November 4, 2006 — On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the Canadian Cycling Association announced that five teams had requested UCI licenses for 2007, including four for inclusion in America Tour 2007, and that three of these teams are based in Quebec: Calyon-Litespeed,
Volkswagen-Trek, and Vallée de l’aluminium.

As reported yesterday at pedalmag.com, Alexandre Lavallée, formerly of Volkswagen-Trek (VT) will be the directeur sportif of the new l’équipe Vallée de l’aluminium (EVA) team and that both Eric Boily and Raphaël Tremblay will be riding for EVA instead of VT. Meanwhile, Alexandre Cloutier, Keven Lacombe and Martin Saint-Laurent are staying with VT, according to a report Friday by Radio Canada.

This suggests that VT now counts six senior cyclists because Ryan Mackenzie and Jean-Sébastien Béland are both returning to the team. André Tremblay, who carried the Quebec team colours during the 2006 Tour de l’Abitibi, will also be on VT.

Veloptimum contacted Volkswagen/Trek’s coach, Josée Robitaille, who was unable to give an official team roster at this time, but promised a press release in the coming days saying, “It seems like the rumours are going around as fast as our cyclists!” Robitaille added that”¦”we will also have two cyclists in their last junior year, Guillaume Blais Dufour and Marc Allard. One or two other cyclists will join the team in the next few days.”

November 9 is the date for their press conference when the VT team will be presented.