Ranking The Teams At The 3/4 Poll- Take Two

WARNING! This post is long!  How long is it? Its so long that it can't fit within one post. About one-third of it is in the first comment.  I advise you to go to the jump and scroll down to get a clue on how long this is.

I completely botched the first attempt at this post last week but I HTFU-ed and I'm back for more punishment. Here's what I wrote the first time:

Some interesting team developments over the last two months have shuffled the team rankings.  Below the break I'll give a long table ranking the teams according to VDS points won with commentary below that, hopefully for each team.  This is gonna be long so let's go to the jump and get to crazy speculation, shall we? 

So looking at what I wrote this time, the commentary is even crazier as I've said something about 33 teams. (I give the word "something" here a meaning that I don't think its supposed to have.) Anyways lets get to the jump where you will start with a table and then commentary, musings, and outright lunatic ravings.

The table below ranks the teams according to their VDS points won: on the right are the standings after the Swiss Tour, while the left are the standings today, after the Olympics:

1. CSC - 7262 points

Points since Swiss- 3700 That's just sick

Best rider- Fabian Cancellara- 1622 points

Median rider- Jens! 260 points

# of riders with >100 points- 15- This is sick too.

# of riders with points- 20

Weaknesses? Sprinters, climby/chrono combo riders

Bow down to your alien masters. Before the Tour, the team VDS race was a competition with CSC only leading by 140, but CSC's 3700 points since the start of the Tour is more than the season totals of all but three other teams. Its 2407 point lead over Columbia is greater than the total point totals of all but eight other teams. Only There's only one other team (Columbia) that even has 15 riders earning points and CSC has 15 earning at least 100. Folks this ain't a competition anymore this year. Its a wipeout, a massacre, a demolition, a rout, a hiding, flogging, and a lashing all in one by a very sadistic Danish squad.

Given that, ain't it interesting that CSC has no sprinters to speak of? ( JJ Haedo is of no consequence, sorry.) Sure there are guys with speed but no one to win a good old fashioned bunch sprint. About the only misfire they've had so far was in the Giro and since they won the Tour in dominating fashion it will be interesting to see the team they field in the Vuelta since beating Astana in a Grand Tour is about the only thing they haven't done. Well there's Flanders too...

But back to domination. As you read through the other teams you'll often see CSC's influence at work. In most any race the other teams need to factor how they will beat CSC and for some teams many of the transfer moves they are now making are being made with CSC in mind.

2. Columbia - 4855 points

Points since Swiss- 1590

Best rider- Kim Kirchen- 1257 points

Median rider- Andreas Klier 85 points

# of riders with >100 points- 9

# of riders with points- 20

Weaknesses? True goats, depth in the cobbled Monuments

Fast Times at San Luis Obispo High. And of course the #2 team here is known for its fast guys. Cavendish, Ciolek, Greipel, Eisel, Henderson, etc. ad nauseam. In the month and a half since the Tour started this team that really doesn't have a true GC guy (this year) has gained the second most points (to CSC). That's remarkable given that Gerdemann has so far earned nothing, Burghardt only 85 points, and Rodgers only 210.

Given that, what type of personnel move(s) would you make t improve this team? Would you a) look to improve the team's already formidable strengths in sprinting and one day races, or b) look to diversify more, like strengthening its GC capabilities? If you picked "a" then you must be related to Bob Stapleton as they nabbed Credit Agricole's God of Thunder set-up man Mark Renshaw.

Renshaw's signing makes me wonder about another aspect. As we know, Columbia has started the process of becoming an American orientated team first with Stapleton taking over then T-Mobile dropping them, then Stapleton moving their headquarters to California, and finally signing up the American-based company Columbia as their main sponsor. All of this movement suggests that the rider nationalities will become more American focused, which I take to mean (among other things) English as the main language spoken. Signing Renshaw supports that guess. Its not that they will actively look to get rid of their German riders, and in fact they will try to keep most of them, but I sure wouldn't be surprised to see the team becoming more Anglo and less Saxon over the next few years.

They tie CSC with the number of point scoring riders with 20. (The next most is Liquigas with just 14). If I have to predict I think they will slip a little at the end of the season since they won't be in the Vuelta.

