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A conversation with Gérard Vroomen

by Neal Rogers

• November 14, 2008
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By Neal Rogers

Even before Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France this past July, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) had announced that it was ending its long run as a title sponsor of the world’s No. 1 team.

And while Sastre’s Tour victory was something of a going-away present to CSC-Saxo Bank, it wasn’t long before news hit that Sastre and bike sponsor Cervélo, both of whom had been with the team since 2002, were also parting ways to start a new project — the Cervélo TestTeam.

The parting of ways meant that Bjarne Riis’ Tour-winning team would head into the 2009 season without its previous title sponsor, bike manufacturer, or defending Tour champion.

It also meant that Sastre, the first rider announced to have signed with the team, was taking an unusual risk for a Tour champion by joining a new organization without an established infrastructure or stable of familiar teammates.

In the weeks and months that followed, the team — which is partnered with Zipp, Speedplay, Vittoria and 3T and claims to have a four-year commitment of additional private funding — has announced signings that include Thor Hushovd, Andreas Klier, Marcel Wyss, Simon Gerrans, Roger Hammond, Ted King and Dominique Rollin.

The new Cervélo team also marks the first time a bike manufacturer has taken on title sponsorship of a Tour de France-level squad since 2003, when Bianchi stepped in at the eleventh hour to sponsor Jan Ullrich after his Coast team folded just prior to the race.

Early press releases, however, made a point of noting that the team name, Cervélo TestTeam, is a working title and several companies have since already expressed an interest in becoming a major sponsor, which may affect the final name of the squad.

Whatever the final name, the Cervélo TestTeam will be operated by Swiss management company Cycling United Racing, which also runs the Cervélo-Lifeforce professional women’s team of Olympic gold medalist Kristin Armstrong. Nine-time Tour de France stage winner Jean Paul van Poppel and retired German pro Jens Zemke will serve as sport directors of the men’s team.

Former CSC director Scott Sunderland was initially slated to manage the team, however the Aussie and the team never clicked and he left after only a month. In September Sunderland said he’d been lured by Cervélo’s philosophy and the fresh challenge it would provide, but four weeks later the team issued a press release stating that an alignment in philosophies was crucial to the team’s success, adding, “We have always admired his [Sunderland's] talents and capabilities and we will continue to admire Mr. Sunderland as a great sports director.”

The team will hold its first get-together, a meet-and-greet where riders will be sized up for apparel, in Switzerland in early December. A longer training camp and media presentation are scheduled for January in southern Spain before the team hopes to begin its season at the Tour of Qatar and Amgen Tour of California.

Behind Cervélo — both the team and the bike company — is Dutch engineer Gérard Vroomen, who, along with Phil White, co-founded the Canadian company in 1995. Recently, VeloNews contacted Vroomen to discuss the team and the big step taken by a relatively small – but growing – bike company.

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VeloNews: Who has been making the roster decisions for the team?

Gérard Vroomen: The roster is a group effort of many people. There is the general management, the sport directors, and especially Thor and Carlos, they know a lot of riders, and what they need to be successful. Thor needs his train for the sprints and for some of the classics, and Carlos has of course over the years figured out what kind of riders he needs

VN: Any idea when the full roster might be announced?

GV: We have already announced (22) or so of 24 riders. The rest will be announced soon.

VN: What can you tell us about what happened with Scott Sunderland? He wasn’t a part of the team for very long, and it seemed odd that things would fall apart during the off-season.

GV: I think we said it all in the press release. We were in discussions with him to work together, and in the end both sides decided it was better not.

VN: I’ve heard the team will have a much different structure than other teams…

GV: I would hope so.

VN: Not just in terms of product development, but in terms of riders having some sort of equity stake in the team. What can you tell us about that?

GV: To be honest, I’m not sure what you are referring to. Running a pro cycling team is not a money-making effort. It is an attempt for us and the other partners to get out of pro cycling what we need. It’s nobody’s main business to be running a cycling team in that sense. It’s not a profit-making venture in that sense.

It’s more the other way around. I wasn’t aware it was that prevalent, but we don’t offer individual bonuses for race wins, for example. Apparently a lot of other teams do offer them. But to us that is the wrong incentive. I think, in modern cycling, we don’t need more enticements to win races. If we are going to reward riders we’d rather reward them in other areas that are helpful that are not focused on race performance.

VN: What would those areas be?

GV: Well, product development, or hospitality. There are no bonuses for that either, but if I had to give a bonus, I’d rather give it for that than for race performance.

VN: You said the team is an attempt for you and the other partners to “get out of pro cycling what you need” from pro cycling. What do you need from pro cycling, and what will Cervélo get from this team that it wasn’t getting from its association with Team CSC?

