CyclistFeeling bullish: Bora-Hansgrohe boss Ralph Denk profileRalph Denk leans back in his office chair at Bora-Hansgrohes headquarters in south Germany. Around him is a collection of Specialized bikes once used by his team.Ive collected one of these each year since forming the road team in 2007. Thats a long time leading a squad at this level but Im super-motivated, he says. Cycling its 24/7. Im 50 years old now but Im driven by pushing things forward, by winning the Tour de France with Primo Rogli and Red Bull. Well, lets see how far we can go.Were going to need a bigger budgetDenk is founder and team manager of Germanys only WorldTour team and, as the years have rolled by, has increasingly become the money man, charged with attracting much-needed sponsorship in a professional sport that lives and dies by sponsorship money.Over 95% of our income comes from sponsors, Denk says. The rest is participation fees and some merchandising, but thats not a lot. Simply, you need ever greater budgets to compete. If you look back to strong German teams like Gerolsteiner and Team Milram, they were operating on 7 to 8 million a year. Now, with the likes of Ineos and Middle Eastern money entering the sport, you need a minimum of 20 million, but better 25, 30, 35, 40 Related Posts Who are the favourites for the Giro dItalia 2024? Team insider: Bora-Hansgrohe at the Tour de France Giro dItalia 2024: Route, how to watch, start list and everything you need to know Mens Tour de France 2024 route announced: What will riders face on the road from Florence to Nice? The last time Cyclist spoke to Denk was at the 2018 Tour de France where he lamented cyclings broken business model of short-term sponsorships, saying, If I have a ten-year project, I can invest more into that. Its partly why Team Sky have been so successful. Six years later, Denks dreams look set to become reality with the news that he has been in negotiations with energy drink giant Red Bull about something bigger than sponsorship: acquisition.Wed been in talks since the autumn and agreed we were on the same page and had the same philosophy for a cool new project, Denk says. We asked for government authorisation to approve the liaison between Bora-Hansgrohe and Red Bull and they gave us the green light at the start of the year. Red Bull now owns 51% of the team.More precisely, Red Bull has a 51% stake in RD Pro Cycling GmbH & Co KG and RD Beteiligungs GmbH, the two companies that own the Bora-Hansgrohe team, which are owned in turn by Denk, his family and other partners.Red Bull, whose revenue topped 10 billion for the first time in 2023, has forged a reputation for disrupting sports and targeting a younger audience. Its entry into WorldTour cycling is seen as a coup not only for Bora-Hansgrohe but the sport as a whole.Theres been so much speculation about what this means, including the team name that we cant announce yet, says Denk. But that underlines the exciting reach of Red Bull. It will be great to engage with a new audience.A Bull marketRed Bull is known for its high-octane approach to marketing, from Danny MacAskills trials bike wizardry to Felix Baumgartners 39km skydive from the edge of space. But the company has also invested in a number of more conventional sports, including four football teams in Austria, Germany, Brazil and the US, two Formula 1 teams, ice hockey teams in Germany and Austria, and an Americas Cup sailing team. It begs the question, what does this all mean for Bora-Hansgrohe?Performance co-operation and knowledge sharing could be a benefit, says Denk. Red Bull has athletic performance centres in both Salzburg and Los Angeles that are really the benchmark in sport, science and performance. All the Red Bull teams and riders can use this infrastructure.Ralph Denk rode primarily as an amateur but did have one season as a pro in 1999. The following year he opened his own bike shop.Tornanti.ccThat includes Red Bull-sponsored and non-Bora riders Tom Pidcock and Wout van Aert. How the buyout will affect these sponsorships remains to be seen. The F1 teams show Red Bull isnt afraid of intra-competition if it drives innovation, but how Ineoss Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Visma-Lease a Bikes Richard Plugge feel about Red Bull lifting the physiological lid on their assets is another matter.The Red Bull performance centres offer hi-tech gizmos such as alt-G treadmills for recovery, cryosaunas and even something called transcranial magnetic stimulation for improving reaction times. There will also be technical co-operation, especially when it comes to leaning on the Formula 1 side and aerodynamics, says Denk. But perhaps the biggest win could be the development of young riders.A specialism of Red Bulls football scouting system has been in early talent ID, signing players to the Red Bull group before theyre 18, with an especially strong presence in Africa, which is recognised as having the potential to be the next great cycling continent.Whatever happens, a bullet point in our brainstorming