The sponsor is different for 2022, the team bus and kit have changed their colour scheme (though still big on orange) and there have been some notable new signings too, but US fans can rest assured, when it comes to goals and attitude the Human Powered Health team remains virtually unchanged from any previous iteration.
“In terms of goals we’re looking at very similar targets and strategies to last year,” said Sports Director Alex Sans Vega, also new to the team after a lengthy spell with the now defunct Qhubeka, who spoke about the longest-running US Pro Conti squad before the start of stage 2 of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.
“We’ll be using breakaways to win races as well as being as aggressive as we can across the board," he told Cyclingnews. Then we’ve got Arvid De Kleijn as our sprinter again, and we want to support him as best we can. With that in mind, we’ve built up his sprint train a bit as well.”
True to their stated aim, Human Powered Health racer Ben King made it into the stage 1 break at Valenciana. The move was finally soaked up courtesy of GC powerhouse teams Movister and QuickStep, but King ended up claiming the race’s first King of the Mountain jersey nonetheless.
And King’s day off the front on Wednesday was no scattergun move according to Sans Vega.
“It was all planned out. We all know the level here is very high - just look at the number of star names in the top 20 of yesterday’s [Wednesday’s] stage. We know that it’s very hard for us to be up there too.
“So we tried to go with the breaks and secondly we wanted the King of the Mountains jersey. The idea was to get Ben in the jersey battle because he’s not just a great climber, he can sprint at the top of mountains for points as well.”
In terms of race goals this season, Sans Vega recognised that like almost all the second division teams, the battle for invites to races is tricky at best. But tricky or not, the invites received greatly shape how riders and the teams as a whole tackle their season.
“After seven years directing in the WorldTour, I have to recognise I’ve got overly comfortable in that area [of race participation] but now it’s back to what came before for me," Sans Vega said.
“You have to fight for those invites. So far here, that’s been up to our performance manager Jonas Carney and director Jonathan McCarty who have been with the team much longer. I was a late signing so they were doing that all over the winter.
“However, from what I’ve seen already, while the very biggest-budget Pro Conti squad” - now officially designated UCI Proteams although most people refer to them by their old nomenclature - “don’t have so many problems [getting invites], it’s getting harder and harder for the Pro Conti ‘middle class’.”
As for the races where Human Powered Health are determined to target, “there are the very few in the States that still remain, like Maryland in September. Then there are the ones like the Tour of Britain and the Tour de Suisse, where we’ve already got invites and we want to show we can fight for stages too.”
King of opportunities
King taking the KOM jersey in Valenciana showed that Sans Vega’s words were anything but idle speculation about how hard Human Powered Health were going to fight to keep as high a profile as possible.
“Valenciana is a very high level race,” King himself told Cyclingnews before stage 2. “But getting a jersey like this means you start on a positive note. We began to find our stride halfway through last year and it’s good to continue that way.
“It was the first day of racing for the team as well, so to get on the podium and show off our colours to the new sponsors was no bad thing. It also shows our gratitude for the sport and to all the team staff and everybody else who works for us.”
Out on the road on stage 1, King said, “The break itself worked very well on Wednesday, it was a hard, heavy day and we were doing over 300 watts average until we got caught.
“But the KOM jersey was really the only thing on offer so it was a tough battle. I just had to be patient and trust I had the sprint to kick around them until the end.”
February for King, generally speaking, means, “having a pretty heavy schedule, so my goal is building the engine and getting my butt kicked. And then I want to be flying in the second half of March, taking chances where they come.”
Cliché it may be, but being an American team, King said, gives added pleasure to his racing.
“Plus we have Chad Haga and Joey [Rosskopf] coming on board this year and last year and that’s given us even more WorldTour experience, too.
“I’ve lived with those guys as well actually in Italy, we had an apartment there in 2013 and 2014 back in the day, and it’s good being on a team with a lot of great personalities on and off the bike,” King added.
“I don’t have a specific goal for the year, but the style this team has is opportunist and everybody has their day, which makes it a fun environment to be part of. Really every day is an opportunity for us.”
That opportunistic attitude was made manifest again on stage 2 of the Valenciana when King’s bid to remain in the polka-dot jersey could not have gone better.
First, he and US road race National Champion Rosskopf made it into the break of the day. Then King scooped up more invaluable points on the series of second- and third-category climbs that featured on the hilly first two-thirds of the stage, further buttressing his overall lead before the break was pulled back with around 15 kilometres to go.
“When I looked at the next few days and started doing maths on the points, then going today (Thursday] pretty much sewed it up as long as I get through the next few stages,” King told Cyclingnews afterwards.
“And if I didn’t go today then there would be have been more people fighting for it, I wouldn’t have been wearing the jersey any more and it would have been all or nothing on stage 3.
“This way I got it done early, and I didn’t have to put all my eggs in one basket for tomorrow [Friday].”
King was hugely grateful, he said, for having Rosskopf’s support during the break. “Having him up there was incredible, the guys were super-great at helping me make the break today. Everybody was on the front row [of the peloton] covering moves. Then Joey slipped in a move of five guys and I bridged across. It was an excellent day.”
Looking at what’s to come, King has already pulled out the calculator to work out what’s needed for him to stay ahead. He now has an advantage of 30 points, nearly tripling his advantage over second-placed Evenepoel, which should be more than enough to see him take the classification home, despite Friday being the toughest day of the mountains by far.
“As long as nobody wins every climb and comes out on top of the climb at the finish, even if they do that and they haven’t got points yet…basically I have to keep my eyes on two or three guys. But it’s pretty much done.
“That said, I don’t want to speak too soon because I have flashbacks to the Giro di Sicilia last year when I was wearing the mountain jersey up to the last stage and then I lost it.”
Either way, he said, “I’m extremely grateful to the team, I’ll keep doing my best but I’m not going to rest until it’s done.”
