After what probably has to be described as a rather shaky campaign in 2013, Pendleton's are still in the ProTour for another year and are looking to galvanise for 2014. The team has a rich history in the game, beginning as AON Global in 2010 before 3 seasons under Pendleton's sponsorship. That arrangement continues, Pendleton's becoming one of the longest-running title sponsors in the sport.
2014 will be another season resplendent in Will007's beautiful designs - the man has somehow managed to better himself yet again and the riders can expect to be turning heads in this beautiful ensemble:
Phillipe Gilbert, however, will be wearing something else for this season, a fiery Belgian champion's jersey:
And this gorgeous creation will be draped over the shoulders of Burkina Faso TT champ Oumarou Minoungou:
We've got the gear, now let's hope we can get the results!
Eighteen riders are retained from last year as we go into the transfer season, some riders leaving as they reach old age and some, not naming names [Jonny McEvoy!] because they were little prima-donnas who thought they were worth more than I did.
Rider Name
Wage
Availability
Phillipe Gilbert
500,000
Transfer
Vladimir Gusev
450,000
Transfer
Daniel Martin
420,000
None
Bernard Kohl
350,000
Transfer
Thomas Faiers
240,000
Transfer
Alexey Lutsenko
200,000
Transfer
Konstantin Siutsou
130,000
Transfer
Joshua Edmondson
90,000
Transfer
Tim Kennaugh
65,000
None
Florian Senechal
65,000
None
Tom Copeland
55,000
Transfer
Philip Deignan
55,000
Transfer
Sean Downey
55,000
Transfer
Mathieu Ladagnous
50,000
None
Oumaru Minoungou
50,000
None
David Rosch
50,000
None
Bradley Wiggins
50,000
Transfer
Kleber Silva
50,000
Transfer
If you want them, please make your interest known and I will contact you via PM during the transfer season.
Edited by wackojackohighcliffe on 12-03-2014 17:40
Very interesting that McEvoy wasn't re-signed. He is a very nice rider...
The wage of Tim Kennaugh is nice. I'm happy to see him finally up to max as he rode for us in the Tour de l'Avenir once and did very well
I'm very interested in Florian Senechal - I really do need a french cobbler to make my talent setup complete, so please do contact me regarding his status once possible!
@cunego: Thanks very much, having a nightmare over here
@Sotd: He is a good rider but I don't feel I have much use for a jack-of-two-trades, sprinter/puncheur; at least not at that wage.
I'm happy about Tim, a good value rider. It was good that you could house him as a leader in your team as my youth were all on loan last year
Senechal is one of my favourites and good value so there would have to be one hell of an incentive for me to sell him But if you do want to try to hammer out a deal then we can give it a go when the whistle is blown!
We might be interested in Tom Copeland. His pure climbing power would fit nicely into our plans. And if other plans fail, Siutsou could be a perfect team leader, should we be able to afford the transfer fee. You'll hear from me
Just thought that you would like to know that your loaned rider to us here at Eddie Stobart Pro Cycling Joshua Edmonson finished 8th in his first outing of the season at the Clasico San Cristobal in Cuba
Following some evidently terrible media work this year, the management has had a real shake-up and will be trying to win back some fans, starting with a season wrap.
It was another mixed season for Pendleton's as we continued to earn a fairly healthy sum of points without really setting the world on fire. There were a couple of big results but mainly a sense of consistency rather than brilliance. This is something both the management and the sponsors have indicated they wish to change in the future.
The season started on a rather mute note at the Badaling International where team stalwart Phillipe Gilbert rode to a fairly anonymous 16th. The Tour of Qatar was never going to be our race so we couldn't be particularly disappointed by failing to crack the top 30. This pattern continued as one might have expected at the Chrono des Herbiers but Phillipe got points on the board with 10th on GC at Tirenno-Adriatico.
Following this however, was one of our season highlights, probably one of our highlights throughout the team's history. After some impressive riding in the early stages of Paris-Nice, Dan Martin struck on the sixth stage, soaring free to win on the Montagne de Lure.
Dan takes out a superb victory on the slopes of the Montagne de Lure.
Lifted by the yellow jersey, Dan continued his strong performance through the final two stages to win the GC!
Resplendent in yellow on the podium.
Our year continued at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, where young talent Alexey Lutsenko impressed to finish 18th on GC. We then travelled to Italy (or stayed there for our Tirenno riders) to take on the season's first monument, Milan - San Remo. Phillipe was well up in the mix on this mammoth early-season classic and got a place on the podium with a strong 3rd place. Shortly after, it was the start of the cobbled classics season and Vladimir Gusev got off to a slightly disappointing 13th at the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Things went from bad to worse at the East Midlands Cicle Classic where he finished 22nd. An uneventful Rund um Köln was followed by 11th from Vladimir at Gent-Wevelgem and an unsuccessful campaign at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. Things weren't looking all too good as we entered the cut-and-thrust of the most important Spring Classics.
Ronde van Vlaanderen was not a good race for the team. Although Vladimir tried time and again to force a break, he couldn't and ended up all the way down in 31st, just behind our top-placed finisher Florian Senechal. Thankfully, things improved for him at Paris-Roubaix, where he made the top 5 in the famous velodrome. It was then onto the hills and the Amstel Gold Race, the site of Phillipe Gilbert's greatest victory. Unfortunately he couldn't replicate this and had to settle for a slightly deflating 13th. In his home country of Belgium he stepped up a couple of places to crack the top 10 for the Flèche Wallone but was back down to 14th to conclude the classic season at Liège - Bastogne - Liège.