3. Rabobank- 4324 points

Points since Swiss- 915

Best rider- Oscar Freire- 1202 points

Median rider- Juan Van Der Flecha- 455 points

# of riders with >100 points- 7

# of riders with points- 9

Weaknesses? Communication skills of a two-year old.

The only team with two 25 point riders, Rabo's results and direction are um interesting. Like CSC and Columbia they compete practically everywhere but unlike those teams they have a real separation between their A-list riders (five of them, and one of those was Dekker) and the rest who are support riders. This star system is only challenged by Posthuma and Langeveld this year. Of the top seven teams only Rabo has fewer than 10 riders scoring points and their median rider, Flecha, has by far the highest point total of any team.

Given that, and their 3^rd place team standing, think back on the season and realize how few races a Rabobank rider has actually won. Menchov? Shut out. Gesink? Nada. Flecha? Zilch. Dekker? Squat. Langeveld? Zippity-do-dah. Only Freire (Gent- Wevelgem, Tour green jersey and stage 14, and Tirreno-Adriatico points jersey and stage one), Posthuma (overall Tour of Luxembourg- which we don't count) and Ten Dam (stage one in the Jens! Invitational (Crit. International)). Folks- what we got here is a failure to finish properly.

Speaking of not finishing properly, Thomas Dekker will indeed be missed. Yeah its easy to dump on him (lets all take a minute to do just that) but his 675 points earned (tied with Boonen) by the time he stepped off his bike on a hill in Romandie is not easily replaced. Mollema is a major prospect at 21 ¾ but, a) he's a prospect unlike Dekker, and b) its not like Dekker had peaked or anything close to it. If Dekker can turn his life around (and I compared his point total to Boonen for a reason) and find a decent team who will take a chance, the sky is still the limit for this still not 24 year old.

4. Liquigas- 3952 points

Points since Swiss- 530

Best rider- swoon Daniele Bennati- 814 points

Median rider- Michael Albasini- 167 points

# of riders with >100 points- 7

# of riders with points- 14

Weaknesses? Commitment to the cobbles

Successful season? I can easily think that this year hasn't been too successful. They lost their Giro crown. Benna's been injured.

But here's the rub- Look at how many VDS points their riders cost. Benna cost 20 points but after that these guys were pretty inexpensive. Its a high-profile team, the highest profile in Italy, but only a couple of riders are high profile coming into the season. Hmm. That gets me to thinking...

VDS Team Rankings- Points earned by riders scoring divided by total VDS cost. What the following table is trying to show is how effecient each team is by their overall VDS cost. For example, CSC so far has earned by far the most VDS points with 7262, right? But to get that total it cost 167 VDS points. Divide 7262 by 167 and you get 44 (rounded up)- a generalized efficiency rating.

By contrast Liquigas earned so far much less: 3952 points.  But those riders earning those points cost a lot less in total than the CSC riders- only 66 VDS points.  Divide those numbers and you get 60. So the Liquigas riders came into the season rated lower than the CSC riders. However they overperformed as a team compared to the CSC team and every other team as well. Lets look at the full table:

Some highlights:

- I'll make this point later but ASO's exclusion has Astana artificially low here.  The Vuelta should boost them up the chart some.

- But still, Astana and CdE, and Quickstep got less out of their riders this year than the other teams. Quickstep underperformed by Boonen's low earnings (the lowest of any 25 point rider) and across the board good but nothing great results from their other riders.  Astana and CdE are both top heavy. CdE has Valverde, Rodriguez, and Sanchez and a bunch of overhyped dolts. Astana has its big three then a big gap to some (Gusev, Horner, Brajkovic) guys who did squat this year.

- Columbia's score here is low I think because many of the riders are young but more importantly many of their riders are, by this table, redundant.  Look at it this way: Rabobank has basically two sprinters: Freire (good) and Brown (bad). I don't know if they've ever ridden in the same race so in other words they spread out their sprinters and don't devote many resources to lead out men. Columbia, by contrast, believes in lead out trains, and uses multiple sprinters in the same race, so their score on this table is lower because they are a little less efficient with their resources.

- Obviously I just looked at the big 12 teams (only Cofidis is missing).  It seems like the average- what a team should expect to get- is 38-44 at this point in the season. Less and there's some problems. The only team above this middle ground is Liquigas and they smash it with 60. For me that makes me want to look closer at Liquigas riders for next year's VDS team. However that high score probably will mean that the average Liquigas rider will see his VDS cost rise more than the average rider on other teams. (Kreuziger 4 pints again?  Dream on pal!)

