JOURNEY INTO THE JAYCO ALULA WORLD. 60,000 WATER BOTTLES, 200 BICYCLES, 18 KITS PER RIDER, A FLEET THAT...
PROFESSIONALS | 08/01/2025 | 08:15
On the eve of a new and long competitive season, we invite you to take a small journey into the heart of a great team to better understand how a WorldTour team works. We increasingly hear about teams that are large companies, and so, thanks to our friends at Jatco AlUla, we've sought to learn more. Follow us.
We're a few kilometers from Varese, looking at what seems to be a classic industrial warehouse: a single-story building protected by a metal fence. The magic, however, is inside.
Because this is the home, the beating heart of the GreenEDGE Cycling team. It's the starting and ending point of every race: from Australia to Europe. Here, activity never stops: when in a few hours the team will kick off the 2025 season in Perth, most of the work will already have been done.
A cycling team can never stand still and the 14th year of activity for the Australian team begins with two major changes that see its activity expand like never before. First of all, the signing of a multi-year partnership with the Melbourne brand MAAP: the Australian company will dress the Jayco AlUla Team, Liv AlUla Jayco, and the Liv AlUla Jayco Continental team this year.
The team's "dressing" work began in October, when the team's athletes met in Turin for a couple of days of retreat. On that occasion, measurements were taken for each athlete, and a couple of months later, during the December camp in Spain, cyclists received 10 jerseys and part of the material for the first part of 2025.
"Usually," explains Kabir Lenzi, who is the head of the team's 18 masseurs and handles kit distribution, "the material is distributed directly to cyclists in two tranches. The first between December and January, the second before the Giro d'Italia, mainly concerning material for warm seasons."
In practice, each athlete is provided with 18 new jerseys and other clothing to use until the end of the season.
"For the WorldTour women's team, the amount of material is slightly lower because they do fewer races. In total, between men and women of the WorldTour, we deliver over 800 jerseys to athletes."
Meanwhile, the team's new water bottles have arrived at headquarters. In total, for all three teams, there are over 60,000, most of which end up in the hands of fans at the end of the day.
The second novelty for 2025 is that the GreenEDGE family will grow further with the addition of Hagens Berman Jayco. From this year, it will be the official men's development team, adding another arrow to the team's bow. This means there are now four teams operating under the GreenEDGE Cycling banner. The U.S. U23 team was founded by Axel Merckx in 2009 and is now a well-established reality.
Since then, it has been considered one of the best in the men's group for developing future young stars. Eddie Dunbar, a rider for the Jayco AlUla Team, is one of the guys who honed his art with them before making the jump to WorldTour.
"The growth and development of the next generation have always been important for GreenEDGE Cycling and team owner Gerry Ryan," emphasizes General Manager Brent Copeland. "And then we must consider that, in recent times, cycling has changed a lot. We must go and seek new talents and try to prepare them to become WorldTour professionals."
To do this, it's not enough to rely only on numbers and results, but it's necessary to know the riders more deeply. "We are developing the scouting process to identify those guys who have the potential to join the devo team: we don't just analyze sports performances, we want to understand in depth who we are facing," Copeland explains further.
Meanwhile, alongside the water bottles, other material arrives: last year, more than 1,000 tubeless tires were used during the entire season. "It's a good number," says Mattia Romanò, responsible for orders and relations with technical partners of the team. "But we always try to give the best to athletes. There's only one rule: WorldTour and devo teams have the same materials available."
To do this, the team's 20 mechanics began assembling the new Giant and Liv bikes in November, just a few days after the end of the 2024 season. "It takes about three hours to assemble a bike, but then you also have to do the setup based on the athletes' measurements," Romanò explains.
Generally, all bikes are ready by January. But how many are there? As an example, the WorldTour men's team has over 200 Giant bikes among Propel, TCR, and TT models for road and time trial tests. On average, each male team athlete can count on seven bikes per season. There are some exceptions: one of the team's leaders, Australian Ben O'Connor, will have nine bikes available, including two road bikes and a time trial bike he'll keep at home for training.
"Being efficient is essential, and for this reason, in races, especially in Grand Tours, we bring four road bikes and two time trial bikes for our leader," Romanò explains. "Time is so little after each stage that it's always better to have one or two spare bikes ready for use."
Last year, between men's and women's WorldTour teams, almost 400 race days were faced. The 2025 season will see men exceed 280 race days, thanks to some new races like the Copenhagen Sprint in June and the Tour of Hellas in April.
Ensuring the team travels punctually throughout the year, organizing the movements of riders, staff, and vehicles is a real challenge. Jacopo Scampini is the main person responsible for vehicle movement. "In the end, my goal is to get the vehicles where they need to go. There are days when, between men and women, we are present in up to four races simultaneously."
There are three team trucks, in addition to three buses, two kitchen vans, and 18 cars. Together with colleagues who handle staff and riders, a general plan is prepared that is continuously updated. "It's fundamental to be on the same wavelength because," Scampini continues, "this is a job where unexpected events are the order of the day. You have to pass customs, vehicles can break down, planes that don't take off, and so on."
Moving such an articulated fleet is therefore not easy, especially considering that the team has adopted an eco-friendly policy.
"We try to minimize movements. For example, the truck and a couple of other vehicles will remain in Spain between the first and second training retreats, and the same applies to the Northern Classics, where vehicles remain between Belgium and the Netherlands for over a month."
In this way, the team not only saves on transportation costs but also contributes to reducing its environmental impact while its standard-bearers are busy chasing the most prestigious goals.
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