Team SKY to be known as Team Ineos.

RichN95.

ShutupJens wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

The sickest part of that was the relative ease Froome was able to close the gap to Sagan and Bodnar (who initiated the move if I remember correctly). Geraint was utterly on the rivet and struggling to bridge.

Demonstrated Froomes development as a racer too. Stark contrast with watching him flail about on the radio as Cavendish jumps across to the front group on the fantastic echelons stage in 2013

Cavendish only got across because he got a hand sling from Kwiatkowski.
Froome was on the radio saying "sign that Quick Step rider".

rick_chasey

RichN95 wrote:

ShutupJens wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

The sickest part of that was the relative ease Froome was able to close the gap to Sagan and Bodnar (who initiated the move if I remember correctly). Geraint was utterly on the rivet and struggling to bridge.

Demonstrated Froomes development as a racer too. Stark contrast with watching him flail about on the radio as Cavendish jumps across to the front group on the fantastic echelons stage in 2013

Cavendish only got across because he got a hand sling from Kwiatkowski.
Froome was on the radio saying "sign that Quick Step rider".

Not sure I’d fancy handslinging Froome....

iainf72

Some HC trolling from Brailsford here

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/dave-br ... place-sky/

"It felt awkward at first but I quickly realised there are a lot of people who want to invest in cycling. We had four or five options. It wasn’t about taking half of the current budget and seeing if we can get it. You’re trying to sell value, not a sum of mone
"There’s no point in one team having way more money than an other but we’ve got to try to equalize investment, not reduce it. There are people with money out there, we should increase sponsorship, so the cake gets bigger," he argued.

mididoctors

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

RichN95.

mididoctors wrote:

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

HTC were the number 1 ranked team with nearly 60 wins the year they folded.

In December many writers were gleefully stating that Sky as a major force were finished.

blazing_saddles

mididoctors wrote:

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

Yer, like Pat Lefevre's struggled cos his boys were rubbish. :roll:

Lanterne_Rogue

Blazing Saddles wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

Yer, like Pat Lefevre's struggled cos his boys were rubbish. :roll:

I'm not in charge of the purse strings, but I can kind of see how winning consistently in front of a parade of tractors in a muddy Belgian field in a freezing Belgian Spring is less of a draw to major international sponsors than living it up on the Champs Elysees in the height of summer on an annual basis...

In truth though Brailsford has proved remarkably good at selling the idea of his team, regardless of our feelings about who he's sold it to or what he's selling.

sherer

underlayunderlay wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

Yer, like Pat Lefevre's struggled cos his boys were rubbish. :roll:

I'm not in charge of the purse strings, but I can kind of see how winning consistently in front of a parade of tractors in a muddy Belgian field in a freezing Belgian Spring is less of a draw to major international sponsors than living it up on the Champs Elysees in the height of summer on an annual basis...

In truth though Brailsford has proved remarkably good at selling the idea of his team, regardless of our feelings about who he's sold it to or what he's selling.

cycling is still too much of a localised sport. Yes we have the WT, but to a lot of people outside of us fans, the sport boils down to one race in July. The UCI have tried to expand the sport across the globe and that is slowly working, but its veru chicken and egg at the moment. Do you go global first and then get big sponsors, or wait for them to come in then expand

blazing_saddles

sherer wrote:

underlayunderlay wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

Yer, like Pat Lefevre's struggled cos his boys were rubbish. :roll:

I'm not in charge of the purse strings, but I can kind of see how winning consistently in front of a parade of tractors in a muddy Belgian field in a freezing Belgian Spring is less of a draw to major international sponsors than living it up on the Champs Elysees in the height of summer on an annual basis...

