In my desperation to find a climber and stay up my first year in the PT i actually shelled out 2 million for Carrara.
The big difference for me this year is I dont necessarily see a complete overhaul of the team coming. After promotion i purged the team, brought in Evans, Hoste,and Carrara, Chavanel, and Monfort, who all were sold the next year. The only significant scorer on my team this year from last season was Zabriskie.
SportingNonsense wrote:
Boasson Hagen did a great Ardennes - but Im not sure he should every really have been on the Tour lineup. 21 race days is a lot to spend on a race like that, when you have Pluchkin there who you want to attack on the hilly stages anyway. As it turned out, you were unlucky for Hagen to crash out on Stage 2/3 - making it ~20 race days defiantely wasted.
If Hagen was to do a GT, it shouldnt have been the same GT as Pluchkin
But actually, I do applaud you A_Schleck. You stuck with the same team that won the continental tour, pretty much, and youve survived the season.
That's what I've been doing all along. I like it better that, seeing the team progress from one season to the next. Hopefully next year I'll stay clear of the bottom four and stay in the ProTour.
About Hagen, you're totally right. I only brought him to get some stagewins in the hilly stages, but then again as you say, you wouldn't want Hagen go attacking off with Pluchkin's GC competition, while he stays in the back. I didn't even realize the fact that I indeed did waste 20 race days, which, when you come to think about it, is quite massive really.
So hopefully with gained experience in race planning I can break into the Top 10 next year.
