After careful study of our mid-season goals and the race schedule, we are glad to announce the race plans for our young supertalents. All other rider schedules will be transmitted to the UCI once the break is in order but we feel it’s wise to let our guys get a taste of what we have thought about. Of course, riders can feel free to make suggestions or bring in criticism, if they want to ride another race.
Ioannis Dimitriou:
With glimpses of your talent here and there, we are convinced of your potential and your performances. Especially your qualities as a climber will be necessary and come in handy in your next races. However, the apparent season goals call for experienced domestiques as well as hot, fresh young guns. You will have a major race plan in this second part (stacking up on the previous 20 race days in the first part), so let us know if you may want to skip the Tour de Romandie since we think that the Vuelta a Espana might be something for you.
The first race will be PaÃs Vasco, where you will help your captains in the toughest climbs. This will be your World Tour event but don’t be nervous. It’s a just a little bit bigger than the other stage races. Maybe you will also see the opportunity for a stage win. At the Giro del Trentino it will be more climbing for domestiques services, while you will also have to perform a team time trial. We will put in some extra lessons some days before the event so that the team chemistry is good; be sure to attend. The Tour de Romandie is still a question mark: We would love for you to be there, but this would eliminate also all chances for a possible Vuelta a Espana (18 race left in that case). And the Vuelta a Espana might be of more interest to you, however keep in mind that for the Vuelta you will also have to perform lots of domestique duties, while in smaller races you might have a better chance at stage wins. Anyway, finally at the Tour of California, the big goal of this mid-season, will once more need your domestique abilities.
Category
Race
Date
Type
WT.4
Pais Vasco
1 – 6 April
Hilly
CT.6
Giro del Trentino
16 – 19 April
Mountain
WT.4
Tour de Romandie
23 – 28 April
Hilly, Mountain
CT.5
Tour of California
12 – 19 May
Hilly
Race days left without Tour de Romandie: 24
Race days left with Tour de Romandie: 18
Heimdal Hägg:
You have shown some incredible virtue in attacking and forcing your chances. It is only natural that we will want to nurture your talents further and the Tour of Norway does seem to be indeed a good ground for such racing as you suggested. You will have presumably shared leadership with Ralf Matzka.
The second race will be Tour of Turkey, which features many stages that may benefit from your attacking spirit. One of our goals is a stage win there and maybe you can deliver it to us. You will have a free element role on some stages, while being (presumably) a domestique to the sprinters on the pancake-flat stages in the beginning of the race. The third race of this mid-season will be Rund um Köln, which features some cobblestone. We tend to think you might be quite good on those, although you hadn’t really a chance to prove it to us or yourself. We know that we are not team of cobblestone-experts and particularly don’t stand a chance in the big cobble-events, but maybe we will have a great showing (the goal is a Top 10 ranking), and you can convince us of a possible future in the cobbles-department. Your last race will be the Philly Classic in June, before heading into the second Break. But if you want, you can also take your chances at the Tour de Luxembourg. The roster isn't full yet and you have quite some race days left "in your account".
Category
Race
Date
Type
CT.5
Tour of Turkey
21 – 28 April
Flat, Hilly
CT.6
Rund um Köln
12 May
Flat, cobbles
CT.6
Tour of Norway
15 - 19 May
Flat
CT.5
Philadelphia Int. CS
2 June
Flat
CT.6
Tour de Luxembourg
12 – 16 June
Flat
Race days left: 35
Race days left with Tour de Luxembourg: 30
Dermont Walker:
With your stage win at the Tour of Oman you have convinced everybody on the team that you are a guy to bring home them stages from everywhere in the world. But things won’t get any easier from here on out. We will need your fast legs alongside some other sprinters at the Tour of Turkey, where we will need a stage win to fulfill one of your season goals. After a hopeful successful time in Turkey, you can show our local crowd in Germany at the two races Rund um den Finanzplatz and Rund um Köln how fast your british legs are. And you will have the pleasure to come to our home region too: The Tour of Bavaria (Bayern – Rundfahrt) will require once more a stage win. Your presumed last race of the mid-season will be the Philly classic but if you want you can take on the Tour de Luxembourg as well (5 race days). For all these races, there’s one important thing: We count on you and your strong finishes, but there should always be a consideration of what’s best for the team too. You might have to perform lead-out duties, while others will do them for you too. As you know as a sprinter: we are team, and we win and lose together.
