All over for Leopard Trek

Full Merckx

Doobz wrote:

A Leaked Letter from The Hog to the Pretty Pony Brothers

Dear Frank and Andy,

I am very pleased that you will both be riding on my new team. I wanted to address a few things right away so we get off on the right foot. The goal of this team is to WIN races, we view 2nd and 3rd place as the 1st and 2nd losers. Here are a few new team rules that will go into place at the end of the 2011 season.


1. Ride together all you want in the off season, because next year you will NEVER be in the same race. I will not have either one of you looking around for the other one. Frank you should study up on Italy and Spain. Andy focus on France! During Grand tours, you are not allowed to call, Skype, or send pictures to each other.



2. We will be repossessing all but one of your bikes for the first 3 months of the off season. The only one we are leaving you is a Time Trial bike. You might remember that bike is the one with the funny looking bars that makes the "swoosh swoosh" noise when you ride it. LEARN to ride it and get faster on it! You look like two monkeys humping a futball when you ride a TT. We will fix this!



3. Andy this one is directed at you: We will have a bonfire at our training camp; bring every picture/note/piece of Best Friend stuff you have from your relationship with Alberto. To be honest, he thinks you're a fool and he makes fun of you every chance he gets. He actually referred to you as "mi perra" over race radio. (Google it - it's not kind.)



4. If you are going to do your "traditional" off season dolphin swims, make sure there is no one there to take pictures. Swimming with a porpous is completely emaskulating. Grow 2 pairs and swim with sharks if you need to get closer to nature. Don't say a word about Boonen swimming with the dolphins; he pulls more girls than most rock stars and wins cobbled classic races.



5. Scarves...lose them, ALL of them!



6. Andy this is another one for you - if you win a stage you are never allowed to "post up." It looks as though you are having a seizure and we can't use the pictures for any PR purposes.



7. We will have an in-depth class for both of you about social media and the topic of WINNING! I never want to see another Tweet like "We are ____ (fill in with words like happy, satisfied, content) to get 2nd and 3rd at ____ (fill in race/stage Amstel, the TDF, etc.)



8. Only one of you can ride in the Luxembourg championship races. You can decide between the two of you, but trying to figure out which one of you has those jerseys gives me a headache. Plus, there are only like 5 riders from your country so it doesn't matter much anyway; it's not like you're Belgian!



9. Yes, you will be riding SRAM again. Get over it; our mechanics know WTF they are doing and you will be fine.



10.Please try to pay attention when training. No music, texting, or no handed riding. I don't want to see pictures of your skinny bodies all bloody and damaged. You two look like you escaped from a prison camp half the off season.



PS: Find out when and where Johhny Hoogerland trains and ride with him!

Kindest regards,
JB


http://handlebarmustache.blogspot.com/

\


FANTASTIC !

dave_1

No tA Doctor wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

I'm a bit behind on the news..but that is 1 less pro tour team with the merger..those let go by both teams will not be happy. With HTC gone..it looks even worse. Sounds bad for riders looking for new places..56 to 60 less vacancies than a year ago.

Forgive my ignorance on how pro tour team licensing works, but with two teams gone won't one or two of the Pro-Continental teams have a chance at a license? Or is it financially non-viable for them to do so?

NotADoctor, that crossed my mind last night but I I was wondering if the UCI get really strict on financial guarantees and other details so stopping smaller budget teams from moving up to pro tour level status or do the UCI have a stonger impetus to achieve the same number of pro tour teams each season and therefore slacken off their selection criteria in order to let the smaller budget team up to pro tour level? Does this merger, by depriving jobs, have a knock on effect further down the tier below pro tour level as a team moves up so on less team in the league than the previous season. Or does a team get bumped up at each level as you suggest? I am not sure how it works really

No_Ta_Doctor

Dave_1 wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

Dave_1 wrote:

I'm a bit behind on the news..but that is 1 less pro tour team with the merger..those let go by both teams will not be happy. With HTC gone..it looks even worse. Sounds bad for riders looking for new places..56 to 60 less vacancies than a year ago.

Forgive my ignorance on how pro tour team licensing works, but with two teams gone won't one or two of the Pro-Continental teams have a chance at a license? Or is it financially non-viable for them to do so?

NotADoctor, that crossed my mind last night but I I was wondering if the UCI get really strict on financial guarantees and other details so stopping smaller budget teams from moving up to pro tour level status or do the UCI have a stonger impetus to achieve the same number of pro tour teams each season and therefore slacken off their selection criteria in order to let the smaller budget team up to pro tour level? Does this merger, by depriving jobs, have a knock on effect further down the tier below pro tour level as a team moves up so on less team in the league than the previous season. Or does a team get bumped up at each level as you suggest? I am not sure how it works really

Well I know there are hungry teams looking to make a step up from further down the tier. Christina Watches (The Chicken's team) have stated they want to be on the Pro tour list by 2016 latest (God forbid with Rasmussen involved....).

