Hushovd to bmc.

[jj12]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/hushovd ... am-in-2012 Thoughts anybody?

[4827north]

No! Thor, not Georgie's squad. I like him at Garmin - Cervelo.

[jj12]

Yes i agree, i guess garmin couldn't sign him with everyone else they have haussler, farrar, hesjedal...

[Rolf]

From the article you quoted:

"There's a plan put together for the riders for all the big and important races. Everyone knows what to do. That's a good thing."

More commentary here.

“I seek safety. It’s important to be at a team where I fit in socially and feel at home,” Hushovd told Norwegian journalists. “And I want to be able to go to the races that are most important to me, and to be backed up at those races.”

[jj12]

Sounds like he there was some tension at garmin or he just didn't like not having the spotlight?

[leftcoaster]

He was still sore about not winning Paris-Roubaix.

Van Summeren was part of a small break group and Hushvold was the 'protected rider'. Van Summeren's role was to be ready to lead out Hushvold when he caught up. However, since Hushvold was having trouble keeping up with Cancallera, Van Summeren was given the green light to go for the win and he won. A big win for Van Summeren and Garmin.

Hushvold has been bitter all year about not winning Paris-Roubaix and if Van Summeren would have waited, Cancellera would have won.

I don't think Garmin-Cervelo will miss his ego. He's not a team player.

[Josh.E]

I don't think so.
When was the last time you saw the world champion, in the yellow jersey at the tour leading out his teammate for the sprint? Vaughters win at roubaix added up to nothing more than luck, regardless of how he likes to spin it afterwords. If the Garmin strategies were so solid, they would have had something resembling a result at at least one other spring classic. Watch the beyond the peloton from this year. Definitely not a cohesive team leader in that bus.
Vaughters had no idea that Van Summerren even had form on the day going in. Even when he thought he could win it, it took Van Summeren screaming through the radio to let him go for it before he was finally allowed. He even considered Farrar a contender on the day.

I take the comments Thor's made about not quite fitting in socially at Garmin face value. I don't think the bro-love vibe is really Thors thing.

[jeremy]

There is a rumor that Phillipe Gilbert is also going to BMC next year, my two favorites on the same club, I think I'll be cheering for BMC next year.

[Josh.E]

Looks like Gilbert is confirmed signing to BMC.

Hard to imagine Cadel, Thor and Gilbert finding complimentary roles at the tour that meet all their own personal aspirations.......

[jeremy]

Looks like Gilbert is confirmed signing to BMC.

Hard to imagine Cadel, Thor and Gilbert finding complimentary roles at the tour that meet all their own personal aspirations.......

Ya Looks like BMC will have:
2009 World champion - Cadel
2010 world champion - Thor
2011 world champion - Gilbert

Cadel for the Grand tours, Thor for 1/2 of the classics (Paris-roubaix, flanders), Gilbert for the other 1/2 (amstel gold, leige-bastgone-leige, La Flèche Wallonne). It'll be interesting to see how they get along.

[Josh.E]

Not sure the course this year suits Gilbert for WC. All reports say it's a sprinters year.

[Josh.E]

Now Vaughters, in a complete show of class, has removed Thor from the Garmin Vuelta squad.

[leftcoaster]

interesting welcome from Evans...............

http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/9375/ ... -Tour.aspx

[Lister Farrar]

I thought this viewer comment was more likely to be what evans meant:

This seems like an enormous amount of scuttlebutt. Check out the press conference for yourself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlibfVHYj5A at 6:25). Without wanting paraphrase the man again and risk misquoting him, he just made it clear that when it comes to the tour, the team needs to ride to a single goal; this means no sprint lead out trains. He goes on to state that Thor would be a positive in his ability to get stage wins thus taking pressure off him and be strong in the TTT. A classic case of building controversy where there is none.

Read more: http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/9375/ ... z1UpfclWNa

[leftcoaster]

hmmmm....

my reading was

“Regarding Thor coming to the team, the main objective of (team president) Jim Ochowicz was to get some guys onto the team to get some results early so they wouldn't rely just on me for race wins at the start of the year," he stated, according to Reuters.

Later in the interview Cadel allows that Hushvold may be strong enough to win a stage or two by himself at the tour, but also reiterates that the single goal of BMC should be to win the Tour, otherwise he would be as well off riding the Giro or Vuelta.

Cadel could have given the party line...........'It's great to have him.......He's the defending world champion.........He's a strong addition to BMC...........etc'
However, he chose to talk about the TdF and potential roles, and made it clear the team role was to get him another championship, first and foremost, and not to compromise that goal in any way.

[jj12]

So if thor does the tour de france 2012 will he change his role? is it possible for him not to sprint? i mean so what lets say he gets the green jersey, all teams go for the yellow and the sprinters go for the green?? I think that sounds fair. Every team that does the tour is not all going for yellow...??

[Josh.E]

Thor rode on the same team as Sastre for quite some time. I don't think he has any issues with being on a team with a GC focus and a GC favorite.
All he's said is that he wants to be on a team with a well defined leader for each race. He's never said it always has to be him. He'll be the guy for Roubaix and Flanders, and I think that's where his real ambitions are.

[Rolf]

More chatter here: http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/08/ ... mer_188293

No new facts; just a point about Thor's UCI points moving with him to BMC next year, possibly vindicating JV's decision to drop him from the Vuelta.

Having said that, I see Hushovd's only ranked 44th with 83 points. Hmm...