TheManxMissile wrote:
I am dissapointed a Continental Champion is below a rider who has zero official results

Name: Camilo Osorio
Nationality (region): Colombian (Medellin, Antioquia)
Date of Birth: 22/09/1995
Height: 169cm
Weight: 61kg
Specialty: None (yet)
Weakness: None (yet)
Biography: Camilo is a Colombian street-kid from Medellin, Antioquia. He has had a pretty tough life; never met his father, and his mother passed away when he was a young teenager. Since the age of 13 he has had to fend for himself, living high up in the favelas, doing whatever jobs he can to put food on the table. He has scavenged for scrap metal, run errands, picked and packed fruit and vegtables on the farms in the hills above the city, before finally maintaining a basic steady existence working on a market stall. Even now as a young adult, he lives in what most people would describe as a pile of corrugated sheets, cardboard and wooden battens. At the age of 8 or 9, his mother had enrolled him in one of Medellins many 'cycling academies', as many Colombian children are, like European kids join football teams, or US youngsters play in Little League; her intention was mainly to try and keep him away from the gang culture that is unfortunately rife in the city. At least in this she was succesful. Camilo immediately fell in love with all things cycling, and the academy and the various coaches have become Camilo's replacment family and support network.


As he was growing up, Camilo desparately wanted to be a mountain goat as is the archetypal style of all the heroic and honoured Colombian cyclists, and although he is of the right build, and puts his heart and soul into training whenver possible, does not stand out in the mountains and hills as well as his strongest peers in his age group. He did however demonstrate an early aptitude for tremendous handling skills and excelled at mountain biking when introduced to it by his coaches. Developing through his teenage years, Camilo has previously been Junior and is current reigning U23 cross-country mountain bike champion in Colombia. Although his dreams of Tour de France victories and King of the Mountains accolades have already been extinguished, he continues to nurture ambitions to raise himself up out of poverty by riding as a professional road racer. Since he was 16, Camilo has been coached by Hernan Dario Munoz through the cycling academy. Hernan himself had a successful professional road career including spells in Europe riding the top races. Under his tutelage and guidance, Camilo has come to recognise that he could develop his skills to become a reliable road domestique at the top level. Together they have plotted a course for Camilo to take the necessary steps.

First, Hernan has used his contacts to find Camilo a family to stay with in Belgium and through the cycling academy and various government grants, they have scraped the funding together to cover his travel and (very) basic living expenses for one season. With his mountain biking background, Hernan has managed to interest an obscure cyclocross team in taking a chance on Camilo for the 2015-6, and he will then spend the summer on the kermesse circuit in Belgium. Hernan has assured Camilo that if he can continue to develop his existing handling skills in the cyclocross environment, adapt to the harsh coarses, varying weather conditions and road surfaces (in particulat the cobbles) and work on his endurance and sprinting in the summer road season, there is every chance in one or two years that he will fill a niche as a Colombian rider that will be of interest to the top road squads in the country like Alpina - Avianca or Grupo Nutresa.



Stats: [Choose between: very low, low, medium, high, very high]
Bike Handling (technical): high
Sand: low
Uphill: medium
Cobblestones: very low
Sprinting: medium
Explosiveness: low
Flat (TT/riding hard): medium
Power: medium
Running: low
Snow/Ice: very low
Jumping: medium

Ian Butler wrote:
UPDATE: I'm entering all new riders automatically into the NES competition. It's a good way to gain experience and perhaps ride a nice result early on. If you really don't want him participating, let me know.
Also adding Guido Visconti, Mustafa Moli, Alinejad, Vermeulen and Faizullah.

Avin Wargunnson wrote:

I am really fine with it, first season (or at least majority of it) is all about learning to ride with actual people for Karol.

If it is possible, i would like to use Nosek Soucek as the full contract rider for team Bauknecht-Author instead as U23rider, as old chap Blažej would be forced to ride alone in some races, or only with Karol Konva, who will be probably not the best teammate for the start. Maybe Shonak would like to say something to this, as he is controlling Blazej?

Nice to see another bunch of people joining, all of them good lads.

Shonak wrote:
I think Ian has already set Nosek as a pro rider and wanted to use Blazej a bit as his mentor? Anything is good really for me.

Ian Butler wrote:
Camilo is in.
Ittehad Chemicals has only one rider, Faizullah, and might be desperate to look for a team mate for Faizullah. Their low budget doesn't allow them to attract a pro, so they might take the risk to give Camilo a place with his lower wage and hope he will be a good team mate for Faizullah (an upcoming talent. A 2nd place last year in a race)

Interesting character, too. Will be fighting to survive more than for the glory, I like it