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Joel Wallin | Finished
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 10-02-2014 23:06
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Tour de France Champion
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The new team looks like the Nordic version of Euskaltel  |
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 11-02-2014 07:28
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Tour de France Champion
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He's getting better indeed  |
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| Shonak |
Posted on 11-02-2014 08:21
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Tour de France Champion
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Jersey looking fantastic and it's good to know that Joel's plan of staying in the peloton worked. Looking forward to his races.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 23-11-2024 19:14
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 11-02-2014 09:00
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Team Leader
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Miguel: In deed it has . It should come in handy being able to do hills with his program and riding style.
the hoyle: I much prefer distinct kits making it easier to spot my riders.
sutty: There's only so much you can do with an orange/black colour scheme 
Ian: Hopefully it'll show in the results as well
Shonak: Glad you like the jersey (made it myself). Would have been a pretty crappy story had he not found a team and then retired already 
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| Shonak |
Posted on 11-02-2014 09:07
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Tour de France Champion
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It certainly wouldn't have been as epic as Nordic Cycling, that's for sure. 
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 11-02-2014 15:25
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Team Leader
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 Grand Prix la Marsaillaise 
I know I said that I was to focus on the Nordic races, but when the guys offered me to ride this race to get a few km in the legs before the Danish season kicks of next week I took the chance to get started properly.
When the first couple of breakaway attempts went away I was still fighting my way through the peloton as I was forced to start at the very back.
Anyway they were caught again and after Grönlund and Nystrand had spent a lot of energy chasing breaks already it was my turn to go away.
Fortunately for me the peloton gave up on the chase and we quickly got more than two minutes.
But then more people started attacking from the peloton forcing up the speed and destroying our gap.
Why can’t people just let the break get away and realize they missed their window?!
Gunnar went away again as soon as I was back in the peloton so I found a nice spot near the front to be a ready for a potential counter attack.
With 75 km to go they had almost 3 and a half minute, so it looks like that was the combination allowed to get away today.
Orange, SFR and TDC – LRØ Rådgivning shared the workload in the peloton, but with 60 km to go the gap had grown to more than four minutes.
With 50 km to go I finally got an overview of who Gunnar had gotten away with. They were Sztobryn, Torres, Deeny, Cucinotta and Matsumura.
Meanwhile Hannes and Renström only just managed to hang on in the peloton.
With 23 km to the line and a two minutes advantage to the break I could sense the tension going up in the peloton, so I made sure to be near the front.
Niki Østergaard decided to mix things up with 15 km to go, but sadly I was unaware at the moment and by the time I realized what happened he was too far gone to chase.
At the 5 km mark Gunnar & Co. have half a minute to a frantic chasing peloton where I have more than enough to do just hanging on.
Deeny leads the break on in the sprint
The break was caught in the final km to great regret for Gunnar, who told me afterwards that he just wasn’t in the shape he needed to be to do anything in the finish today.
That isn’t the situation for Østergaard, who makes full advantage of his brief time in the break to keep the sprinters at bay.
Looks like he found some great form when he was racing Santos Tour Down Under.
I could really feel that it was my first race of the season today!
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 11-02-2014 17:07
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Tour de France Champion
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Wasn't a bad result at all for Grönlund |
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 11-02-2014 20:01
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sutty: He did, but that's not surprising since Grönlund was the best placed Swede on the Continental ranking in 2016,
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| Shonak |
Posted on 12-02-2014 00:52
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Tour de France Champion
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Why can’t people just let the break get away and realize they missed their window?!
+1
Despite his lack of racing so far, Joel still performed quite solid. Coming in 15th is not too shady for Gunnar.
Edited by Shonak on 12-02-2014 08:14
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 12-02-2014 08:09
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Not bad for the first race. You did stay with the peloton
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 12-02-2014 08:11
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Tour de France Champion
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He's making progression all right. He's adapting real nice |
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 12-02-2014 09:17
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Team Leader
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Shonak:Both did good considering it's their first race of the season.
