2011 HTC–Highroad season

Matthew Goss had already had a successful early season prior to Milan–San Remo, and took the biggest win of his career at the Italian monument.

At the first monument race of the season, Milan–San Remo, the team came in thinking they had two options for the victory – 2009 winner Cavendish, and the 2011 season's most prolific winner to date Goss. Sporting director Valerio Piva stated that if the race came down to a large field sprint, as it often does, the team's focus would be Cavendish.[19] For the second year in a row, Cavendish had had a slow start to his season, but stated that he felt he was on good form heading into Milan–San Remo.[20] The race turned out to be atypical of how Milan–San Remo usually plays out. A crash occurred 90 kilometers (56 mi) from the finish of the 298 kilometers (185 mi) day on Le Manie, one of several small climbs in the profile. This allowed some 45 riders who had been ahead of world champion Thor Hushovd, the man who crashed, to speed clear of the rest of the main field. They quickly took a two-minute advantage and, working cohesively, never gave it up. Goss was the only HTC-Highroad rider to make the split, but his teammates, including Cavendish, who had been caught behind obligingly did nothing to help pull the second group up to the first. Goss effectively stayed in the slipstream of riders like Vincenzo Nibali and Philippe Gilbert, and stayed with the first group on the road over the Poggio where other sprinters like Tom Boonen, Alessandro Petacchi, and Heinrich Haussler were unable, despite having made the 45-rider selection earlier in the day. In the finale, eight riders representing eight different teams approached the finish line together. Since no one had a teammate to perform a proper leadout, the final meters were somewhat strange, as the eight riders continually looked around to see who would open up the sprint. Finally, Nibali, Gilbert, and Yoann Offredo did so, but they effectively performed a leadout for Goss, who came around them at the very end of the race for the victory.[21] Goss was the first Australian rider ever to win the race.[22] Afterward, Cavendish stated that he had been feeling ill on the day the race was run, and that even if he had not been caught behind the crash on Le Manie, he would not have had the form to put in a successful sprint. He said he was happy for his teammate's winning effort.[23] The team had hoped to ride for Cavendish at Gent–Wevelgem in March, but repeated mechanical trouble and also a crash left him well short of figuring into the finale. Former Gent–Wevelgem winner Eisel was able to salvage the team's fortunes somewhat by finishing seventh on the day.[24] In April, as the spring season was reaching its height, Cavendish took his third career win at the Scheldeprijs. The Manxman avoided a crash on the final finishing straight, one that doomed the chances for his chief rival Tyler Farrar, and was easily the best sprinter of the 31 riders who finished together at the head of the race.[25]

At the third monument, Paris–Roubaix, the squad was one of only two (Garmin–Cervélo being the other) to have three finishers in the top 20. Degenkolb joined a breakaway group that formed right about when the first cobbled sectors began. Later, around the Arenberg sector, Bak joined a chase group that bridged up to the leaders. He stayed at the front of the race for nearly its entire remainder, fading slightly at the end to finish fifth. Degenkolb was one of the many riders caught by a surging Fabian Cancellara toward the finish, hanging on for 19th place. Also, Eisel rode most of the race with the favorites like Cancellara and Thor Hushovd, and followed their accelerations toward the finish, taking seventh.[26] Post-race analysis praised the team's strong effort after a disappointing Tour of Flanders, when they had no rider figure into the finale.[27] At the Grand Prix de Denain later in April, Howard narrowly missed the podium by finishing fourth in the field sprint.[28]

The team also sent squads to Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne, Le Samyn, Montepaschi Strade Bianche, Nokere Koerse, Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Tour of Flanders, Brabantse Pijl, the Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and the inaugural ProRace Berlin, but finished no higher than 11th in any of these races.

Mark Cavendish upon receiving the rainbow jersey for the first time. He debuted the jersey for HTC-Highroad in two single-day races in the fall, though he was not competitive in either.

