roturn wrote:
Koep...
Will be back with me next year...as pure helper only of course.
Had some results for you but far less than I had hoped and expected.
Yeah, I'll continue to chalk that up to his Andy Schleckesque injuries suffered in the Middle East.
the_hoyle wrote:
Some fantastic results over the season - looks like it will be a new look line up next season with that number possibly leaving
Yes, a good season it was. Not what I wanted before last transfers, but far more than I could have expected after transfers. Next year we're going for the top. And that's why there will be some house cleaning. Some of the border guys may be back, depending on how much I can squeeze De Maar's salary down from his renewal demans after his insane season.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
With renewals upcoming, it is a perfect time to check out the latest scouting reports of the team. IN them, you can see definite improvement in the ability of several talents, as well as the unfortunate decline of some of our veterans.
So tell us how the team looks! Keep in mind that this is prior to any transactions. It is extremely likely that many of these riders will be gone or have their wages greatly reduced after renewals, as seen in our previous rider status article.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Renewals were over in a surprisingly quick fashion for Carlsberg - Danske Bank, though much has changed from just a few short days ago.
The first course of action to cover is those riders whoa re no longer with the team. out of the 19 riders who were under contract with our team at the end of last year, 8 of these riders have parted way with the team during contract renewals. Sebastien Rosseler was the first to inform us that he would be retiring, while newly crowned Swedish Champion Christopher Stevenson asked the team to let him go as he thinks out his future. We thank these riders for spending their final season on our team.
In addition, parted ways with six more riders over the last week. We appreciate the efforts they have put in for our team, but due to our direction and need for cap space, they did not fit within our future plans. Kim Marius Nielsen Martin Mortensen Nikola Aistrup Guytan Lilholt Jimmin Sorensen Matthias Wengelin
By doing this, we free up tons of cap room for future endeavors. But that wasn't all. Through negotiations with the remaining 11 riders, all but 4 have remained at or been reduced to the minimum wage of $50,000. Though for four of these riders this meant significant pay cuts, they took them with at least general content.
The same goes for the pay cuts taken by Niki Ostergaard and Alex Rasmussen, who took cuts of around $30,000 each to remain with the team for the upcoming season. Even the Messiah himself, Marc De Maar, who finished 4th in the entire CT rankings last season, was willing to cut his salary to $87,500. With the clock on his career moving forward, he must have realized that resigning gave him the best chance for glory.
Only 1 rider on the team was given a raise, Marc Christian Garby, who is expected to deliver as an absolute leader n the mountains this year, and was compensated as such with $125,000, down from his obscene asking price. Of course, we don't blame him for asking. Garby has yet to race with Carlsberg though he has been signed since our inception in 2014, spending 2014 as a loanee on the now defunct Team B&O and 2015 on Movistar - US Postal. We look forward to seeing what he can accomplish for us this upcoming season.
With that said, 11 riders are now signed for next season. This is the outlook of the squad prior to the transfer period:
But we are hopeful that all 11 of these riders will not be riding for our team this season, and not because of transfer, although we are open to those possibilities. Two of our youngsters and one late bloomer are in need of loans for the upcoming season.
Each of these riders are at minimum wage and offer their own unique skill set. Their attributes can be found in the team overview above along with their other information. We are looking to loan them out rather than stunt their growth by having them remain stagnant at the CT level.
So that is the summation of our renewals. After all is said and done, we at Carlsberg - Danske Bank have several roster spots to fill, but our two top leader set, with a total of $482,500 remaining of our wage cap, and a very significant additional budget that we are not sure we are allowed to reveal.
With transfers coming quickly and a lot to play for, Carlsberg are ready to fight for the top this year. Please let us know what you think of our renewals, as comments are very appreciated. Goals and C2HC band choices will be presented once C2HC bands have been revealed by the MGUCI.
Wow, it seems as though renewals went exceptionally well for you. And Garby will be a beast! With the team you've got, you could already contend for the CT win,
Renewals look like they went pretty great for you, especially now that you have Garby's talent, hopefully this means a nice season for you and maybe PCT promotion.