Liquigas is the one team that I get the impression wants to be as good across the board as CSC. Maybe even broader as they have a stud sprinter and CSC doesn't seem interested in that. So it will be interesting to see what they will do to strengthen their spring lineups. They should be better next year what with Basso, Nibali and Kreuziger growing up, and Bennati's health improving.

5. Quickstep- 3255 points

Points since Swiss- 555

Best rider- Tom Boonen- 675 points

Median rider- Wouter Weylandt 210 points

# of riders with >100 points- 8

# of riders with points- 10

Weaknesses? Climbers, stage racers

The CSC effect. Like in any sports league, success breeds imitators. Pro cycling is no exception. So when a team like Quickstep sees its Belgian classics dominance challenged by CSC's strategy of fielding team after team that has 3-5 riders who could win any given race, and when they see Tom Boonen riding fewer races and Paolo Bettini edging towards retirement, and liking how the Boonen/Devolder combo gave back to CSC a dose of their own strategy in Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, they (Patrick Lefevere) can't resist from going on a buying spree to compete on even terms with CSC.

Now sometimes perceptions can be all wrong but in this case I think Lefevere is at least partially right. This year there have been too many Belgian races where QS just didn't bring as much to the race as they could. Where were they in Het Volk? Wouter Weylandt's team best 16^th place ain't good enough- and their second best rider, Wilifried Cretskens' 40^th place is even worse. Dreidaagse De Panne was also bad. Basically any race where Tommke or Devo didn't race was not so good for Quickstep- and the Ardennes was worse.

So QS has taken the early plunge into the transfer market and snagged Sylvain Chavanel, Allan Davis, Marco Velo, and Jerome Pineau and all four should definitely shore up QS's numbers. They also snagged some prospects, notably Cornu, Devenyns, and De Weert for support and the future. Short term I think these are good moves but I wonder if they may put QS in a bind a couple years down the line. You have to figure that any early jumping into the transfer market results in paying a premium for the riders who might not fulfill al the hopes the team has.

Up in the air too are Quickstep's Grand Tour hopes. Buying Devolder last year was a half-step in that direction (but fortunately he also turned into a cobbles terror). But are they serious in courting Bernard Kohl? If so are they gonna renew Al Efimkin's contract? How about Garate's? You need support for Grand Tour leaders too... how are they gonna play out the Yellow/Green jersey tug of war? (I am looking forward to see the form that Boonen (the worst performing 25 point rider this year) has in the Vuelta, his redemption race.)

I'm also concerned about their handling of Wouter Weylandt, who is just about to turn only 24. I can only describe his year as...drifting: not much of a step forward, more a step sideways.

6. *Lotto- 3215 points

Points since Swiss- 1235

Best rider- Cadel Evans- 1640 points

Median rider- Johan Van Summeren- 150 points

# of riders with >100 points- 6

# of riders with points- 10

Weaknesses? Cobbles, especially the shorter, flatter kind of races; depth in the mountains

Phillipe Gilbert is their savior. Jesus, Chuang Tzu, and Bobby Sherman wrapped up in one beautiful body built for the cobbles. Why? Because this Belgian classics team both sucks and blows on the cobbles this year. How much does it suck and how much does it blow? Let's take them one at a time:

How they suck: It looks like they have a respectable point total here. They don't. Its an illusion. Remember this team has two parts to it and the non-cobbles part, Evans, Popovych, Lloyd, Van Den Broeck, and Aerts have 70% of their VDS point totals- 2240 points. So the cobbles type riders have only 975 points and that's Bweeg/Milram territory folks. That sucks.

How they blow: Who do they have that's good in the cobbles? Hoste? He's their standard bearer and his best finishes were only 7^th at Het Volk and 6^th at Paris-Roubaix. That's just not good enough for a Belgian cobble team. Van Summeren? 8^th at Paris-Roubaix and 17th at Amstel. Zzzzzzz. McEwen? Hahahahaha- 3^rd at Scheldeprijis- good enough to begin a season-long appreciation of Cavendish's backside. (Not that Cavendish's backside is in danger of any penetration by Robbie. But I digress.)