The team's fall performances were perhaps subdued by the news of their impending collapse being confirmed in early August. It was not until October, at Paris–Bourges that the team came relatively close to another victory. Degenkolb took fourth place in a hectic that resulted in the peloton being split into several groups.[29] The team had a bittersweet joy later that same week at Paris–Tours, as it was there that Cavendish debuted his newly won world championship rainbow jersey, in one of the few occasions he would wear it as a member of this team. With a late attack by BMC Racing Team's Greg Van Avermaet keeping the expected bunch finish from happening, the team's best-placed man on the day was Degenkolb in 11th; Cavendish was 42nd, coming in towards the back of the first large group on the road.[30] Cavendish also rode in the rainbow jersey at the Giro del Piemonte, but did not complete the race. The team's best-placed rider that day was trainee rider Zakkari Dempster, well down in 65th position.[31]

The team then decided against sending Cavendish to the fall monument, the Giro di Lombardia. Its profile, even hillier than the Giro del Piemonte, meant it was unlikely that Cavendish would finish that race either. Sporting director Valerio Piva explained that having Cavendish start that race only to pull out after riding for an hour would be disrespectful to Cavendish, the rainbow jersey, and the race itself.[32] The squad therefore sent only six riders to the race instead of the customary nine, and Sivtsov in 43rd place was the only classified finisher.[33] The next day, Martin took the team's final victory in their history at the Chrono des Nations single-day time trial. It was perhaps the most dominant victory of Martin's career, with no rider coming inside two minutes of his winning time.[34] Coincidentally, Amber Neben of the women's HTC-Highroad team also took victory at this event, closing the team's history with double success.[35]

The team also sent squads to the Clásica de San Sebastián, the GP Ouest-France, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, the Championship of Flanders, and the Grand Prix d'Isbergues, but finished no higher than 18th in any of these races.

HTC-Highroad named an ardent, multi-faceted squad for the Giro d'Italia. Cavendish was named to the squad, marking his return to the Italian Grand Tour after he instead rode the Tour of California in 2010. Sivtsov and Pinotti, both strong individual time trialists, were named as overall classification riders, with Lewis to be a key support man in the mountains. The rest of the squad was named with brute strength, for the stage 1 team time trial and for leading out Cavendish's sprints, in mind. In this way, the squad targeted nearly everything in the race.[89] The team time trial was a particular goal for the squad; their plan was to have Pinotti cross the line first and therefore claim the first pink jersey as race leader.[90]

The team time trial went about as well as the squad could have hoped. They set the best time at the intermediate time check and at the finish line, the first and only squad to finish under 21 minutes. Though they finished with only five riders, five was all they needed, as the squad's time was taken for the fifth man to cross the line. Pinotti indeed was the first over, and took the first pink jersey. It was the second time in his career he held the Giro race lead, having previously held it for four days in the 2008 Giro d'Italia.[91] He made it clear after the stage that the team's focus for stage 2 would be Cavendish, in the sprint. Given that the Giro awards time bonuses for the first three riders to finish a road race stage, that made it extremely likely that Cavendish would take the pink jersey the next day.[92] The team did work for Cavendish in stage 2, and he did become the new race leader, but he missed out on the stage win. Lampre–ISD's Alessandro Petacchi opened the sprint first, to the right of Cavendish's last leadout man Renshaw, leaving Cavendish to take the line to Renshaw's left. Just as Cavendish occupied a position with open road in front of him, Petacchi deviated from his line and rode directly in front of Cavendish for a few meters. When Cavendish tried to go around Petacchi, the Italian again changed his line to stay in front of Cavendish. After a moment, both sprinted with open road in front of them, and Petacchi came across the line first by a matter of millimeters. Cavendish was visibly upset, shouting and gesticulating at Petacchi after they crossed the finish line.[93] Cavendish later explained that his frustration was not directed at Petacchi, but at race officials, since he felt he would be relegated if he had sprinted in a similar manner. However, he also said that he never had the intention of appealing the result.[94] His sporting director Valerio Piva also took that stance, stating that Petacchi's sprint was "not really fair play."[95] The next day, Cavendish made a point of apologizing to Petacchi via Twitter for his outburst after crossing the finish line. Cavendish then rode as race leader on stage 3, the day Wouter Weylandt died, finishing well back after repeated mechanical trouble.[96] Sivtsov, Pinotti, and Lewis remained highly placed overall, staying so after the neutralized fourth stage had no effect on any of the race's standings.[97]

Kanstantsin Sivtsov, pictured here at the Tour de Romandie, took tenth place overall in the Giro, his highest overall placement in a Grand Tour in his career.

