After two years spent with Davitamon-Lotto as Robbie McEwen’s lead-out man at the Giro d’Italia, Australian veteran Henk Vogels will return to the North American peloton as a member of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling Team. Vogels is the first new addition to the Toyota-United roster for the 2007 season.

“The Toyota team looks as though they’ve done a great job this year,” Vogels said. “I was impressed with them at the Tour of Georgia. They’ve done well by themselves. I think the team wanted me for a few reasons. My physical ability is still very good, but I think what I bring in terms of experience is what they most are interested in. I can bring a lot to the team, and I’ll be expected to direct traffic on the road.”

Vogels rode in North America for five seasons, from 2000 to 2004, as a member of Mercury and Navigators Insurance. In that time he won both the USPRO road and criterium championship as well as the overall classification at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce. In 2003 he finished second at the semi-classic Gent-Wevelgem, behind T-Mobile’s Andreas Klier and ahead of Quick Step’s Tom Boonen.

Vogels also had a near-fatal accident while racing in the United States. In June 2003, at the Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic, a stage race where he had taken overall victory in 2000, Vogels glanced over his shoulder on the fast descent down Wachusett Mountain, sending him flying head first at 60mph into a guardrail. In a violent instant, one of the most fearless descenders in all of pro cycling lay crumpled on the side of the road, unconscious, with a bloodied and destroyed helmet, a fracture in his C-7 vertebra and a shattered left ankle.

Vogels spent six months off the bike and battled depression and his weight, but returned to good form in 2004 and was signed to ride with Davitamon in 2005. The Aussie nearly won a stage of the 2005 Giro d'Italia with a surprise attack in the final kilometer, but a bizarre set of circumstances saw his teammate McEwen follow a chase group and sprint to take the stage win.

Though Vogels had placed third and fourth at a pair of stages of the Tour de France prior to signing with Mercury, he was not chosen to ride the Tour de France while with Davitamon. Instead, he rode in support of the team’s classics stars in April and in support of McEwen at the Giro in May. Vogels finished 12th at Gent-Wevelgem this year, and 25th at Paris-Roubaix while riding in support of former Roubaix winner Peter Van Petegem, who was later disqualified from a third-place finish for running a train barricade.

Although a natural reaction to Vogels’s joining Toyota-United is to imagine the pairing of the Aussie with Argentinean sprinter Juan Jose Haedo, Toyota-United team director Harm Jansen said the team has not yet signed Haedo for 2007.

“J.J. is not confirmed yet,” Jansen said. “Nothing is official. He’s doing his business, and it’s his business. We try not to interfere. Of course we’d like to keep him, and it’s nice to imagine Henk and J.J. racing together. That would be the golden combo. We would have to build the team around that.”

Jansen reiterated that Vogels brings a valuable mix of speed, strength and experience to the squad.

“I see Henk bringing a lot of expertise to the team,” Jansen said. “Here’s a guy who can win Philly and Downer’s Grove and also stage races like the [2001] Tour de Beauce. And he is one of the world’s best lead-out men. He’s a valued addition to the team.”

Vogels makes his home on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast with his wife Cindy and two sons Jett, 6, and Toby, 3. They are expecting a third child in the coming weeks. Though he spent the last two years living without his family in Brakel, Belgium, a town along the route of the Tour of Flanders and the hometown of Davitamon teammate Peter Van Petegem, Vogels said that would change in 2007.

“I’m coming back to America on January first,” said Vogels, adding that he intends to bring his family to his former adopted hometown on Boulder, Colorado, which is also the headquarters of the Toyota-United squad. “I’m excited to race with Toyota-United and look forward to stepping into a good organization and being a leader; it’s something I’m really looking forward to next year.”

In 1995 Vogels signed his first professional contract with the Novell team. In 1996 he moved to the Dutch Rabobank squad, where he and McEwen lived and raced together. But his results didn’t really begin to take off until the following year, when he joined Stuart O’Grady at the Gan team that would become Crédit Agricole in 1999.

The 1997 season was like no other for Vogels: sixth at Gent-Wevelgem, third on the Tour’s Champs-Elysées sprint, third at the Paris-Tours World Cup, fourth overall at the Tour of Luxembourg, 10th at Paris-Roubiax and a pair of top-20 finishes in the world road and time trial championships. He received the honor of being voted Australian Cyclist of the Year.

Vogels started the 1999 season with one of his biggest wins to date, taking a solo attack all the way to the Australian national road champion’s jersey. “That was a pretty big win against all those boys, McEwen and O’Grady,” he remembers.