Where do Green Edge fit in?

I imagine the UCI need to have around 18 teams to make things tick on the Pro tour - at 16 they might struggle to run quality races, especially if a couple of those teams are Super-teams that start to dominate the tour and make sponsorship less attractive to smaller teams. Looks like most of the favourites for any race next year will come from BMC, Sky, RadioSchleck and SaxoBank. That doesn't look too healthy to me....

knedlicky

iainf72 wrote:

Leopard's Feillu, Wegmann, Rohregger, Mortensen, Pedersen, Stamsnijer, Pires, Lund, Vigano must find new teams. (L'Equipe)

From the RadioShack side, supposedly Paulinho is going to Saxo, and Oliveira, Cardoso, Machado and Lequatre will all (need to) seek new teams. Aidis Kruopis will apparently join the new Leopard-RadioShack set-up from Landbouwkredit.

knedlicky

AndyRAC wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

B3rnieMac wrote:

nissan getting involved in a big way is better than Leopard-Lidl or something like that.

Lidl are a huge company. One of the world's biggest retailers.

True, but they're hardly a Blue Chip company. Saying that, very few sports can attract these companies during the recession.

Lidl mostly keep to the classical way of advertising, using leaflets and newspaper adverts, and now also an Internet website, but in Switzerland they have recently sponsored some individual sportsmen – namely a couple of the top schwingers (not swingers!)

Schwingers do Schwingen, a fairly popular Swiss form of wrestling, for the national championships even getting attendances of 50,000. The ring is a simple 40 ft diameter circle of sawdust and the schwingers wear shorts made of jute over other clothing. Each schwinger must hold his opponent’s shorts and then, like in normal wrestling, throw his opponent on to the floor and hold him there for so long, both shoulders on the ground, but at the same time never letting go of the shorts. (I think there is a similar style of wrestling in Scotland, called ‘Back-hold)

Tusher wrote:

Lidl could be a good sponsor. Then they could have cycling clothing on sale 52 weeks of the year.

Not perhaps what you had in mind as Lidl sports clothing, but the jute shorts (of the schwingers which Lidl sponsor) have the Lidl logo on them.

Gazzetta67

I reckon this is a bad day for cycling - Bruyneel,Stapleton,Armstrong all mixed in with this new super power team. I thought we had moved on from the bad old days.

mrushton

I thought the Leopard was built around the Shreks with a billionaire supporting them and giving them everything they 'didn't have' with Riis. All that's happened is a lot of riders get shafted and a Riis style management is brought back in to seemingly educate the shreks in what they need to do to win

dennisn

Gazzetta67 wrote:

I reckon this is a bad day for cycling - Bruyneel,Stapleton,Armstrong all mixed in with this new super power team. I thought we had moved on from the bad old days.

Who is this WE you're talking about? :? :?

iainf72

dennisn wrote:

Gazzetta67 wrote:

I reckon this is a bad day for cycling - Bruyneel,Stapleton,Armstrong all mixed in with this new super power team. I thought we had moved on from the bad old days.

Who is this WE you're talking about? :? :?

People who aren't Armstrong trolls.

sonny73

Mercedes not impressed: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/9696/ ... -Trek.aspx

frenchfighter

"It will be fun to beat them. That's how I see it. I still have the best man."

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/riis-lo ... opard-team

dennisn

frenchfighter wrote:

"It will be fun to beat them. That's how I see it. I still have the best man."

Can't argue with that.

andyp

CAS might.

WisePranker

Sonny73 wrote:

Mercedes not impressed: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/9696/ ... -Trek.aspx

Does that mean that Mercedes are now in a position to sue Radioshack/Nissan?
I can't imagine they'll hesitate in doing this to get back what they've put into the deal so far.

Hopefully they'll be happy to sponsor another team instead, it's not like cycling has big-name sponsors falling over themselves to sponsor teams at the moment.

iainf72

WisePranker wrote:

Hopefully they'll be happy to sponsor another team instead, it's not like cycling has big-name sponsors falling over themselves to sponsor teams at the moment.

They just provide vehicles. It's not like they were providing much financial support

sherer

iainf72 wrote:

WisePranker wrote:

Hopefully they'll be happy to sponsor another team instead, it's not like cycling has big-name sponsors falling over themselves to sponsor teams at the moment.

They just provide vehicles. It's not like they were providing much financial support

not sure if any of us know the finer details of the contract but they do put their logo on the jerseys.

