget on a classics sepcialist though. Wasn't that the problem with Boom? He wanted more money than they wanted to pay..

Not many. There are maybe 5 riders per generation who are that kind of quality - which comes at a premium.

Quickstep have 3 of them, plus a bunch of second tier riders.

@somuril

Like OPQS is built around Boonan?

Basing a team around one guy sounds like a bad idea unless perhaps MSR.

he's no Rogers, but he is an excellent super dom. Guaranteed to turn himself inside out for the team at 2-3 GT's per year. I'm a big fan of him for some reason, I don't know why - but I'm always cheering for him (not that it ever helps).

Urrr @somuril ...

I reckon they may might have fourth with Michael.K.

(you included Cav right?)

I was thinking cobbled classics specialists (Boonen, Terpstra, Stybar).. but yeah Kwia for hillies and Cav for anything like e3 where it might stay together.

It's because of his weird hybrid accent.

It's not built around Boonen but it's built around stage wins / classics. Guess the telling move next year will be Sagan at Saxo - will a GC team be able to get him winning monuments. What I really meant was most of those '5 in a generation' guys wouldn't want to move to Sky anyway would they?

For the right money they would.

I think it might be that he seems like a really nice, honest guy who's been pretty successful despite living in his Dad's shadow.