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Why Brandon McNulty chose to race in the U.S., not Europe

By Fred Dreier Published Jun. 19, 2017

After Brandon McNulty won the junior world time trial championships this past September in Qatar, Europe came calling.

Major WorldTour teams reached out to him, offering cash contracts and one-way entry to the sport’s pinnacle. Large U.S.-based development teams reached out, too, offering racing opportunities in Belgium, France, and Spain. McNulty, 19, knew the calls were bound to come. Coaches say he is perhaps the most physiologically gifted American cyclist ever. His power numbers point toward otherworldly talent even beyond that of Greg Lemond, Taylor Phinney, or Tejay van Garderen. It’s not a matter of if McNulty enters the sport’s top echelon, but when.

After taking several weeks to contemplate his future, McNulty made an unexpected decision. He chose to stay in the United States in 2017 and make his professional debut with Rally Pro Cycling, a Continental squad. The choice bucked the trend established by nearly ever world-class American talent that has come before him.

“It was a really hard decision,” McNulty told VeloNews at a Rally team camp in January. “Racing full-time in Europe is something I one day want to do. I’d rather do it slowly than jump into it.”

McNulty’s cautious decision is built on the memories of talented Americans who never made it to the WorldTour. Dozens of gifted youngsters have traveled overseas to race, only to be chewed up and spit out by Europe’s cutthroat development leagues. McNulty and his team of advisors — which includes his coach, his parents, and former Tour de France rider Roy Knickman — believe that this conservative approach will help him avoid the various hazards that have derailed his predecessors.

“If we do it right, then five years from now he’ll be close to doing a grand tour,” Knickman says. “In the meantime, he doesn’t need to grow to hate cycling.”

WHEN SEEN RIDING ALONGSIDE his Rally teammates, Brandon McNulty is indistinguishable from any other professional cyclist; he’s all legs and no upper body. In street clothes, however, McNulty transforms into a teenager with a child’s complexion. Like most kids, he spends his downtime playing video games and reading. Those who know him best describe him as quiet but sociable; he texted a thank-you message to his masseuse just hours after winning worlds.

“We used to think Brandon was shy — then we saw him in his element around other cyclists and he’s not,” says his father, R.J. McNulty, a software engineer. “He’s always been a self-motivated kid. Very focused.”

McNulty’s focus and talent were evident the moment his training wheels came off. When Brandon was eight, R.J. took him to a three-mile mountain bike trail that included a climb that was too steep for Brandon to ride. When R.J. recommended the two go home, Brandon threw a tantrum.

“He wouldn’t go home until he rode the climb,” R.J. McNulty says, laughing. “I’m sure the other mountain bikers looked at me like I was some abusive dad forcing his kid to ride this hill. I was like, ‘It’s not me, it’s him!’”

A passionate mountain bike racer, R.J. McNulty says Brandon’s focus helped him overcome the boredom and discomfort that often chases kids away from cycling. So did his speed. Brandon started racing mountain bikes at age nine, and he took up road racing at age 11, riding in the local group rides alongside veteran racers. By the time Brandon had turned 13, R.J. says, Brandon could easily drop his dad.

Brandon regularly finished on the podium at junior nationals, often near the country’s top junior, Adrien Costa, now with Axeon Hagens Berman. Cycling remained his hobby, not a career path. He never had a coach and instead relied on group rides for fitness.

“I have no doubt that Brandon will be successful in the WorldTour. The question is how many mistakes can he avoid and how mentally fresh can he be when he decides to step up to that level?”
– Jonas Carney

In 2014 McNulty met Knickman, who managed the California-based Lux/Specialized junior development team. Impressed by McNulty’s results, Knickman invited McNulty onto the team for 2015. At Lux’s 2015 training camp, Knickman had the juniors ride an eight-mile time trial course outside of Oxnard, California. After seeing McNulty’s power numbers, Knickman’s jaw dropped.

“He had just hopped on a spare bike, adjusted the seatpost, and then went out and set the course record,” Knickman says. “He averaged 370 watts. It was like ‘Wow, this kid is special.’”

Knickman put McNulty, who is six-feet tall and 150 pounds, in touch with longtime USA Cycling coach Barney King, who began training the youngster. Two months later, at Arizona’s Valley of the Sun road race, McNulty won the junior time trial, and his time would have put him into the top-10 in the pro division. Unlike the elites, McNulty had completed the race on a standard road bike with junior gearing.