In truth though Brailsford has proved remarkably good at selling the idea of his team, regardless of our feelings about who he's sold it to or what he's selling.

cycling is still too much of a localised sport. Yes we have the WT, but to a lot of people outside of us fans, the sport boils down to one race in July. The UCI have tried to expand the sport across the globe and that is slowly working, but its veru chicken and egg at the moment. Do you go global first and then get big sponsors, or wait for them to come in then expand

Both valid points in this country, but Lefevre runs a Belgian team, not British, where winning in front of a tractor parade each Spring is looked upon as far more of a draw than a parade around the capital of France.
In terms of only the TDF, as Rich points out: HTC won 6 stages in their final year, then disappeared.

Lanterne_Rogue

Blazing Saddles wrote:

Both valid points in this country, but Lefevre runs a Belgian team, not British, where winning in front of a tractor parade each Spring is looked upon as far more of a draw than a parade around the capital of France.
In terms of only the TDF, as Rich points out: HTC won 6 stages in their final year, then disappeared.

My tongue was firmly in cheek!

I wonder how much cycling still has to develop in terms of professionalism. If we accept that Sky shook things up a bit in terms of maximising performance on the road (I accept quite a bit of this is their own mythology) then it's also quite possible that the commercial side of the operation - identifying and buttering potential sponsors - might also be a fair bit slicker too. Brailsford appears to have a track record of finding the right people to flatter and I wonder how much he has people helping him find them - I don't know how professional cycling is when it comes to commercial sales and marketing, but if any team were going to take it seriously then I'd expect it to be Ineos.

Given that we know the cash doesn't automatically follow success (HTC/QS) it's interesting to consider what advantages Ineos have other than Brailsford and the record of GT success. I think the British angle - as grinding as it is to many people - is one of them. I suspect too that the proclaimed project of building a British team opened up new sponsorship opportunities. Sometimes it seems that sponsors of continental teams are less than glamorous, and I wonder if that's because in those markets sponsoring a team is seen as a slightly cheesy, low-budget thing to do and that puts off sponsors.

The Sky/Ineos model appears to be to find someone with loads of cash and an interest in cycling, then persuade them that getting their company name on the shirt makes some sort of commercial sense when really what they're buying is the chance to get involved in a pro team on a personal level - and why wouldn't you? If you can find the right people it's got to be an easier sell than trying to convince a marketing department that it'll help sell more caravan holidays in the continental equivalent of Weston-Super-Mare than spending it on billboards would. I doubt anyone at Ineos seriously believes the phones will start ringing with people suddenly realising they can order industrial quantities of chemicals from them, but the chairman is certainly happy to be able to sit in a team car. Thought of it this way Sky and (some) other teams aren't actually in the same business at all, despite the bike racing - they're selling the experience not the exposure.

RichN95.

underlayunderlay wrote:

The Sky/Ineos model appears to be to find someone with loads of cash and an interest in cycling, then persuade them that getting their company name on the shirt makes some sort of commercial sense when really what they're buying is the chance to get involved in a pro team on a personal level - and why wouldn't you? If you can find the right people it's got to be an easier sell than trying to convince a marketing department that it'll help sell more caravan holidays in the continental equivalent of Weston-Super-Mare than spending it on billboards would. I doubt anyone at Ineos seriously believes the phones will start ringing with people suddenly realising they can order industrial quantities of chemicals from them, but the chairman is certainly happy to be able to sit in a team car. Thought of it this way Sky and (some) other teams aren't actually in the same business at all, despite the bike racing - they're selling the experience not the exposure.

I don't think the Ineos approach is anything particularly new. Someone once said that behind every sponsorship there's a cycling fan not an accountant.

Ineos is really just a recreation of Mapei in the 90s. A privately owed chemicals company run by a chemical engineer with a passion for many sports.

mididoctors

HTC were kinda in that era coming out of Armstrong and that. Mixed feelings for sponsors on cycling back then. Was a pretty messed up time.

sherer

if the sport is going to grow it needs to move beyond a Belgium team and a British team. As Blazing pointed out QuickStep want to win in front of Belgium fans, racing in China , Australia and the other world tour places isnt what he wants from his team.

