2010 Cervélo TestTeam season

The 2010 season for the Cervélo TestTeam, its second and final,[1] began in February with the Étoile de Bessèges and ended in October at the Giro di Lombardia.

Though Bos had lost contact with the peloton near the beginning of the race, the work of Cuesta, Deignan, and Wyss brought him back.

He was caught up in a big crash near the finish line of stage 2, though he did not himself fall from his bike, and lost 34 seconds to other contenders like Cadel Evans and Ivan Basso.

Sastre crashed multiple times, and crossed the finish line covered in mud over five minutes behind the other overall contenders.

Tondó rode most of the final climb to Monte Terminillo ahead of the pink jersey peloton and took third on the stage, while Sastre lost over a minute to the race's elite and fell to 8'10" back.

[22] Both riders finished with the peloton in stage 14, which went over Monte Grappa, conceding over two minutes to race favorites like Basso and Vincenzo Nibali, but moving up to third and sixth overall.

This put him in fourth overall before the uphill individual time trial to Plan de Corones after the second rest day.

Liquigas–Doimo's support riders rode a strong tempo that made others fall from the pace held by Basso, Nibali, and Michele Scarponi.

[29] While eighth overall was widely derided as a disappointment for a rider thought to be an overall contender and one gifted 13 minutes,[30][31] it was revealed shortly after the Giro concluded that Sastre's injuries upon crashing in the Netherlands and Tuscany were much worse than first reported.

He was diagnosed with a spinal disc herniation by team doctors, an injury that briefly put his Tour de France participation in doubt.

[32] Sastre stated that the team knew from the time he first crashed that the injuries likely would keep him from overall contention, but they kept quiet about it while the race was being run so as to not make excuses for his performance.

Haussler was supposed to be on the squad as well, but was replaced by Lloyd when his recurrent knee injury required surgery.

Florencio was named to the squad at first, but he was later pulled because he had used a substance for treating saddle sores that contained ephedrine, which is banned.

Florencio later criticized the decision, after the team's demise later in the year, as hampering his chances to obtain a contract for 2011.

[35] The next day, a series of crashes took place, felling overall contenders like Lance Armstrong and Andy Schleck among dozens of others.

With several groups on the road fragmented by the repeated crashes, race leader Fabian Cancellara negotiated a neutralization of the stage finish, wherein no one would sprint for the line and everyone who was together when the crashes began would get the same finishing time relative to solo stage winner Sylvain Chavanel.

Cancellara led a group of six, working for his team leader Schleck, past a major pileup 40 km (25 mi) from the finish.

[44] In stage 12, Hushovd made the morning's breakaway and got 10 points in intermediate sprints, taking the jersey back.

[48] Hushovd took seventh on the Champs-Élysées, but he ended up just third in the points classification, behind both the winner Petacchi and Mark Cavendish.

Sastre was the team's best-placed rider in the final overall standings, but he was over 26 minutes behind Tour champion Contador, for 20th place.

With reigning Vuelta champion Alejandro Valverde unable to defend his crown due to a doping suspension handed down earlier in the year, race officials gave bib number one to Cuesta in commemoration of this achievement.

[53] Both lost time the next day, but Tondó limited his losses to 19 seconds and actually moved up in the overall standings as a result, to seventh.

Sastre was 25th on the day, dropping a minute and 34 seconds, and later claimed that his race schedule for the season, riding all three Grand Tours, was beginning to leave him tired.

Tondó again rode with the race's elite for most of the day, finishing seventh and conceding 39 seconds to stage winner Joaquim Rodríguez.

Tondó lost roughly two minutes to the race's elite riders at the finish, coming home 23rd and slipping to fifth overall as a result.

[63] Tondó rode to fifth place on the Bola del Mundo in the race's queen stage, but since Fränk Schleck finished ahead of him in fourth, he was unable to overtake the Luxembourger for fifth overall.