Pro-cycling thread

Team Tile Grout is my fave.

Hugh Carthy to Cannondale, hope he'll shine in the tours!

What a shame, his career progression looked so promising.

I was well into the Mapei team in the nineties. It took some of the glamour off when I realised what the company did.

Slightly harsh - I don't think it'll do him any harm. Likely to get more rides in bigger races than he would at Sky (for example).

One team less next year so fortunate to have a WT contract.

Have Cannondale won a race this year? They seem to have a recruitment policy based on merging with other teams - Cervelo Test Team, Liquigas and now Drapac - in which they pick up lots of anonymous riders who never win races. Has anyone joined them and prospered in the last 5 years?

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/vincenzo-nibali-confirmed-for-bahrain-merida/

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When you've been riding for Vino for years I guess a torturing despot must feel like a nice change of pace.

They've got some decent young riders there in Formolo, Van Barle and Paddy Bevin. I agree they seem to lack any stars though.

Perhaps he didn't have a lot on the table and it'll be a stepping stone. Or they've made commitments re his race program others wouldn't.

Put it this way - if they offered anyone on this forum a pro contract, we'd all take it.

Have Cannondale won a race this year? They seem to have a recruitment policy based on merging with other teams - Cervelo Test Team, Liquigas and now Drapac - in which they pick up lots of anonymous riders who never win races. Has anyone joined them and prospered in the last 5 years?

They've also lost Moser to Astana...

Any of us being offered a contract is utterly irrelevant.

Carthy has shown good progression and would've had a number of offers from WT teams. Obviously we're not privy to which teams made him an offer, but if I was in his situation I'd think long and hard about joining Cannondale, mainly because they don't seem to have a good track record of developing young talent. They got Formolo and Moser by chance and neither have progressed under Vaughters' tutelage, despite people knowing both had talent.

But look at the difference he has made to Pierre Rolland. Oh.

Rolland was unlucky in the tour - he showed great form, I thought. He also showed us a great many new and exciting ways to fall off one's bike.

Would rep

Most of what people say from behind a computer screen is irrelevant.

Two years riding at WT level for any team won't harm him at his age in my opinion.

Let's hope not.

But there are definitely better WT teams out there with a proven track record of developing young talent, i.e. Orica, Giant-Alpecin, Lotto-Soudal etc.

Now I might be getting mixed up, but didn't sagan come through cannondale? In the last 5 years.

You're getting sponsors and teams confused. He was on a Cannondale bike at Liquigas team which then became the Cannondale Team that then merged with Garmin/Slipstream as he went to Saxo Tinkoff

Sagan was Liquigas, which merged with Garmin-Sharpe, forming Team Cannondale−Garmin, but Sagan moved to Tinkov soon after.

Edit - Beaten...

I think the culture has changed at Cannondale. It was set up as Vaughters' retirement home for reformed dopers but there's now a bit more discipline under Wegelius. Might not suit some riders but probably a better regime for young riders.

They do have a pretty tiny budget too, down on what they've had in previous years - think Vaughters said something like that on one of the cycling podcasts. Looked a lot like they went to the TdF without much of a team - it makes more sense for them to aim for the low(er) hanging fruit of the Giro and Vuelta.

I follow a guy on twitter who's very close to Hugh, and he publicly slates Cannondale a lot but reckons it's a good move.

I can kind of see it, it's only a two year deal and he'll likely get looked after in some smaller, hard, week long races and then be a domestique in other, bigger races.

My only worry is the actual rider development side of things, but this is a guy who's never been involved with British cycling and moved to Pamplona despite not speaking the language because he felt Caja Rural were the team for him, he seems to have a good head on his shoulders....

Will Hugh be riding in the Vuelta for Caja Rural do you know?

I think that's up in the air now he's leaving. If they are short of riders then he will, but if they can field a team without him then I'd imagine they'd leave him out.