 Reactions to the merger were widespread. Amid descriptions of the team as a "super-team" from at least one analyst were Team Saxo Bank manager Bjarne Riis'claims that he simply looked forward to defeating them. Cervélo co-founder and former Cervélo TestTeam manager Gerard Vroomen saw the merger on a strictly business level, with neither side having sufficient resources to field a team at the level they would like, while cooperatively they would. Trek had been bike supplier for both teams in 2011, and funneling money they would normally spend on two teams into one, coupled with an expected reduction in support from the electronics company RadioShack, would make it all the simpler for them to back a top-level team. The merger also drew criticism, as the two sides' initial press releases describing it did not make it seem that they were in agreement over their perception of the merger and the newly combined entity. The fact that neither ridership nor lower-level management nor ousted sponsors seemed to know about the move at all ahead of time also drew criticism.
