back pocket preview Stories - Podium Cafe
Back Pocket Previews '09: Silence! Lotto
I would love to see a graph of who spends what in the Pro Tour, along with some analysis of returns on the dollar. Silence-Lotto strike me as a well-funded team, and have the extra good fortune of fronting for Omega-Pharma, something of a giant Belgian pharmaceutical company, who no doubt enjoy the...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Quick Step
[Has it been a month since the last of these? Damn, February is crazy-busy...] Is there an easier team to pigeon-hole in all of cycling than Patrick Lefevre's Quick Step-Innergetic outfit? Every year they target the same race, they bring (mostly) the same big names, the sponsors are something of...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Caisse d'Epargne
There are few traditions in cycling more proud than the institution of Caisse d'Epargne. Eusebio Unzue's team traces its roots back to 1980 -- a relative eternity by the sport's current standards -- and the Reynolds team of Pedro Delgado. Ten years and two grand tour wins later, the team morphed...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Astana
America's team? At least back in Lance 2.0 we had the US Postal squad, staffed by American riders, hogging the American press. Now we have two marvelous American based teams, one of which (Garmin) has a pretty hefty quotient of Americans involved, and yet it's still Lance the press dwells on. So as...
The Official 2009 Back Pocket Season Preview
Over the winter months I have been putting out team previews for 2009, one at a time and as quickly as circumstances and brainpower allow. Taken together, these previews will resemble something like the overpriced paper mag you can buy at your LBS, only without the screaming, cliche'd "he's...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Lampre-NGC
Soliciting help here (coughGaviacough)... could it somehow be an accident that Lampre are a virtual photonegative of Liquigas? Think about it: Lampre and Liquigas are Italy's sole Pro Tour outfits. Italian cycling is producing a steady stream of top-top-level riders in virtually every road cycling...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Liquigas
Which came first, Ivan Basso's signature on a new contract, or Liquigas' remaking as the Italian stage race squad? I wouldn't go confusing them with US Postal circa 2001 just yet, but for a team that has a history of broad focus (or maybe just lack of focus), Liquigas is forging a new...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Team Milram
Easily my least favorite team of the Pro Tour era, Milram came into existence in 2006 with the intent of inheriting the leftovers from Fassa Bortolo, German-ifying it slightly by tacking on Erik Zabel to Alessandro Petacchi and calling itself a sprinting superpower. On its face this was doomed to...
Back Pocket Previews '09: Team Columbia
Nobody made a bigger impression on the sport last year than Team Kumbay... er Columbia. Reasonable metrics may differ, but the grand-nephews of the T-Mobile juggernaut rode a wave of harmony and talent to a jaw-dropping 76 wins. What does that number mean? Second-placed CSC scored 47...
Back Pocket Previews: Rabobank!
2008 was another sleepy season for the Netherlands' biggest, fanciest cycling squad, more fodder for fans who see a completely loaded team that consistently delivers a little less than promised. After a hot start and a good win haul in 2007, the Orangemen cut their win total in exactly half (to 16)...
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