So it was back to stage racing at the Tour de Romandie and back to success as aggressive racing from Dan Martin earned him a classy stage win at Leysin.
Dan holds off the bunch for glory.
He was clearly in good form and raced well throughout the rest of the week, taking 3rd on the queen stage and finishing an impressive 2nd overall, helped ably by the rest of the squad who ended 5th in the unorthodox mountain TTT. This was just a warm up for the main event though, the first Grand Tour of the season, the Giro d'Italia. Buoyed by a strong performance in Switzerland, the team began the race full of confidence. Dan finished in the lead group on the first hilly stage before our climbing talent and US champion Joe Dombrowski made a break over Etna and was too strong for Paolo Scarponi at the hilltop finish in Taormina.
Joe takes his first Grand Tour stage win (of many I hope).
Joe continued to impress, finishing 5th on the second mountain stage to take 4th in GC and the white Young Rider's jersey. Dan was close behind in 6th. Alexey Lutsenko and Matteo Bono both managed top 10s on stages while Dan maintained a high GC position. He slipped down a couple of places in the Italian hills and, with just a few stages to go, eventually slipped out of the top 10 he had targeted at the beginning of the race. Luckily he fought back well, performing notably strongly in the unfavoured TT, to take 10th overall. Joe Dombrowski finished in 17th and Konstantin Siutsou in 21st to win us the teams classification.
Young Joe's classy climbing got him the U25 jersey to add to his stage win, a very lucrative Giro all round.
While the cycling world's eye was trained on Italy, there was PT racing going on in the US. At the Tour of California Bernard Kohl was building form for an assault on the Vuelta with a solid ninth place.
Post-Giro the team quickly switched focus to the year's second Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana. Bernard was set to lead the team here, with support from Joe Dombrowski, coming straight from his GT debut in Italy. Things started very well for us here; the third stage was a target for us as it finished in Gibraltar [technically British racing!] and young puncheur Alexey Lutsenko bridged mid-stage to the breakaway. Sadly things got brought back together as the bunch reached Gibraltar but Alexey gave it one last go and a group of four got clear of the pack once again. And at the top of the tough uphill finish on 'The Rock', it was our Kazakh star who took out the sprint and the win!
Aggressive racing gets rewarded.
Throughout the rest of the race, our support was behind Bernard and he repaid that faith, riding to our second Grand Tour top 10 of the year after some impressive performances in the Spanish mountains.
After the Vuelta it was the odd mid-season cobbled classic, the Strada Appia Antica. Sadly, this just provided another opportunity for Vladimir Gusev to disappoint, only just shading inside the top 20. Following this came the traditional Tour de France warm-up races, the Criterium de Dauphine Libere and the Tour de Suisse. In France, Dan rode to eighth place but across the border, where they hide the gold, Bernard had a terrible time of it, finishing 22nd. Hopefully he could change things around in time for his bid at the Tour de France. The only thing left before the year's biggest race was the Classique du Grand Duche where Phillipe scraped into the top 10.
So, it was Tour de France time, the most important 23 days on the cycling calendar. The lack of a true superstar on the team really showed through this time though, Bernard riding well enough but only managing 14th in a very strong field. Something needs changing next year...
Phillipe Gilbert led the team up north to the Tour of Norway, where things started well with an excellent 2nd place on stage 4. In fact, he was in second on GC as the peloton headed into the hills on the final stage. Poor positioning cost us dear however when the bunch split and our GC hopes went up in smoke, Phillipe nearly 5 minutes in arrears and slipping to 40th overall. The GP Moscow was not going to improve our mood with nobody cracking the top 30 but things did take a turn for a better in South America. Stage 5 of the Vuelta a Colombia saw Pendleton's take to the top step of podium again as young German climber David Rosch broke free with Heineken's Thomas Peterson before outwitting him at the end to win the day.
A daring break over the Colombian mountains stays away.
His exploits on that stage and throughout the race also earned him the mountains' jersey, by just 1 point over 2nd and 2 points over 3rd! Our next race was the brutal GP Liechtenstein and Dan Martin grabbed another top 10 to add to his consistent season thus far. He improved on that by climbing to 7th overall at the Deutschland Tour. Another flat one-dayer in the form of the Lisbon Classic once again yielded nothing [we really need a sprinter!] before a gamble at the Tour of Northern Europe paid off, our two leaders Phillipe Gilbert and Vladimir Gusev finishing 5th and 7th on GC respectively and helping us to top the team classification.
A poor performance followed in both the Copenhagen-Malmo TTT and Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha before Phillipe impressed in taking sixth in the penultimate Tour of Tasmania. We ended the season at the traditional Giro di Lombardia and the guys showed up well, Phillipe finishing 7th and Dan Martin rounding out the top 10.
After a disaster for them at Lombardia, that was nearly enough to scrape into the top 10 PT rankings at Festina's expense but we came up 11 points short. A mixed season for us but Dan Martin did well to finish as the eighteenth best rider. So to next season; onwards and upwards [hopefully]!