When King saw McNulty’s power files, his jaw dropped as well. He had averaged 380 watts during the 30-minute effort. King sent Brandon’s power files to Jim Miller, vice president of athletics for USA Cycling. Miller asked King if the power meter was broken.

“380 watts is unbelievable. Great guys at that age are doing like 340 — we’re talking Tejay [van Garderen], Taylor [Phinney], and [Lawson] Craddock-level guys,” Miller says. “At that time we all saw [Adrien] Costa as the next superstar. I was like, ‘This kid is probably better.’”

In McNulty, King sees the physical gifts for greatness. He squeezes his lanky frame into an aerodynamic time trial position, and approaches time trial courses with aggressive, time-shaving lines. McNulty climbs remarkably well for his height. And his pedaling cadence is abnormally high: 120 rpm.

After just seven months of structured training and racing with Lux, McNulty headed to Europe to compete on USA Cycling’s junior national team. In August 2015 the squad took on the Czech Republic’s junior Peace Race, which has become an essential stop for up-and-coming talent. The American team came in with Costa as the unofficial leader. McNulty rode aggressively, winning the first stage and taking over leadership. Eventually, he won the overall. No American junior had won the race in its 44-year history.

“We race [the Peace Race] with every junior who’s gone on to the WorldTour, and we had never won it,” Miller says. “And then Brandon wins the queen stage and the overall. It was special.”

FOR TALENTED AMERICANS LIKE McNulty, the route to cycling’s highest echelon has always run through Europe. Greg LeMond famously signed with France’s Renault team at the age of 19; Motorola sent Lance Armstrong and other Americans to Europe in the early 1990s; van Garderen chose Rabobank’s espoir (under-23) development team over similar programs at home. USA Cycling still sends its U23 riders to the Low Countries every year, hoping the cutthroat development races pound them into seasoned professionals.

The system produces few champions. But the list of washouts is long.

“The racing in Europe is better, but you have to be careful with guys, especially the first-year U23 guys,” Miller says. “It’s a big change in workload and a big life change.”

The U23 riders participate in development races that are often better-organized than events in the United States. European U23 teams employ aggressive tactics, and the pace is a huge step up from the junior ranks. The weather is often dismal, and sickness can spread through a team quickly.

The races weed out the less talented riders; others quit due to the time away from home. Sometimes, the system chases away riders with WorldTour-level talent. Chris Stockburger came to USA Cycling’s development house in Izegem, Belgium, in 2004, having won 11 junior national championships. He suffered through illness and overtraining, and results never came. At one point, he was quarantined due to illness away from the other riders for weeks. After another year of dismal results, he retired at the age of 20 to pursue medical school.

“It can be very difficult to be over there and to not be successful and to be isolated and to have those stresses on top of it,” Stockburger says. “It’s the reality of the sport.”

A decade after Stockburger quit, his name still echoes within the minds of American development coaches as a cautionary tale. Did the program push him too hard? Could a kinder, gentler approach have helped him survive those crucial espoir years? Did super-talents like Stockburger even need to spend that much time racing overseas?

“Chris was the guy that everybody saw as the next great American,” says King, who directed Stockburger at several races. “He was one of the riders who we thought you just couldn’t miss.”

King thought of Stockburger as he pondered McNulty’s future. He wondered if there was a better pathway to bring McNulty to the WorldTour. After McNulty’s Peace Race victory, WorldTour teams and rider agents began to query about the youngster’s next steps.

Knickman had his own trepidations for sending McNulty overseas. A bronze medalist at the 1984 Olympics, Knickman turned professional at 19 with the French La Vie Claire team in 1986. He says team management promised to ease him into European racing.

Instead, he was shipped from the Championship of Zurich straight to the Tour du Romandie and on to the Giro d’Italia. After four seasons in Europe, Knickman retreated to the U.S. domestic scene, where he retired in 2000.

“They swore I wouldn’t do a grand tour, and there I was racing 31 days straight. I was toast,” Knickman says. “It showed me that I was expendable. Cycling is a business.”

