Tag: Trek Factory Racing

Vuelta a España 2015: Stage 1 Preview

Stage 1: Puerto Banús › Marbella – 7.4km (TTT)

The 2015 Vuelta a España will get underway with one of the whackiest stages in race history thanks to an absurd course design and a last-minute UCI decision.

An opening team time trial of just 7.4 pancake-flat kilometers is odd enough, too short to really have any GC impact whatsoever, but the route includes a few unique challenges. Running along the vacationer-friendly Mediterranean coast from Puerto Banús to Marbella, the course involves stretches of packed dirt and sand and a narrow wooden bridge. Those peculiar obstacles caused plenty of consternation to riders putting in some course recon this week, spurring the UCI to call a meeting that ultimately deemed the TTT parcours too dangerous to count towards the General Classifiation. And so, just one day before the start of the Vuelta, the decision has been made to neutralize the opening stage in terms of the GC, leaving only a stage win and position in the team classification up for grabs.

Obviously, that dramatically changes the prediction picture, as any teams with GC aspirations now have little motivation to take any risks on the absurd course. A few of the top overall contenders lead strong TTT squads, but it’s hard to see them putting in the effort to contend for a stage win on the sand.

Instead, this should come down to the teams without GC candidates on the roster. Trek Factory Racing is among the front-runners. Fabian Cancellara leads a squad packed with fast finishers, and over a course of just 7.4km, sprinter speed will come in handy. Without a top GC favorite to shepherd over the whacky parcours, Trek will be hard to beat.

Giant-Alpecin should thrive for the same reasons as Trek—time trialing star Tom Dumoulin will lead the squad, with high-octane John Degenkolb and Luka Mezgec providing firepower over the very short course.

Orica-GreenEdge may have a shot, with a few time trialing specialists and a few fast finishers making the start. OGE always outperforms the sum of its parts in team time trials, and the team has nothing to lose in this race.

Etixx-QuickStep doesn’t have many of its top talents against the clock making the start, but Niki Terpstra leads a team that does include a few decent TT men and no reason to take the course gingerly.

Tinkoff-Saxo has a collection of speedsters and big engines to put up a good ride if Rafal Majka’s GC aspirations don’t hold them back. Sky has the firepower to put in a challenge for the TTT victory, but it seems almost guaranteed that the British squad will ride this one without much urgency as Chris Froome is a contender for the overall Vuelta a España victory. The same goes for BMC and Movistar, who might otherwise have contended for the stage, but who will now likely keep the powder dry for a day with real GC implications.

VeloHuman Stage 1 Favorites

1. Trek Factory Racing | 2. Giant-Alpecin | 3. Orica-GreenEdge

Be sure to follow @VeloHuman on Twitter for 2015 Vuelta analysis. The next preview will be up after the conclusion of Stage 1. And if you haven’t already checked out the Recon Ride’s first of three Vuelta episodes, there’s no time like the present to start listening!

August 21, 2015
World Championships 2014: Team Time Trial Preview

The Road World Championships get underway with the team time trial. If recent editions are any indication, the TTT should be a thrilling way to kick off a big week of cycling: the margin of victory for the men’s TTT in 2012 was only 3 seconds, and in 2013 things were even closer: Omega Pharma – Quick-Step beat out Orica-GreenEdge by just 1 second for the title.

The Route

The 2014 parcours is a bit more demanding than the profile faced by the TTT squads in 2013. 57.1 kilometers in length, it is mostly flat, but it does have a few bumps along the way. A string of ups and downs lead into the short but steep Alto Pieros at around the halfway point, and a high-speed downhill follows. With roughly 15 kilometers to go there is another uphill drag that starts at a low gradient and then kicks up a bit towards the end of the ascent crested with roughly 3 kilometers to go, after which comes a fast descent and then a flat finish.

Both the first and the final few kilometers are beset with twists, turns, and roundabouts, but most of the long journey in between is on wider roads without too many technicalities, which will allow the bigger engines to really get going in the middle of the route.