paper is the rookies, says Denk. It feels so much more empowering for a team when you nurture talent and they start winning. We almost care more for the likes of Emil Herzog, whos twice finished on the podium at the under-19 Worlds. This new funding could open up possibilities to build on our Red Bull Junior Brothers programme, which weve been running for a couple of years to find the best young riders.Follow the leaderOf course, its not all about the youngsters. At 34, Primo Rogli has 80 wins to his name, including one Giro dItalia and three Vuelta a Espaa titles, and represents the teams best chance of winning the Tour de France to date.We announced Primos arrival a day before Lombardia and I never expected such a reaction, but I guess thats how high in opinion hes held, says Denk. He has a strong mind and is totally performance-driven. His attitude is incredible and weve been impressed over the past few months at how hes acted as such a good role model for the younger riders.Denk acknowledges that, with Primo Rogli on board, his team will be genuine contenders at the Tour de France for the first time in what promises to be a race for the ages.Tornanti.ccClearly he has the physical attributes, but he has real leadership qualities too. Hes calm and not too outspoken. What is good leadership? To me, its many things but, as an example, its how you might present your ideas. There are some who might moan in front of the whole team. This is not Primo. Hell ask for face-to-face meetings with the right guys. We close the door and we talk. This is a big difference between leadership and simply complaining.Rogli is pencilled in to race the 2024 Tour de France, and this time hell be up against his old teammate and current champion, Jonas Vingegaard. With Tadej Pogaar and Remco Evenepoel also scheduled to race, its set to be a Tour for the ages. So has Denk spotted any weaknesses that might help his new signing to win the one Grand Tour absent from his palmars?Obviously we cant say, says Denk, but of course those three riders will be strong contenders. And you certainly cant ignore riders like Carlos Rodrguez at Ineos. But, for sure, we will be in contention, which will be new for us.In 2019, Emanuel Buchmann finished fourth, which was fantastic but wasnt on the agenda at the time. Its just something that opened up during the race. Now the situation is different. That brings different expectations and pressures, and thats something we have to deal with. But its also something that should drive us and make us work hard every day. That is our goal.The Sagan effectWith Rogli on board, Denk hopes to move Bora-Hansgrohe onto the next phase by emulating the impact that a certain Peter Sagan had on the team seven years ago.We remain super-thankful to Peter because he trusted in our project and signed for us [in 2017] when we were a second division team at ProConti level, despite him being the World Champion. He started winning straight away [12 times in his debut season including retaining his world title], which took the pressure off other riders and, in a similar way to how we hope Primo settles in, helped us to develop young talent like Pascal Ackermann and Patrick Konrad. Theyve been successful but they have a lot to thank Peter for as he was the rudder of the team, the front man.Are there similarities between the Slovak and the Slovenian?No, theyre very different, says Denk, but thats to be expected as there are always differences between the Classics and GC riders. A GC rider is really focussed on high performance; they throw themselves into the science, asking for exact measurements and data. A Classics rider is a bit more freestyle. Peter was definitely more freestyle.Both riders highlight the teams evolution a team that started off in mountain biking in 2005. Denks Giant Racing team won silver at the 2005 World Championships and the overall 2006 World Cup. He stopped the team at the end of 2006 and started a junior road team in 2007 with sponsorship from a German federation reeling from several doping scandals. Soon after, Denk brought US IT company NetApp into the fold and the increased resources saw the now-senior team race Continental in 2010, moving to ProContinental a year later.In 2012 Team NetApp completed their first Grand Tour, the Giro dItalia, and won a stage of the Tour of Britain thanks to Leopold Knig. He repeated the feat at the 2013 Vuelta a Espaa. By now, cycling apparel manufacturer Endura was on board.Having worked hard for many years to establish his team, Denk says budgets are still a huge issue for the sport, and believes a cost cap could reduce the disparity between teams.But it was 2015 where things moved on a lot thanks to Bora replacing NetApp, says Denk. Then in 2017 Hansgrohe [a German plumbing appliances company] joined our project. That gave us the resources to achieve WorldTour status.Denk expresses his gratitude to both Bora and Hansgrohe, without whom the team wouldnt exist. Both will remain as headline sponsors, whatever the Red Bull-incorporated