In stage 5, Pinotti and Sivtsov both finished with the first large group on the road, over the numerous unpaved or 'white' roads into Orvieto. Their group afforded solo stage winner Pieter Weening sufficient time that he took the next pink jersey, but the two HTC-Highroad men remained extremely well-placed in second and third overall, just two seconds back.[98] Pinotti had a bad day on Etna in stage 9, finishing five minutes back of stage winner, new race leader, and eventual Giro champion Alberto Contador, and between three and four minutes behind the race's other top riders. The result dropped him to 25th overall, but Sivtsov remained in second place, the only rider within a minute of Contador.[99] This difficult mountain stage nearly brought Cavendish's Giro to an end as well, as his group, which also contained Raboň, Rasmussen, and Renshaw, finished just 30 seconds inside the minimum survival time based on the stage winner's time. Rival sprinter Francisco Ventoso from Movistar Team claimed that Cavendish should have been disqualified anyway, saying that the Manxman had illegally used the race caravan for slipstreams on his ascent of Etna.[100] Stage 10 after the rest day was one of the few seemingly straightforward sprint stages in this Giro. When former race leader David Millar attacked out of the peloton just outside the 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) to go marker, HTC-Highroad was the team to chase him down. While they did successfully bring him back, this left their vaunted leadout train disorganized. Only Cavendish, Sivtsov, and Pinotti finished with the front group. Nonetheless, Cavendish was able to surge past Petacchi, who had been left for an early sprint by his leadout man Danilo Hondo, to claim his first victory of the race.[101] He took the opportunity after the stage to address Ventoso's remarks, claiming that because of his star status he is always led by race officials and photographers, even when at the very back of the race.[100] Cavendish added another win in stage 12, the last flat stage before a crushingly difficult final week and a half. He was very nearly caught in the sprint by Team Sky's Davide Appollonio, but he edged out the young Italian for a second stage victory.[102] Cavendish, and several other sprinters, left the Giro the next day.

The next day was the first of three consecutive summit finishes that preceded the second rest day. Contador, alongside José Rujano, took the opportunity to further stamp his authority on the race, taking another minute and a half out of the race's other top riders. Sivtsov lost two minutes and 42 seconds to Contador, and more significantly a little over a minute to the race's other leading riders. This dropped him to sixth place overall.[103] He lost more time on the Zoncolan the next day, though his overall position remained unchanged.[104] Stage 15 was the first time no HTC-Highroad rider occupied a position in the top ten, as Sivtsov dropped to 12th overall by losing close to seven minutes in the Giro's queen stage.[105] Pinotti rebounded a bit from a disappointing second half of the Giro to ride to eighth place in the stage 16 individual time trial.[106]

Sivtsov found an extremely fortunate breakaway in stage 17. The course's profile suggested that the winner was likely to come from the breakaway. When he, Hubert Dupont, and Christophe Le Mével, all of them within the top 16 overall at the beginning of the day, made the group, that left the onus for the chase on teams like Liquigas–Cannondale, Geox–TMC, and Euskaltel–Euskadi, since their riders could conceivably be displaced from high overall positions. Liquigas–Cannondale successfully lowered the group's time gap to the point that their leader Vincenzo Nibali's overall third place was not in jeopardy, but Geox–TMC's and Euskaltel–Euskadi's efforts were not as successful. Sivtsov finished nearly three minutes ahead of the main field, moving back into the top ten overall, at fifth.[107] Pinotti then also made a winning breakaway the next day. Having correctly anticipated a climb where the race would break up, Pinotti made all the day's selections to feature as one of the last three riders left at the front of the race. He narrowly missed the stage win, however, to Liquigas–Cannondale's Eros Capecchi.[108] He then turned his attentions to the final-day individual time trial,[109] but he and Lewis were both caught up in crashes in stage 19 that ensured that they would not complete the Giro. They struck a road sign in the middle of a traffic island, with Lewis sustaining a broken right femur and Pinotti a broken pelvis. Pinotti was said to be in extreme pain, and could not move his legs for a time. Piva stated that the sign was difficult to see before the riders came up on it. The withdrawals left the team with only four riders in the race, which stood to make Sivtsov's task of defending fifth overall all the more difficult.[110][111] Indeed, Sivstov was unable to maintain contact with the group of top overall riders on the way into Sestriere, losing sufficient time that he fell to 11th overall.[112] He rebounded in stage 21 to take tenth place in the time trial, which coupled with the losses sustained by Mikel Nieve, tenth-placed at the beginning of the day, moved him back up to tenth overall. The team overall showed well in this time trial, with Rasmussen narrowly missing the victory, coming in second just seven seconds back of stage winner Millar. Gretsch took eighth place as well. They along with Bak were the only HTC-Highroad riders to complete the Giro. They shared the Giro's Fair Play award with five other teams.[113]

HTC-Highroad's squad for the Tour de France was centered around Cavendish, back again to try to win the points classification green jersey after finishing second in those standings each of the past two years. Eisel, Renshaw, Bak, and Pate were named as leadout men, with Goss also present to perhaps try for the sprints that may be too difficult for Cavendish. Peter Velits and Tony Martin were named as possible general classification hopefuls, though Martin's true strength was the individual time trial, to be raced on the identical course to the one he won on earlier in the season at the Critérium du Dauphiné. Tour de France debutant van Garderen rounded out the squad.[114]

Mark Cavendish riding in the stage 20 individual time trial, wearing the green jersey he went on to win the next day.