Eden95 wrote:
Wow, it seems as though renewals went exceptionally well for you. And Garby will be a beast! With the team you've got, you could already contend for the CT win,
They definitely went better than I anticipated, and I'm happy that I was able to sure up some leaders without even beginning the transfer period. Generally I tried to do the exact opposite at wage offers as I did last year, but then when I saw I finished in one round I got pretty scared. And thanks, I really hope I will be up there contending!
Atlantius wrote:
Certainly looks like you should be heading into you're best season so far!
*Makes a note of talented Dane needing PCT loan
I definitely feel better about this season than the last two! Good luck to yourself in PCT! We would love to be able to find a Scandanavian home for any of our loanees.
trekbmc wrote:
Renewals look like they went pretty great for you, especially now that you have Garby's talent, hopefully this means a nice season for you and maybe PCT promotion.
Yeah, Garby is actually one of the very top Danish riders now, which is pretty cool after getting him two years ago as a free agent for like $95,000. I have to thank B&O for that one I think because I'm sure they had the money to overbid me if they wanted to but took him in as a loanee instead. And yes, PCT is the goal for this season. 3 times the charm!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
I must admit I'm not looking forward to riding against Garby, hopefully he won't be present at all our mountain races, unfortunately I think he'll be there for some of our goal races though.
sammyt93 wrote:
I must admit I'm not looking forward to riding against Garby, hopefully he won't be present at all our mountain races, unfortunately I think he'll be there for some of our goal races though.
He'll definitely be riding every mountain race we are a part of until he runs out of race days. No room to waste him so I'm sure we'll meet quite a bit over the season.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
With the information made public today by the MGUCI, Carlsberg - Danske Bank are ready to announced their goals and C2HC bands for the upcoming season.
Benelux Challenge
Win
USA Pro Cycling Challenge
Top 5
Lincoln GP or Cigar City Brewing Twilight GP
Top 5
Stage Wins
10
CT Team Standings
Top 5
First off, our only win goal this year comes in Benelux Challenge, an obscenely popular race this year after some spectacular racing last year. We hope De Maar will be able to repeat his success and victory with the support of whomever we may find in the offseason.
Next, we are looking for a Top 5 GC position in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. THis is a target race for Garby, and much though went into how ambitious the team wanted to be in terms of the goal. In the end, we decided to play it somewhat conservative as we don't know the extent our mountain team will be at after transfers.
Then is our double whammy goal, just like last year, we have an option to pick either Lincoln GP or Cigar City Brewing Twilight GP as an additional top 5 goal. THis decision will be made after the strengths of our cobbles team are evaluated at the end of transfers. We hope we pick right this year!
Additionally, we hope to get 10 stage wins this year. This has been a target of ours for two years now, and each time we have failed. Nevertheless, we hope that or wider coverage of several terrains this year will help propel us to success.
Finally, the main goal for the season is a Top 5 placing in the CT Team Standings - AKA Promotion! This is our third season in the CT, and though they have been fun, we are ready to grow to bigger and better things, meaning this has to be the year we finally put our stamp on the division and the entire circuit.
C2HC bands were also picked during this portion of the offseason. Carlsberg is entered into Band 1, Band 3, and Band 4. This allows us a variety of races in our disciplinary strengths: mountains, cobbles, and De Maar.
Unfortunately, this meant that we will have to skip the only home race offered to us on the Continental Circuit. but as it is a sprint race and general a sprinters band- our exact weakness, we felt it was not worth risking a waste of race days with such a crucial goal on the line.
With the transfer season literally tomorrow, Carlsberg - Danske Bank are sure to be active and alert as they try to form a team ready to promote.
Carlsberg - Danske Bank released their preliminary roster today, showing both new leaders and domestiques for their upcoming campaign.
Team Manager baseballlover312 released this statement:
"I won't go into too much detail about our additions yet as we still have a couple of signings in the closing stages and possibly another loanee coming in, but as you can see we have added several new leaders and domestques to our team this year as well as gotten our developing riders loans to gain experience. I will go into further detail once the period is officially completed but overall I definitely like how we improved this off season."
More news will certainly come in the next few days as the transfer season officially ends early next week. In the the meantime, tell us what you think about the team's preliminary roster for next season, and how it stacks up against the rest of the CT division in the comments below!
