13 riders for Lance Armstrong’s Radio Shack Cycling Team

September 16th, 2009 by Al Fresco View Comments

Make that 14: Ivan Rovny, formerly of the Katusha squad has also signed a contract with the team. He won the Tour de l’Avenir in 2007.

We’ll be putting out the most definitive list of transfer information that we’ve come across later in the day, but I decided that I wanted to highlight the confirmations for The Shack for 2010. There are no real surprises here. This post just pulls all of the individual moves into one place.

The list so far is: Lance Armstrong (Astana), Janez Brajkovic (Astana), Ben Hermans (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Christopher Horner (Astana), Markel Irizar (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Levi Leipheimer (Astana), Nikolas Maes (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Sergio Paulinho (Astana), Grégory Rast (Astana), Sébastien Rosseler (Quick Step), Jose Rubiera (Astana), Gert Steegmans, Tomas Vaitkus (Astana)

As we’ve noted before, the team is heavily weighted towards Armstrong’s loyal domestiques (Brajkovic, Horner, Leipheimer, Paulinho, Rast, Rubiera and Vaitkus) but they have also taken on a heavy contingent of riders that could be a factor in the spring classics, such as Maes, Rosseler and Steegmans.

There are expected to be around 10 more signings before the team makes its debut in 2010. Floyd Landis’ name continues to come up as a possibility for the team and I would expect to see Taylor Phinney and possibly even Ben King in there in some capacity, possibly as interns or stagiares.