Jakstar: hehe. After more than a year on a WT-team he should be able to do that
Ian: Seems he's settling in nicely on his new team in deed!
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 12-02-2014 10:19
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Team Leader
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Spoiler I have been in doubt as to whether or not I should carry the Rear Wheel over into this story. Please say if it feels weird.
Rider of the Month: Matthieu Ladagnous, Commonwealth Bank - GreenEdge. It’s no big surprise that the winner of the first WT-race of the year ended up being named Rider of the Month.
Nordic Rider of the Month:  Martin Mortensen, Team Saxo - Tinkoff. Two jerseys and a GC 9th in the first World Tour race of the year stands out in a good month for Nordic riders.
The month kicked off with a few of national championships resulting in this: | Rider | Team |  Australian Championships, RR | Trent Lowe | Erste - LG | | Australian Championships, ITT | Richie Porte | Sau - Sojasun |  New Zealand Championships, RR | Eric Drower | Erste - LG | | New Zealand Championships, ITT | Jesse Sergent | Asics |  Japanese Championships, RR | Yukiya Arashiro | BNP Paribas | | Japanese Championships, ITT | Fumiyuku Beppu | Team Nippo |
From there it was time for the first World Tour race of the season: Santos Tour Down Under, where the closest thing to a Nordic stage win was Cavendish taking stage 4 for Saxo – Tinkoff.
Ladagnous took the GC win for the home team of Commonwealth Bank with Martin Mortensen on 9th as the best Nordic rider. The Dane even took the mountain jersey as well as the points jersey on top of his good GC.
Rick Zabel of CT-team Accumalux finished as best young rider while Commonwealth Bank . GreenEdge took the team competition.
It was truly a good month for the Nordics as Norwegian sprinter Markarskard finished 8th in GP Tunis while Chris Anker Sørensen took a stage and a GC 7th ahead of Jesper Hansen in Tour de San Luis. A race otherwise dominated by Volkswagen and in particular Tony Martin.
Lasse Norman Hansen finished 7th on the prologue of Tour de Vineyards, which was the only result worth mentioning there.
And then of course we had Niki Østergaards convincing win in Grand Prix de la Marsaillaise to finish of a good month for Nordic cycling.
| 1 | Matthieu Ladagnous | Commonwealth Bank – GreenEdge | 355 | | 2 |  Denis Galimzyanov | Colombia – Coldeportes | 239 | | 3 |  Joseph Dombrowski | Asics | 223 | | 12 | Martin Mortensen | Team Saxo – Tinkoff | 136 | | 15 | Niki Østergaard | TDC – LRØ Rådgivning | 105 | | 95 |  Frans-Leonard Markarskard | Belavia | 20 | | 169 |  Gunnar Grönlund | Fiskars Cykling | 5 | | - |  | - | - | | - |  | - | - |
| 1 | Asics | 583 | | 2 | Commonwealth Bank – GreenEdge | 502 | | 3 |  Colombia – Coldeportes | 312 | | 8 | Team Saxo - Tinkoff | 251 | | 21 | Joker Merida | 161 | | 11 | TDC – LRØ Rådgivning | 219 | | 26 | Novo Nordisk - SAS | 100 | | 35 | Blue Water Cycling | 46 | | 54 | Fiskars Cykling | 5 | | 55 | Team Øster Hus | 5 | | - | Statoil – Stoerensoe | 0 | | - | DONG Energy – Himmerland | 0 | | - | Jardar Sykling | 0 | | - | Christina Watches Development Team | 0 |
Type 1 will continue their sponsorship, but their co-sponsor Sanofi will be pulling out.
There will also be an open spot as sponsor of one of the strongest CT-teams Selle Italia.
The sponsorship left over by Cofidis should be one of the most attractive for companies to get this time around after some very good season frm the French team lately.