The Contenders

Last year’s two top finishers figure to feature prominently again. OPQS comes in as a slight favorite, though the team makeup has changed considerably since they last made a run at Worlds. Tony Martin still leads the way with a very talented Michal Kwiatkowski also returning. The impressive Kristof Vandewalle (now riding for Trek) is among those who won’t make a repeat bid for OPQS, but new additions like Niki Terpstra should help pick up the slack. Martin and Kwiatkowski will handle the scattered climbs and the technical stretches better than most time trial specialists in attendance, boosting the team’s chances. Orica-GreenEdge should put up a serious fight, however. Veteran Svein Tuft has continued to lead the OGE TTT squad to successes this year (they won the opening team time trial in the Giro d’Italia) and younger talents like Michael Hepburn and fast-rising Damien Howson make for a very solid group of specialists. They may not have any individual riders who currently qualify as stars in the time trial right now, but the team discipline is about more than raw power, and Orica-GreenEdge takes the TTT very seriously. They will have one of the most cohesive units on the course.

Trek should put in a strong challenge, with Fabian Cancellara, the aforementioned Kristof Vandewalle, and a sharp Jesse Sergent making the start. Their Vuelta performance was underwhelming, but Spartacus should be in much better form with the World Championship Road Race rapidly approaching.

BMC is without Taylor Phinney, but newcomer Rohan Dennis and a very strong Silvan Diller should complement Tejay van Garderen and company nicely. I think they’re more likely to deliver a performance along the lines of their Giro TTT (where they were 3rd) than their Vuelta TTT (where they only managed 9th).

Team Sky has underperformed in just about every major TTT they’ve undertaken in 2014, but the collection of talents they bring to Ponferrada can’t be ignored. With Bradley Wiggins leading and Geraint Thomas, Dario Cataldo, and an in-form Vasil Kiryienka also on the team, Sky will have a fighting chance at victory. They were 3rd in 2013, the only team within half a minute of the two leaders.

Movistar, with Ion Izagirre, Adriano Malori, and Alex Dowsett, should be in the mix. Astana hasn’t landed many big team time trial results in 2014, but they have a strong group of chrono specialists here. Giant-Shimano could surprise, with several very talented young time trialists in their unit, among them Tom Dumoulin, Chad Haga, and Tobias Ludviggson.

VeloHuman Top 3 Favorites

Winner: Omega Pharma – Quick-Step
Podium: Orica-GreenEdge, Trek Factory Racing

Be sure to follow @VeloHuman on Twitter for live race analysis, and stay tuned for previews of the ITT and Road Race World Championships.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Sean Rowe.

September 20, 2014
Giacomo Nizzolo “Really, Really, Really Motivated” for Plouay’s GP Ouest-France after Runner-up Performance at Vattenfall Cyclassics

Fresh off of a 2nd-place finish at the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg, Giacomo Nizzolo of Trek Factory Racing is looking forward to having another shot at a big win in the upcoming GP Ouest-France, where he was 2nd in 2013. Nizzolo’s 2014 campaign has had its gratifying moments and its frustrating ones, and plenty of moments that have been a bit of both, and he took a few minutes out of his midweek preparation to talk to VH about his season so far and his expectations for Sunday’s race in Plouay.

Nizzolo started off the year strong with a victory in the Tour de San Luis, but soon after, he suffered a broken collarbone as a result of a training crash. The painful injury would be just the first in a series of difficult health issues that have hampered him on and off throughout the year. Nizzolo described the persistent challenge of being slowed by injury and illness this season when his form has otherwise been very strong as “one of the hardest” of his career.

“I had great training camps in the winter and I was in really good shape at the beginning of the season and then unluckily I broke my collarbone. I think that the first part of the season could have been really successful for me, but then with the crash everything was gone,” he explained to VeloHuman. “And then, mentally and physically, it was really hard to get my shape back for the Giro.