In McNulty, both men saw a young rider with unworldly talent who still raced for fun, and not yet for cash. Working-class kids in Spain or Belgium often gravitate toward cycling for the glitz and big paychecks. McNulty is the son of a software engineer, not a farmer. He grew up in suburban Phoenix, not in working-class Flanders. Like Stockburger, McNulty has other options in life
— college, a professional career — should cycling not work out. Perhaps throwing him into the European meat grinder wasn’t the best way to nurture his talent.

“That European hard-man, only-the-tough- survive approach doesn’t work for everyone,” Knickman says. “What if we make cycling palatable for Brandon? He can be around friends, he can let his body mature, and when he feels it’s time, he can go to Europe.”

THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE 2016 UCI world championships in Doha, McNulty invited his USA Cycling teammates Ian Garrison and Tyler Stites to his house in Phoenix to train in the Arizona heat. Hoping to simulate Qatar’s hot, muggy conditions, the three took over the McNulty family garage, filling it with space heaters and wet towels. Three days a week, they pedaled 20-minute efforts on the trainers in the makeshift sauna.

McNulty can’t say whether the unorthodox training helped him acclimate to Doha. While painful, the makeshift sauna intervals were fun.

“We were dying. It was so hard,” McNulty says, laughing. “To anybody outside of cycling I’m sure it would sound like child abuse.”

During race week, the heat rose above 100 degrees on most days. The day before his race, McNulty spun warm-up laps on the course. During these short efforts, he says, he knew his body was prepared.

“I texted Barney and told him that tomorrow is going to be something special,” McNulty says.

When all 83 junior riders had finished, McNulty had won by 35 seconds over Mikkel Bjerg of Denmark. Had McNulty been in the U23 race, he would have won the bronze medal. After McNulty’s victory, the inquiries poured in. Quick-Step’s U23 team Klein Constantia was interested, and so was Axel Merckx’s Axeon-Hagens Berman team. Two other European teams threw their names in the ring. A fifth inquiry came from Jonas Carney, director of Rally.

A longtime friend of Knickman, Carney flew to Phoenix to meet with McNulty’s parents. He said Brandon could do a shorter, two-month European stint with Rally, and then return to the United States to race domestically, before returning to Europe with USA Cycling in the late summer. He assured the McNulty family that his team’s veterans Danny Pate and Jesse Anthony would mentor the youngster.

Carney says. “I think we gave him a lot more options than other teams.”

The deciding factor was schedule flexibility. King and McNulty viewed the 2017 UCI world time trial championships as their primary goal. When King asked team directors whether they’d guarantee schedule flexibility to prepare for worlds, only Carney agreed.

McNulty’s American-centric plan is not without risks. WorldTour teams value results at small European races over those at top North American races. Racing dynamics in North America are less tactical and cutthroat than what you find on narrow, winding roads in the Low Countries. And the traditional European development plan has worked — even Stockburger agrees it’s still the best way to reach the sport’s pinnacle.

“The aggressiveness and the wattage is harder, so it makes sense why [European] racing is better,” Stockburger says. “If your end goal is to be a European pro I still think it’s the best way to go.”

Still, if McNulty can win another world title, the result will likely overcome any gap in his European experience. Thus far, Rally has agreed to work alongside King and McNulty’s goal. After several days of heavy training miles in January, the Rally team headed toward Southern California’s famed Gibraltar climb. King asked if McNulty could have a rest day, and the team agreed.

“The goal is to challenge Brandon but not to drown him,” King says. “Just because the kid can ride like an adult doesn’t mean he’s an adult — not yet.”

Velonews.com
Brandon McNulty Claims U-23 American Time Trial Title
Junior World Champ Trades Rainbow Stripes for Red, White and Blue


2016 Junior World Time Trial Champion Brandon McNulty won his first Under-23 US National Championship title today, besting the competition with a time of 41:44 on the 34 km course around Taylorsville Lake State Park, KY. McNulty’s win showed grit and toughness after illness hindered his performance in last week’s US TT National Championships, and was another sign that the young talent is here to stay.

The Under-23 field today included the powerful Axeon Hagens Berman duo of Neilson Powless and William Barta, who finished 3rd and 4th in the Elite time trial event over the previous weekend. McNulty meanwhile struggled to a 22nd place result, feeling the effects of an illness which began toward the end of the North Star Grand Prix.

