CK BB tries new racers, end of season exotic as usual
This season brought personal changes in running.
After a long stay in CK BB, Roman Zrelica quitted for personal and family reasons. He`d been a long time pillar of the team, a member of last year`s victorious TTT team, a perfect team player. After a long career, he`d been slowly losing motivation and personal issues forced him to quit.
“We all remember Roman as a big fighter and a friend. Especially his beginnings in CK BB will be engraved in our memories for a long time. First thing I associate with him, is his perfect work at Tour de Senegal, where he first managed to machine pace himself to a third place and then helped Palčák to win the next one and finished fifth himself. We experienced some great years together and I hope that Roman will spend some time with the team in the future, even if as a member of staff” summed up team manager Martin Fraňo.
Except Zrelica, also Karol Baďura ends his stay on the team. „He had very few race days, on which he didn`t fill the expectations, so I think that even if he had several oportunities, he didn`t perform as we expected“ commented Martin Fraňo on last year addition`s firing.
At the end of season, we added Miroslav Hraško to the roster with two so called trainees – U23 riders for trial, namely Michal Predajňa and Dominik Zaťko. We wanted to test them both from the point of performance and personality, since friendly and communicative guys has always been good players at such a team sport as road cycling is.
Predajňa missed the opportunity, as he broke his arm, Zaťko started at the Tour de Szekerland. Miro Hraško did quite well. He`s a local guy, who tries hard and has huge strength potential, but he`s self trained, so he`s got a lot to learn. In contrast with the two youngsters was his will and perseverance, will to learn and to fight. Except Tour de Szekerland, he fought at Polish one day races and at Baltic Chain Tour. I`m determined to give him a chance for the next season as well. The personal situation got little bit complicated at the end of season, there seems to be a major transfer at the end of this year, we will most likely recruit another rider. Who will it be will be decided soon. There is a possible transfer from abroad, but I would prefer Slovak rider” explained Martin Fraňo, concerning plans for the future personal assembly of the team.
Speaking of the material, we fluently moved to cyclocross, where we begun just the way we ended last season – with victories on the same material, Merida Cyclocross carbon. For the next season, we`re switching Scultura framesets for new models Merida Reacto, with Shimano Dura Ace groupset, just like team Lampre Merida. Also jersey design will be modified a bit. Other changes are still to be decided and approved.
Final part of the season is traditionally going to be spent in the exotic destinations. Martin Haring, together with Ondrej Glajza and Lami brothers will start at exotic MTB stage race Langkawi International Bike Challenge in Malaysia, a part of UCI calendar, where they`ll attempt to win some more points for the MTB olympic qualification. At the same time, Harag, Vančo, Rusina, Viglaský and Fraňo start at UCI Tour de Tobago in Carribean. They`ll also compete in three criteriums in the streets of towns of Trinidad and Tobago, where our team manager, Livia Hanesová will compete as well in women`s category.
At the end of October, we`ll end the season where it started - in Africa. Palčák, Rusina, Viglaský, Debnár, Rusina and Fraňo will race the traditional UCI event Grand Prix Chantal Biya in Camerun, managed by Fred Blankers and Anton Bátora. Hopefully, they can snatch some UCI points there, just as they did in spring.