At the minute there isn't a Coca Cola, Red Bull, Shell who want to advertise globally and sponsor a team. At best we get a few European sponsors who dont mind advertising in one region.

The sport is trying to grow and has global races but no real global sponsors

Pross

Blazing Saddles wrote:

sherer wrote:

underlayunderlay wrote:

Blazing Saddles wrote:

mididoctors wrote:

So easy to get sponsored when all the best riders are in one team basil

Yer, like Pat Lefevre's struggled cos his boys were rubbish. :roll:

I'm not in charge of the purse strings, but I can kind of see how winning consistently in front of a parade of tractors in a muddy Belgian field in a freezing Belgian Spring is less of a draw to major international sponsors than living it up on the Champs Elysees in the height of summer on an annual basis...

In truth though Brailsford has proved remarkably good at selling the idea of his team, regardless of our feelings about who he's sold it to or what he's selling.

cycling is still too much of a localised sport. Yes we have the WT, but to a lot of people outside of us fans, the sport boils down to one race in July. The UCI have tried to expand the sport across the globe and that is slowly working, but its veru chicken and egg at the moment. Do you go global first and then get big sponsors, or wait for them to come in then expand

Both valid points in this country, but Lefevre runs a Belgian team, not British, where winning in front of a tractor parade each Spring is looked upon as far more of a draw than a parade around the capital of France.
In terms of only the TDF, as Rich points out: HTC won 6 stages in their final year, then disappeared.

It probably didn't help that it was public knowledge the person giving them most of their wins was moving on though.

m.r.m.

Most of HTC victories were sprint victories I think. Even today sprint victories are less and less valuable (I base this on teams not really investing into big name sprinters like Gaviria, Kittel, Cavendish. The big teams don't really seem particularly interested in keeping them and are perfectly fine with them leaving for other teams and allocating their funds elsewhere). The sport is moving more towards only GC at GT's and possibly monuments mattering (albeit the latter may be wishful thinking on my behalf).

Alejandrosdog

M.R.M. wrote:

Most of HTC victories were sprint victories I think. Even today sprint victories are less and less valuable (I base this on teams not really investing into big name sprinters like Gaviria, Kittel, Cavendish. The big teams don't really seem particularly interested in keeping them and are perfectly fine with them leaving for other teams and allocating their funds elsewhere). The sport is moving more towards only GC at GT's and possibly monuments mattering (albeit the latter may be wishful thinking on my behalf).

I think it’s been like that for quite a while already MRM. Personally I prefer the big one day races over the GC events. I dislike the commercial scale of the tdf the giro feels more personal and engaging and the physicality of Flanders and PR are a world away from a flat sprint stage in the tdf, even if that is round the arc de triumph

kingstongraham

M.R.M. wrote:

Most of HTC victories were sprint victories I think. Even today sprint victories are less and less valuable (I base this on teams not really investing into big name sprinters like Gaviria, Kittel, Cavendish. The big teams don't really seem particularly interested in keeping them and are perfectly fine with them leaving for other teams and allocating their funds elsewhere). The sport is moving more towards only GC at GT's and possibly monuments mattering (albeit the latter may be wishful thinking on my behalf).

Sagan does OK.

RichN95.

KingstonGraham wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Most of HTC victories were sprint victories I think. Even today sprint victories are less and less valuable (I base this on teams not really investing into big name sprinters like Gaviria, Kittel, Cavendish. The big teams don't really seem particularly interested in keeping them and are perfectly fine with them leaving for other teams and allocating their funds elsewhere). The sport is moving more towards only GC at GT's and possibly monuments mattering (albeit the latter may be wishful thinking on my behalf).

Sagan does OK.

Sagan can thrive on the harder stages though, so is less in need of a lead out. With a reduction in team sizes it's difficult to properly support a GC rider and a sprinter against teams devoted to one or the other

m.r.m.

Sky simply build their team around the lightest ITT champions they can find. These domestiques ride at threshold until they blow which puts all the other more regular domestiques of other teams constantly in the red zone.

