'Push them exterior their consolation zone' – 4-time USPro champion Freddie Rodriguez returns to biking as co-owner and strategist for APS Professional Biking by Cadence Cyclery

Giro d’Italia stage winner and multi-time USPro street champion Fred Rodriguez returns to skilled biking for what is perhaps thought of a fourth time. Often known as ‘Quick Freddie’ throughout his 19-year racing profession that lined 11 groups within the US and Europe, Rodriguez is a human ‘transformer’ who will now dictate methods for different riders as a co-owner and supervisor for APS Professional Biking by Cadence Cyclery.

The crew debuts on the UCI 2.Professional Volta Comunitat Valenciana, February 4-8, in Spain, as one of some invited Continental squads to face 9 WorldTour squads, together with Crimson Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe with time trial world and Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel.

“It is good to be a part of this, actually cool to get again concerned at a better stage with biking,” Rodriguez advised Cyclingnews. “As soon as I retired from Jelly Stomach [2015] I advised Danny [van Haute, team director] that was the final crew I used to be gonna race for. I began my very own clothes firm, have been teaching and I needed to be actually concerned with my youngsters’ growth as a father. So I did not need to journey an excessive amount of. Now I’ve two youngsters in faculty.

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“I have been rising these concepts, the best way groups race and the best way groups have a look at coaching and the way we develop riders. I have been constructing this framework of learn how to coach the game-side of the game. My objective is to convey a holistic method. It isn’t nearly how massive the engine is, however can the engine make good selections.”

On the age of 42, Rodriguez introduced his retirement in 2015 on the Tour of Alberta racing for Jelly Stomach. His profession included stage wins on the Giro d’Italia, Tour de Langkawi, Tour de Luxembourg, Tour de Suisse, Tour de Rhodes, and quite a few second locations in races like Milan-San Remo and Gent-Wevelgem. After racing 9 years with European-based groups, he restarted his profession a number of instances when US-based squads closed operations. His final race was within the Group Time Trial on the Highway World Championships in Richmond.

Rodriguez was in McKinney, Texas for winter camp with the brand new APS Professional Biking crew, APS standing for ‘atleta prima sempre’ and translated from Italian as ‘athletes first, at all times’. The squad had simply 11 riders, however they had been fast learners, he stated.

“At coaching camp right here, it was all about creating these little miniature races between 5 to 10 minutes. They had been actually racing one another, imagining being in a ultimate breakaway for a race for the final 10 minutes, they usually have to determine learn how to win the race. They’re studying learn how to be teammates, learn how to collaborate, learn how to make good selections. That is extra enjoyable than doing an interval, they usually’re collaborating, being aggressive. It pushes them exterior their consolation zone.”

The roster was comprised of a handful of skilled riders akin to Nice Britain’s Adam Lewis and Irishman Conn McDunphy with under-23 abilities Matthew Partitions of Eire and USA’s Ethan Dunham. McDunphy gained a stage every of the final two Tour de Beauce appearances and completed second to Keegan Swenson in The Growler at Levi’s Gran Fondo final season.

The vast majority of riders moved from Group Skyline, which continues as a males’s US Continental squad for an eighth season, Dunham, Lewis and McDunphy joined by Cian Keough and Ronan O’Connor of Eire and US duo Liam Flanagan and Alex St Andre. Gravel specialist Andrew Lydic, 24, joins for a renewed street marketing campaign, with compatriots Patrick Welch, additionally 24, and Eddy Huntsman, 23, transferring from US home elite groups. Partitions, simply 18, raced for a neighborhood Irish membership final 12 months.

It was a rider like Partitions whom Rodriguez famous understood and executed the brand new coaching methods shortly and could be an thrilling rider to observe.

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“He is greedy the concepts very naturally, so we’re really leaning on him,” Rodriguez stated in regards to the winner of the junior editions of the Tour of Eire and Volta Portugal final 12 months. “We’re not telling them what to do, the exercise helps them discover ways to do it. Matthew is doing it so naturally, and the opposite guys are going to be taught from this, from repetition of constructing the best breakaway, being in the best place on the proper time.”

Creating a brand new crew

Rodriguez is considered one of three males who comprise the core of possession and administration for the crew, joined by Jeff Makohon, former assistant sports activities director for Group Skyline, and Mike Norton, train physiologist and biking coach.

Different items of the puzzle got here along with the addition of Chad Plumlee, proprietor of Cadence Cyclery, and Chris Daggs, one other former sports activities director from Group Skyline and Lux Growth Plumlee, who’s Cadence Cyclery retail shops now have two places within the Dallas-Fort Price metropolitan space in Texas and one in Encinitas, California will work on the advertising and marketing aspect in “driving sponsorships”, which incorporates bike sponsor Van Rysel. Daggs will drive the crew automotive in lots of races, serving as the principle race director.

“Mike and I began speaking, we thought there’s some probably alternative ways to do [a Continental team]. Mike’s been working with Freddie on some initiatives. So the three paths simply form of aligned,” Jeff Makohon advised Cyclingnews in regards to the collaborative trio with house bases in California, New Jersey and Texas.

“Mike and I stated ‘let’s begin a crew’. We went to Chad [Plumlee] and he signed on to assist drive tools sponsorship and Chad’s integral to the crew as he is driving sponsorships. We solely made the choice to launch the crew one week earlier than the UCI deadlines, in order that effort is one thing that will likely be ongoing in 2026 as we decide learn how to convey extra sponsor worth as a collective.”

With Van Rysel, the corporate solely has two different professional groups they sponsor – WorldTour stage Decathlon CMA CGM and French Continental squad Van Rysel Roubaix. Makohon stated the corporate is “very, very within the US market”.

“Freddie’s the man who’s developing with the methods, altering the best way the crew races and appears at coaching, how we develop riders,” Makohon stated. “Freddie’s actually obtained the brand new concept round learn how to make a growth crew work and train these guys learn how to race and make them marketable to greater groups, till we get to the purpose that we could possibly be a kind of larger groups.”

The crew desires to develop expertise regardless of the age of the rider. On the Continental stage, the overriding objective was to provide the riders expertise in UCI races and get them seen. The crew seemed to experience a handful of races within the US, together with some gravel occasions, however the street races having UCI designations had precedence.

“The older riders present plenty of worth to the youthful guys as properly, due to their expertise, their professionalism. although they’re older, we nonetheless assume that they might get on to an even bigger crew,” Makohon stated.

“We have 12 nationwide championships represented [by riders]. Each rider has raced for his or her nationwide crew at Worlds or l’Avenir or different races. It is Continental stage, they usually can animate the race and get there on the finish. We convey some skins that the promoters need.”

Cadence Cyclery will proceed to be concerned with a membership crew for juniors, women and men, Cadence Cyclery p/b Encore Wire, which had a criterium-heavy schedule final 12 months that includes USPro criterium nationwide champions Lucas Bourgoyne, who gained the elite males’s title, and Luke Fetzer, who gained the U23 males’s title.

APS Professional Biking by Cadence Cyclery 2026 roster

Ethan Dunham (USA)Liam Flanagan (USA)Eddy Huntsman (USA)Cian Keogh (IRE)Adam Lewis (GBR)Andrew Lydic (USA)Conn McDunphy (IRE)Ronan O’Connor (IRE)Alex St Andre (USA)Matthew Partitions (IRE)Patrick Welch (USA)