Fotoreporter Sirotti
Here’s what’s on our minds this Monday:
1. While the pre-season training camps begin to pop-up all over the calendar, details continue to trickle in regarding Team Lux. The latest news has Belgian telecom giant Belgacom and Danish earpiece manufacturer Jabra becoming the main backers of the team, with an announcement possibly to coincide with the arrival of Fabian Cancellara. But we’ve heard this before, haven’t we?
2. It’s likely that something will be determined soon as the new squad has it’s first pre-season get together scheduled from December 6th-12th in the Swiss Alps. Whoever the new team’s clothing supplier is, they better be able to accommodate quick turnarounds.
3. Speaking of transfers, Irish legend Sean Kelly has an idea for the UCI regarding transfers. Is the UCI principled enough to not skim an unreasonable amount of money off the top should they take Kelly’s comments to heart? Given the governing body’s recent track record, we think not.
4. I was excited to read that Palmans will be returning to the sport’s upper echelon after signing-on to support Team Vacansoleil, while Dutch firm TVM will be returning to co-sponsor the Rijke amateur team from Holland. Time for me to find someone to trade kit with.
5. And speaking of Palmans, maybe you can help me end a 5-year hunt for a needle in a haystack. One of the first copies of Winning Magazine I ever purchased had a fantastic picture of a lone Palmans rider climbing what I believe was the Molenberg in Het Volk. He’s wearing the old maroon and gold kit, a hairnet, and the traditional white house sits in the background. I believe it was 1996, the year Tom Steels took his first big win for Mapei. Can anyone help me find a copy? That said, we’d settle for any copies of Winning covering the classics from the late 1990’s. You know, for the archives.
6. In doping news, the UCI has asked the RFEC to open disciplinary hearings against Contador. RFEC says that’ll take months. Are we to assume the provisional suspension will remain in place until they come to a conclusion?
7. Team Sky wants a Tour of California invite and might send a superstar team in order to get one. Will the Giro vs. ATOC showdown intensify next season? And will the ATOC’s organizers remember the way in which Sky shunned the event last year?
8. This just in: Pegasus has named Henrik Redant as one its new sport directors for 2011. Redant’s one of the classiest guys in the sport, and will certainly prove to be a valuable resource as the team moves forward. Now for that title sponsor…
9. On the domestic cyclocross front, Ryan Trebon is leaving Kona (on good terms) to start his own team with the goal of taking on the world in Louisville in 2013.
10. In Europe, Sven Nys took a big win at the Superprestige in Hamme-Zogge, while Zdenek Stybar suffers from knee pain—which may put a damper on his bid to prevent Nys from winning SP for the 10th consecutive time.
11. If you haven’t done so already, please complete this survey regarding our 2011 clothing order. Your responses will help us get an accurate cost as we finalize details with Vermarc.
12. And last but not least, hopefully you’ve noticed (and enjoy) our new layout and design. Erik and Jeremy deserve kudos for their time and effort on the last two versions of the site—thanks guys! It’s incredible how far we’ve come from a design standpoint.
That’s it for today—enjoy your week, and share your comments below.
The new layout is great!
Sean Kelly has an interesting idea, but it will be very hard to implement; the UCI could only muck it up.
I think losing riders to better funded teams is part of the price you pay for being a Conti or a Pro Conti team, in a free agent market. By practice, they are largely developmental squads; moving riders up should be part of their mission statements. He needs to keep in mind that Pro Tour teams can directly develop U23 riders only to lose them to other squads as well.
If there were a better system, such as in baseball, where the minor league teams are owned and funded by the major league teams, the landscape would be much different. But professional cycling is as far from a league as possible, and every time the UCI steps in to try to make this happen (this is what the Pro Tour is largely about, along with the revenue that flows from it), they make matters worse.
ref – transfer fees and validity of contracts (or as we should refer to it, Porte-Gate). If you want to giggle uncontrollably and shake your head at more nonsense from the McQuaid family have a look at this month's latest edition of ProCycling Magazine. Absolute hilarity!
Man, the Cancellara transfer is becoming the Wiggins transfer in some ways. Seems absolutely inevitable yet insanely drawn out. I think the only difference is that Cancellara's value is already proven, I believe he'll win big races no matter the team. Interesting that his twitter account has fallen silent, a nice difference from the Wiggins drama.
Michael raises a good point – I can't imagine what Christmas dinner at the McQuaid homestead would look like if ol' Pat tried to impliment some transfer structure. The Port-gate saga reminds us that Andrew still has a lot to learn about his own job…I've really enjoyed Porte's comments over the past week, talking about how excited he is to race for Saxo for 2011. I suppose he has to be, now.
Fantastic new layout! Keep up the great work.