David McQuaid (white shirt) is looking towards a season packed with more races and better invites in the year ahead for Synergy Baku's second season.
General manager of the Continental-ranked Synergy Baku team, Ireland’s David McQuaid has said he is hopeful of a stronger campaign in 2014, with a year of learning and experience now under the squad’s belts.
The team is an Azerbaijani-backed and registered outfit, with the core aim of qualifying that country’s cyclists for the 2016 Rio Olympics.
However, McQuaid’s 17-rider roster this year has an international feel, with Belfast’s Conor McConvey riding again in the squad’s colours and three-time Olympian David McCann working on the management side giving it very much an Irish flavour.
New to the team this year is Irish national road race champion Matt Brammeier and McQuaid believes he and McConvey can win very good races in the season ahead.
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Having been very hastily put together on the eve of last season, there has been more time this winter to put in place an expanded and improved race programme. More consideration has also been given to the getting right mix of riders, including signing riders towards establishing a lead out train.
“We’ve a nice race programme in 2014 because we’ve had the luxury of time to plan it this time around,” McQuaid told stickybottle.
“Because the team was thrown together over the Christmas period before last season I didn't have a lot of time to get us race entries. So our early season consisted mainly of the Asia tour where I had good contacts or friends to call on for invites.
“I think our first European tour race was the Rás in late May. But this time we had a fuller programme in place even before we were preparing to get together for our pre season training.
“So when we went to our first camp in Calpe just before Christmas, I was in a position to outline to our four directors including Jeremy Hunt and McCann, all of the race starts we had lined up.
“The four of them were then able to sit down at that stage and work out the programme to the end of May for our 17 riders. It’s definitely been a lot more structured.”
Aside from having those plans in the bag early, the team’s participation in the Herald Sun Tour, an Australian UCI 2.1 race held two weeks ago, also suggests the planning period this time around has helped secure invites to bigger races.
And McQuaid says the whole operation is now in a position to run two programmes of racing throughout this year.
In Australia under the watchful eye of former British national champion and Team Sky rider Hunt are five Azerbaijani riders, three Germans and two Austrians.
Of the Azerbaijanis, two rode the Herald Sun Tour while the other three rode the local criterium circuit with a view to gaining form for the racing programme in the months ahead.
McQuaid said the three German riders are all very fast and that the racing trip to Australia – with a UCI 2.2 five-day race in New Zealand before the Herald Sun Tour – has afforded them the opportunity to gel into what will hopefully become a well drilled sprint train.
Among those is Christoph Schweizer, a 26-year-old who was with the team last year. He is joined by compatriots and new signings Michael Schweizer (30) and Daniel Klemme (22), who rode for Leopard Trek last year.
Klemme already has a couple of results under his belt this year, taking 5th on stage 3 of the Herald Sun Tour and placing 2nd on stage 2 of the New Zealand Cycle Classic before the Australian outing.
Schweizer too has been quick out of the blocks, winning the sprinters jersey in New Zealand.
McQuaid is hopeful the trio can perform well at the Tour de Langkawi, which suits sprinters every day this year apart from the stage to Genting Highlands and starts in 10 days time.
“From these 10 guys who’ve been in Australia, we’ll get the core of the team that will ride Langkawi and the Tour of Taiwan (March 9th to 13th). Matt Brammeier flies out from Europe for the Langkawi start sheet and our Austrian rider Markus Eibegger for the Tour of Taiwan team.
“The guys that are still in Europe start their season with a one day in Slovenia towards the end of this month and then they ride a series of UCI one day races and stage races in Croatia from the start of March.
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“McConvey is on that programme and he’s been happily training away in Girona in Spain. Brammeier will feature in the latter Croatia races after coming back immediately from Langkawi.
“We have a long season, we race until November. So for some of the riders there was no rush to start the season. We’re racing a lot more in Europe simply because we’ve had that time to plan and to get a bigger programme in place.”
Seen here winning the climbers' classification in the Tour of Azerbaijan last year, Conor McConvey was 2nd in the Rás for Synergy Baku and is capable of winning big races.
McQuaid said the team has a programme of races in France lined up in April and says getting starts in European events is crucial towards advancing the team’s Azerbaijani riders to the stage where they can be good enough to ride the Olympics in 2016 and indeed to score the qualification points they need to get there.
“Just one rider going to Rio is the target, but given a bit of luck in races we could perhaps end up qualifying more. Azerbaijan is on the UCI Europe Tour which means our qualification process is the same as Ireland's, for example. It’s all based around qualifying with Euro tour points.
“We based the team in southern Austria last year and we’re doing that again this year. We have staff living in the area so it works out with vehicles and so on.”
He said Austria was also beneficial for riders transiting through from outside the EU because it is part of the Schengen visa arrangement; an area made up of nations that have signed up to allow travel between their nations on just one visa.
“But more to the point, we hope the Azeris can collect placings and wins in the various UCI races we start at in the region; Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Czech, Romania and so one.
“There is no such thing anymore as an easy race but we really feel the Azeris best chance to collect points are in those countries. We are even sending one or two of them to the An Post Rás.
“We’re not interested in northern Europe because of the nature of the races plus the cost in getting the vehicles there. I think Brittany is as far north as we’ll go. We’ll be there twice; once with the Tour de Bretagne and later in the year with Kreiz Breizh stage race.”
The signing of Matt Brammeier increases the team's Irish flavour and also its chances of winning races.
McQuaid said he was happy with how the season has started, having had the chance to see the team in action firsthand when visiting the riders in Australia and New Zealand in recent weeks.
He said the trips are important to make sure the team is gelling and to identify any issues, with equipment and other practical and logistical issues.
He added travelling to the Herald Sun Tour had afforded him the opportunity to host a surprise retirement party for Will Walker; an Australian rider due to compete with the team this year but who has been forced to retire on health grounds after experiencing a recurrence of a cardiac condition in the Australian road race championships last month.
“I invited mostly media, but the key part of the Sun Tour organisation were there too. It was a good night, I'm glad we did it, particularly for Will.”
He said the upcoming stage races in Langkawi and Taiwan will be a target for the team, adding as a Continental-ranked outfit it was good to have secured invites to two big events that effectively represent the peak of the Asia tour.
“Because of the media value of both Taiwan and Langkawi, it is important on a commercial level that they feature on our programme and it helps when dealing with technical partners and sponsors and the like.
“Going to the early season races is also handy for delivering gear that maybe wasn't available for distribution at the Calpe training camp because it was a late arrangement or whatever.
“As the season gets going I've no real need to go to the events anymore and just leave the lads at it and control things from Dublin.”
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