Mapei Quickstep

[Mapei Quickstep]

Team page of Mapei Quickstep

Don't mind writing in this threat, it's open for all for everything related to our team.


Important wins:

none until now, we hope to establish some as soon as possible

[Mapei Quickstep]

Some days ago, a new team was founded. Mapei Quickstep went into being, in order to let revive the greatest classic race squad ever existing. So it's clear what we look for, and which races are important for us.

For the start, we engaged some riders yet beeing in the late 20s so they are ready to race, but for the future, we look foward to include riders from young ages and form them to what we think our riders should be like, and teach them the kind of tactics we like to see right from the start. Soon following there will be a short introduction of our first 9 riders. We hope they will all contribute well and we didn't make any silly signings we will suffer from lateron.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Igimundur Andrisson, Iceland native, is by now 27 years old. He has been cycling from young years with passion, but as Iceland is not really known for great cyclists, he never thought to get a pro when he was young. While studying in England, that quite like changed a bit, as he took part in some amateur races and showed real talent there. But as he didn't want to abandon his studies, he went on with it, and as there was no promising chance to turn pro by the end, he went back to iceland to work for a bank. But his Company soon decided to move him to their department in Italy, so he could take part in races again in his free time, where he was discovered by us and signed. As a financial expert (well, we hope, at least, better than some others from his nation), he is not only a rider, but works in the management as well, which is very suitable to us as our budget is not that large.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Holger Capurro from Ecuador is the far most experienced rider of the team, as he is the only one that actually had another professional contract before. In young ages, he was signed with the BMC Cycling Team. During the following 6 months he took part in 86 races, but never was able to get a victory, which was due to, as he said, his helper role for sprinters. As he is a specialist for flat terrain, that does not suprise in any way. His reason to sign with us was that we do not look to focus on sprinters, but on classic races, and as he does get along with cobblestones very well, we will take part on as much races of that kind, where he will be captain for many seasons. Without a sprinter, as far the strongest flat rider of our team, he will also get chances to show his skills in escapes. We are really happy to be able to sign such a strong and experienced rider right from the start and hope for good results.

[Mapei Quickstep]

As we are a italian-belgian team, the mayority of our riders is to be recruited from those 2 countrys. First of them is Wouter de Vries, who is 29 years old and born in Oudenaarde. Though his bearthplace suggests different, he is not a skilled hill or cobblestone rider, and this is his first appearence in a professional team after a long amateur carreer. But at least, he has a nameable amount of punch in the sprint, so he may be a good guy to try in groups at flat races.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Youngest rider of the actual squad is Walter Kostner, a 25 year old italian rider from Trentino, exactly Merano. Too, he didn't make it to a professional team until we signed him some days ago. He was working as a skiing teacher, and probably will keep that on during the winter months, thus allowing him to stay within his normal profession and so to have a job for after his cycling carreer. For he won't get to the big money as his potential is limited to beeing a helper or an escaper, we appreciate such a reassurance. And by the way, there is no kinsmanlike realtion to Isolde or Carolina.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Bert Kruisvijk is another belgian cyclist who entered our team as first first professional contract. He is 28 years old and born in Bruxelles. Untill know, he made is money by working for the political party Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten. But recent political devolopements desillusionated him, those long stretches without any government and no progress in the important questions of howbout the 2 yet so different parts of the country to get along with each other. So he had chosen to search another field of imployment, but headfirst took some time of and did a lot of cycling, which eventually led him to us. As one of few team members, he is quite good uphill und thus one of the captains whenever there are hills to climb. Of course, the lack of sprinting ability will get him a helper role for Rebuffat quite often, but too get his chances of riding for his own results.

[team fl]

Very nice description of your team and your riders. I like it a lot. Maybe you can use posting No. 1 as a overview about your current line-up?

Besides that, keep on riding (and writing)! Cheers, FL

[Mapei Quickstep]

Thx team fl, by now I get along quite well in my first races. I think I will continue.

