Cycling: Part #3 of our WorldTour team check. Today we take a closer look at US team BMC Racing, which suffered a painful departure last season in Cadel Evans, but signed a new top driver for 2016 in ex-Sky pro Richie Porte.
BMC Racing overview
It was an emotional, moving and successful 2015 season for the BMC Racing Team. The young Australian Rohan Dennis provided with his Victory at the Tour Down Under for an early bang, which he even got a few weeks later interim world hour record followed. In addition, the team and cycling in general lost one of their absolute figureheads in Cadel Evans – the Australian has only been on the road as a brand ambassador for BMC since February hung up his cycling shoes.
The Classics season was disappointing for the US team after both Classics specialists in the ranks of BMC - Gilbert and van Avermaet - lacked crucial luck and also suffered from falls and injuries were repeatedly slowed down. In retrospect, drivers and those responsible will probably look at the 2015 Tour de France with mixed feelings: the celebration of the Dennis wins the opening time trial, on the Team time trial success and about the great performance of Tejay van Garderen, who for a long time raced for the podium places, stands the health-related and extremely bitter Retirement of the American opposite to.
On the other hand, the USA Pro Challenge in the team's home country was a great success story. Not only that Rohan Dennis was able to celebrate his second tour victory of the season, but above all Taylor Phinney's comeback after his bad injury was a great story. At the end of the season there was also the World title in the team time trial and a stage win at the Vuelta by Alessandro de Marchi.
For 2016 BMC gets along the Australian Richie Porte an enormously strong rider who had been one of the guarantors for Chris Froome's Tour victory this season. Even if the 31-year-old was captain at the Giro had some problems, he is looking forward to the challenge at BMC, where he is particularly looking forward to more responsibility for himself and his team. From a German point of view, we will certainly always keep an eye on young Rick Zabel, who last season his first professional win could celebrate at all.
BMC Racing - Transfers
Departures: Cadel Evans (retired), Campbell Flakemore (retired), Klaas Lodewyck (retired), Peter Stetina (Trek Segafredo),
Additions: Richie Porte (Team Sky), Loic Vliegen (Neo), Floris Gerts (Neo), Tom Bohli (BMC Development Team)
BMC Racing - team bikes and equipment
team bike: Unsurprisingly, the BMC pros will once again be riding the bikes of the Swiss outfitter and namesake in 2016. Most of the time Gilbert, van Garderen and colleagues will probably be on the saddle of the team machine SLR01 spend (for a Velomotion test drive). On the rough, rough roads of the spring classics, we might also find one or the other rider on the Endurance model Gran Fondo GF01 see. In the fight against the clock, the bike of choice will probably be the aero model time machine TM01 .
components: As in previous years, all components, from the rear derailleur and brakes to the wheels, come from Shimano. So we will mainly be able to look at the Dura Ace Di2 on most team bikes - unless one or the other decides for a mechanical groupset after all.
disc brakes: While BMC has an equipment partner in Shimano, who already has both the brakes and the wheels some competition-proven models in the portfolio has, it still looks rather bad with the frames. Although the Granfondo GF01 comes with disc brakes for 2016, the endurance model should only be an option for a few drivers and for a few races. In this respect, we will probably still see most riders with conventional rim brakes in 2016.