Category
Race
Date
Type
CT.5
Tour of Turkey
21 – 28 April
Flat, Hilly
CT.5
Rund um den Finanzplatz
1 May
Flat
CT.6
Rund um Köln
12 May
Flat
CT.6
Bayern-Rundfahrt
22 – 26 May
Flat
CT.5
Philadelphia Int. CS
2 June
Flat
CT.6
Tour de Luxembourg
12 – 16 June
Flat
Race days left: 29
Race days left with Tour de Luxembourg: 24
Looking forward to your respones and can't wait to see you all perform well in the upcoming mid-season.
Signed,
Peter Luttenberger
Edited by Shonak on 26-01-2014 22:35
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
You know me. I just want to race as much as possible. In fact this could very well had been written by me (if Queen hadn't done it before my parents even met): Which of course means that I would love to race all fice of the suggested races and I'm really happy that you have so much confident in a rider as young as myself!
Also I know that I'll have to help some of the others when I don't go in the break myself, but that's fine as long as I can get to spend some time on the bike. Mind you I wasn't even aware that there's cobbles in Rund um Köln, but if there are I can handle those decently as well. At least I think so as I haven't ridden them in an actual race, but I felt rather good on the local cobbles back home.
I'm especially happy about Norway and Turkey as both races ought to suit me ok. I also hope I can help the team to some succes in Philadephia (which will also be my first trup to the US and my only 2nd trip ever outside Europe).
Luxembourg looks hard on paper, but I have to say I'm actually quite excited to see what I might be able to do there. Even if it turns out to "just" be helping some of the others to do something.
I am happy with this schedule and I don't mind doing the Tour of Luxembourg. I really hope to achieve things in Germany as I know we are a German team and it would be good to be popular with the sponsors and the team's fans.
In terms of the race days, it doesn't really matter. There are only two races I really want to ride in the final part of the season (you can probably guess them!), so don't feel like you have to save race days.
Dermot Walker
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Bringing some might good news. Our team manager got some new coaches for you lot and well, they sure will keep you on your toes. Let me introduce them to you.
Georg Totschnig will be your new coach for mountain, hill climbing and stage racing as well as for the special efforts of participating at a Grand Tour. With the Vuelta coming closer by huge steps, this might be a vital part of your preparation. Of course a Grand Tour is exhausting from a physical point of view but it’s also a mental challenge. Georg won a Tour de France stage and finished numerous times in the Top 10 of Grand Tours, so this guy definitely knows what he’s talking about. He was one of the most renowned climbers in the Dark Era, and at least one of the few riders that seemed to have been clean. So that definitely speaks for him. He was also selected as Austria’s best athlete 2005.
Secondly, we hired a new fitness coach. Going under the name some chick on official channels (but you guys will learn her name eventually if you're nice enough - and sign for us?), this girl is truly something special though. Now wait guys, I know what you may think – her? But yeah, just look at her calves. Her duties as the new fitness coach will concentrate on important things like endurance & stamina, resistance and well, of course regeneration too. She will be the one telling you what’s best for you, will work on schedules for all you guys, when the training part is over but when you will still have to maintain some physical and mental sharpness. Oh, guys, you will be hooked on her, believe me.
We are also currently looking out for one more coach position and are confident that we will soon find the right person for that. Until then, let’s wait for the Tour of Oman to wrap itself up and afterwards let’s spend some quality on Peter’s vineyard. And no, you won’t be allowed to take your new fitness coach for a private tour through the estate.
The last picture of the early season has just been covered by reporter Jaxika. It sees Stefan Denifl taking stage 6 for his team IAM Cycling at the Tour of Oman. We congratulate Luttenberger’s fellow Austrian and can now officially draw a line under the early season.
Volta Ciclista a Catalunya and Tour of Oman have now been officially transmissioned. While Leopold König managed to keep his 16th place overall and obtain some points for the team, the last stage of Tour of Oman remained largely irrelevant to us. Still, the Tour of Oman can be considered a special race when we look back since Dermot Walker took his (and ours) first win this season there.
