'Push them outside their comfort zone' – Four-time USPro champion Freddie Rodriguez returns to cycling as co-owner and strategist for APS Pro Cycling by Cadence Cyclery

Giro d’Italia stage winner and multi-time USPro street champion Fred Rodriguez returns to skilled biking for what could be thought of a fourth time. Referred to as ‘Quick Freddie’ throughout his 19-year racing profession that coated 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 staff 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 Pink 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 degree with biking,” Rodriguez instructed Cyclingnews. “As soon as I retired from Jelly Stomach [2015] I instructed Danny [van Haute, team director] that was the final staff I used to be gonna race for. I began my very own clothes firm, have been teaching and I wished to be actually concerned with my youngsters’ improvement as a father. So I did not wish to journey an excessive amount of. Now I’ve two youngsters in school.

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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 methods to coach the game-side of the game. My objective is to deliver a holistic method. It isn’t nearly how huge the engine is, however can the engine make good choices.”

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 Staff Time Trial on the Highway World Championships in Richmond.

Rodriguez was in McKinney, Texas for winter camp with the brand new APS Professional Biking staff, 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 last breakaway for a race for the final 10 minutes, they usually have to determine methods to win the race. They’re studying methods to be teammates, methods to collaborate, methods to make good choices. That is extra enjoyable than doing an interval, they usually’re collaborating, being aggressive. It pushes them outdoors their consolation zone.”

The roster was comprised of a handful of skilled riders equivalent to Nice Britain’s Adam Lewis and Irishman Conn McDunphy with under-23 skills Matthew Partitions of Eire and USA’s Ethan Dunham. McDunphy received 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 Staff 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, shifting from US home elite groups. Partitions, simply 18, raced for an area Irish membership final yr.

It was a rider like Partitions whom Rodriguez famous understood and executed the brand new coaching strategies shortly and can 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 yr. “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 study from this, from repetition of constructing the fitting breakaway, being in the fitting place on the proper time.”

Creating a brand new staff

Rodriguez is one in all three males who comprise the core of possession and administration for the staff, joined by Jeff Makohon, former assistant sports activities director for Staff 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 Staff Skyline and Lux Improvement Plumlee, who’s Cadence Cyclery retail shops now have two places within the Dallas-Fort Value metropolitan space in Texas and one in Encinitas, California will work on the advertising facet in “driving sponsorships”, which incorporates bike sponsor Van Rysel. Daggs will drive the staff automobile in lots of races, serving as the primary race director.

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

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

With Van Rysel, the corporate solely has two different professional groups they sponsor – WorldTour degree 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 arising with the methods, altering the best way the staff races and appears at coaching, how we develop riders,” Makohon stated. “Freddie’s actually bought the brand new concept round methods to make a improvement staff work and educate these guys methods to race and make them marketable to larger groups, till we get to the purpose that we might be a kind of greater groups.”

The staff needs to develop expertise regardless of the age of the rider. On the Continental degree, the overriding objective was to offer the riders expertise in UCI races and get them observed. The staff appeared to trip 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 a whole lot of worth to the youthful guys as properly, due to their expertise, their professionalism. despite the fact that they’re older, we nonetheless assume that they may get on to a much bigger staff,” Makohon stated.

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

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