THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Road Warriors: Jelly Belly
The name on the team jersey is new, as are many of the riders wearing it. But the mission remains the same after nine years under the Jelly Belly banner — to provide a home for developing riders and win some key races along the way.
Run from its inception by 1984 Olympian Danny Van Haute, Jelly Belly made its entry into pro cycling in 1999 and has been home to riders such as Jonas Carney, Tyler Farrar and Jason McCartney. With the demise of the Navigators Insurance team at the end of the 2007 season, Jelly Belly is now the longest-running American professional cycling program.
Some of the team’s biggest wins over that span include Carney’s 2004 USPRO Criterium championship, Andy Bajadali’s overall win at Redlands last year and Alex Candelario’s win at the Tour de Nez, also last year. Jelly Belly finished the 2007 season ranked fifth in the NRC team standings and 20th in the USA Cycling Pro Tour team rankings.
However, with both Bajadali and Candelario moving on to Kelly Benefit Strategies-Medifast during the off-season, Van Haute was left in need of both a top sprinter and top climber; in all, six riders from the 2007 squad left the team.
To fill the void Van Haute picked from the Slipstream-Chipotle vine, bringing over climber Mike Lange and sprinter Brad Huff. Van Haute has also signed Bernard Van Ulden, a top time trialist from Navigators Insurance; Scott Tietzel, stepson of Boulder Center for Sports Medicine’s Andy Pruitt and a four-time junior Olympic Nordic skier who rode with the Belgian Cycling Center last year; and 24-year-old Kiwi Aaron Tuckerman, the former mountain biker who raised eyebrows in 2007, riding with Rubicon-Orbea, by taking the Mt. Magazine stage win — and race lead — at Tri-Peaks before finishing third overall.
The Jelly Belly recruit most expected to make an impact on the domestic circuit is Aussie sprinter Nic Sanderson, the bronze medalist from the 2002 world junior road championship, whose 2006 contract with Davitamon-Lotto was annulled when he disclosed that he suffers from a mild case of epilepsy.
A Madison rider on the track — he’s twice won Australia’s Bendigo International Madison — Sanderson spent 2007 riding with the Australian national team and took three top-10 stage finishes at last year’s Tour of Langkawi, including a third place. He’ll be living in San Diego, near Van Haute’s team service course in San Marcos. And though 2008 will be Sanderson’s first time racing in the U.S, he’s squared off with Huff at Langkawi in 2007, grew up racing with Toyota-United’s new Aussie recruit Jonny Clarke, and said he’s more than comfortable racing American-style criteriums.
“I’ve ridden a few crits,” Sanderson said. “I think Huff and I will work well together.”
Also new for 2008 are Jelly Belly’s jerseys, which promote the company’s Sport Beans brand instead of Jelly Belly candies. Sports Beans, marketed for their carbohydrates, electrolytes and vitamins, has recently offered a new line of Extreme caffeinated beans containing 50mg of caffeine per package, equivalent to half a cup of brewed coffee; Huff refers to the caffeinated beans as “sweet nuggets of joy.”
Van Haute said every year the team gets “better and better,” and although this year had the team’s biggest turnover ever, this year’s team is, “of course, the best.”
In all, the team returns with an 11-man roster, and new bike sponsor in GT. Returning riders from Jelly Belly’s 2007 squad include cyclocross star Jeremy Powers, strongmen Matty Rice and Nick Reistad, utility rider Michael Cody and the domestic peloton’s tallest member, 6-foot-6 rider Bryce Mead, who rides a 67cm custom aluminum GT frame.
“We don’t have the pure sprinter like Alex was,” Van Haute said. “I had the idea at the Tour of Missouri. Alex wasn’t there, and it gave an opportunity to the other guys to shine. Matty Rice got in the right breakaway and finished 10th overall. Reistad was in the break the next day and was seventh on the stage. So I think I sold it to the guys.”
Reistad agreed. “Danny put together a good team. We’re going to be very aggressive. We won’t be waiting until the end of the race to do something.”
Mountain biker Todd Wells, a GT rider, was originally listed on Jelly Belly’s 2008 roster and hoped to do several stage races (he finished 19th overall at the 2006 Tour de Georgia). But the deal fell through because, Van Haute said, Wells had some personal sponsors that conflicted with the team’s sponsors.
Jelly Belly was one of only six domestic teams to receive an invitation to the Amgen Tour of California. However, the team didn’t come away with a solid result. Lange finished 35th overall, while Rice impressively soldiered through an intestinal bug for several days before finally abandoning the race.
Adding insult to injury, Huff was unable to start due to a nagging knee injury and Van Ulden crashed on stage 6 and broke a collarbone; only Reistad and Lange finished the race.
In addition to a full NRC schedule, Jelly Belly will return to China for the Tour of Qinghai Lake and the Tour of Hong Kong-Shanghai in July. Last year Aussie James Meadley took two of six stages and the overall win at the Tour of Hong Kong-Shanghai for Jelly Belly. Things didn’t go as well for the Jellies at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, a race won in years past by Damiano Cunego, Tom Danielson and Ryan Cox; Candelario’s fourth-place finish on the final stage was the highlight.
“We’re also talking to the Tour of Ireland,” Van Haute said. “We’ve got a new bike sponsor in GT, and they’re just so ecstatic with the team and to be coming back into the road scene again. Jelly Belly is very happy with them, and they’ll be doing some cross-promotion, sharing booth space at some of the races. We’re looking at markets where Jelly Belly and GT want to be. They do a lot of business in those markets.”
In the nine years the team has been in existence, domestic teams such as Mercury, Saturn and Health Net-Maxxis have largely overshadowed Jelly Belly. And though the team has never taken the top spot on the NRC rankings or won a domestic UCI stage race, Van Haute realizes that’s not the goal of a team with a mid-level domestic budget.
“In the past, during the first five or six seasons, I viewed the team very much as a development program,” Van Haute said. “And as you can see, some of those guys are now with teams like CSC and Slipstream-Chipotle. At first I was frustrated that we don’t hold on to top-notch riders. But they have different agendas, such as the Tour de France, and I can’t do that for them. Over the last three years, I feel good about developing riders and passing them on to ProTour teams. That means we’re doing a good job.”
Jelly Belly for 2008
Matty Rice
Nick Reistad
Michael Cody
Brad Huff
Michael Lange
Bryce Mead
Jeremy Powers
Nic Sanderson
Scott Tietzel
Aaron Tuckerman
Bernard Van Ulden
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