Mr. Pickles
Sporting News
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
With the transfer season officially ending this morning, Carlsberg - Danske Bank officially confirmed their roster for the upcoming season! Team Manager baseballlover312 spoke to us about the team's transfer season.
"The division in itself has improved this off season, and that it both obvious and frightening. The CT has never seen such talent in all disciplines and it makes what we thought might be a solid promotion season that much more complicated. Knowing that, we tried to make sure we had a high ranking leader in each discipline so that at the very least we could score points consistently throughout the year, and I think we managed to obtain that. We ended up not selling anyone either, which is important to me. In renewals we make a commitment and agreement with each rider and I think you should then uphold that agreement unless they themselves want out or have a perfect situation at another team. Still, we got some loans for riders that needed them like AKA, Hansen, and Ranneries, who at 28 couldn't be more excited to finally get a taste of PT racing. Good transfer season overall."
Mitch Docker
"We've realized these past two years that while we had sprinters, we did not really have one that could compete with the best of them in our division. Razzie is great at finding wheels and picking his spots, but we all know he doesn't have that top notch speed and fears speed bumps for his life. So when Mitch Docker came on the market with such a small wage, we couldn't pass up the opportunity. It takes his a few meters to get going but he is very fast and extremely well adept to riding not only hills but mountains, which means he could be left when a lot of sprinters are gone. Very valuable asset and our first Aussie!
Tom Boonen
"This man needs no introduction. I met with Tommeke early on in the transfer season to let him know we were interested, but our primary target was Breschel because of his nationality. He understood completely, and after things fell through with Breschel we gave him a call and he was willing. He had offers an offer on the table from his former team at Evonik as well, but in the end he decided it would be best to finish his career as a leader in our division. And he gave us a great price too, at only 70k wages for the year. I think he realizes that he has made plenty of money over his career and wins are all that matter now. We hope he can get us some. We've always loved cobbles and our strategy for the flatter races this year should consist of a dynamic duo where Østergaard attacks and Boonen uses his sprint at the end. We look forward to it very much."
"One discipline we have never succeeded in has been time trials. Bøchman won the Danish ITT NC for us in 2014, but since then he's dropped off a bit and we've never had someone win or really place highly on the world stage. We called up Greig - Eiftel a couple of days into the transfer season and were excited to hear that Steensen was available, so we jumped on it. He's Danish and spent a lot of years at B&O, so he can gel with the atmosphere of the team very quickly, that shouldn't be an issue. We're hoping he can bring us some great TT results, leadouts and breakaways throughout the season that help us to promote, and we know he is capable of that."
In addition to these new leaders, baseballlover312 spoke about the other domestestiques and free riders aquired over the past days.
"We got a great Swedish climber at minimum wage with Ludvig Lundberg. He can act as a super domestique for Garby for our target races or attack, and even go for his own chances if Garby isn't in the race. We got two other climbing domestiques in Max Öste-Macdonald from Spotify and Andreas Landa from free agency, two Scandanavians that will no doubt be crucial to Garby's success throughout the season. Wei Cheng Lee joins us from to help our cobbles team as we lost depth there in renewals, David Veilleux will be a great stage hunting puncheur and attacker, and Rasmus Mygind gets us some Dane points from free agency. He'll be a solid breakaway rider and domestique for De Maar. Filip Bengtsson signs as the teams first official stagiare, and he'll have a chance to ride the Tour de l'Avenir for us this season. We have one final addition to our roster in Søren Kragh Andersen, but sadly this is just on a loan, and in a strange twist of fate, he comes on loan to the team as his brother leaves the team on his own loan. Overall I think we have some nice depth here, and though I wish we had a little more depth for cobbles, I think our leaders can handle themselves pretty well already. I'm satisfied."
With the transfer season over and calendar selections made, only race planners and predictions stand between now and the start of the season. We couldn't be more excited!
Mr. Pickles
Sporting News
Edited by baseballlover312 on 22-06-2016 05:55
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
We aren't even in April yet and already the rumors are starting to flood in about Carlsberg possibly disbanding. The team have been performing terrible so far this season, with De Maar showing nothing of what he showed last year, Boonen nowhere to be seen, Docker not positioning himself right, Steensen not time trialing well, and Garby, while sufficient in Mid East, not living up to the line.To add to that, crashes and bad luck have run their principles out of the Bottom-line - the team is performing well below expectations.
