There wouldn't be much fun in setting too easy goals would there?
I fugured that when I'm aiming for a rop 3 in the rankings I better get some wins along teh way in order to achieve it- Hopefully I can get most of the riders I have my eyes on, but it is very tricky to set the level of ambition without a single rider on the team
Team Live Nation is now also on Twitter, where we will be posting stuff of some level of relevance accompagnied by a bit of light entertainment in the spirit of our sponsor.
As most of you know the application process for the C2HC races have just been finished.
Our application was designed to have us racing as few days as possible in countries that our sponsor doesn't work in.
Since we have a goal to finish in top 5 of the Tour de Pologne GC our first proirity was Band 2, which also will send us to Tour of Utah of our sponsor countries as well as Azerbaijan and Uruguay. The races are genrally for riders with some uphill skills be it climbers or punchers.
In the Band 1 we will be facing surprisingly few teams and a number of these will be focusing on the Sout American Tour, while we will be focusing on the other races, which all are raced in countries, where Live Nation is active. In general these races are ones for punchers and sprinters.
Our last batch of race is Band 4, which again features some good terrain for the punchers.
Now we have something more conrete to base our transfer season on, though it won't change much: The goal is still a well-balanced team and teh guy at the top of our list remains the same.
See Post # 3 for the full overview of our calendar.
Now time to celebrate getting all our first choice races.
With Live Nation wanting us to focus on getting riders from countries not in the World Championships Road Race 2013, while also wanting us to be present in their (other) target countries it can be hard to get a grip of our teams geography.
Not anymore as we now have an interactive map showing our presence in the world.
The black and red countries are places with Live Nation offices with the red ones being where we will find most of our riders. for the next year.
The dots show the location of our currently confirmed races and when we start signing riders their birth places will be added to the map as well.
So for the teams in "red" countries: See you in the transfer season!
tyriion: Thanks, pretty happpy with the product myself!
I hope that it pays of focusing on some "smaller" nations, but it alos means that there's quite a lot fewer riders to fight for...
Aidan: Looks at Luis, looks at my shortlist, looks at you: We need to talk...
The transfer season is well under way and even though the battle for our main target is getting long due to teams with bigger budgets challenging us we have already secured some good riders.
For the mountains and stage races we have secured our desired captain Chris Anker Sørensen, who will get some good support from the two Poles and the Turkish Champion.
Spoiler
We have also secured the signature of Finnish champion Olli Kulppi after his old team didn't renew his contract to allow him to sign with a team based in his home country. We are very thankful for that and feel confident that Olli will grow a lot stronger with us.
Spoiler
For the flat we have been able to fairly easily secure signature of the Swedish sprinter Linus Dahlberg, who should be able to get us a few points along the way.
Last (and perhaps least) we have also signed the biggest talent on United Arab Emirates the versatile Essa Khalifa.
We are obviously not done yet and if any if the bigger teams have a talent from one of our target countries (secondary of primary) we would be more than happy to help him develop through a loan agreement.
The Interactive world map have been updated according to the latest signings and gives a good overview of our countries of interest (quite a lot counting both black and red).
baseballlover: Fortunately i had a big budget due to big ambitions and his wage is very reasonable IMO.
Avin: Thanks. The Duo will certainly be nice to have around for Chris
Bikex: Fairly happy with the starts as well and thanks for the kind words on the NC's. I really enjoyed making them, so now I can just hope that the owners will make sure to show them
fintas: Turkish champ, good mountain helper, should be easy to level up this year. Of course he should get a contract!
As you all know Jukka Vastaranta was our biggest target for the transfer season. We had good talks with him and everything seemed to work out until Austrian-Canadian outfir Magna - Ryanair decided that they needed some Finnish on their team (who doesn't?). We had good talks with Jukka, but his wife forced him to go where the money was biggest and our small CT-wallet was just not big enough in the end.
We will keep a close eye on him and hopefully we'll have more money to offer him (and his wife) next year!
On the plus-side we just got confirmation on signing another Fin. Samuel Pökälä comes from a MTB background, but is strongest in ITT's at the moment.
He is also known as one of the happiest riders around and if you Google him it's very hard to find a picture where he doesn't have a large smile all over his face.
Truthfully he really should be on a WT-team to develop properly this year and with his strong TT-skills we believe he could be a good asset to a lot of teams providing depth to their TTT-squads. If a WT-team wants to loan him for a year that would be very possible.
We have now completed the Swedish part of the team.
We have signed a strong sprinter for the completely flat races in Mattias Westling. Viktor Renäng is one of Swedens best TT'ers and Philip Lindau is one of the biggest talents around, though he will soon have to figure out where he wants to focus.
At the same time we have already said goodbye to yesterdays signing Samuel Pökälä, who will be getting some WT experience with the Norwegian team Aker - MOT the coming year.
Another day and another step closer to having a real team.
First of all we have been able to secure the signature of Mexican stage racer Bernardo Colex. Bernardo is strongest in the mountains, but also has a good TT, which will prove valuable in the TTT.
Spoiler
The othe rider signed today is our second Turkish rider. Rasim Reis is a huge talent, though limited in the way that he prefers just to ride on the flat all day. He will be good help for the flat stages and has the potential to be one of the best flat-domestiques around in the future.
Another two riders joined the team tonight and two nice additions of that.
Sami Tiainen is the best sprinter in Finland bar Vastaranta.. On this squad that will mainly give him a role as leadout, but he should be solid in that position as well. And then of course it's nice to expand the Finnish section of the team as well.
Sergiu Cioban is a man for the hills. We had a hard time finding someone decent in that terrain, but in Sergiu we have a capeable rider with some good attacking spirit. Being Moldovan he is the first rider from outside our designated target countries but still in line with our goal of giving rides from smaller nations a chance.
If you thought we had forgotten about our Finnish connection - think again. Today two more Fins join the team along with a good Mexican puncher!
First of all we have signed the face of Finnish cycling through many years: Jussi Veikkanen. Jussi is starting to get old, but will be a valuable team member on the flat and in TTT's. He also helps raise the teams profile in our home country.
Ignacio Sarabia is a solid rider for the hills with a lot of attacking spirit and a very strong kick. He should be a strong addition and Colex will apprecite having another Mexican on board.
Last but not least we have signed Paavo Paajanen. He is one of the biggest talents in Finland specialized on hills, but without any real weaknesses. Since he is only halfway through his development (3.00) we hope to find a team on higher level to loan him out to this year in order for him to develop as good as possible.
At the moment we have no active bids, but with more than 200.000 € still in the bank we are far from done yet. We are mainly looking for a rider for the flat or a good puncher, but we are open to any offer that you think will strengthen our current squad just as a deal involving a loan of Paajanen is a possibility:
