Patrick Lefevere sums up 2023 season of the Wolfpack in New Year's wish: "We are particularly proud of the four young riders who have been promoted from our Devo Team"
Cycling
Patrick Lefevere comes with a new year's wish at his team's social media. In it, he summarizes the past season, where not everything went according to Soudal - Quick-Step's plan, especially at cobbled classics and Grand Tours. The team however succeeded at establishing a development team as well as its new project at women cycling.
"Every new year brings a new beginning and perhaps never more so as now, as we embark on our 22nd consecutive season. Last season, we were once again one of the best teams in the world, as evidenced by our more than 50 victories. It was a performance that made us incredibly happy, because it showed not just quantity but also quality – a Monument, half a dozen Grand Tour stages, the ITT World Championships and plenty of other prestigious races."
"It was a strong year not just for Soudal Quick-Step, but also for our women’s team – who displayed the Wolfpack mentality in every single race they did last season and got a well-deserved promotion to the World Tour – and our devo team, which showed a lot of depth as they captured almost 30 wins."
"On the bike we will have a fresh feel too, with ten new riders joining us. They range from the experience of Mikel Landa and Gianni Moscon, who will bolster our Grand Tour and Classics squads respectively, to the six neo-pros that will give us a youthful feel. We are particularly proud of the four young riders who have been promoted from our Devo Team."
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This team won a monument [race], then half a dozen Grand Tour stages, the ITT World Championships - All won by Ramco. The guy who has the ego of MMA Fighters. Nothing against him, but finding his attitude abit obnoxious. Despite not riding on a GC focused teams, like Jumbo or Ineos. This is a sign of how weak Soudal-Quickstep and how bad the mismanagement on the team as a whole. Despite having Tim Merlier, one of the best sprinters, who has not fully utilized at all🙄🙄. Without Ramco, this team probadly won't be in World Tour by now
a Monument, half a dozen Grand Tour stages, the ITT World Championships - All Remco. A sign of how weak and mismanaged this team had become inspite if having Tim Merlier, one of the fastest sprinters who was not utilized at all.
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- Apart from a few outliers, in athletics, premature developers who held age group records didn’t get very far later and most athletes who became world stars never had early age records, I’d be surprised if in cycling it was any different.Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- You can enjoy it by all means but will you also take responsibility for the consequences of encouraging it through that? Because we all pay the price of the way it affects people, moods, behaviour, illness, violence, crime, social degeneration, etc, no real good comes of it or what do you feel there is to gain from it other than experiencing a momentary emotional high some might not be able to achieve any other way?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- There's no reason we can't live in the real world while enjoying the doped up sport.Veganpotter12-04-2025
- Tadej definitely wasn't terribly out of the ordinary as a junior. Just goes to show what great coaching and a proper "supplement" regiment can turn someone into.Veganpotter12-04-2025
- Nice one. Not 100% officially a placebo but in my early days of group training in Mallorca I and another guy were reputed to ride without food (and once I paid the price for it having to be pushed back to base). On one particularly long outing things started getting difficult and the other guy mentioned he could really do with something to eat, one of the jokers offered him a home-wrapped snack, the latest nutritional supplement on the market and he started flying, showing and boasting all the way home how good he was feeling. At dinner, in front of 40 or so of his mates it was then revealed it had simply been a premeditated prank with a cheap doggy biscuit. Don’t know if anyone later ever considered experimenting with dogfood doping, was just happy not to have been selected as the victim.Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Veganpotter, I’d take that as a compliment, like not knowing how to manufacture a bomb :-)Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Most of us really overlook the reality of what happens physically when a bike tire goes over cobbles, we are too focused on experience, feeling and intuition to actually look at what should be a microscopic slow-motion analysis. I think it would help many to better imagine what is happening by comparing the situation to differing boat types advancing on wavy waters. You start with typical boats and play around with wave height and amplitude and then you progress onto more advanced designs, motorboats, catamarans, hovercraft, jetskis, gliders on different types of waves. Nce you can eliminate most of the wave and just skim the tops, the wave topography reduces to something minimal, this is the grail of bike design for cobbles, tough because no cobbled sector has exactly the same pattern. Does anyone know if wheel size is UCI regulated or is there a margin?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Alsene, I tend to agree but it’s incredibly complicated to calculate who has what advantage in which particular situation as the variables are largely interrelated. As you note, the rolling resistance alone is affected by numerous criteria, all things equal it is easy to change one variable to determine whether the heavier or lighter rider has an advantage, however, when EVERY rider is free to play with ALL variables (tire pressure, bike stiffness, wheel seperation and dozens more), many of the advantages/disadvantages melt into a smaller overall a/d much harder to determine when there is not an enormous weight difference (we have riders from mid 50 - mid 90kg but most are much closer together). In the meantime each team has optimised the set-up for each rider so differences are nowhere near what they used to be 30-40 years ago but obviously there is and always will be some but without highly advanced scientific research (which no-one is likely to provide for free and investing teams will keep for themselves) I feel there is now little point in people like us trying to make any factor or point the determining one, none will ever outweigh the gains from drafting and strategy :-)Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Firstly, it’s not them, it’s their doctors and consultants and people contacting them trying to sell their wares. Secondly, now that there’s money in the sport, they can afford it, and peddlers see lucrative opportunities to separate them from their earnings, not very complicated to follow, in fact, wasn’t the whole modern thing started by someone having access to an oversized sponsor budget as there was a good marketing alignment of nationalistic and feelgood stories?Mistermaumau12-04-2025
- Yeah, let’s just discuss important matters while the world goes to bits ;-) Enjoy your entertainment but stay responsible!Mistermaumau12-04-2025