Gilbert meanwhile started the year with a win at Het Volk, 3^rd at MSR, 2^nd at Brabantse Pijl, and 15^th at Flanders- and all of that while also riding Paris-Nice too. Keep him out of that stage race and you got a cobbles terror, one who when added to the Hoste's etc. can hold their own against the CSC blitzkrieg.

The other supposed big target *Lotto has is Bernard Kohl. I'm of two minds about this and neither of them is of the simple but-Lotto-can't-win-a-Grand-Tour thinking. I think the biggest problem they have in the Grand Tours is communication of a Rabobank-esque ineptitude. The Evans/team management talking skills leave much to be desired. They could also stand to have a 2^nd GC guy because its becoming clear that unless your team has a rider of HWMNBN-ed abilities (and Evans isn't) then its best to have two or three GC guys- the CSC/Astana/(I think) Liquigas concept. Thus, leaving aside the communication dysfunctions of the team, overall I think Kohl might not be a bad move.

A Word about Popo

That brings us to the enigma that is Yaroslav Popovych, still only 28, and why didn't he do better this year? Or to put it plainly for some of our readers, is Popo no longer on the Johan Bruyneel never-proven-but-sure-to-be-there black helicopter happy juice and so he actually sucks? Now I know that I can never persuade anyone here who's married to the "Everyone on Disco and Postal juiced all the time" camp but let me try.

First, Popo is not having a bad year this year, a year that's worse than what he's experienced before. Let's use the CQ points system to se how he's done each year. Below I have the year, points earned and team he road for:

2004- 584- Landbouwkrediet

2005- 542- Disco

2006- 441- Disco

2007- 417- Disco

2008- 355- *Lotto

First, there's a good chance he'll get some more points this year yet as he's listed right now as captain of *Lotto's Vuelta team. At the very least he's a good bet for a stage win. So he may reverse the year-to-year decline that he experienced in his Disco years. A top 20 place in the Vuelta will give him as many points for the year as any Disco year. Surprising, eh, considering the shit we give him.

But let's go further then the fact that his 8 point VDS cost is about right for a rider with his consistent results. Think of how he rode with Disco, say last year in the Tour when he finished eighth. Do you really see that he's a different rider now? I don't. Both this year and last he basically rode to his own tune. He wasn't a Chris Horner/worker bee type who hauls his leader up mountains and he isn't now. Go back and look at how he raced the 07 Tour. He was always sprinting ahead or falling back. Steady is just not in his nature. Although he never had Devolder's brain-dead rep, that's the rider he most resembles, except he's more climby. Popo can win any given mountain stage on any Grand Tour. He just usually won't. He can also deal out a great ITT time, except he usually won't. You can't count on him for anything- but you know you'll get something. Fortunately it seems like most teammates like him (not sure of Cadel). But to me he's the picture of a very emotional rider and I say that in a not good clinical sense. As in a unipolar (depressed) or, more likely, bipolar sense. He goes to extremes in results far too easily. That's not the picture of a doper but of a guy with untreated (or treated poorly) mental/emotional issues.

7. Caisse D'Epargne- 3229 points

Points since Swiss- 920

Best rider- Alejandro Valverde- 1754 points Current point leader

Median rider- JJ Rojas- 110 points

# of riders with >100 points- 5

# of riders with points- 10

Weaknesses? Do they really have depth? Is the hype (beyond Valverde) for real?

Al and the Juniors. Ya know, CdE is supposed to be this real good team. Deep like CSC. Tough. Good in stage races and one day classics, particularly in the Ardennes. Big rep.

Bullshit.

Take away Valverde's 1754 points- 54% of the total- and you get 1475 and that's Credit Agricole territory. Its FdJ territory with Rodriguez playing the role of Gilbert. We'll see how they do in the Vuelta and the end of the year but right now CdE has to be thinking how disappointing this season is; a step back by all accounts. Or at least I hope they are thinking that. Look again at that table under Liquigas to see them at the bottom of the big teams.

There are some non-Alejandro bright spots: Rodriguez followed up his good Ardennes campaign with a good Giro. It looks too from San Sebastian and a couple Vuelta prep races that he'll do well in the Vuelta as well. LL Sanchez had a nice Paris-Nice, and decent Crit Int and of course his stage win in the Tour- but he was MIA in the Tour mountains. Baby Uran (he's 21 ½- holy Mollema!) snagged a 2^nd overall in Catalunya.