moniker will eventually be. Which brings us back round to the topic of money.Money talksThere has been a lot of speculation about Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund getting involved in cycling to create a LIV Golf-style super-league. At present, it looks as though negotiations have stalled, but Denk is only too aware that options are limited for teams that require ever-greater funding but have few ways of obtaining it.We will see what the future brings, he says, but what we do know is that ASO, who run the Tour de France and many other races, are super-strong organisers. But its hard to create many revenue streams without, say, a stadium. Merchandisings also tricky as your name changes depending on sponsor weve had four in our time as a road team. Despite that, budgets continue to grow.One option, Denk suggests, might be for the governing body to bring in cost controls to ensure greater parity between teams and potentially help the sport as a spectacle.They did it in Formula 1, where some teams operating costs were upwards of $300 million a year. Now its under $150 million. From a fans perspective, interest is lost when one or two teams dominate. (Which is rather ironic, in that Red Bull and Max Verstappen continue to dominate Formula 1 like never before. The Red Bull team were also fined for breaching F1s 2021 cost cap.)What the future holds for RB Bora-Hansgrohe, Bora-Hansgrohe Red Bull, Bora-Hansgrohe Fuelled by RB only time will tell. Whats clear is that a team that has quietly gone about its business for 17 years is set for a performance and image makeover. If that ends up leading to Tour de France victory, the German team and road cycling in general could be on the verge of a surge in youthful popularity. Watch this space.Denks road to gloryA timeline of Ralph Denks pro team development2005Former Bavarian mountain bike champion Ralph Denk starts a mountain bike team. Giant Racing enjoy a couple of seasons of success.2007Founds project for young road talent. Previously called Quest-Ralph-Denk-Team, the under-19 team continues to this day as Team Grenke-Auto Eder.2010Creates senior squad, Team NetApp, that enters at Continental level. Austrian Daniel Schorn records their first victory, winning Stage 3 of the Tour de Normandie.2013Team NetApp and British-based Endura Racing merge to form NetApp-Endura.2014NetApp-Endura debut at Tour de France. Theyll have to wait three years for their first Tour stage victory, taken by Peter Sagan. Kitchen appliance specialist Bora announces on the eve of the Tour it will take over headline sponsorship from 2015.2017Shower manufacturer Hansgrohe takes on joint headline sponsorship, helping the team secure Sagan from the remnants of Tinkoff-Saxo. The Slovak takes 11 wins including the World Championships. Irelands Sam Bennett adds a further nine victories to the teams season tally of 33.2018Sagan wins the points jersey at the Tour, which hell retain the following year. He also records the teams biggest victory to date at Paris-Roubaix.2019Bora-Hansgrohe rack up 47 wins to finish the season ranked second. To this day, its their highest tally. Emanuel Buchmann surprises all with fourth at the Tour.2021Wilco Keldermans fifth at the Tour plus Felix Grosschartners 10th at the Vuelta a Espaa highlights an increasing focus on the Grand Tours.2022Australias Jai Hindley wins the teams first GC title with victory at the Giro dItalia. Aleksandr Vlasovs fifth in France signals their full transition to a GC team.2024Red Bull acquires 51% of the team. Primo Rogli will lead their strongest assault yet on the Tour de France. Related Posts Who are the favourites for the Giro dItalia 2024? Team insider: Bora-Hansgrohe at the Tour de France Giro dItalia 2024: Route, how to watch, start list and everything you need to know Mens Tour de France 2024 route announced: What will riders face on the road from Florence to Nice? Denk onstarting a womens teamWere always looking into the development of womens cycling and its great to see its growth. Weve had positive conversations with our sponsors about the womens side but, for now, what with the Red Bull acquisition, theres no womens team on the agenda, certainly not for 2025.road cycling in GermanyIt has been at a similar level for a few years but not to the level when Jan Ullrich was fighting for the Tour de France. Arguably the sport needs greater governmental support in Germany. If were looking to build Olympic champions which is always nice for a country we need more help.the importance of hosting racesIts so important that your country features a WorldTour race. We didnt have a high-profile multi-stage race in Germany for many years because of the doping of the past. Now we do. Young riders must have an event to aspire to. Thats why its good news that the Tour of Britain is to continue. This article originally appeared in issue 152 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribeThe post Feeling bullish: Bora-Hansgrohe boss Ralph Denk profile appeared first on Cyclist.