Other teams are forced to copy this strategy to beat Sky in GT's.

This strategy doesn't account for fairly automatic wins in 1 day races, which pretty much shows Sky's result discrepancy.

Sky broke with the idea of taking a sprinter fairly early on and are forcing others to do the same.

m.r.m.

KingstonGraham wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Most of HTC victories were sprint victories I think. Even today sprint victories are less and less valuable (I base this on teams not really investing into big name sprinters like Gaviria, Kittel, Cavendish. The big teams don't really seem particularly interested in keeping them and are perfectly fine with them leaving for other teams and allocating their funds elsewhere). The sport is moving more towards only GC at GT's and possibly monuments mattering (albeit the latter may be wishful thinking on my behalf).

Sagan does OK.

And so does Demare at FDJ. Those are exceptions proving the rule imho.

RichN95.

M.R.M. wrote:

Sky broke with the idea of taking a sprinter fairly early on and are forcing others to do the same.

They were hardly the first to think that way. There weren't any sprinters on Riis or Bruyneel's teams when they were winning GTs.

The reduction to eight men teams has hurt diversity within teams.

mididoctors

Sky/ineos in recent years have got way more race crafty. Really maximising the strength of their riders leveraging them tactically mid race. Last year's tour and this year's TDY stand out.

m.r.m.

RichN95 wrote:

M.R.M. wrote:

Sky broke with the idea of taking a sprinter fairly early on and are forcing others to do the same.

They were hardly the first to think that way. There weren't any sprinters on Riis or Bruyneel's teams when they were winning GTs.

The reduction to eight men teams has hurt diversity within teams.

Agree. Didn't want to make it seem like they were revolutionary or anything. My poor wording.

dish_dash

Dunno if any of you have listened to the Brailsford and Fran Millar interviews on the cycling podcast.

Ineos are clearly a very different beast from Sky. A lot less corporate for a start, with much quicker decision making (both used the word 'agile').

Early days, but both Dave and Fran sounding excited. Particularly given Ineos' other sporting interests. Wonder how that plays out for the cycling team including who runs it...

Rumours in today's Guardian that Brailsford might move into a role with more responsibility for all the sporting endeavours. Though you do wonder if that is Dave pitching for the job also

On the flipside, given BASF's results and the weaker outlook for the chemicals industry, wonder how that might impact Ineos. Though does sound like the sports stuff is Jim Ratcliffe spending as he gets older.

rick_chasey

dish_dash wrote:

Dunno if any of you have listened to the Brailsford and Fran Millar interviews on the cycling podcast.

Ineos are clearly a very different beast from Sky. A lot less corporate for a start, with much quicker decision making (both used the word 'agile').

Early days, but both Dave and Fran sounding excited. Particularly given Ineos' other sporting interests. Wonder how that plays out for the cycling team including who runs it...

Rumours in today's Guardian that Brailsford might move into a role with more responsibility for all the sporting endeavours. Though you do wonder if that is Dave pitching for the job also

On the flipside, given BASF's results and the weaker outlook for the chemicals industry, wonder how that might impact Ineos. Though does sound like the sports stuff is Jim Ratcliffe spending as he gets older.

I'm expecting it to be a bit more experimental and a little more outspoken...

meursault

Brailsford is obviously the best sports director/principal/coach/innovator in the world. His results do the talking. You can see Ineos using him as a resource for all their sporting endeavors and even business ones. I think it's purely a prestige thing for Mr Ineos, no, or very little return on investment in terms of cash. A multi billionare spending his money on something.

shirley_basso

The sub 2hr marathon progress also going well.

orraloon

Today's lesson learned. That Fran Millar of Sky now Ineos is the sister of (Super) David Millar. That fact had escaped me. Live and learn.

shirley_basso

Call yourself a true UK postal hater / superfan. How did you NOT know that!

m.r.m.

She is pretty amazing. Love her comic about Sin City.