Announcement: Cycling Team Update
Today Garmin announced product sponsorships of five professional cycling teams for the 2016 season, including three World Tour teams and two mountain biking teams. Garmin will continue to sponsor Cannondale Pro Cycling and Movistar Team, and for the first year will sponsor Team Lampre-Merida. All three World Tour teams will ride with Garmin devices during the Giro d’Italia starting today. Additionally, Garmin will support the mountain biking teams Trek Factory Racing and LUNA Pro Team.
“We are extremely excited to continue strong involvement in professional cycling with our support of these five teams,” said Jon Cassat, Garmin vice president of communications. “We have long been a leader of cycling technology and we are proud to provide our cutting edge products for training and race day as teams Cannondale, Movistar, Lampre-Merida, Trek Factory Racing and LUNA Pro race throughout the season.”
All teams will ride with one of the Edge® cycling computers with select teams using various additional Garmin fitness products including the Vector™ pedal-based power system, Varia™ cycling awareness products, the vívosmart® HR activity tracker and the Index smart scale. Cannondale Pro Cycling and Team Lampre-Merida will also use the Drive™ and dēzl™ automotive navigation products.
“We are excited to continue our long-standing partnership and friendship with Garmin,” said Matt Johnson, Slipstream Sports president. “They have been part of the foundation of this team since its inception. Both parties benefit: the technical feedback from our athletes further fuels Garmin’s leadership position in the market, and their constant innovation allows us the best technical equipment.”
“The Vectors are great for understanding and improving pedaling mechanics and diagnosing muscle imbalances,” said Alex Howes, Cannondale Pro Cycling rider. “Being able to see pedaling balance in real time is extraordinarily valuable.”
“I find the Garmin Edge 520 incredibly reliable as a training tool and during racing it gives me an amazing amount of important information that can honestly change how I race the race,” said Rory Sutherland, Movistar Team rider.
“We could not have a better cooperation for our team than the one with Garmin, which will help us to improve and support the activity of our athletes,” said Brent Copeland, Team Lampre-Merida team manager. “It is very interesting to point out that the supply from Garmin will cover different areas: the monitoring and the data collection during races and trainings thanks to the GPS cycling computers, the safety thanks to the Varia Bike Radar, the health area thanks to the Index Smart scale and the instruments vívosmart HR, the logistic thanks to the GPS navigation devices. The relevance of the Milano-Sanremo was appropriate for the starting partnership with Garmin and we’re sure that together we’ll achieve interesting results.”