But JJ Rojas showed so far that he's a year more away (and could use some help on the cobbles), Rujano was not much, Moreno was worse, Arroyo was a nonentity, and Karpets was a Vlad that showed no signs of regaining his form in the Olympics. I'm not sure why the malaise but CdE needs a 2x4 upside their heads.

8. Gerolsteiner- 3056 points

Points since Swiss- 1265

Best rider- Daniele Rebellin- 1556 points

Median rider- Marcus Zberg 135 points

# of riders with >100 points- 7

# of riders with points- 9

Weaknesses? Good but not great across the board on a consistent basis.

R.I.P.

Their points earned are due to Rebellin in the first half of the season and Schumacher and Kohl in the Tour. Rebellin was expected; Schumacher and Kohl were not though they have talent. Now comes the auction. LPR snagged Rebellin quickly. Where will Schumacher and Forster, Kohl and Fothen, Haussler and Zberg and the rest go? I would love them to go to Milram en masse but I trust Milram to botch that as well. Haussler could fit in with Garmin. Marcus Fothen could be a nice domestique in the mountains for most teams. Schumacher should go to Italy or the Rockets. Forster? Meh.

9. Astana- 3017 points

Iglinsky (160)Points since Swiss- 515

Best rider- Alberto Contador 1365 points

Median rider- Sergui Ivanov 125 points

# of riders with >100 points- 5

# of riders with points- 9

Weaknesses? Spring one-day classics, especially on the cobbles

But where's the second line? What I'm referring to here is the importance of the Second Line as originating in traditional New Orleans music. For life to make sense you need the Main and the Second Lines working together. You need that definition, that division to understand life. Yeah, ultimately all is One, blah blah blah, but looking at life its best to have the yin and the yang, the Main and Second Lines for our little brains to wrap around as a crutch. A bike team, like other sports teams seeks to model this. That's what a game is anyway- a model. So on a bike team you have the leaders (the Main Line) and the supporters (the Second Line) and the two must work together in harmony and in reflection of each other for the entity (team) to thrive. We saw this play out in the Tour with CSC getting it right while *Lotto once again fucking it up. Its easy to jump to the conclusion that *Lotto's Second Line supporting their Main Line of Evans is just not talented enough but really their problems were two: some of their riders are just not Grand Tour riders and others, notably Popo, just couldn't or wouldn't communicate properly with management. (And three, maybe Evans doesn't communicate so well either.) 

Leaving aside the ASO effect for a minute, one sees a disturbing Main/Second Line split in the Astana squad. While the Big Three (Bert, Levi, and Klodi), the Main Line, have done well according to the circumstances, most of the rest of the team, the Second Line, has fallen flat. Only Ivanov (125 points) and Iglinsky (160) could be considered successful.

Consider: Chris Horner- 0 points earned. Vlad Gusev- also 0 points earned before his firing. Janez Brajkovic- 85 points earned. Tomas Vaitkus – 0 points earned. ALL of the old pre-Bruyneel Astanas (I count 17 of them though I could be wrong by one or two) outside of Ivanov and Iglinsky- 190 points.

Obviously the Astana management had perhaps the biggest challenge this year. They started late in forming the team and then they had to meld basically two different teams into a coherent whole. They were only partially successful. Their stage teams are great but their one-day classics were mediocre.

So what does this mean for Astana going forward to next year? They probably have what 2-3 open slots to fill and I'm wildly guessing that they have the money to pay some decent riders. Who I have no idea. Its interesting that they haven't (yet) re-signed Ivanov, their best old Astana and Ardennes rider. But I'm guessing that unlike Quickstep and *Lotto, both of whom jumped into the transfer market right away, Astana (and Garmin) are being more careful with their budgets, not wanting to overpay and thus putting themselves in a money bind a year or two down the road.

Finally a word on the ASO ban (and RCS partial ban as the team didn't race in MSR and T-A): it helped Contador (especially if he racks up two Grand Tour victories) but hurt everyone else (and the team in the rankings) by either taking away maybe their best races (Gusev looks like a natural for Paris-Roubaix) and by causing the older riders to readjust- and those older bodies have a harder time readjusting for new goals on the fly. Of course with the team has had plenty of time to focus on the upcoming Vuelta. I could see them ending anywhere up to 3^rd place by season's end.