“Brandon was sick last week and had a rough go in Knoxville on Saturday,” explained Performance Manager Jonas Carney. “It’s remarkable that he recovered so quickly and was able to win against such a tough field of riders.”

The wishbone course around Taylorsville Lake featured over 1800 feet of elevation gain and constant rolling terrain, requiring riders to deliver constant power to the pedals. Barta set a new standard when he crossed the line in 41:56 with Powless and McNulty still out on course. The bronze medalist from last weekend came up just short of Barta, 12 seconds in arrears. McNulty meanwhile was proving out on the course that he had overcome his illness, eclipsing Barta at the mid-race time check. After the finish, Brandon’s time stood fast and he claimed his first U-23 Championship with 12 seconds to spare.

Asked how it felt to lay down a winning performance today following his earlier setback, McNulty replied, “It felt great! I knew that if my body was able to come around for today I would have a solid shot at the win. I also knew my form was good coming off of some big efforts at the North Star Grand Prix, and everything just came together today. I’m very happy to take home the jersey and continue to bring home national titles for Rally Cycling.”

McNulty and teammate Curtis White will have another chance at stars and stripes tomorrow morning in the 177 km U-23 Championship Road Race. Despite being outnumbered by larger teams, the pair could still prove formidable given McNulty’s strength from the breakaway and White’s speedy finishing kick. The race circuits will be nearly flat, running laps around Cherokee Park in Louisville.

Comunicato stampa Rally Cycling

Ah ecco perché settimana scorsa era andato piano, peccato perché si poteva provare la doppietta. Talento speciale.

[Immagine: DDhyNScW0AISn6w.jpg]
Is Brandon McNulty Still Cycling’s Next Big Thing?

By Ian Dille | July 25, 2017 | Rally Health

Barney King coaches bicycle racers. He’s done this job from his home base in Phoenix, AZ for a few decades now, and over the course of his career, he says, “I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of very talented young riders.” But he’s never worked with someone quite like Brandon McNulty.

McNulty, a 19-year-old racer on Rally Cycling, is the reigning junior world champion in the time trial — meaning, among racers the same age, there is no one better at pedaling a bike as fast as possible over a given distance.

Only two other American men have ever won a junior world championship in road cycling. One of them, Greg LeMond, went on to win the Tour de France three times.

Of course, in sports, as in life, teenage prodigies frequently fail to fulfill the promise we so often expect of them. They encounter insurmountable challenges. Their ambition wanes. They push back against the pressure we’re so eager to put on them.

So, when McNulty crashed and fractured his hip at Portugal’s Volta Alentejo in February, his first real race as a professional, and his first real setback as a bike racer, major questions loomed: How would he handle this adversity? Would he come back as strong as before? Or would his cycling career begin to spiral downward, before it had even begun?



“We hit the crosswinds, and guys started to get twitchy and nervous,” McNulty recalls of the race in which he crashed. “There were several close calls, where guys were slamming their brakes and skidding. Then, all of a sudden, right in front of me, two guys clipped each other, and my front wheel was in between them. I went over on my side and landed right on my hip.”

When you crash in a bike race, something always hurts, according to McNulty, and this collision was no different. “I thought, ‘oh, it’s probably just bruised pretty badly,’” he says of the pain in his hip. He got up, got back to the field of racers, and rode to the finish with half the power in his injured leg.

But getting off his bike at the finish, he could barely twist his leg to get out of the pedal without wincing in pain. “I thought, ‘This isn’t good,’” he says. “That night, I kept trying to tell myself, it’s feeling better.” The next morning, though, he could hardly walk. He went to the hospital, and an X-ray showed two hip fractures, a crack at the front and one near his sit bones.

“I was super bummed, because that was the first race of a two-month stint in Europe,” he says. “But I knew if I let it get too much into my head it would do more harm than if I just accepted it and got through it. I just had to stay positive.”

Where many young athletes might complicate a serious injury by trying to do too much, too soon, McNulty was positively disciplined in his restraint.

Back in the US, he connected with King and developed a recovery plan, following the advice of his doctor and physical therapist.

“It was really painful. At first, the only way I could move my leg is if I picked it up and moved it with my arms,” he says.

He would need crutches to walk for two and a half weeks following the crash, but he was able to do exercises in a pool only four days later. He set new, small goals, and worked toward achieving them.

