Nicolas Roche Performance Team

buffalo

While the name might not be the catchiest, it's good news. Great to see an Irish(-French) rider supporting junior riders.

Nicolas Roche is to set up his own Irish-based team in 2013. While the project's development is still in its infancy, and beginning its search for sponsors, the current Ag2r professional and Tour de France star is in the process of creating a new team, specifically for Irish junior riders.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/roche-to-start-team-in-ireland-3279547.html

Junior

Bit of an odd venture isn't it ?

torturedsoul

Why??? Anything that promotes cycling in Ireland is a good thing.

We need more young talent tempted to ride their bikes

granda

definitly like the sound of this especially after all the negative press of late,anything that can help junior riders up through the ranks cant be a bad thing, and hopefully it wont be a 'look at how great i am' thing

Hungrycol

Great to see him actively trying to do something here. This is something positive for cycle sport in Ireland.

buffalo

StickyBottle has the details at http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/nicolas-roche-performance-team-launched-an-post-style-team-for-irish-juniors/

Nicolas Roche and well known figure on the domestic scene Philip Finegan are to launch a new squad for Irish junior riders for next year and beyond.

The ‘Nicolas Roche Performance Team’ will be based in Ireland and will have six junior riders next year. It is likely that four of those will be first-year juniors while two berths will be for second-years.

While the squad will be based in Ireland there is very much an international flavour to the concept, with Finegan telling stickybottle they have already secured invites to ride five international stage races next year; four in France and one in Germany.

...

Really sounds like it'll be a fantastic opportunity for junior riders, and with Roche behind it it'll get that extra bit of publicity too, hopefully raising the profile of cycling in general too.

Lusk Doyle

He ain't the only one setting up a youth development team...see the end of this piece:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contador-if-lance-is-guilty-then-it-stands-to-reason-he-loses-his-tours

buffalo

Two Saxobank-Tinkoff feeder teams?

morana

will be interesting to see how it works. We have invested in the last 2 years with our dev and talent team program and it will be interesting to see what happens. Could be an enhancement to what we are doing.

andy69

given the weekend that's in it.... just wondering if anyone might know a bit about the process for applying to join the team? Junior lad in our club was wondering if anyone on here had experience of the application process? (like....do they pick people based on race results....based on stats from performance tests). Or maybe they see all applicants and put them through a 'test process' and pick members from that perhaps?
Anyone any idea of they might look for?

thank guys,
Andy

buffalo

andy69 wrote: »

given the weekend that's in it.... just wondering if anyone might know a bit about the process for applying to join the team? Junior lad in our club was wondering if anyone on here had experience of the application process? (like....do they pick people based on race results....based on stats from performance tests). Or maybe they see all applicants and put them through a 'test process' and pick members from that perhaps?
Anyone any idea of they might look for?

thank guys,
Andy

They have a Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicolas-Roche-Performance-Team/343205412447338 I'd start by dropping them a message there. My impression is that they head-hunt mostly though.

c50

i think they try to spot talent more than see based on results. they seem to be very interested however in mixing the top juniors with guys they think they can bring up the ranks a lot. nat, junior champ fintan ryan was nothing last year and they seem to mix him with likes of foley who really cycles like a pro in every race, seems as experienced as they come, pro in his riding style that is

wav1

They had eight riders on the team this year.4 X 1st yr and 4 x 2nd year.
4 of those now move on to Espoir category and thats 4 left.I imagine they will bring in 4 new 1st yrs for next season,to bring the team back up to full size.

Pawlie

You apply first and then it is whittled down,well thats what they did last year,
they might be adding an u23 squad too and might be racing abroad too next season,if that goes ahead it will be great for the guys and give them some serious experience racing against other nationalities.