Update: Astana has just signed Haimar Zubeldia for two years. Columbia gets more sprinter help and Astana, more stage racing help. Haimar fits nicely for their stage racing plans- helper in the Tour and leader in the Vuelta?

10. Lampre- 2285 points

Points since Swiss- 35

Best rider- Damiano Cunego 800 points

Median rider- Micro Lorenzetto 245 points

# of riders with >100 points- 5

# of riders with points- 7

Weaknesses? Depth, leadership

Folks- 35 points won out of the Tour, San Sebastian, and the Olympics is laughable and because of that limp, flaccid, ED-esque performance, we can see that over the course of the whole season, Lampre does not belong with the teams above them here. They are a good Italian team, yes, a good Pro-Continental team. But other than Ballan's excellence on the cobbles (some other team should buy him out) they are only an Italian team. Yes, this rant is directed at Happy Puppy himself, Damiano Cunego. And- oh look! Cunego has been named captain of the team's Vuelta "effort"! Good luck with that one!

Okay, my wife is telling me to be nice. They did have Bennati at one time. Okay! They did sign Gasparotto from Barloworld which should strengthen their Giro team (if Cunego races in it that is.)

11. Euskaltel- 1839 points

Points since Swiss- 1025

Best rider- Samuel Sanchez 770 points

Median rider- Igor Anton 214 points

# of riders with >100 points- 5

# of riders with points- 8

Weaknesses? One day races, stage racing management

Sam San is responsible for most of their recent points earned and in retrospect it seems silly to think that they weren't sure who their Tour leader was for the first half of it. Now we have Zubeldia leaving in part due to a low-ball offer from the Euskies and it seems like they are content to be a mediocre team. Pity.

12. Cofidis- 1801 points

Points since Swiss- 560

Best rider- Nick Nuyens 545 points

Median rider- Leonardo Duque 145 points

# of riders with >100 points- 5

# of riders with points- 8

Weaknesses? Money. Depth in them thar hills.

Will the last rider to leave turn out the lights? Gavia said that first in respect to Cofidis and she's totally right. The flagship French team with sprinters, all-rounders, climbers too. There's lots to like about Cofidis' season this year and I sure ain't alone in that assessment judging by the way bigger teams are scooping up their riders for next year with Sylvain Chavanel and Kevin De Weert going to Quickstep (with rumors of Auge and Moinard as well) and Nuyens to Rabobank.

It remains to be seen what effect Cofidis' new smaller budget will have since they might pick up more than Pauriol in this buyer's transfer market but they sure look like they are becoming a smaller French team then they presently are. But before that happens let's toss a chapeau in the air over their accomplishments this year: 2^nd in Het Volk (Nuyens), , 9^th and 14^th at Paris-Nice (Chavanel and Monfort), 5^th at Pais Vasco (Monfort), 1^st at Brabantse Pijl (Chavanel), 2^nd in Flanders (Nuyens), 15^th at Paris-Roubaix (Scheirlinckx), 1^st in 4 days of Dunkirk (Auge), 9^th at Dolphin (Monfort), Tour Stage 1 (Dumoulin) and Stage 19 (Chavanel) winners, (24^th on GC at the Tour (Monfort) 10^th and 14^th at San Sebastian (Moncoutie and Chavanel)- plus to Phil Legget's undying relief a new contract for David Moncoutie.

13. AG2R- 1746 points

Points since Swiss- 711

Best rider- Rinaldo Nocentini- 460 Only two point rider to lead his Pro-Tour team

Median rider- John Gadret 135 points

# of riders with >100 points- 7

# of riders with points- 9

Weaknesses? A leader in the Tour, springtime

The Little Engine That Could. This is one of my favorite teams. A lot of decent under the radar riders. Just a solid Tour and as such are set to take over Cofidis' mantle as best French team. Nice mix of young and old and they aren't bleeding riders like the other French teams so they should get better.

14. CSF- 1415 points

Points since Swiss- 0

Best rider- Emanuele Sella 940 points

Non-doping best rider (as far as we know)- Domenico Pozzovivo- 250 points

Median rider- Fortunato Baliani 190 points

# of riders with >100 points- 3

# of riders with points- 4

Weaknesses? drugs

Sweet. A fraud of a team leader. They've barely raced since the Giro and are the first team on this list to earn diddly since Swiss... I suppose we'll hear of them a bit with the last Italian races. Can I move on...