GV: The potential things a professional team can give an equipment sponsor, whether it be a frame, or a wheel, or a crank or a handlebar, there are three things — there’s race exposure, product development and some accessibility of the team for our customers, both consumers, dealers and distributors.

The race exposure is usually what most cycling teams focus on. But of those three, it’s probably the least important. At least the direct race exposure, as in winning races. It’s probably the most overrated of the three. Of course we’d rather win than come second. But for our customer that is deciding to buy a Cervélo or another brand, it’s not that important if we won the Tour or came second. What is important is if we’ve done a good job of taking the feedback of those riders and made a better product that’s now in the store. That is something that our customer takes a benefit out of.

And of course the way cycling is traditionally set up, that’s not a very strongly developed side. Cycling is, by and large, run by people who used to be cyclists. It’s a movement fueled from the racing side, not from the product development or hospitality side.

VN: And when you talk about hospitality, I’m assuming you mean having racers on hand at Cervélo events for distributors, shop owners….

GV: Well it goes both ways; both giving dealers and consumers a chance to be present at races and do consumer versions, or amateur versions, of races, and the other way around, to have riders present at events that we put on for dealers or consumers.

VN: I hear what you are saying about race exposure, but at the same time it seems like the Cervélo brand really exploded over the last five years, in tandem with Team CSC’s successes as the top team in pro cycling.

GV: This is not the case in any other sport, but when you see the budget of the world No. 1 team and the world’s No. 20 team, the difference in budget is relatively small. It’s maybe a factor of two. It’s a much smaller delta than you see in any other sport, than say Formula One or soccer or anything like that. It already shows that the exposure you get by being in the race is quite large compared to winning the race. You can see what people are willing to pay to be the main sponsor of a team.

Certainly race exposure is important in the sense of being present at the race, being competitive, but ultimately winning the race? As I said, it’s much nicer to win than to come second, but for our customer, that’s not that important. People often forget that we were a very fast-growing company before we started with CSC. Maybe for the larger public that wasn’t so visible yet, but certainly our growth pre-CSC was much stronger before that than after. Of course there are many factors that go into growth, and CSC was no doubt one of them. But that factor was also very strong in our first year, when they were 14th in the world.

VN: People have been pondering where Cervélo comes up with the money to sponsor a Tour de France-level team. You don’t see any other bike manufacturers sponsoring ProTour teams, assumingly because it is cost-prohibitive. What can you tell me about the partnerships the team has established? How much of this budget is
Cervélo actually covering? Can you give me a percentage?

GV: Well, like you say, there are some other silent partners involved. Of course a bike company could not do this by itself. The cost has been reduced, in the last little while, I would think. Salaries right now are not going up. At the absolute top level I would think there’s not that much erosion, but certainly the group below that, the salaries are not going up right now because there are so many teams in limbo, and a lot of riders without contracts. To be honest, there are many more bike companies that could do this. If Cervélo can do it, there are many companies that are bigger. When I see what some companies are paying in sponsorships, I think they would also have the ability to do something like what we are doing. Certainly you need some outside help, that’s for sure, but that is also help that can be found.

VN: And when you talk about silent partners, these are names that are not on the jersey, correct? Is that just an act of altruism?

GV: I don’t know the exact situation, so I am not trying to compare, but I think you saw something similar with Slipstream, where the team was set up by someone who was not necessarily looking to have his logo on the jersey but thinks it’s a good idea to put a cycling team together. Of course there are different people who do things for different reasons, and I don’t know if we can really compare it, but there are people who think it’s a good idea to start a cycling team, and luckily we know these people, and when we presented our ideas they were excited. And so here we are.

VN: I had heard that Carlos Sastre was on board with this program very early, and very enthusiastically. I’d also heard he was willing to take a reduction in salary in order to bring aboard certain riders, and to have an active role in the direction of this team.

GV: Well, it’s certainly true that he was very enthusiastic about it. He very much likes the project. I think that goes for every rider that’s on board today, to see it as something different. I’m very excited about that. That’s been one of the nice things. A lot of riders see that it’s a great roster and want to be part of that, but there are also a lot of riders who are interested in doing hospitality, or product development. When you ask them, and give them a chance to engage, they are interested in other things than just racing. That’s been very gratifying. With regards to what Carlos’s salary might have been last year, or this year, half of those numbers I don’t know, and the other half is nobody’s business other than Carlos’s.

VN: What sort of North American emphasis might we see with this team? How important is it for you to see the team at big North American events?