Martin took tenth place on the first stage, ending at the Mont des Alouettes, staying with the first large group on the road but unable to match the accelerations of the day's winner Philippe Gilbert.[115] Coming off their win in the team time trial at the Giro d'Italia, and with several of the same riders plus very strong time trialist Martin present, the squad was considered one of the favorites for the Tour's team test. However, they were unable to duplicate their success from earlier in the season, finishing five seconds slower than their American rivals Garmin–Cervélo for fifth place on the day.[116] Stage 3 was also a day that Garmin–Cervélo got the better of them. All appeared to be going well at first, as the team hit the front with strength and numbers once the morning's breakaway was caught. However, they made errors negotiating a sharp left-hand turn at 750 meters (2,460 ft) to go, and Garmin–Cervélo was able to take first position again. Displaced by his leadout men's errors, Cavendish could only manage fifth in the sprint, behind Garmin–Cervélo's Tyler Farrar.[117] Cavendish rebounded in stage 5, another straightforward sprint stage. While late attacks from Edvald Boasson Hagen and Philippe Gilbert threatened to disrupt the sprint once again, the peloton chased them down, and Cavendish timed his sprint perfectly to take his first win of this Tour.[118] Stage 6 had an undulating, hilly profile, such that the finish was unlikely to suit Cavendish. The team worked for Goss, and the Australian narrowly missed the day's honors, taking second in the final sprint behind Boasson Hagen.[119] The flat seventh stage was perhaps the first of the Tour that went completely to popular expectations, as the HTC-Highroad team provided the strength necessary to bring back the morning breakaway and was ubiquitous in the final few kilometers, dominantly leading Cavendish out to his second win of this Tour. This stage ended at Châteauroux, site of Cavendish's first win in the 2008 Tour de France. The sprint ace was evidently quite aware of this, as he mimicked his victory reaction from three years prior, grabbing his helmet with both hands and painting a shocked expression on his face. Due to a crash involving most of Team Sky, Martin and Velits entered the top ten overall with this day's results, occupying eighth and ninth place respectively at day's end.[120] Van Garderen's presence in a stage 8 breakaway resulted in him taking the polka dot jersey as leader of the mountains classification. He was the first American to wear the polka dot jersey during a Tour stage in its history.[121]

Tony Martin won the Tour's only individual time trial, having already won on this very same course earlier in the season.

Stage 10, while it contained four categorized climbs, was another likely sprint stage. Points leader Gilbert and race leader Thomas Voeckler set out on the last climb, the fourth-category Cote de Mirandol-Bourgnounac, to try to take the win themselves. The result was HTC-Highroad's support riders had to expend much more effort than usual to ensure that Cavendish was at the front of the race in the finale, and as such their leadout was less than perfect. It gave former team member André Greipel, now riding for Omega Pharma–Lotto, the opportunity to start his sprint just after Cavendish started his. Cavendish started from a seemingly optimal 170 meters (560 ft) out, but the German took the victory at the finish line. Cavendish was gracious in defeat, taking the blame himself by saying he "didn't commit enough."[122] The two were again the top two in the sprint the next day in Lavaur, but Cavendish reversed his fate from the day before by dominantly defeating Greipel. After Geraint Thomas had begun to lead out Boasson Hagen, Renshaw jumped from Thomas' wheel to take Cavendish to the front, where the Manxman was first by almost an entire bike length. The victory put him into the green jersey for the first time.[123]

Cavendish, second from right, wearing the green jersey before the Tour's final stage, with the other jersey winners.