About the current lineup at the first post, I don't know if I even keep that first post as a Palmares list at all. It's just the top post in this forum is only displayed on the first page, while it will dissapear immidiatly for anybody who's not searching for it as soon as post reach the second page. So somehow, it's quite useless in total.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Luca Panebianco, aged at 27 years, was born in Napoli, but at the age of 8, his family moved to Cottbus to build a new existence there, namely a italian restaurant. Beeing involved in that buisness since young ages, he is expected to take over the business in the future. Nethertheless, he found his time for some cycling and never losing his touch to his home city, we found him taking part in some local cycling races and signed him. Unless he is not strong upwards, he's notably better than the mayority of our team at this skill, thus making him a valuable helper and escapist.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Each team needs a rider for to place the team in bunch sprints. As for our team, that's Andrea Perotta, 28 years old, from Padua. Not beeing a real sprinter, but an average flat rider with quite good sprint skills, he is mainly our insurance for at least some money in bunch sprints and so will probably stay in the field most of his days, preparing for sprint or helping at difficult stages. Though he might sit out one or the other race, as he is not, well, a very willing helper. Dispite his talent, he never made it to a professional squad as his lack of work ethic in training prevents him from reaching his full potential. Skilled nevertheless, we desided in trying to cope with the difficulties we may be faced with by the since-school-unemployed.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Belgian native Jean Rebuffat is, without a doubt, the most important rider of the team. Combining skills uphill and flat with a mentionable speed in sprint finishs, he's set to be our go-to-guy in quite every race we ride. Having reached the age of 29, he's one of the older guys and, too, one of the most experianced ones, as he at least rode 4 professional races before he was signed. He had short contracts in 2 teams before, Italia Lampre and CubeCycling. Though his employments with those didn't last long, we do neither question his abilities nor team player qualities, qhich he showed quite well in his first race with us, riding for Kruisvijk instead of the expected vice-versa. Born and raised in Charleroi, he learned to be a car mechanic, and told us he made his way to his first cycling contract by repairing the team car of Lampre Italia who, facing injury problems, were in bad need of an additional rider for a race. Why he has gone under the radar for so many years before, we shall never understand.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Cedric van den Bergh, a 28 year old Belgian from Saint-Omer, doesn't have much of an interesting history to tell. After school, he went to be roadman, going many ways by bike if not to far away. Taking part in amateur races, we saw and signed him some days ago. Having serious problems with any kind of mountain, he will be helper most of his races.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Well, somehow that is not what we thought it would be collecting the first win. As Holger Capurro took the national championship of Ecuador today, we indeed got our first victory, and his too, but we can't tell we'd have won a race. There just hasn't been a race to win there. No ohter team director has been there, the only thing we had to deal with were some offline actions of Adler, which wasn't the problem because Bujia just attacked, but stopped tempo soon, probably in order to waste no power. So Holger attacked to, got to him and went by him with another attack. Building a large advantage with ease, he could afford to rest the second part of the race and was gifted the national champion's jersey.

[Mapei Quickstep]

First season finished, and how! Quite most of the month, we were only able to collect places, fourth and fith quite some times by Andrea Perotta and Jean Rebuffat. Too, those races have been nothing worth to mention, as we rode quite uninspired, sitting in the peloton and waiting for a wonder to happen. So to say, we have not been really happy with how we started. But well, I guess that's normal when you want to get into it. And obviously, watching many races and starting slow prevented us from doing mistakes we saw from many other new teams. For we are thinking at least we did not do many senceless attacks or even broke the rules.

Ah yes, ok with all that places we forgot the national championship, and the gifted win to Holger Capurro with an early attack as really nobody wanted to do something against it, and no other manager was even there to look after his guys. But I hope you understand I en't happy about that kind of races, it has been even much less exciting than sitting in the peloton and wait.

But somewhen there are times when turnarounds happen, and that has been today's race, for sure. We've been quite like unhappy with having inscripted to the Tour of Hainan. We thought we should test how it is to ride tours. Well, maybe even that is not wrong, but after 5 stages, we really felt bored. We just haven't been able to draw any connection to the race, early group at the first day, some tests with Capurro to escape late (which all failed). And there was the race I have drawn, and suprisingly scheduled for the first of November, so we would have to miss it out. At that point, we would have told our first tour experiance to be a disaster. But we were proven wrong, starting from yesterday. Headfirst, we noticed Oxford - Sheffield was rescheduled to 7th of November. Out of that happiness, maybe, we decided to make the race as hard as we could at the last climb, which is, considering Kruisvijk's strenght, not that hard indeed, but hard enough to lead the race in a direction we had seen the day before. And so this time we learned and were prepared to Ximista's attack, following it with Rebuffat. Hopefull maybe to be able to win, Rebuffat was outsprinted badly by Clifford Colebroke, to get a second place. But Rebuffat didn't turn down from the challenge, and ordered Kruisvijk to split up the field today again late in the race, as well as he could, and knowing that from the start, he had more energy saved today and did a much better impact. But we thought it was to early to look for a breakaway, and left the work to some gc-teams, which went very well for us. A lot of strong riders followed the attack of a mountain rider that obvioulsy was only after the points for that jersey. Why they did, we shall never understand, but it opened our way for an attack at the last hill 21 km before the finish, when Kruisvijk and Rebuffat formed a group with Colebroke again (but his manager was offline), and John Henry Bonham of Blues Cycling. That group gained an advantage of a maximum of 30s, and due to the equal strenght of Rebuffat and Bonham and the quite suprising helb of Colebroke, despite his manager beeing offline (keep your eyes on team mezzo-mix, guys, he seems to have some like a visionary ability), it reached the finish with an advantage of 18s. There, Rebuffat took revanche, beating Bonham nearly as clearly as he had been beaten the day before, and moor his first career victory, and the first real race victory.

