Davide Formolo’s American dreams and his new U.S. squad, Cannondale-Garmin

A moment after Davide Formolo took his seat, he was back up again. We was distracted by what we saw from the 17th floor of New York hotel in the Meatpacking District. “It’s the Statue of Liberty,” he said. Even though the 22-year-old rider from San Rocco di Marano di Valpolicella, Italy has been to New York before, as recently as this past October, he was excited to be back, to be in the U.S. for the Cannondale-Garmin team launch.

“Here you have California dreams, but in Europe you have American dreams,” Formolo said. It’s a pretty eloquent turn of phrase from a man who says he only knows 100 English words. He’s trying to learn English, but he finds it hard to study after a six-hour bike ride. “You’re very tired, and your head can’t remember nothing,” he said of his post-ride attempts at learning a language. Now, he mostly studies on recovery days.

While English will help Formolo on this new U.S.-based team, he does have some teammates who have joined him from the old Italian squad, Cannondale, who speak his first language: Alberto Bettiol, Moreno Moser, Alan Marangoni and Davide Villella. There’s also Ted King, who picked up Italian riding with Cannondale for four years. “He’s the glue for us, for the Italians and the Garmin guys from last year,” Formolo said of his teammate from Exeter, N.H.

Formolo’s most notable result of 2014 came at the end of June in the Italian road race championships. He was second, behind soon-to-be Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali. Later in the year, he had his sights set on the two Canadian WorldTour races, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal. In Quebec, Formolo and a teammate worked to get into the final group that featured race winner Simon Gerrans. “When it was the time for the final sprint, I couldn’t do more than 1,000 watts. Gerrans did maybe 1,800 watts,” Formolo said.

He says his 2014 season went well. At the training camp roughly a year ago, he wouldn’t have imagined his teammates would work for him at races, such as the Quebec Grand Prix, Tour of Alberta and Tour de Suisse. Yet, he still stresses that he didn’t win anything. “I had three seconds, a third, fourth, fifth—but never a win with my only 1,000-watt legs,” he joked.

Formolo has GC hopes. Of course, he’d like to compete in his country’s Grand Tour.”I’m an Italian guy,” he said. “We’re born in front of the T.V. with the Giro d’Italia. When you are child and you’re on your bike, you imagine you’re in the groups of the Giro.”

For now, the Giro isn’t on the schedule for Formolo. His American, and even Californian, dreams may continue this year at the Amgen Tour of California. He also hopes to get back to the races in Quebec and Montreal, with legs that can pump out more watts than last year.