“There were little things I could do to take my mind off the pain and the monotony of sitting around all day,” Brandon says. “I had never actually done a legitimate swim stroke, so I focused on teaching myself how to swim. I would swim to one side of the pool and already be at max heart rate.”

At three weeks, he began riding a stationary bike. “It was really motivating to get back on the bike, and made me enjoy it that much more,” he says.

At five weeks, Brandon’s doctors cleared him to ride outside, but King advised waiting another week or so until he had finished his physical therapy — and McNulty listened.

“Brandon instinctively has the ability to keep his cool when things aren’t going well,” says Roy Knickman, the director of the team McNulty raced for as a junior. “He’s very relaxed, and utilizes his strengths very confidently.”

That composure has assisted McNulty in races — using his strength when it will prove effective, instead of wasting energy attacking fruitlessly. King cites a world cup stage race for juniors, the 2016 Tour de l’Abitibi in Canada, in which Brandon lost the lead after a difficult day of racing. After the stage, Brandon’s teammates hung their heads in defeat.

But McNulty simply looked at King and said, “No problem, I’ll get the time back tomorrow.” The next day, in the final stage of the race, he made a perfectly timed attack into a difficult crosswind section, rode away from the field, and won the race.

“You can’t coach that,” says King. “That’s just someone who’s special.”

That same composure and discipline helped Brandon fully recover from his broken hip. About four months after his crash, he toed the line at the Redlands Classic, a pro stage race in California, and his first true test after breaking his hip. There, he would prove he’d fully recovered from his injury, and reaffirm his world class talent.



McNulty credits his love for cycling to his father, RJ, an avid mountain biker who had dabbled in racing himself before becoming a father. Both King and Knickman say Brandon’s quiet but confident demeanor comes from both his parents, who have staunchly supported him while also making sure his motivation to ride and race came from within.

“From a real early age, once the training wheels were off, Brandon wanted to go mountain biking,” says RJ McNulty. “He knew I’d raced, and at around 8 or 9 years old, he said he wanted to go race himself. In his first race, he finished mid-pack, but he wasn’t discouraged at all. He said, ‘OK Dad, I want to train now.’”

Almost every day when RJ got home from work, Brandon would be ready to ride. In Brandon’s next race, a month or so later, “He just killed everybody,” says RJ. “And he pretty much just kept doing that from there on out.” At 11, Brandon began road racing with club teams in the Phoenix area, where he still lives.

At 15, in his first junior national championships, Brandon placed fifth in the time trial. At 16, he was fifth in the road race, and second in the time trial. But even as one of the best racers for his age in the US, he tried not to take cycling too seriously.

“I’d just do the group rides I wanted to, and when I wanted to go hard I’d take off,” Brandon says. At 17, when his family hired King as a coach, and Brandon began training with more structure, he says, “things went to a whole new level.”

King not only gave Brandon a regimen of interval training to strengthen him physically, but also worked with him on bike handling skills, and the way in which he prepared for races. In advance of the 2016 junior world championships in Doha, Qatar, King jokes that Brandon’s preparation, “bordered on child abuse.”

In Qatar, Brandon would face extreme heat and humidity. So King had Brandon ride a stationary trainer in a closed garage, simulating 100-degree heat and 90 percent humidity. Then, after the workout, Brandon would go sit in a sauna.

“He would eat endless Gatorade slushies the whole time,” says King.

To simulate the technical nature of the circuit at the world championships, which featured 19 turns over a roughly five-mile loop, King and Brandon devised a similar course in a neighborhood near Brandon’s home. Brandon left for Qatar with a feeling the focused work would pay off.

The night before he would win in the time trial at junior worlds, he emailed King. “I feel great,” he said. “I think something special is going to happen tomorrow.



At the Redlands Classic, his first race following the crash that broke his hip, McNulty arrived similarly confident. “The previous weeks, in training, my numbers had been good, so I knew I’d be competitive. I was just excited to be racing again,” he says.