Other special moments were found mostly in the events of a stage, rather than at the finish line. Countless times our brave riders tried their best and attacked with all they have got, while rarely they got the reward they deserved. Several top 10 rankings brought us some points, but the strong team performances did us proud however. We can’t wait to start the mid-season now and are burning full of potential and lust to race.
Another big thing this early-season was of course the change in management. Michael Boogerd left Team NetApp – Endura merely weeks after he has signed his new contract. This left the team without real guidance and proper management for several weeks. However, eventually the long search came to a fitting conclusion with the hiring of Peter Luttenberger and several new key staff members.
When we look at the Team Ranking table, Team NetApp – Endura hasn’t improved since our last report. We still hold the 33th place and have only managed to snatch in 8 additional points. That’s quite disappointing. However, we would like to ask the UCI how exactly this rankings have been calculated? More importantly, we want to know if we have been punished for something. If that’s the case, please tell us when, where and why that has been the case. Because otherwise Team NetApp – Endura would hold 183 points instead of 104 points (by our calculations). At least we understand it that our points should be 183. Maybe a bit less if there's a limit to the amount of riders that are counted. We hope the UCI will clarify on this situation.
Our rider rankings:
L. Konig
60
D. Walker
36
H. Hägg
31
C. Benedetti
15
J. McEvoy
15
S. Thwaites
12
P. Voss
8
D. de la Cruz
6
Our top rider König hasn't been kissed by podium girls so far in this season
In other news, Omega Pharma continue to lead the rankings by a large margin ahead of Belkin and Team Sky. Similiar impresive is the lead of Peter Sagan in the individual rankings ahead of Cancellara and Boonen. Our closest competitors for a promotion are probably far gone by now, so we will have to bolster our squad for a possible promotion next season. Still, we will want to achieve as many goals as possible and obtain countless points along the way.
I'm pretty sure we were punished when Boogerd disappeared.
The punishment is still visible in teh rankings, but I suppose you could always try to send an appeal to the UCI and see if they want to keep it up now that we have some new management...
You are probably right, Heimdal. Apparently other teams have had similiar issues in the ranking. We didn't expect it to come into play at the CQ/UCI Ranking and thus were surprised.
X
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
So, yeah about those… As a Pro Continental Team we are naturally in the position of having much less to share than all the big teams with their top, high-class riders. But our guys still have brought in some things worth sharing despite all the non-success we have endured during the six races.
So, while BMC’s Time Trial domination in America didn’t bother us much and Carlos Betancur’s win at the Road went by nearly unnoticed (mostly due to the fact that we didn’t have any eligible riders), the Aufrazian races saw Zakkari Dempster who had some nice time riding and promoting our super-cool jersey. Unfortunately, there’s no picture of Dempster riding his bike, so instead we show you this one of Gerrans winning. Dempster came in 42th at the Road Race and 30th (and thus not last) at the Time Trial.
Obviously we at Team NetApp – Endura would have liked to have someone smiling off the podium as well. Alas, it wasn’t quite meant to be this time around. Leopold König and Jan Barta showed strong performances at the European Time Trial where they came in 21st and 22nd. So definitely yaaay to that, solid showing by those too! Winner of the day was Bradley Wiggins (SKY). In similar competitive fashion our guys took on the road race event in Valkenburg. Jan Barta once again claimed a Top 25 ranking by coming 23rd. So, well I guess that completes the podium for our guys if you would cut the 2 ahead of those numbers... But alas, this may sound not like much, but we are very pleased. After all, don't forget, the best of the best were here and everybody wanted to win. This results just show blatantly obvious that we are on the right track.
This time we can even bring you a picture with a Team NetApp – Endura rider. Well, at least we believe it us one. Erm, it’s really hard to spot, you know… nevermind.
As for our youngsters: They couldn’t hold up with the top riders but that was to be expected. We hope they enjoyed the little adventure that were the continental championships and it may spark further motivation for the mid-season now. It was certainly an experience and a good time to learn. Unfortunately, Dermot Walker didn’t finish the race but alas that just goes to show that he knows where to save his power and where to fully invest it.
X
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Hey everyone, as we are now roughly a third of the way through the season, I thought I would update you on all things Dermot! So, firstly, my last update told you that I had won in Oman, which was such an incredible feeling and one I definitely want to feel again soon. I did alright for the rest of the race, holding on to the leader's jersey right up until the organisers put a damn mountain in the way. Nonetheless, it was a fantastic experience for me in a big race with lots of people from all around the world watching on TV. Everyone knows who I am now! After that, the Volta Limburg did not go well, so I won't bore you with the details but the race exploded almost straight away and I missed the split, so that was that.
