Pro-cycling thread

He's not a pro yet, but Belgian junior Remco Evenepoel is being called the new Merckx (...) by the Flemish press. He's just won the junior TT Euro Champs and the road race ...with 10 minutes advantage after a 100km solo! Quite remarkable but most of the successful juniors never made it to be a successful pro so I hope they'll let him just enjoy himself for a couple of years

BMC + CCC to be merged. Official info will be released tomorrow at Le Tour.

She was training* with me in Tenerife earlier in the year of course she is fast.

*she was in the same hotel and posed for a photo with us after a ride.

Team BMCCCC

New kit should be interesting then

It’s actually Tour, Vuelta, Giro, Tour, Vuelta :)

https://m.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20180720_03625702

Wout van aert is off to lotto in 2020. Cue cyclocross becoming a race for 2nd until mvdp retires

He might stay in cross for a while more:

The possible arrival of Van Aert is also said to be welcomed by LottoNL-Jumbo bike sponsor Bianchi, who are looking to draw on Van Aert cyclocross expertise in the development of a new cyclocross bike.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/lottonl-jumbo-set-buy-wout-van-aerts-contract-bring-belgian-team-2019-385980

Although this Dutch article has Lotto Jumbo's DS saying:

'we only care about WvA as a road racer, we have no interest in cyclocross and have no plans to change that'.

http://www.wielerflits.nl/nieuws/382689/wout-van-aert-maakt-overstap-naar-lottonl-jumbo.html

MVDP will move to the road after the Tokyo Olympics.

He is now

• Dutch national cyclocross champion
  
• Dutch national road race champion
  
• Dutch national mountainbike XC champion
  
  

In an interview after winning his MTB title yesterday, he cut the eternal discussion short and said 'I don't have to choose'. So it could well be that he'll never do pro road cycling exclusively. He says it's pretty boring most of the time anyway.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dimension-data-to-ride-bmc-bikes-from-2019/

So team BMC is going to be CCC, BMC as a sponsor are moving over to Dimension Data, which are at risk of being relegated from World Tour ranking and Cervelo are going to sponsor Giant Sunweb (which I thought was basically a Giant factory team). This is getting confusing already.

How does the relegation work? If there are no teams that don't want to move up does it just stay the same? It's not like the football leagues is it?

I guess not. Cos IAM just stopped existing and the UCI were like, "Cool".

I'm honestly not sure, it's just something I've read about but can't find any concrete rules on

Have they officially reduced the number of Pro tour teams this year? They were supposed to have last year I think?

I think they did last year which is why no team was relegated. I think there are X number of licences and they're awarded to the teams with the most points, but only if a team wants to move up. @andyp , @dubtap ?

It's just Sunweb these days, was Giant-Alpecin for a while but Giant and Shimano have basically been slowly pulling out off the team, which is no bad thing, as the latter work with Lotto NL Jumbo closely now, and Sunweb have committed long term.

In terms of licenses they want to get it down to 16 by 2020 (i'm fairly sure that's the number, and it's currently 18. At a guess, Cannondale will eventually be unable to fund themselves and then maybe Dimension Data? It's become clear that the latter really lack strength in depth.

At a guess, Cannondale will eventually be unable to fund themselves

U Mad Bro! Vaughters is Forever! He'll always manage to convince some naïve well wisher to part with their cash.

Why do they want it to be 16?

Good trolling here by Wiggo

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Mitchelton has been able to keep both Yates brothers:

https://twitter.com/dnlbenson/status/1021396801545539585

I hope they go for a double next Tour, let Chaves do the Giro and have them as domestiques for Chaves in the Vuelta again.

Chaves is finished mate. All these Colombian cyclists seem to burn out fast. Bernal next, especially the way Team SKY are brutalising him.

I was hoping for him to be different. I figured the slew of injuries in his early years would have prohibited him from overtraining, giving him better hopes for a long career.

People should keep off the internet after a few beers.

Because they're the UCI and they've got to remind people they have some sort of power.