In 2000 Vogels signed with Mercury, moved to Boulder, and together with proven European-level talents Pavel Tonkov, Leon Van Bon, Gord Fraser and Peter Van Petegem, as well as Americans Chris Horner, Floyd Landis, Scott Moninger, Mike Sayers and Chris Wherry, the team won seemingly every race on the domestic calendar, spending three months in Europe and five months in the U.S.

In his first year racing in the States Vogels took a convincing win at the USPRO Championships in Philadelphia, on a solo breakaway. Another win that year, at the Spanish Clasica Internacional de Alcobendas in May, goes down with Philly as one of his most cherished victories.

“I was away with [Abraham] Olano and [Miguel-Angel Martin] Perdiguero and all these guys,” he said, “and I came to the finish with three and punked them all.”

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Henk Vogels
Born July 31, 1973 - Perth, Western Australia
Resides Buderim, Queensland, on Eastern Australia’s Sunshine Coast
Marital status Wife Cindy, son Jett, 6, and Toby, 3
Height 6 foot
Weight 175 pounds
Nickname “The Dric,” abbreviated from Hendricus.
Motto(s) “Have a go. Give it a nudge.”
Pro Since 1995
Teams Davitamon-Lotto (2005-06); Navigators Insurance (2003-04); Mercury (2000-02); Crédit Agricole (1999); Gan (1997-98); Rabobank (1996); Novell (1995)Career highlights2006 1st, Nerang New Year’s Day Criterium; 12th, Gent Wevelgem; 25th, Paris Roubaix; 3rd, Australian Pro Championship; 4th, Stage 15, Tour of Italy2005 7th, 5th and 10th, finishes; Giro d’Italia2004 2nd, Stage 3, Nature Valley Grand Prix (10th overall); 3rd, Bank of America Invitational Criterium; 3rd, Wells Fargo Twilight Criterium.2003 1st, Stage 1, Dodge Tour de Georgia; 2nd, Gent-Wevelgem; 6th, Australian national road championships; 6th, Australian national criterium championships; 8th, Wachovia USPRO Championships.2002 1st, USPRO Criterium Championships; 1st, Stage 12, Herald Sun Tour; 1st, Stage 6A, Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce; 1st, Stages 1&4, Cascade Classic; 1st, Nalley Historic Roswell Criterium; 2nd, San Francisco Grand Prix; 4th, First Union USPRO Championships; 8th, First Union Invitational.2001 1st, Stage 3, Grand Prix Cycliste de Beauce (1st overall); 1st, Stages 7&11, Herald Sun Tour; 9th, First Union USPRO Championships.2000 1st, First Union USPRO Championships; 1st stage 2, Fitchburg-Longsjo Classic (1st overall); 1st, Clasica Internacional de Alcobendas; 1st, Stage 1, Herald Sun Tour; 1st, Stage 2, Vuelta a Asturias; 1st, Capital Cup Criterium; 2nd, First Union Classic; 5th overall, Sea Otter Classic; 30th, Olympic road race.1999 1st, Australian national road championships; 1st, team time trial, Tour of Mediterranean; 2nd, Stage 1, Tour Down Under; 3rd, Stage 3, Paris-Nice; 4th, Stage 7, Tour de France; 4th, Stage 6, Paris-Nice.1998 5th, Stage 2, Vuelta a España; 7th, Gent-Wevelgem; 10th, Paris-Roubaix; 10th, Het Volk; 14th, Tour of Flanders; 38th, world road championships.1997 Voted Australian Cyclist of the Year; 2nd, Stages 4&5, Tour of Luxembourg (4th overall); 3rd, Stage 21, Tour de France; 3rd, Stage 6, Tour de l’Avenir, 3rd, Paris-Tours; 6th, Gent-Wevelgem; 6th, prologue, Paris-Nice; 7th, Stage 7, Tour de France; 10th, Paris-Roubaix; 11th, Amstel Gold; 15th, Tour of Flanders; 15th; world time trial championships; 17th, world road championships.1996 1st, Stage 6, Tour de l’Avenir (6th overall); 3rd overall, Herald Sun Tour.1995 1st, Stage 14, Herald Sun Tour (3rd overall); 2nd, Stage 2, Tour de Luxembourg (8th overall); 3rd, Stage 1, Tour du Limousin (4th overall).1994 1st overall, Tour of Holland; 1st, team time trial, Commonwealth Games; 5th overall, Tour of Sweden; 6th overall, Tour de l’Avenir; 8th, world time trial championships.1993 6th, world team time trial championships.1992 1st Alternate, Australian Olympic team pursuit.1991 1st, Groot Axel (U19 World Cup); 3rd, team pursuit, junior world track championships; 7th, junior world road championships.1990 4th, Australian national U19 road championships.1989 2nd, Australian national U17 team time trial championships.