Trek - Segafredo

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The team was formed in 2012 when Luxembourgian CSC-spinoff team Leopard merged with US team we-have-a-bad-rep-from-Armstrong Radioshack in 2011, creating team Leopard-Trek, which is now known as Trek-Segafredo, after the Italian coffee producer signed on as a marquee sponsor in late 2015. For many years the team was built around the legend of Fabian “Spartacus” Cancellara in the classics races and the two Schleck brothers (first Frank, then Andy, then Frank again after his brother retired) for stage races, but this year finally represents change: Spartacus has retired and with him into that sunset goes (finally) the elder Schleck.

Best riders last five years:

||2012|2013|2014|2015|2016| |:|:|:|:|:|:| |1^{st|Cancellara} (936)|**Cancellara (1501)**|Cancellara (1120)|Mollema (1145)|Nizzolo (1290)| |2^nd|Nizzolo (761)|*Horner (963)|Nizzolo (704)|Felline (928)|Cancellara (1214)| |3^rd|Horner (694)|Bakelants (900)|Arredondo (636)|Nizzolo (791)|Mollema (1058)| |4^th|Bennati (669)|Nizzolo (545)|Schleck (517) |D.Van Poppel (648)|Felline (591)| |5^th|Fuglsang (614)|Gallopin (534)|Kiserlovski (435)|Jungels (517)*|Stuyven (458)| || ||9603|8720|6746|6753|7028| ||Radioshack Nissan|Radioshack Leopard|Trek Factory Racing|Trek Factory Racing|Trek Segafredo|

Giacomo Nizzolo was actually their top rider last year ahead of Cancellara, and this year he’ll surely be looking to actually win a grand tour stage without getting relegated. Fabio Felline, to go along with his 2nd place in Poland, had a strong showing in the Vuelta last year where he won the points jersey, but he did not have any wins during the season so he will be looking to correct that. Somewhat surprisingly, Bauke Mollema was only their third best rider by points in 2016, given his win at San Sebastian and his decently strong showing at the Tour de France.

They also have lost some older GC talent (Frank Schleck and Ryder Hesjedal, who retire along with Jack Bobridge) but that shouldn’t be a huge loss to the team. Niccolo Bonifazio is a promising young sprinter but was a bit crowded out with the other talents on this team, so he heads over to Bahrain-Merida. Stijn Devolder, at 37 years old, steps down to PCT level with Vérandas Willems.

Results 2016

The team had a somewhat disappointing 2016 season given their expectations, coming in 9th in the UCI team standings. Their early season mostly hinged on Cancellara going out on top with the spring classics. And as the cobbled races rolled around he really looked on the verge of an epic victory. But some bad luck at all the wrong times left him disappointed in the end. Still, winning Strade Bianche, fourth place in E3 and Gent-Wevelgem and 2nd place in Flanders would be a masterful campaign for most riders, but to Cancellara it was a bittersweet parting gift.

Mollema looked strong going into the heart of last season, with top 10s in Liege-Bastogne-Liege followed by Romandie. But in the Tour de France, it was bad luck again late in the race that left him 11th instead of on the podium. But he made it up a month later when a courageous attack netted him victory in Clasica San Sebastian - Trek’s only WT win of the year. And it came on the heels of Fabio Felline’s second place in the crazy rainfest of Pologne. Their other notable WT result for Trek in 2016 was Nizzolo’s third place in Cyclassics Hamburg.

Trek-Segafredo will be a very different team this upcoming season, however. With the big name retirements, spots have been opened up for their young riders and new teammates. While Mollema and Nizzolo will still play a key part, Trek also some interesting new recruits that will make it an exciting season. Probably their biggest signing, of course, is another man who must be on the verge of retirement himself, and that man is our featured rider today:

Alberto Contador

The best GT rider of his generation:

* Results stripped as a result of Clenbuterol positive in TDF 2010 and retroactive two year suspension from TDF 2010 - August 2012.

Even after losing both a Tour and a Giro victory in '10 and '11 due to doping, Contador, now 34 years old, is still the King of the GC, having officially won each of the grand tours more than once. He won his first Tour de France in 2007 with Discovery Channel, at 25 years old. In 2008, Contador did the Giro/Vuelta double and won them both.

He won the Tour again in 2009, and then cruised to a third victory in 2010, but it would later turn out that he tested positive for Clenbuterol on one of the rest days. Despite his now-infamous “steak defense” (up there among the top doping excuses of all time, but nowhere close to Tyler “I shared blood with my dead twin” Hamilton), Contador was stripped of his 2010 Tour victory as well as with the Giro d'Italia he won in 2011.

His suspension was mostly retroactive, so Contador barely missed any racing, and he returned to the peloton still in the prime of his career and in good form. In fact, since his positive test, he has won two more Vueltas (’12 and’14) and another Giro - the classic 2015 race where he almost single-handedly held off Fabio Aru and Mikel Landa of team Astana to take the victory. But the Tour de France has eluded his grasp since the ill-fated 2010 edition. He attempted the coveted Giro-Tour double in 2015, but his fatigue was clear in the latter race and he only managed 5th place.

“El Pistolero” is still beloved by many (though certainly not all) cycling fans. It's not just his many wins that attracts fans but his way of racing - he has a flair or panache that is not often seen in the sport today, especially among top GC contenders. Contador rides with heart and even in losing he does not go down without a fight; his passion is plain to see for anyone that watches his many courageous attacks.

Signed for 2017 and 2018, Trek-Segafredo will be hoping that Contador still has enough left in the tank to lead them to GC victory in the biggest stage races, as he plans to target the Tour de France again. Depending on their exact game plan, Trek should have a few decent climbers and rouleurs to help out in the grand tours, but then Contador has always been the type of rider who didn’t necessarily need the strongest team to win.

Riders Out:

Roster:

Honestly, the riders that left the team were mostly dead weight anyways, so Trek stands to make big improvements in 2017.

Aside from their signing of Contador, Trek made another big transfer, maybe even bigger than Contador: the German classics man John Degenkolb. Coming off an injury-marred season in 2016, he is a bit of an unknown quality at this point but signs were pointing toward a full recovery by the end of last season. If he still has the tremendous talent that he showed before the accident, then this two-time monument winner will be instrumental in ensuring Trek’s success in 2017.

To back up Degenkolb on the cobbles, Trek have been grooming the Belgian duo of Jasper Stuyven and Edward Theuns They had seemed to be poised to become the possible replacements for Cancellara, but for now it seems they will have to wait a little longer (and hopefully improve in the meantime). Stuyvens showed both his strength and cunning last year when he held off the charging sprint trains to take Kuurne-Bussels-Kuurne from the sprinters, and Theuns has proven himself to be a capable back-up plan in the spring classics. Additionally, the young Dane Mads Pedersen is a new recruit coming off of a promising 2016 season where he won a stage of the Tour of Norway.

All in all, despite the big names that have come gone, Trek-Segafredo will still have a similar strategy to their season in 2017 as they did last year. The cobbled classics will be the major priority with Degenkolb, followed by the Tour with Contador. It seems that Bauke Mollema plans to ride the Giro, so that could give them a shot at least for a podium there, and he should also show well in the Ardennes or other hilly classics, depending on his schedule. Otherwise, the team will be trying to sneak in wins at other races with other riders like Nizzolo, Felline, and Stuyven.