“I came to the Dauphiné to try to get a victory after the Giro because I knew I was in great shape and normally after a big tour I’m good. So I went there, and then on the only stage for the sprinters, with sixty kilometers to go, I crashed and I broke a bone in my shoulder. I only discovered the fracture twenty days later. I thought it was something with the tendon and I planned some therapy to try to treat the tendon, but I kept moving the shoulder and it was definitely not [feeling] the right way.

“Then, I stopped, I took a break, and then tried to work hard for the second part of the season. I went to altitude again, I came down, I went to Wallonie and got the stage victory. But still I felt that something was wrong, and I got this virus. I was feeling it actually until the Eneco Tour last week. Even last week I was not feeling so good.”

He finally started to feel better in time for Hamburg’s Vattenfall Cyclassics, where he put in a strong ride to finish 2nd behind Alexander Kristoff in a sprint. His sixth 2nd-place performance on the year (he notched four of them in the Giro d’Italia), it was certainly something to be proud of, but at the same time, a frustrating result. Nizzolo acknowledged that it is hard to feel satisfied when he finishes a race as runner-up.

“I’m disappointed. Sometimes, third is much better than second because when you’re second you’re so close to victory and you’re missing really only a few things to win,” he explained. “When you’re third you can say, ‘Well there was one guy stronger than me even if the winner was not there.’ So I am a little bit frustrated. But on the other side, when I think about it days later, I say, ‘Okay, in the end, what can I say? I did my best.’ . . . Sometimes I make mistakes, but for example in Hamburg, this was the best I could bring home, especially when you think that I was coming from a week that was not the best. On one side, you’re disappointed, but on the other you can be proud to be there.”

Frustrating though they may be, the near misses don’t stop Nizzolo from working hard to find areas of improvement. In the Giro, for example, he tried to fine tune his timing with each finish.

“In the Giro I tried different ways to win the stage. One time I waited, but he [Nacer Bouhanni] started [his sprint]. Other times, I tried to anticipate the sprint and start before him. You look at the videos and you look at what maybe you did wrong and what you can make better and, for sure, you can learn something. . . . When you lose you can always learn something. Even when you win. When I win, I say sometimes, ‘This could be better.’ Every time, you have to learn something.”

He now has his sights set on the upcoming GP Ouest-France in Plouay, a major objective for the remainder of his 2014 racing calendar. Hillier than the Vattenfall Cyclassics, the GP Ouest-France came down to a sprint last year, but it’s a tough event that does encourage riders to attempt longer-range moves.

“Plouay was one of my targets from the top of the season,” Nizzolo said. “Hamburg and Plouay are some of my favorite races. Sunday in Plouay is harder than Hamburg, but it’s a race that I like (like Hamburg) so I will go there really, really, really motivated and I will have the maximum support from the team, as I had in Hamburg. In Hamburg I had the support from the team even when I was not in the best shape. So in Plouay I will have everybody helping me and we will go for it.”

The race is still a few days away, but he already has a sense of who his main rivals might be.

“I think, more or less, it will be the same competitors as Hamburg, though it’s harder and the climb is closer to the finish, so guys like Van Avermaet, Trentin, Albasini, Gerrans . . . they could make some action at the end so that for us as sprinters it will be harder to get results,” he said.

After the GP Ouest-France, Nizzolo expects to take on the Brussels Cycling Classic and the Tour de l’Eurométropole, among other races. With the World Championship Road Race not far off, Nizzolo acknowledges that selection to the Italian team is something he thinks about, but he isn’t sure how well the parcours suits him.

“I checked the circuit a few months ago and it’s hard. The climbs are hard but there is not much recovery between them . . . and there are more than 4000 meters of altitude, so it will be hard. For a guy like me, I would need to be in the best shape to be there. So honestly at the moment I will go for Plouay and then we will make a check and discuss,” he said.

Looking beyond the 2014 season, Nizzolo is signed with Trek through 2016 after renewing with the team in the middle of this year. The team isn’t laying any specific goals for these next few seasons at his feet, but Nizzolo has targets in mind.