So well, if to decide the question, whom is the best rider of the month in our team, that title clearly refers to:

Jean Rebuffat

Our Belgian captain did not only contribute regular places to give the team a solid financial win, but too kept his focus on searching for the right breakaway to achieve a win, which happened just today. With best places, most points earned and most money won, there can't be two opinions about that title. Congratulations and great thanks to him, and let's hope he can keep that up the following months. There's no doubt we will heavily rely on his performance as well as we do now.

Talking about money, we made 1.029.900. Not having even thought about of how much may be possible, we're quite suprised about that number. Beeing able to score a tenth of the teams value in only a half month of racing seems quite a lot to us, so we reckon we shall be happy about that.

Looking at the points we gained, this is not the same. As we could look the Division 6 table and how much points some teams made with very few races, the 701 we achieved are quite far behind. Not knowing if those teams who did better were just so much better than we, or if they were just lucky with the races they made and the team they had chosen, we are left quite unsure how our real standing may be in that 6th division, and how we could compete in the 5th when hopefully reaching it next month.

What has been clearified way better than that, is the question if we would need a license. Having a turnaround like that after a tour start that bad, we feel confident in ordering one as soon as our race points are down.

Looking foward to next seasons, what shall be our goals? As much as I love South America and the Andes, I think that tour would heavily overburden my team. So we might look to focus on the cobblestone races in order to gain a first experiance and to get an image of what Holger may be able to achieve in spring. Next goal might be the high categorized Bolkov-Bolkov, though it looks to hard for my team too. And for sure, the self-made Oxford-Sheffield will be one of our highlights. To sum up, not a busy schedule, but some well spread goals that do not interfere too much with each other. Should be an interesting season as well, and if we make it to division 5, maybe we are lucky to join a field 1 to see live how the really good teams work.

[NoPikouze]

Nice!

I wouldn't advise you to ride Andes with your current team. Even if you can go in groups everyday, the other riders will suffer a lot. (need more hill and reg).

Just had a look at your team, pretty good. You should get a leader now. Either a sprinter (you have good flatriders), a climber (2 classics as support) or a guy for tours, for example a 70 hill and 80 tt. Just my opinion...

Have fun !

[Mapei Quickstep]

Well as I want to focus on classic races, I'd like to include a 21 year old classic potential as the ones I could by until now are not really good, and I want to form my riders from young ages anyway in the future. Maybe a cheap rider before that, so I can change the lineup for leaving exhausted riders at home. A sprinter is a possibility, too, but as well here I think of a young rider as well, I would like to train them a little more towards flat value as it seems to be usual here. A mountain rider I do not want, I have to admit, they are expensive and most of them so weak in flat, so that they die on the flat passages that most classic races include.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Fast decision: It should be a cheap rider to be the 10th, as we want to have possibilities to adept our lineup when adding more expensive riders so not to get under financial preassure. The one we chose is 21 year old Norwegian Tor Arne Svartedal from Lillehammer. Not having achieved big results in junior races, he showed a lot of dedication and hard work for his captains there. SO we hope he may improve his skills in the following month and keeps up his working so to become a worthy helper for our team for a long time.

[Mapei Quickstep]

At the yesterday's race from Windhoek to Okahandja, which was flat all the way, the cobblestones 10 km before the finish had a huge influence on the race. Due to that, we'd decided to focus on our strongest pave riders and put up a tactic to get the escape for Capurro. Well, at least that was our plan before the start. When getting told he should be a helper today, we had an... let's say animated discussion with Andrea Perotta not beeing agreed to that at all. In rage, he was calling the race director a dim-witted freshman for not seeing that there will be sprint of a bigger group, and no Solo win, as the opponents would catch up easily again with Capurro after the cobblestones. With the start getting closer, we decided to let him be Co-Captain, for God's sake, and get this race under way. What we have to admit is, due to the work of MilanoAC, it went excatly as Andrea told, and what was suprising even more, he was the by far weakest cobblestone rider able to stay in the head group, and the strongest sprinter, but slightly. Many better cobblestone riders dropped meanwhile, and Capurro was cached 4 km before the finish. Finally, it was Perotta winning a sprint with all of the group sprinting late. How we might deal with him to make him step back to a helper role ever again now he's proven us wrong so perfectly, we have not the slightest idea.