The stage race began with a time trial, in which McNulty finished fourth, one of the few times he’d missed the podium in a race against the clock. The next day, in a road race with a mountain top finish, he finished third, and moved into second place overall. The pair of results confirmed that, in the wake of the crash and injury, he had maintained his health and fitness.
Back in the Groove at Redlands. (Photo by Jonathan Devich/Epic Images)

Back in the Groove at Redlands. (Photo by Jonathan Devich/Epic Images)

But it remained to be seen if the crash had in some way affected his psyche — if it had tarnished his gift, shaken his confidence, killed his coolness, or disrupted his ability to make good decisions, even during the heat of a race.

He admits that riding inches away from other racers at Redlands, “there was a little bit of nervousness.” But by the fourth stage, a high-speed circuit race on a technical course, he found his mojo. “I was back to being pretty comfortable.”

In fact, he received the biggest compliment of all, praise from his teammates. “All the guys were like, ‘It was super nice riding for you,’ because they didn’t have to do anything to keep me at the front,” Brandon says. “I already had the skills.”

With a solid stage race result under his belt, McNulty retrained his focus on his season’s major goal, defending his title as a time trial world champion, but now one age bracket higher, racing in the under-23 category.



Even before McNulty became a world champion, he’d attracted attention from some of the world’s top development teams — US and European outfits comprising racers under the age of 23, with a reputation for turning talented young cyclists into Tour de France level riders.

The Rally Cycling team races predominantly in the US and features both younger racers trying to move up in the sport and older, more stable veteran racers. In the bidding war for Brandon, the Rally Cycling team was an outlier.

But King, as well as Roy Knickman, the director of the team Brandon raced with as a junior, saw Rally as a good fit. King viewed the veteran racers at Rally as a valuable resource for Brandon.

King felt that the difference between joining Rally, or racing on a team of similarly talented but relatively inexperienced young racers, was the equivalent of either, “doing an internship, or joining a fraternity.”
Brandon McNulty, flanked by Danny Pate, Evan Huffman, and Rob Britton. (Photo © Sam Wiebe/Rally Cycling)

Brandon McNulty, flanked by Danny Pate, Evan Huffman, and Rob Britton. (Photo © Sam Wiebe/Rally Cycling)

Knickman, a longtime friend of Rally Cycling director Jonas Carney and a former junior world medalist himself, also saw the atmosphere at Rally as highly beneficial to the athletes.

“They seem to have figured out that the happiest and healthiest athletes are the most productive athletes,” he says.

Carney visited McNulty at his home, to meet face to face with him and his parents and to reinforce Rally Cycling’s commitment to putting the rider’s well-being first, and to making Brandon’s long-term career a priority.

“When Brandon decided on a team, he spent almost the entire day at Barney’s house,” says RJ. “Going over the various options, and the benefits of each.”

McNulty says he chose Rally because, “It feels like a family-oriented environment. And people are willing to help you out when they’re in the position.” Even though he came to the team as one of the strongest riders — he was Rally’s “camp champ,” the title awarded to the best rider at the team’s January training camp — he appreciates his teammates’ decades of experience.

“Brad Huff likes to remind me that he’s been racing bikes longer than I’ve been alive,” he says.



In June, McNulty notched his first win as a professional, taking the time trial at the Nature Valley Grand Prix in Minnesota. And weeks later, he followed up that victory by winning the time trial at the under-23 national championships in Louisville.

The national championship win secured McNulty’s spot on the US under-23 roster for the world championships (never a guaranteed start, even if you’re the reigning junior world champion), and put him one step closer to his goal of winning the under-23 time trial world championship this fall.

In overcoming his crash, and the resulting injury, McNulty showed an ability to overcome adversity, to find practitioners he and his coach trusted, and to methodically follow a plan laid out for recovery. These things may seem simple, but so often, we get them wrong.

McNulty says that in facing the inevitable challenges of professional cycling—and life—he’s adopted a relatively simply mantra.

“One thing my coach has always told me, that I often repeat to myself, is that as long as I’m healthy and I’m happy, I’ll perform well.”
Io di così forti sia in salita che in pianura a 19 anni non ne ho visti pochi.

Oggi sesto a 10" dal primo in un tappone da Tour de France. E anche alla Planche ha perso solo 10" dal primo del gruppo. Peraltro tutti quelli che gli sono arrivati davanti hanno almeno due anni più di lui.