The next day came the Tour's first summit finish, and Velits and Martin both struggled. Velits lost four minutes and 15 seconds by finishing 31st, having been caught up in a crash at one point. Martin lost just over nine minutes by finishing 48th. Velits remained the team's highest-placed overall rider after the stage, but he fell to 14th place.[124] The next two mountain stages were no kinder, as Velits fell to 16th after stage 14 and Martin well out of any possible contention in 35th.[125] Stage 15 was the last stage branded as flat before the traditional flat final stage on the Champs-Élysées. Cavendish and the leadout train did not disappoint, as he took another dominant win, this time over Farrar in second.[126] Stages 18 and 19 could have been problematic for Cavendish. Both were difficult mountain stages with summit finishes, meaning the disqualification time cut was a concern. He did in fact finish outside the time cut on stage 18, but since more than half the peloton did likewise, the group was not disqualified from the Tour. They were each individually assessed a 25-point penalty in the points classification instead. This narrowed Cavendish's lead over José Joaquín Rojas to only 15 points.[127] A similar result happened the next day on Alpe d'Huez, with Cavendish again finishing in the last group on the road and outside the time cut. Again close to half the peloton was in the group, so they were not removed from the Tour, and since Rojas also fell in the group this time, he too was assessed the 25-point penalty. This meant the true effect was essentially nil, effectively cinching the green jersey for Cavendish.[128]

The team found further success in the Tour's last two days. Martin made it two time trial wins in Grenoble for the season, taking a strong win in stage 20. Other than Tour champion Cadel Evans, who finished just seven seconds off Martin's pace, no other rider finished within a minute of his time.[129] This left only the Champs-Élysées stage still to race. In the 2010 Tour de France, Cavendish became the first rider ever to win on the Champs for a second year in a row, so a third win would further extend that record. He started his sprint later than in past years, due to a headwind coming off the Place de la Concorde, but he was able to surpass Greipel and Boasson Hagen to take his fifth stage win of the Tour, putting an exclamation point on his successful green jersey campaign. Velits finished as the team's best-placed rider, taking 19th place overall.[130]

HTC-Highroad again named a multi-faceted squad for the season's final Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España. As their dissolution was announced earlier the same month, it was also the final Grand Tour in the team's history. Cavendish and Degenkolb were named to target the sprints, with Goss and Howard also present for the possibly more difficult sprints. Martin, Sivtsov, and Martin Velits, the last of whom hoped to match his brother's surprise third-place finish in the 2010 Vuelta a España, were named as overall classification hopefuls. Albasini and Grabsch rounded out the squad.[131] Sporting director Jens Zemke commented that the riders were mostly over the shock of the team folding, and with most of them having signed new contracts by that time, they were prepared to ride out the rest of the season as professionally and competitively as possible.[132]

The squad had another good team time trial in stage 1, but again missed out on the victory. They finished with six riders nine seconds off the time set by the winners Leopard Trek. Cavendish and Goss were unsurprising riders to lose the pace, but a major surprise was Martin rolling in for his own time over a minute behind his teammates.[133] Goss was later revealed to be suffering from a stomach bug, which caused him to retire from the race during stage 2.[134] Stage 2 was flat and seemingly conducive to one of HTC-Highroad's vaunted sprinters, but Cavendish was unable to finish with the first group on the road, coming home in a large group a minute later, and Degenkolb could manage only tenth place behind the day's winner Christopher Sutton.[135] Two days later, during stage 4, Cavendish also quit the race, citing the extremely hot temperatures as his reason. The withdrawal potentially complicated his plans to ride the Tour of Britain as preparation for the world championships road race. UCI rules state that if a rider voluntarily withdraws from an event, he is forbidden to participate in another until that first event concludes, unless its organizers give their okay. The Tour of Britain overlapped the Vuelta by a single day.[136] Cavendish was eventually given permission by Vuelta organizers to start that race.[81]

The squad remained quiet until the stage 10 individual time trial. Martin dominantly won the race against the clock, with only Team Sky's Chris Froome finishing within a minute of his time – and even then, only a single second inside of a minute. Post-race analysis found Martin's emphatic defeat of rival chrono specialist Fabian Cancellara a likely portend for the world championships time trial to come.[137] Degenkolb came close to victory on stage 12, finishing second in a selective sprint behind Peter Sagan of Liquigas–Cannondale.[138] The squad took their second Vuelta victory the next day. After making his way into a 20-man escape group, one which the race's top riders were content to let go as it contained no overall threat, Albasini proved himself easily the strongest by dominantly winning the sprint for the line. This was despite having tried to foil a sprint finish with an attack from 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) out, which was neutralized.[139] The squad did not feature in the remainder of the race, with only Degenkolb's fourth place in the Vuelta's final sprint to show for themselves. Albasini, Velits, Grabsch, Degenkolb, and Howard were the only team members to complete the race, and all were more than three and a half hours down in the final overall standings.[140]