[Mapei Quickstep]

With today's race I'm sure by now: I love cobblestone races, not only the real ones, but in this game, too. And yet, it's the kind of races which our team has been most successful in. Today there was a semi-classic fantasy race called Mosell Cup, with an interesting profil as I think. For we had no other opportunity to start, we took the Div6-race and dominated it easily. As there was forever someone to do the work in the field, we could rest very long and started to reduce the field late, on from the 5th cobblestone passage before the finish. That worked quite well, especially Kostner and Panebianco did a great job of reducing the first group to some like 20 riders. Many teams (6, I believe) had been thrown out of the race till there, what made it a whole lot easier. At the last passage, Capurro went on an attack and gained a large gap noone was even near to be able to close. He won with a 13s advantage due to not riding full tilt at the last kilometers. Behind him, Perotta won the sprint of the first bigger group to gain 3rd place. Finally all riders made it to the points, combining for a 497 in total. That leads us to a 1560 eternal points and to Div 5 that night.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Yes, we've won in field 1 already. Though those wins were one in a national championship and the other one in a Div6-limited field 1. So today, in a splitted field where we closely were set to the better edition at the Race Colombo - Agampodigama. Additionally, it was quite a strong field, as teams like Alkworld, Bergwerk and Dynamo Leinad took part, all of them ranked quite high. Sure, no comparison to the grandeur of races illuminated by the brilliance of the unsurpassable ape, like yesterday, but not that bad either. Chosing to not go to a first group (which was good, as we had no suitable rider for the group that formed), we waited for the siebs and searched for a good wheel to get into a group that could beat the strongest sprinters left. That one formed at the downhill passage, containing 10 riders and led to the finish by the work of Rothoses of Leinad. His wheel we chose for Rebuffat in the sprint, too, and as we hoped , he had a whell of an early sprinter, while the strongest 2 riders of the group were looking at each other and thus opening the gap for Rabuffat to win.

[Mapei Quickstep]

Some remarkable peace of interview from Andrea Perotta he gave after the race of Tour Okinawa. Asked about if he was satisfied with the result, he answered: " Not in total. You saw how the team treated me again, d'you look? Again, well, I sould be used to, but fuck off, again they put me back to be the 2nd, 3rd option, stuff like that. You know, that's frustrating. Look at the result, I've been far the best of the team. But hey, that's like they always do. They're not willing to commit to me, do do some work for me, even the slightest. Give me Kruisvijk, just set him to my command. He'd make the difference, working the 4% and the 3%, see? He would have made the bunch sprint for the victory. And I en't afraid of the competition with the big guys in the sprint, hear me? No, I en't, look at that Koning, just today, pfff, hey, that's no match. Fast legs he got, maybe, but no way he can compete in physical strength with me. He en't cope with me if I compete seriously, he just en't. I'd punch him into the wall if the victory is on the line, for sure, and he knows, sure he knows, and he'll back out, to coward, en't risking that. You know, that kind of sprint today, that en't a real one, who can find his motivation to show his full potential in a sprint for some a place behind. Ah, me not, certainly, those other guys looked like, maybe, but I don't see why I should tear me apart for a team that doesn't show some trust in me. They do nothing the fuck, how can I show off like that. It's just that slow-witted clown of a manager that just doesn't get what a cycling race is about, and no mistake, I told him, once, twice, endlessly. And hey, dumpass, I won't stop. Take that as a promise. You release me or I finally teach you how to do that. You listen or not, I don't mind, you will, you'll see."

[Mapei Quickstep]

When speaking of Capurro taking the second stage of the Tour de Champagne, taking might be the right word indeed. The manager was off the whole race as he didn't manage to get home earlier than 4 km before the finish. Which was not enough to control the race as I should have done, but long enough to let Capurro attack at the last cobblestone section to win the stage and the yellow jersey. Not one of our great hours indeed, as we just haven't been able to abandon the huge amount of money to be won by that. I hope I'll manage it to prevent myself of such an action next time.

[flockmastoR]

buhuuuuuuuuuuuuu! bad guy