So I finally met my new team mates after being back in Denmark celebrating Christmas and New Years. The new Dane on the team Nicki Sørensen even offered me a lift as he was almost passing my parents on the way home anyway. Even though he is getting kind of old (sorry Nicki) he seems to still have a lot of hunger left - probably because he started cycling kind of late (signed his first contract at 22). This might even be his last season, so I'm gonna have to learn as much of possible from him this season...



I won't expect to do much racing with the teams new German sprinters Danilo Hondo and Robert Wagner as I can already go much faster than them on the mountains but they won't have much use of me on their terrain. I have spoken a little to them and we get along fine.

Another rider for the sprint train is Pim Ligthart. I tried talking to him as well but with him being dutch and all I have to admit I didn't understand a word he's saying. He seems like a nice guy, but I have to admit he does remind me quite a bit of Dutch Sprinter Pim de Keysergracht from the former Danish two-rider team called Team Easy On...

Wonder if they know each other?

Now we finally have a full roster and I must say I like what I see.

I came here to ride in an international environment, but still with the comfort of many Danes. It obviously was a bit of a gamble since I was one of the teams very first signings, but I'm very happy about the managers decisions throughout the draft.

Not only will I get to ride alongside one of the best Danish Climbers at the moment, Chris Anker Sørensen but he have also signed strong experienced riders like L.L.Sanchez and Nicki Sørensen - the Danish Champion. I look very much forward to helping legendary riders like these.



When it comes to myself I'll obviously ride the whole season as a domestique. This year is all about learning for me. And to help me in that the manager have signed perhaps the best Danish Climber in history (though he has lost his mojo the last few years) Michael Rasmussen. He should be able to teach me a lot about training and optimizing my equipment. It is my big dream sometime in the future to become the second Dane to win the Mountain Jersey in Tour de France.



This should be a good environment for young hopeful riders like myself and Jesper Hansen to develop.

You could say that about half the team is focused on climbing and half the team is focused on sprinting, so there's a good few riders I don't expect to spend a lot of time with, but the team should be exiting to follow in TV as well and I certainly will be cheering for Sebastian Lander to make his big break soon.

Heimdal Grønborg
Tour of Oman (6)
Criterium International (3)
Giro del Trentino (4)
Glava Tour of Norway (5)
Tour de Slovenie (4)
International Osterreich Rundfhardt (8)
Ruta a Burgos (5)
USAPCC (7)
Tour of Britain (8)
Volta a Catalunya (7)
Japan Cup (1)

Henkjan Knol
Eneco Tour (7)
Beijing (5)
Wallonië (5)
Luxembourg (5)
Limousin (4)
TD Bank Philadelphia (1)
Brabantse Pijl (1)
Langkawi (10)
Tour of Britain (8)
Rund um Köln (1)

Hey guys, Henkjan here. As you can see, my schedule is done and made public.
I've got a lot of sprinter stages, and I'm happy with that. I'll start my season at Malaysia, in Tour de Langkawi. It's a 10 days race, with most of the stages flat. The race lacks uphill sprints, my speciality, a bit. A good thing about the race is that I can also show my climbing abilities.
I'm going to ride 2 WT races. Eneco Tour is my favourite one. It's in my own country, and most of the times flat. The other one is Beijing. I heard that some guys don't like it, but I do. It's a WT race after all, and the profile suits me.
Other interesting races I race are Tour of Britain and Limousin. Tour of Britain is a big race for a 2.1 classification, at least it is in Britain. Limousin is a race with only flat stages and hilly stages, without a prologue. Maybe I can do something there.

If it stays like this, I might want a bit more race days. I've got 47 race days, while 50-55 seems ideal for my development. It's all up to the manager though, I'll let you know what happens

SSJ2Luigi wrote:
@Jesleyh, Jacques is in Portugal

Jesleyh wrote:

Yeah. I didn't say that I had fun with him like yesterday. Why not 2 weeks ago for example?

SSJ2Luigi wrote:


What?

As you know, I already travelled to Malaysia with a few guys. It turns out that they do have internet. Isn't that fantastic?
While we were preparing, the team was racing in both Oman & Qatar. While they didn't do much in Qatar, the team is doing a great job in Oman. Luis Léon grabbed the amazing amount of three stage-wins. 2 wins were even at the flat! He also convincingly grabbed the GC win. Besides Luis Léon, Pim Ligthart is doing a good job too, with a few Top 10s.

Here's a picture of Sanchez grabbing his third stage win, on the finish line of the stage to the 'Green Mountain.'

It's a pleasure to tell you that TCS is now third on the Continental ranking. We'll do everything to get on top, but that will be hard. Maintaining this position is a hard enough job. I hope I can help the guys with that.
My first race, Langkawi gets really close now. I keep you guys informed!