Their prize surprise slipped away, chasing fame and fortune in his native Great Britain. However, Team Garmin-Transitions is speeding toward its 2010 season with a new name but with its key components still in place.
Entering its third year on the international scene, the Boulder-based cycling club is coming off a 2009 that saw mass improvement despite just missing a couple of key goals. Bradley Wiggins missed the Tour de France podium by only one spot, placing fourth, and the team didn’t win a Tour stage, despite Tyler Farrar’s heartbreaking near misses.
Now Wiggins is off to Team Sky, Great Britain’s expansion team, and Garmin-Transitions enters Year 3 after finishing second in the Tour behind powerful Team Astana.
“While that sounds like second place is like kissing your sister,” Garmin-Transitions director Jonathan Vaughters said, “there are 22 teams who compete in the Tour, so it’s not that bad.”
However, their home run hitter in the Tour left. What’s left of Garmin-Transitions? Well, they have a new sponsor. Again. The team has changed its name more times than a Hollywood gold digger, and Transitions Optical has replaced the generic Slipstream to provide more economic punch.
Also, remember that Wiggins joined the team in 2008, and no one, not even Vaughters, thought he’d transition from a track pursuit Olympics gold medalist in Beijing to a Tour de France contender.
Christian Vande Velde was the targeted star all along until a brutal crash May 11 limited him to a support role in France.
Wiggins’ departure also ends a tumultuous offseason. Sky approached Wiggins during the Tour, and negotiations between the two teams and a pack of lawyers stretched into December, when Vaughters finally released Wiggins from his contract.
“For sure, it’s been a distraction,” Vaughters said. “But at the end of the day, I don’t know if it’s really relevant to our team’s performance. Maybe, maybe not. I think Tyler’s our best sprinter. I think Christian’s our best GC (general classification) rider.”
Like Wiggins, Farrar was a surprise. He came to the Boulder team in 2008 as more of a one-day classics rider and slowly evolved into a sprinter. As it turns out, he’s one of the top sprinters in the world.
However, he’s not No. 1. Three times Farrar lost sprints in the Tour to Britain’s Mark Cavendish of California-based Team Columbia-High Road. It’s not so much Farrar’s weakness as it was Garmin-Transitions’ inexperience.
“All of a sudden we had to adapt our whole game plan to leading out Tyler in the Tour,” Vaughters said. “That’s fine, but we just hadn’t been doing it. With Cavendish, they’ve been doing it for three years now. With Tyler, we just started.
“I think we got closer as the race went on.”
Farrar can do it. It’s believed he was the only sprinter to beat Cavendish in 2009 when he outsprinted him at the Tirreno- Adriatico in March before breaking his collarbone. This past fall, Farrar won a stage at the Vuelta de Espana and won the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Hamburg, Germany.
For more horsepower, Vaughters has added South African Robbie Hunter from Barloworld as a lead out for Farrar’s sprints. Also, Vaughters notes, beating Cavendish is like beating Michael Jordan.
“I think Cavendish is the most talented sprinter in the world,” Vaughters said. “He’s en route to becoming the greatest sprinter of all time.”
With Wiggins gone, Vande Velde resumes his role as grand tour star. He finished fifth in 2008, and despite recovery from his pelvic and back injuries, he still finished eighth in July.
This year’s route fits Vande Velde better than Wiggins. It starts with a prologue in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on July 3, goes south through Belgium, then clockwise through the Alps and into the Pyrenees. The key stages may be July 20, a 117-mile jaunt from Bagneres-de-Luchon to Pau that includes four mountain passes. After a rest day, the pelaton goes 104 miles from Pau to a summit finish at famed 6,980-foot Col du Tourmalet.
Besides Hunter, other additions include Frederik Kessiakoff; Peter Stetina, up from the U-23 team; and Johan Vansummeren of Belgium. Garmin- Transitions’ first race is Feb. 7-12 at the Tour of Qatar.
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