Already at the end of last season it was announced that if the team were not to promote to PCT this season, both Carlsberg and Danske Bank would likely pull sponsorship.
After predictions came out it seemed this may not be an issue, but with the team lingering near the bottom and hope slowly dying away, it's becoming a very big reality. And finding another Danish sponsor willing to invest in a team that will have spent 3 season stuck in the CT may be a tough thing to do.
We reached out to manager baseballover312 for comment:
"Listen, we're not speculating about any of that right now. All we know is we aren't riding well and we need to. That's it. Any tactical failures that make no sense are on me [and PCM and TrekBMC]. The rest is on them and they know it. We've had some bad luck but we just try to keep going. There's a lot of season left."
The only bright spot thus far has been Tour of the Middle East, where Marc Christian Garby took home 2nd in GC and two stages along with the KOM and Youth jerseys. Besides that, the results have been barren.
With every single team leader underperforming, something must change for this drama to end with Carlsberg in the right. Otherwise, the team may not have a 2017 season to look forward to.
-Mr. Pickles, Sporting News
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
It's been a roller coaster type season for Carlsberg - Danske Bank, at least if that roller coaster achieved it's drops by going underground rather than climbing. After much hype preseason, the team has struggled to live up to expectations for the majority of the year. Recently though, there have been signs of hope.
While wins have still been few and far between, and success in general has been tame, the team has managed to fight their way into 5th place as of the latest CT rankings update.
This comes months after news that both title sponsors would not be renewing their contracts with the team. Since then, both team management and said sponsors have been silent on the issue. If the team finishes in its current 5th place or above, it seems that situation will not play out. If they slip however, it remains to be seen what the then 4 year CT team would be able to salvage, and what the future of the team would be.
That makes the next few races extremely crucial. Currently, the team is racing at the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, with a top 5 GC goal hanging over their heads. Cigar City will be test Boonen later this month, followed by another go for Garby and the mountain train at Tatranska Klasika. Every race day is crucial towards the promotion race now, and the team is sending their top squad to every opportunity
In a few weeks, we should know what future lies for the only Danish team in the Man Game UCI. In the meantime, we should see some exciting racing.
Mr. Pickles
Sporting News
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
I really like to see you promoting, but why of any teams did you have to pass me? remaining calendar looks decent for you so it would be a major surprise if you don't finish 4th at the end of the season in my eyes...
Croatia14 wrote:
I really like to see you promoting, but why of any teams did you have to pass me? remaining calendar looks decent for you so it would be a major surprise if you don't finish 4th at the end of the season in my eyes...
I wouldn't call it with still a few races left. My team has disappointed mightily at times before, and you aren't too far behind. Don't count yourself out just yet.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Croatia14 wrote:
I really like to see you promoting, but why of any teams did you have to pass me? remaining calendar looks decent for you so it would be a major surprise if you don't finish 4th at the end of the season in my eyes...
I wouldn't call it with still a few races left. My team has disappointed mightily at times before, and you aren't too far behind. Don't count yourself out just yet.
well I do, having only Tatranska and Herald Sun Tour as good races left - I feel like I might get close to Chiquita with luck, but you should be gone in my eyes with the number of de Maar races to come...
Sebastien Rosseler was the first to inform us that he would be retiring, while newly crowned Swedish Champion 
Christopher Stevenson asked the team to let him go as he thinks out his future. We thank these riders for spending their final season on our team.
Kim Marius Nielsen
Marc De Maar, who finished 4th in the entire CT rankings last season, was willing to cut his salary to $87,500. With the clock on his career moving forward, he must have realized that resigning gave him the best chance for glory.
Mitch Docker 
Andreas Landa from free agency, two Scandanavians that will no doubt be crucial to Garby's success throughout the season. 
Wei Cheng Lee joins us from to help our cobbles team as we lost depth there in renewals, 
David Veilleux will be a great stage hunting puncheur and attacker, and 
remaining calendar looks decent for you so it would be a major surprise if you don't finish 4th at the end of the season in my eyes...