GV: It’s important. A lot of our partners have roots in North America, including ourselves, and there are some really nice races in North America. We will try to be present at quite a few of them. I think the North American racing scene is very exciting right now, actually.

VN: What can you tell us about the product development? It’s easy to imagine Thor Hushovd helping out with a sprinting bike, and Carlos Sastre with a climbing bike, but there’s certainly a lot more to it than that.

GV: It’s kind of difficult to say. We also found with CSC that some riders are really good at product development, and others are not really that good at it, in the sense that you need critical people. If bike A is good, and bike B is also good, that might be their honest opinion, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but that doesn’t help us decide if A or B is the best prototype. So it’s a matter of figuring out who those riders are.

The first project is on the go already and for example Roger Hammond is in on that, and he has an engineering background so that’s a good way to start to get feedback. There will be several projects. There is one new model we want to develop, and we really want to have feedback from a lot of different styles of riders. In the group that is testing that bike there is a sprinter, a climber, a time trial rider, really a variety of people. Of course if you develop something say for the cobblestones, it makes sense that you pick the Roubaix kind of rider for that and don’t ask Carlos for his feedback. So it depends on the type of project that is being done.

VN: Are there any other details or facets of the team that we haven’t discussed, or people may not know about, that you think are relevant?

GV: One part I hadn’t really thought about until speaking with a race organizer this week is that he was really happy that there is once again a manufacturer that has stepped up and has a team. Of course that is the fabric of cycling. In historical terms it is the very reason non-endemic companies weren’t even allowed to sponsor a cycling team. It used to be if you were not in cycling you couldn’t even have your name on the jersey. I think Nivea was the first one to have permission to have its name on a jersey. It’s a fairly recent phenomenon that there are non-cycling sponsors involved. Okay, not recent, 50 years, but in a sense it is very historic.

I think if this works for us, and it does work for us, we already see that, I think other manufactures will follow. And it’s not about the manufacturer coughing up the entire budget for the team but it’s about the manufacturer taking control over running a team. Of course you can still have your outside sponsors, either those who want to put their name on the jersey or not. But I think the key is for manufacturers who love the sport and rely on this sport to take some measure of control over it, and that’s how some of the race organizers see it as well.

When we first announced this, I know the whole bike industry thought there go those crazy Cervélo guys again, but I think also they’ve realized that every time they say that, three years later they say, oh, I wish we’d done that. I think this time it’s not taking three years. Already I see in the industry that people are saying, you know what, this really makes a lot more sense than what we have been doing in the past.

I think it would be good if the industry took its responsibility and supported the sport in that way. And not just on the men’s side but also on the women’s side. We did that last year with the women’s team and we were very satisfied with it. This year I am noticing that some manufacturers are actually canceling their women’s teams, which I think is very sad. I think there as well we have a responsibility to the sport, in this case women’s cycling, that goes beyond painting our frames pink and calling them women’s specific. We also need to support the performance side of women’s cycling and give people the perspective of where they can go and what they can reach in this sport.

Maybe an angle you and I have not discussed is that obviously we have a women’s team that is directly connected to this team, for us that is obviously a great asset. That has worked out great tremendously in this past year and so we are committed to continuing with that. For us it is nice to have a men’s and women’s side and when we take people to the women’s side, which we will continue to do, whether they are consumers or dealers, they are usually very impressed with that team. It’s a lot of fun to ride with the team, and to see them at races.

VN: I’m thinking of a few other teams that have done this over the years — The current T-Mobile/High Road/Columbia program and the old Saturn program come to mind. So will these teams have a training camp together, take team photos together, and be considered, in a sense, the same team?

GV: In some cases they will, in some cases they won’t. Of course training camps depend on race schedules, but certainly there will be some training camps together. It’s a nice mix when, say we do an event for consumers at the Tour de France, there might also be another men’s race going on, some of the women’s team riders can be present to play host, so to speak, and vice versa. And we can offer to dealers and consumers that in the morning they can go ride with some members of the men’s team, and in the afternoon they can watch the women’s race, or vice versa. But for the team internally, most races are separate. There aren’t that many opportunities to do a combined program — the Tour of Qatar, Philadelphia, the Tour of Flanders.

VN: I have never heard of a women’s race at the Tour of Qatar.

GV: Next year will be the first year. So there’s a scoop for you, which is an interesting place obviously to hold a cycling race. But it should be right after, or right before, the men’s race. I think there is one day in between. It should be quite interesting.

VN: The Amgen Tour of California is going to hold an NRC women’s stage race next year as well.

GV: Really? Well now you’ve told me something. I’ll have to look that up.

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