I thought with the bikes the manufacturers gave them away for free and then also paid to sponsor the jersey or name the team on top of that. Would cars work the same way ?

I could of course be completely wrong here

Doobz

Not really new news but some dumbass press release from the UCI about this.


http://www.uci.ch/Modules/ENews/ENewsDe ... 4MA&MenuId

LangerDan

WisePranker wrote:

Sonny73 wrote:

Mercedes not impressed: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/9696/ ... -Trek.aspx

Does that mean that Mercedes are now in a position to sue Radioshack/Nissan?
I can't imagine they'll hesitate in doing this to get back what they've put into the deal so far.

I doubt that its Radioshack-Nissan who are in breach of contract - the deal was between Mercedes and the Leopard operating company. In any case, it wouldn't make much sense for Mercedes to sue a firm who has a stake in the Mercedes parent company Daimler AG worth hundreds of millions of Euros.

TMR

Wow! I am surprised.

Cycling needs to get a grip of the drugs issues if it's to make progress. The Armstrong/Landis débâcle must be pretty fresh in sponsor's minds as well.

Doobz

worth a look..

deejay

dennisn wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

"It will be fun to beat them. That's how I see it. I still have the best man."

Can't argue with that.

Certainly cannot argue with that as we dont know which Juice they use is stronger.

The USA Pro Cycling Challenge last month is now very understandable as to why the Schlecks had spent so much time in Colarado with this merger announcement making sense of that race.
They didn't do anything but show themselves after the 2 weeks they spent in negotiations with those people with second homes there.

calvjones

dennisn wrote:

frenchfighter wrote:

"It will be fun to beat them. That's how I see it. I will still have the best man in 2013 I hope."

Can't argue with that.

Amended appropriately

Doobz

Deffo worth a read

http://gerard.cc/2011/09/07/pr101/

http://gerard.cc/2011/09/07/license-to-kill/

iainf72

Considering dodgy-Kim sounds like he's staying (moving from being Riis' #2 to Bruyneel's #2) and Nygaard is going, the talk that Becca needed Nygaard to bring a sponsor on board was about right.

Doobz

Seems like JB is not too sure on Andy Schleck..

He “very much looks forward” to working not only with current RadioShack riders but also with current Leopard riders, including Fabian Cancellara, Fränk Schleck, Jakob Fuglsang, Maxime Monfort and Daniele Bennati, Bruyneel wrote on his website.

The biggest challenge, however, would seem to be Andy Schleck, “obviously one of the most talented riders in cycling and it is my goal to help him achieve the goal of winning the Tour de France. As with every rider, there are always improvements to be made and I think with these adjustments and the team we will put together, Andy will have his best chance yet of standing on the top step in Paris.”

inkyfingers

Doobz wrote:

Seems like JB is not too sure on Andy Schleck..

He “very much looks forward” to working not only with current RadioShack riders but also with current Leopard riders, including Fabian Cancellara, Fränk Schleck, Jakob Fuglsang, Maxime Monfort and Daniele Bennati, Bruyneel wrote on his website.

The biggest challenge, however, would seem to be Andy Schleck, “obviously one of the most talented riders in cycling and it is my goal to help him achieve the goal of winning the Tour de France. As with every rider, there are always improvements to be made and I think with these adjustments and the team we will put together, Andy will have his best chance yet of standing on the top step in Paris.”

Think you may be reading more into that than there really is. I read that as him just saying that Andy Schleck has to improve in certain areas, which is pretty obvious considering he's finished second 3 years running in the only stage race he cares about.

Considering how he managed to help transform Armstrong i'd say Andy Schleck is a simple job. The main challenges are mental, he just needs to be programmed with that overwhelming desire to win.

Doobz

Yea could be.. Possibly the way the article was written leads you to think it will be more of a challenge to work with Andy..

Gazzetta67

Andy try and buy your way out of your contract. Riding on a team with Bruyneel and having the behind the scenes involvement with Armstrong & carmichael that itself is enough for you to question ?

dennisn

Gazzetta67 wrote:

Andy try and buy your way out of your contract. Riding on a team with Bruyneel and having the behind the scenes involvement with Armstrong & carmichael that itself is enough for you to question ?

So you let these guys get under your skin and can't stand it? So now Andy is supposed to go elsewhere because YOU say so? Let's see now. Your advise versus the advise of people who have been in the sport for years and actually know how to win races??
Hmmmmm, who will he pick?

iainf72

Gazzetta67 wrote:

Andy try and buy your way out of your contract. Riding on a team with Bruyneel and having the behind the scenes involvement with Armstrong & carmichael that itself is enough for you to question ?

The brother chose to ride for Kim Andersen. He's not exactly going to have an issue with Bruyneel or Armstrong now, is he?