“I don’t think we have particular goals, but I see and they see probably that I improve every year a little bit. So we will try to go for stages in the big tours and then a semi-classic like Hamburg or Plouay,” he said.

On strong form and, at least for the moment, unhampered by illness or injury, Nizzolo will have an opportunity at meeting one of those goals in four days at the GP Ouest-France in Plouay. Narrowly missing out on a win there last year, and likely to face some of the same rivals that contested the recent Vattenfall Cyclassics, Nizzolo will have that little bit of extra familiarity with the situation on the road as the day nears its conclusion, which will certainly be a useful asset in his attempt to reach the next step on the podium this time around.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Jérémy Jännick.

August 27, 2014
Vuelta a España 2014: Stage 1 Preview

Stage 1 (TTT): Jerez de la Frontera › Jerez de la Frontera – 12.6 km

The 2014 Vuelta a España gets underway with a short, flat team time trial in Jerez de la Frontera. At only 12.6 kilometers, the route shouldn’t see any massive time gaps between teams, but motivation to put in a strong ride will still be high; in this Vuelta, which seems likely to be hotly contested, every second will count, and the GC riders will want to get off to a strong start. Moreover, several teams are packing some serious chrono talent and will have their sights set on showing off their ability against the clock in the opening stage of the race.

One such team looks to be the top favorite for this TTT. Fabian Cancellara headlines a powerful Trek squad loaded with talent that also includes Jesse Sergeant, Kristof Vandewalle, and Bob Jungels. That’s a lot of firepower. They’re a little light on cumulative experience with so much youth in the team, but this is a goal for Trek and they have the talent to go for the win.

OPQS should contend for stage victory as well. They will be led by World Champ Tony Martin and the team will be driven to put Rigoberto Uran, suddenly a top-notch chrono rider in his own right, into a good position on GC.

Sky has a number of workhorse time trialists to help place Chris Froome (obviously a stellar time trialist himself) into a good spot on the leaderboard on the first stage, and it would be a surprise to see anything other than a great performance from them on Stage 1.

BMC and Movistar are also well-staffed for a race against the clock and could be in the mix for stage honors. Orica-GreenEdge is without a number of their stronger time trialists in this Vuelta, but Brett Lancaster, Cam Meyer, and Michael Matthews (very fast in a short time trial) should give them a shot at a good result.

While they aren’t on the same level as Trek, Giant-Shimano could surprise some people on Stage 1. They have several young chrono talents in Lawson Craddock, Chad Haga, and Tobias Ludvigsson that will be able to drive a high pace on the stage. Cannondale is another team that could outperform expectations; a shorter time trial like this suits a number of their riders.

VeloHuman Stage Favorites

1. Trek Factory Racing | 2. Omega Pharma – Quick-Step | 3. Team Sky

Be sure follow @VeloHuman on Twitter for live commentary of this and every stage of the 2014 Vuelta a España! The next preview will be up after the conclusion of Stage 1, so stay tuned. In case you missed it, the overall race preview can be found here.

-Dane Cash

August 22, 2014
Bob Jungels Talks First Grand Tour Start at Upcoming Vuelta a España: “I Want to Do Well in the TTs and Maybe in the Medium Climbing Stages.”

21-year-old Bob Jungels made a grand entrance onto the pro cycling scene in 2013, winning a stage and taking 5th overall in the Skoda Tour de Luxembourg, and taking both the individual time trial and the road race titles at the Luxembourg national championships. Now in his second year at the WorldTour level with Trek Factory Racing, Jungels has continued to develop as a talented all-rounder, with particularly strong performances in time trial stages in some of the year’s biggest races so far. This weekend, however, he will take part in his very first Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España. He talked to VH about the season-long buildup to the three-week event, his preparation, and his objectives for Spain’s biggest race, in which he hopes to gain experience for the future.

