Last year team Cykeln Divisione Corse was the team that surprised many. Although no Red Hook Criterium was won, they were battling in the front of almost each race resulting in a 2nd place in the Red Hook Crit Team Championship in the men’s category. On top of that, with Martino Poccianti they have the first official Italian Fixed Gear Crit men’s Champion in the team. For 2018, they kept the core of their team and attracted one new rider, Francesco Chicci, the former UCI World Tour pro with over 30 pro wins on his CV. However, in his first fixed gear crit season Chicchi didn’t manage to obtain any Red Hook Crit points. We spoke to Claudio Di Santo, the team director of Cykeln divisione corse, on the 2018 team formation and goals.
Text: Brian Megens
On the team formation of 2018 Claudio says “The team is pretty the same with the addition of Francesco Chicchi. As you know, last year Martino won the 42 Rad Race championship, the official Italian Fixed Championship, and the Criterium Italia Series. Matteo Cecchini gained a lot of attention after his ‘impossible’ move from position 85 to position 17 in Barcelona. Last summer, Roberto won the Novisad road Crit championship (10 stages). Francesco Chicchi, speaks for himself with the his UCI U23 World Championship win in Zolder 2002, Tour of Quatar and many more races. I really hope that he will get a win in one of the races we will compete in this year. This year we also have a great comeback of Mattia Cappella, who has fully recovered from a big injury last year. Is one of the guys to look out this year, very similar to Martino like power output.”
“Marco Poccianti has become father for the second time. He is training a lot, and tries to balance his life between the bike and the family. I’m confident that he will put a lot of pressure on the field to mainly help the team but foremost his brother to stay on the front. As you know Marco is a bull with an infinite power output I truly believe that he will be one of the top antagonist this year at RHC.”
Martino Poccianti
Marco Poccianti
Roberto Pagliaccia
Francesco Chicchi
Matteo Cecchini
Mattia Cappella
On last and upcoming season:
“Last year we ended the season on a 2nd place just behind Aventon factory racing, I can tell you that I’ve felt we were winning till the last lap when Martino was on the front, then the move by Tristan destroyed my dream but anyway is still a good result and shit happen! We’ve started a collaboration with some of the best trainers, nutritionist and personal trainers to find out the right people to train the guys. I’ve found a good selection of them that are currently following us daily with training plans, test, nutrition programs and biomechanical assistant. We are also working on a project to develop the right position for a fixed gear criterium with our biomech Giulio Galleschi.”In the mean while we decided to sign Francesco Chicchi that has been always a good friend of us, I can tell you that Francesco is training hard with Martino, learning how to better ride a fixed gear bike.
“We will also do some road criteriums in the USA, England, Belgium to keep the fit of the team high. Also this year we’ve been invited to race the Elite crit at the London Nocturne helded by Rapha. Our main focus is the RHC, we need to climb a step higher on that chart! It will be a challenging year but we’re ready to face it. Having a lot of good sponsors we have the right feeling, I think we could make it.”