More recently though, I stayed in the Netherlands for the European Championships. I have to say I was stunned to be called up - the course was way too hard for me - but I guess the manager wanted to repay me for my win in Oman, which is still the team's only win this season. Sure enough, I was out the back door every time we hit the Cauberg. Ouch! Eventually, when I could take no more, I climbed off and went to see the new fitness coach, who just happens to be a rather attractive young lady, for a bit of a "rub down". What? Come on, I'm 18. And I got two hours with her, while the other guys were out there on a hiding to nothing!
The new fitness coach. I think the manager has played a blinder with this one, she's really good at what she does
I have almost a month off now, with the team only taking part in two extremely difficult stage races before that. So my next race is in Turkey, continuing my tour of rather exotic countries. The team want a stage win there, but I think the startlist will be really strong, so I will have to have a very good day to pull it off. After that, it's off to Germany for the whole of May, with two one day races, in Frankfurt and Köln, and then the Bayern Rundfahrt. As I'm sure you know, the team is, in effect, German, so these are huge races for us and I really want to contribute to success on home soil. Plus the sponsors might give me a car, or at least a watch, if I can win there! Finally, I have a race in Philadelphia, which will be my first ever trip to the US, and then the Tour de Luxembourg in the middle of June. That's 21 days of racing in total.
I already feel I am improving all the time as a road cyclist. My stamina is definitely on the up, I could tell that just from that one stage in Oman, where I was able to ride flat out for over 100km. Also, don't tell Kluge, but I think I might be the quickest over 200 metres in the whole squad.
And finally, I would just like to say G'day to our new signing Mitchell Birt, who is apparently a stage racer, so I probably won't see much of him! It's good to see the team expanding in both talent and geography. I just hope I don't get pushed down the pecking order too far!
Just thought I'd show you this picture again. Did you know I won a stage in Oman? You did? Well, maybe the management can use it as inspiration
Dermot Walker
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Don't worry, Dermot. No addition to the team will ever undermine existing riders, however we clearly have to state that Mitchell Birt is a much needed addition to our overall classification ambitions in stage races. Loved your blog by the way!
Welcome Mitchell Birt
Team NetApp – Endura is proud to announce its first mid-season hiring and welcomes Mitchell Birt to the international team from Germany.
It wasn’t easy to get such a great talent, we can tell you that. But in the end it was clear that we could offer perspective, chances and a healthy environment. Things that really turned the tide to our favor we believe.
Mitchell Birt is without a doubt one of the biggest Australian talents that have hit the international Pro Cycling Circuit in a whole while. With his expertise in climbing as well as Time Trialing, he can be described as a future Grand Tour contender. But for that it is surely a long way to go. For now, his goals are to win the Tour Down Under at one point, something where the team will be gladly of assistance. And for the time being, we think he will be content enough with playing a vital role at Tour de Romandie and providing assistance at the Amgen Tour of California.
Mitchell Birt also fills a void that we have seen so far in the early season and we are confident that he is the man to gradually improve us in this area: Mainly stage racing. While our teams have excelled in sprints and many breakaway attempts, we are obviously lacking major results so far. Only Leopold König has so far achieved notable results in this area. We hope that with Mitchell Birt’s signing we will further boost our chances in this discipline.
His suggested race calendar for the Mid-Season is short but sweet. And it shows that his emphasis will like more on the second half of the season with potentially inclusions at the Vuelta a Espana and other WT stage races. Let us please know though as soon as possible if you want to want to change anything on the provisional schedule for the Mid-Season, Mitchell.
WT.4
Tour de Romandie
23 – 28 April
CT.5
Tour of California
12 – 19 May
Again, welcome to our team and we invite you – like all riders – to join Peter Luttenberger’s vineyard on the 31st March. You know, that day when everybody will be racing the Ronde van Vlaanderen… we will just enjoy the race and talk about what we love, whatever that may be.
Peter Luttenberger
Edited by Shonak on 06-02-2014 22:30
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
L. Konig
D. Walker
H. Hägg