“The main goal of the season was to learn,” he told VeloHuman. “I did a lot of WorldTour races this year, so the main goal was just to get as much experience as possible, and of course the Vuelta now is the first big tour and a completely new thing for me. Of course, it’s a new challenge, but it’s a goal also, because I want to do well. But the most important thing is to learn for the future.”

As big a challenge as his first Grand Tour ride is likely to be, the considerable developments Jungels has made as a rider over the course of the season, which he thinks has gone well so far, have helped him feel more prepared for the race.

“I have progressed a lot in climbing this year,” he explained. “My time trial was not bad already last year, and I think I’ve made some big steps in stage races, and that is also my goal for the future, to be good in stage races. So the Vuelta is a good test for me to see how far I can go already. I’m really happy with my season until now; I’ve had a few good results in time trials and also in medium climbing stages, so I’m pretty happy with that.”

Though he acknowledges that the Vuelta a España will be a very new experience, when asked whether he’s nervous about this undertaking, Jungels says that he’s more looking forward to what lies ahead.

“I would not say nervous. For me, I’m a little bit in awe, to be in a big team, to be part of these nine riders in the Vuelta. I’m really looking forward to it. That’s maybe more the thing. Of course a little bit nervous because I don’t know how my body will react, but I’m definitely looking forward to it and I hope everything goes well,” he said.

Likely contributing to his excitement and confidence is the presence of a few seasoned veterans on Trek’s Vuelta squad, as riders like Haimar Zubeldia and Fabian Cancellara are set to make the start alongside Jungels and several other very young pros.

“For us young riders it’s always important to have a few older riders to help, riders who have more experience than we do,” Jungels said. “It’s a really important part for us to learn from them because, like I said, the most important thing is the experience for us and we don’t have it until now, so it’s pretty good to have guys with us from whom we can learn.”

Jungels has come close to major victories several times already this year, with Top 3s on stages in Paris-Nice, the Critérium International, and the Critérium du Dauphiné. When asked about what he thinks he is capable of in the Vuelta, he was cautiously optimistic about his chances for stage success.

“I think the line up for this Vuelta is quite special because a lot of guys had to abandon the Tour, like Froome, Contador, all these guys,” he said. “So I think it will be really hard, but one thing is for sure, I don’t have any expectations on the GC, so I’ll try to go for stages and do my best. I hope to get a good result in a stage.”

He hasn’t poured over the entire road book just yet to target any one particular stage, but he does have objectives for himself in the race.

“One thing, I try to do my best, that’s for sure,” Jungels said. “I haven’t really looked at every stage in particular, but of course I want to do well in the TTs and maybe in the medium climbing stages. One thing I want to prove a little bit is that I can climb pretty well, because I see in training that I’ve taken big steps in the mountains, so I think it should be a goal for me.”

Trek Factory Racing brings a versatile team to the race, and they look well-staffed to pursue several different goals.

“We will have a big meeting when we arrive over there but Haimar [Zubeldia] was really good and got a Top 10 in the Tour again, and if his shape is still good and if he still feels fresh, I think he can have some ambitions in the GC, maybe to do another Top 10,” Jungels said. “I think for the others, the main goal should be to do well in the stages, and maybe try to get a victory out of the stages. A little bit like in the Giro, where we also had a good performance.”

With only a few days remaining before the Vuelta kicks off in Jerez de la Frontera, Jungels is mostly focused on resting up to be as fresh as possible for the start.

“We decided to just do some good blocks [of training] after Poland and then basically for this week, it’s more or less like a rest week, and then of course a few days before the race we’ll try to do the recon of the team time trial course,” he said.

With some serious chrono talent, including Jungels, Fabian Cancellara, Jesse Sergeant, and Kristof Vandewalle, Trek will be a top favorite for that opening team time trial. After that, the two ITTs and several hillier days could be prime stage hunting grounds for Jungels, who is certainly a rider to watch in this Vuelta a España, and, as he continues to develop and gain experience, in future races as well.

-Dane Cash

Photo by Trek Factory Racing.

August 20, 2014