Former Tour de France winner Cadel Evans have decided to finally call an end to his career. If you didn’t know he was still around it’s probably because he has spent the last two years at Efapel – Glassdrive and ISD – Lampre Continental, but at least he can ride his last year for Commonwealth Bank.
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| kubys |
Posted on 12-02-2014 10:52
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Domestique
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I wanted to ask, but I see it. So Novo Nordisk wasn't disbanded, that's nice.
Die hard fan of Tom Boonen and Quickstep since 2004.
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| Ian Butler |
Posted on 12-02-2014 10:58
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Tour de France Champion
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Joined: 01-05-2012
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I have always quite enjoyed the Rear Wheel. But it feels a bit strange here. However, it's your story so your call |
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| Shonak |
Posted on 12-02-2014 11:18
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15615
Joined: 16-07-2013
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I think it's a good way of presenting each month, especially since we are lacking the broad view a team-story usually has.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 12-02-2014 15:02
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Team Leader
Posts: 6795
Joined: 21-07-2010
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Time for the Nordic season to kick off. With my current form and skills on cobbles I expect to mainly be in the role of the helper today.
As a new initiative this year the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish federations have decided to run a common ranking for the Nordic CT-races. All riders on Nordic teams as well as Nordic riders on foreign teams will be eligible for points-scoring.
I’m really not too fond of cobbles, but I suppose it’s one of those things I have to learn. It didn’t improve on things that it started raining though…
I managed to survive the first split of the peloton on the front group so I could continue getting bottles while a few of the others took turns attacking.
Dong, Guinness and Øster Hus are the main teams forcing the splits in the peloton to happen while reeling in all the breaks.
Finally it seemed like a break might be allowed to go so I tried to bridge the gap.
We already had Bublic in the break, so things looked good when I joined them. At least until he got a puncture on the next cobbled section…
The other sin the break didn’t feel like waiting for him so he ended up struggling behind for a long time. I suppose I can understand them as the break kept us at exactly 4 minutes for about 40 km.
And then all of the sudden the gap grew to 6 minutes and with 75 km to go we almost began believing it could be done.
With 35 km to go they had us down to 2 minutes again. Seems like it was just the cats play with the mouse. Us being the mouse in this case…
I wasn’t completely done though so I attacked again as soon as we had passed the cobbles again.
With 20 km to go it was over for me and only GarcÃa remained out in front, but he had less than a minute as well.
Grönlund still looked good in the front group, so I did my best to help him out a bit towards the end.
With 8 km to go we were 62 riders in the reunited front group with Guinness leading the way.
Grönlund still had some energy left and managed to prove it by shelling of the front at the last bit of cobbles along with a very tired Morabito, Zambrano, Kamp, Riber-Sellebjerg, Garcia and Spaute.
Zambrano lead the way into the sprint in front while I tried finding a bit of energy for the sprint in our group.
I did not succeed in that and finished far down in the ranks.
Gunnar on the other hand did a brilliant job finishing 2nd behind Kamp, who were by far the strongest in the group.
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 12-02-2014 15:26
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Tour de France Champion
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So so close for Grönlund , that first win cannot be too far away
And i agree with keeping ''The Rear Wheel'' has its a Great way to monitor the teams progression |
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| Atlantius |
Posted on 12-02-2014 16:45
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Team Leader
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sutty: Grönlund has hit some brilliant early form, but still I'm quite surprised about how strong Alexander Kamp was!
It certainly shows that the team will get some chances throughout the season.
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| Shonak |
Posted on 12-02-2014 18:26
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 15615
Joined: 16-07-2013
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Wow, Gunnar with a real great result here. Maybe he'll be even a contender for the Nordic CT Classification? I imagine he could score quite some points in sprints and such and may be a bit of Sagan type?
As for Joel: He finished in the peloton, that's decent enough. Still looking for his form, that's normal.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
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Piotr Sztobryn
JoaquÃn Torres
Sven Vandousselaere
Daryl Impey
Joel Wallin
Philip Lavery
Jure Kocjan
