Castelli | InsiderNews – Page 178

cervelo test team, News - February 2, 2010

Cervélo teams will begin racing this week!

Both the men and women of Cervélo TestTeam officially begin racing this week. The men’s team will start with the French five-day stage race Étoile de Bessèges. The women’s team will start the season with the Ladies Tour of Qatar, now in its second edition.

Men’s Team
The Étoile de Bessèges, held annually in southern France, around Bessèges, will represent the official start of the Cervélo TestTeam season. Please note that Thor Hushovd, who was to start his season with this race, is ill and will not be competing as planned.

“We are looking forward to starting in Bessèges, as it will be the first race for our team in 2010,” said Sports Director Alex Sans Vega. “It will give us the opportunity to check our fitness and strength against the other teams, as some of them have already started their season in the Tour Down Under or G.P. Marseillaise. The Étoile de Bessèges is a good race for our riders. It will help them in their preparations, but we will also try to get some results-all our riders will have the freedom to show themselves at their best at the start of the season.”

The team is also returning to the Middle East after last year’s success with the stage win of Roger Hammond (GBR) and with six riders placed in the top 10. Heinrich Haussler (GER) (second overall last year) and Hammond (third overall last year) will lead the team again. Sports Director Jens Zemke has good memories of the race from last year. “It will be very difficult to repeat the excellent result of our first showdown one year ago,” he said. “We have two new riders in our Qatar squad, Theo Bos (NED) and Davide Appollonio (ITA); the others are all Qatar experienced. We also want to test our new components and bikes. This race is another big step forward. Our main goal is to prepare our team for a successful spring campaign.”

FELT-COLBORNES RACE TEAM

The new strengthened Felt racing team from 2009 will become Felt-Colbornes Race Team this year. With five new riders and two new sponsors, the team is ready for 2010. Joining the team as a headline sponsor are www.colbornes.co.uk, Audi, VW and Skoda making the team more competitive with the other full time teams in the Premier and Tour Series events. With help from Saddleback ltd the distributor of Felt, Castelli , SRAM, Zipp and Vredestein. We are able to add an additional seven riders including the 2006 National Circuit Champion James Taylor, and brothers Matthew and Richard Kipling, Tom Smith, Ian Legg, Peter Wager and Garry Clark. “The key part of the team is we all get on well,” said Team Manager Justin Hoy, “we all have fulltime jobs whilst not full time professionals, the superb past results and strong team spirit means that the Felt-Colbornes Race Team expect to be competitive with the UK’s best and aim to cause a few upsets along the way.” At the end of February, the team is planning a training camp in Gran Canaria to prepare for the season starting off at the Severn Bridge RR on the 7th of March as this is sponsored ...

HUSHOVD KNEW HE HAD TO ATTACK

Thor Hushovd knew he needed to extend his lead in the competition for the green jersey in the Tour, and there was a chance he could do something on the stage to Le Grand Bornand, but he knew it wouldn’t be easy. Looking back on cycling highlights of the previous year, Hushovd fought with Cavendish for the green jersey in the Tour de France. He could not match the speed of Cavendish, but rode intelligently, picking up points in intermediate sprints by going on the attack and winning his second green jersey. The Cervélo rider attacked on Comet de Roseland which was coming right at the start of the stage, then descended into the valley and took the points. With six more points on offer at the second sprint at Cluses, Hushovd had a choice, he could sit up and wait for the bunch ot he could keep going alone. It was a long solo ride through the valley, and over the second-category climb Côte d’Arches. Hushovd keept going on, it was a heroic solo mission, but justice was done when he crossed the line to take another six points. When the bunch finally caught him on Col de Romme, ...

CERVELO AIMS EVEN HIGHER IN 2010!

Following their amazing debut season Cervélo TestTeam’s men and women’s riders, Sports Directors and management along with our TestTeam Partners were gathered in Portugal this past weekend for the pre-season training camp and official team presentation of the 2010 Cervélo TestTeam.

The success in 2009 was achieved with 25 victories for the men’s while the women scored 43 victories, finishing first in the UCI standings.

Going into the team’s second season, new General Manager Joop Alberda has set an even higher goal for the squad. “We want Cervélo TestTeam to become the new standard in cycling,” said Alberda. “What happened on the team last year was amazing. The standard they set is already pretty high. It will be up to the cyclists to challenge themselves. We will be there to help them.”

Success isn’t measured by victories alone however, something that Alberda says makes the Cervélo TestTeam and the brand stand out from the pack. While podiums are the ultimate goal, the team is also focused on its groundbreaking product development, fan access and hospitality initiatives.

“Cervélo TestTeam is one of the few teams in modern cycling that has a clear vision. They have core values and they want to stick to them,” Alberda says. “Winning is beautiful, but winning isn’t the only thing. We want to work as a unit on our core values and become the team that everyone wants to join.”

Hushovd and Haussler each want a cobbled classic victory in 2010.

DEIGNAN’S INCREDIBLE VUELTA!

Catching up with Cervélo’s Irishman, Philipp Deignan. (part 2.) When you won stage 18, it was cold and wet. How was that? Growing up in Ireland helped. I know you have to wrap up warm at the beginning, then just get the bad weather out of your head. You were very active in the group of 16 riders that went away, did you feel especially good? I was very comfortable over the first cat climb. Kreuziger attached on a descent, you followed and that is how you two got away. Did you have to take risks? No, the roads were drying out by then. There were good wide bends, and it was a good time to go because everyone relaxed after the climb. Can you take us through the final? Kreuziger attached with 500 meters to go, I caught him and sat on. Then, I went with 200m to go, but what you couldn’t see on the television was that the last bit was slightly uphill, and I think he ran out of energy on that. Has finishing ninth in a Grand Tour changed the wasy you see yourself as a bike rider? It’s made me think, I gained a ...

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Castelli | InsiderNews RSS

Cervélo teams will begin racing this week!

FELT-COLBORNES RACE TEAM

HUSHOVD KNEW HE HAD TO ATTACK

CERVELO AIMS EVEN HIGHER IN 2010!

DEIGNAN’S INCREDIBLE VUELTA!

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