‘Push them outside their comfort zone’ – Four-time USPro champion Freddie Rodriguez returns to cycling as co-owner and strategist for APS Pro Cycling by Cadence Cyclery

Conn McDunphy represents Ireland at 2024 UCI Road World Championships (Image credit: Getty Images)

Rodriguez is one of three men who comprise the core of ownership and management for the team, joined by Jeff Makohon, former assistant sports director for Team Skyline, and Mike Norton, exercise physiologist and cycling coach.

Other pieces of the puzzle came together with the addition of Chad Plumlee, owner of Cadence Cyclery, and Chris Daggs, another former sports director from Team Skyline and Lux Development Plumlee, who’s Cadence Cyclery retail stores now have two locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area in Texas and one in Encinitas, California will work on the marketing side in “driving sponsorships”, which includes bike sponsor Van Rysel. Daggs will drive the team car in many races, serving as the main race director.

“Mike and I started talking, we thought there’s some potentially different ways to do [a Continental team]. Mike’s been working with Freddie on some projects. So the three paths just kind of aligned,” Jeff Makohon told Cyclingnews about the collaborative trio with home bases in California, New Jersey and Texas.

“Mike and I said ‘let’s start a team’. We went to Chad [Plumlee] and he signed on to help drive equipment sponsorship and Chad’s integral to the team as he’s driving sponsorships. We only made the decision to launch the team one week before the UCI deadlines, so that effort is something that will be ongoing in 2026 as we determine how to bring more sponsor value as a collective.”

With Van Rysel, the company only has two other pro teams they sponsor – WorldTour level Decathlon CMA CGM and French Continental squad Van Rysel Roubaix. Makohon said the company is “very, very interested in the US market”.

“Freddie’s the guy who’s coming up with the strategies, changing the way the team races and looks at training, how we develop riders,” Makohon said. “Freddie’s really got the new idea around how to make a development team work and teach these guys how to race and make them marketable to bigger teams, until we get to the point that we could be one of those bigger teams.”

The team wants to develop talent no matter the age of the rider. At the Continental level, the overriding goal was to give the riders experience in UCI races and get them noticed. The team looked to ride a handful of races in the US, including some gravel events, but the road races having UCI designations had priority.

“The older riders provide a lot of value to the younger guys as well, because of their experience, their professionalism. even though they’re older, we still think that they could get on to a bigger team,” Makohon said.

“We’ve got 12 national championships represented [by riders]. Every rider has raced for their national team at Worlds or l’Avenir or other races. It’s Continental level, and they can animate the race and get there at the end. We bring some skins that the promoters want.”

Cadence Cyclery will continue to be involved with a club team for juniors, men and women, Cadence Cyclery p/b Encore Wire, which had a criterium-heavy schedule last year featuring USPro criterium national champions Lucas Bourgoyne, who won the elite men’s title, and Luke Fetzer, who won the U23 men’s title.