The Shack: A team designed not to win

and making him the cornerstone of The Shack for the future. Of course, the chances of that happening seem unlikely now, he may very well end up at a team designed around him with his brother and maybe some others from Saxo Bank if the team truly dissolves. The biggest shame for Armstrong is that if he only played nice with Contador and accepted him as his heir, Contador may have been the one for Radio Shack, but now? The question will be if Phinney can be groomed into a future champion for the United States, as I really don’t see any U.S.pros today with the potential. But, as long as the Armstrong name is tied to the team, im sure Radio Shack will be able to fill its roster with some talent, remember its only year one of a team concept Armstrong intended to last far beyond his retirement.

not sure what I think but you raise some really interesting points. It’s true that they look like a team that’s built to contend for only one important race (well two if you include California). In that sense, though, I wonder if they can be said to be all that different from Armstrong’s teams in the past – I guess those teams had Hincapie, but people often talk about how little support those teams actually gave him. Anyways, great read!

I thought earlier in the year the Shack were basically saying they had no intention of going to the Giro anyway?

Because once LA, Leipheimer and Kloden retire it makes me wonder if there will even be a team. Bruyneel already retired once, after all… plus he has a young family and his “clothing range” (snigger) to focus on.

to be proclaiming Radio Shack’s season a failure. Granted they’ve been pretty meh so far, but hey, Fabian Cancellara and Andy Schleck still had 0 VDS points last I looked, so we haven’t seen a meaningful amount of racing yet. Shack MIGHT suck, sure, but they might be brilliant too. I understand why people don’t like LA and JB, but I don’t understand why people think they’re incompetent. The record says otherwise.

It might not be what you or I want. But if LA manages the podium again at the TdF, and they do pull off the ToC victory, and put together a team to help Farrar win Worlds, they will have satified their people. Nothing else they accomplish will hit the headlines with much impact.

Like Horner – you mention the classics, but here is a guy who consistently hangs with the GT guys climb after climb after climb doing work. If he was actually protected, who knows what he could do (if he could stay upright at least one year).

Maybe it is they are too timid (Kloden – hell, even Popovitch – he’s still @Shack, right). Maybe I am just anti LA…but, it’s time for these other guys to be able to shine before they are all too old to ride too…

I guess I have been following cycling about 10-12 years and I don’t think I have ever seen a cyclist with more luck than Lance Armstrong. Surviving cancer, returning to the highest level of the sport after such an an invasive disease had spead throughout his body, surviving the Beloki crash, having Tyler Hamilton slow down the elite-group after the yellow-lunch-sack smashed him to the floor, almost never having a serious crash or injury over his career.

As a cyclist, that is one heck of a lucky rabbits foot he is caring. So I look at this as the luck just evening out. Its completely (!) plausible that Gert could have won a few races, Horner could have beaten Krueziger at Sardenia ( 2 seconds ) , Kloden was 4 seconds from the podium at Murcia, and if Levi and Machado could have finished a few seconds faster at Algarve they would have been second and third to that really good guy from Spain.

Then the story would be that The-Shack is a strong team built around success at the Grand Tours. If Levi, Horner and Gert would stop falling down and hurting themselves, then you’d see the RS deliver more on the potential of their team.

Or Kloden, Levi, and Lance are done …. and you are right.

I really really hope that is not true, just as a cycling fan who would like to see all those big names go to war with Alberto, Andy and Denis … and the strongest man stands on the top step.

interesting 2 read that @teamradioshack not selected 4 the Giro. Unrelated – guess they got our letter Jan 23 saying we wouldn’t be coming.

It’s too early to call this out. It’s another year of a really weak Brunyeel classics team. It’s nothing new. The B guys might still have good years left.

Give it time – the classics failure could be spectacular, but there are other shitty teams, too.

Watching the 2009 mountain stage recaps on youtube recently, noted Lance was very strong. It’s not out of the question that Lance could represent at Amstel, or even maybe Liege.

Phil must have gotten under their skin with this post. Way to motivate Phil.

This prologue effort today shows that this local SC boy is coming into his own and is going to get in on the action at Catalunya.

seems like they have Silenced their wins this year.