Atlantius wrote:

True. He did crash out in 2008 as well though.
While he have ahd good days afterwards I doubt anyone in their right mind will say Antón have found the level of his pre-crash 2010 Vuelta since then...

I would be the first to defend him if I thought he deserved better climbing stats than he has in this DB

Finally time to have a look at something we can actualy do: Hills.

So at the bottomline this is another area where we have improved a lot.

Not only is Ion a much stronger leader than Igor was last year but we also have some much better support, which should help us avoid another Ardennes-campaign as disappointing as last years.

The higher number of potential leaders should also be a great help to throw less race-days out the window due to bad luck hitting the lone leader.

This team is set to do great things in our local races.

knockout wrote:
Looking at your last season's squad in these posts I wonder more and more how you managed to avoid relegation.

Time to have a look at the key aspect of our team throughout history: The Climbers.



This is another area where we have increased our strength both in top rider level and depth of the squad.

With age starting to have an effect on Sánchez he looked like he could very well be the next no. 11 so we needed a new stage race leader and managed to exchange Samu for Intxausti, who is stronger both in hills and TT's making him an overall better rider. Nieve and De las Campos have both increased in strength as well while Ion have developed into a very strong rider for hilly stage races.

Cobbles: Significantly improved in both depth and leader
Sprinting: Slightly weakened in both leaders and depth, but better leadoutmen.
TT-Team: Massive improvement in both top and depth.
Punchers: Big improvement in both leaders and depth.
Stage Racers: Somewhat improved both leader and depth.

Which overall makes me optimistic for the season to come. We will have to fight hard in the lower part of the WT-rankings, but we have every chance of improving last years points-score.

Will Ion Izagirre be able to dfend his win from last year or will the many newcomers be too much of a challenge?

Soon we will get an idea when the riders once again start the series on the Clasica San Sebastian route. The following races will alternate between being raced in Basque Country and other places with riders in the series. It will also be a priority to alternate between different types of terrain to give all rider types a chance to shine.

But who are the riders? Well unless someone comes up with some real good reasons as to why it should be otherwise this is the teams in alphabetical order:


Teams able to field five riders have been allowed to ride in own colours, except for Movistar as that would make Catalunya unabel to field the needed five riders.

In general Basque riders have been given top priority and all Basques have gotten a spot. For South Africa and Poland the youngest riders not selected for MTN and CCC have been allowed to fill up the national team in stead.

Vlaanderen have so many riders that the same age limit as last year have been imposed to cut down the amount of eligible riders to a reasonable level.

Ollfardh wrote:
Not sure why Astana should be there, after cutting their team down to 4 Kazakis and none of them in the sqaud.

And Po-ding Kim wouldn't mind riding for Asia, as there are no South Koreans or Japanese guys in the team. Korea had their independence struggles with Japan prior to the Korean War, if that qualifies.

But most of all, good to see this continue!

Selwink wrote:
Personally don't think Grmay should be in the squad, as Ethiopia has never been a colony. Can't think of a proper replacement though

Non-MTN-Africa,

TheManxMissile wrote:
No Aquitane/French Basque team?