Da ragazzo intelligente qual è, oltretutto, ha evitato di andare alla Axeon scegliendo un percorso di maturazione più blando (quest'anno alla Rally con alcuni veterani del ciclismo USA, il prossimo potrebbe andare alla Sunweb U23) che potrebbe tuttavia dargli ben altri frutti rispetto a quello che avrebbe fatto sotto la guida di Axel Merckx.

Qua la crono mondiale che ha vinto: http://www.raisport.rai.it/dl/raiSport/m...edf15.html

Fa paura vedere come va con un rapportino del cacchio come il 52x14, che gli stava veramente strettissimo. Ma la cosa ancor più impressionante è che col 52x14 avrebbe fatto podio tra gli U23.
3° nella crono junior di Richmond
1° nella crono junior di Doha
2° nella crono U23 di Bergen

Il tutto mentre vinceva la Corsa della Pace, l'Abitibi, il Karlsberg, e faceva podio all'Alsazia contro quelli che si sono giocati le posizioni dietro Bernal all'Avenir (e le tappe di montagna dell'Alsazia erano più dure di quelle dell'Avenir).

Se realizza tutto il potenziale al Gdr domino per i prossimi 15 anni.
Mi piace McNulty per come ne sento parlare da un po' di tempo (perchè correre penso di non averlo mai visto correre). Può essere veramente il passista-scalatore che può dominare i GT del futuro.
Intanto fa sapere che l'anno prossimo correrà ancora con la Rally.

Bene così, soprattutto se la Rally passerà professional e avrà modo di fare più corse.

Meglio crescere con calma che provare ad accelerare il più possibile il processo come fanno in Axeon. Powless, per dirne uno, ha due anni in più, ma è come se fossero 5/6 al momento.
Che corridore Wub

Neanche vent'anni e non si tira indietro veramente mai.

Oggi non è andata, ma il futuro è luminoso.
Sarebbe il primo americano che "riesce" dall' era post Armstrong (post doping di massa mi sembrava eccessivo).
Io diffido
e vabbè diffidi di che?NON HA NEMMENO 20 ANNI
Permettimi di diffidare, non credo possa dare fastidio. Ne ho visti tanti giovani perdersi, il "muro" è sempre dietro l'angolo. La stoffa ce l'ha, vediamo che vestito ricama
Fosse stato italiano l'avrebbero già definito il nuovo Coppi.
Oggi McNulty 15esimo all'Indurain.

E' andato molto forte fino agli ultimi 20 km, era nel gruppo di testa e all'improvviso gli si è spenta la luce.

Normale che gli manchi ancora qualcosa in quanto a fondo, considerata l'età, il fatto che coi pro ci ha corso pochissimo visto che l'anno scorso ha saltato mezza stagione e che, inoltre, era fermo da un mese e mezzo.
Oggi altra bella prestazione: 11esimo al Primavera, a soli 30" da Amador primo.
Peccato che domani non ci sia una tappa in cui poter tirare il fiato.

A crono può far sfracelli (anzi, tecnicamente è il favorito).

Comunque stagione fin qui super per uno che l'anno scorso aveva fatto due corse in croce causa infortunio e due anni fa era junior.
Per oggi dice che ha come obiettivo la top-10 ed entrare nei primi 10 della generale.

Io mi aspetterei anche qualcosina in più.
Oggi ha corso da veterano vero.

Si è staccato presto insieme a Britton, mentre davanti Sivakov ed Henao Jr facevano un forcing distruttivo per tutti quelli provavano a rimanere in gruppo.

E poi via con la rimonta...ne avrà ripresi e superati una 10ina almeno, inclusi Majka e TJVG.

Degno di nota il fatto che sia andato meglio oggi, in una tappa di quasi 200 km con 7 GPM, che non nella frazione con arrivo a Gilbratar Road che era altimetricamente più semplice e 40 km più corta.

Chiude con un ottimo 7° posto in classifica generale, senza la foratura che lo ha rallentato ieri forse riusciva ad arrivare anche davanti a Majka.
7° in classifica generale alla prima corsa WT della carriera.

A 20 anni.

Devo ancora scrivere qualcosa? Ghgh Ghgh Ghgh
È stato impressionante nell'ultima tappa per la rimonta che fatto.

Io ci credevo abbastanza alla vigilia di questo California potesse fare un buon risultato in classifica, però non era facile per l'età e perché il livello non era basso e invece è stato bravissimo e costante per tutta la settimana.
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