When you target something or someone, you might not very well be the only one. This happened with our next rider, whom we acquired after a fierce bidding war with Gatorade. Luckily, they backed off after we threatened to attack them with fart guns. They really help.



Nick Kinney



Due to the bidding war, Nick Kinney comes for 120,000 bananas. Still, he is well worth the fruit due to his ability in the hills. Together with Duggan and perhaps Selander (if he won't get loaned) out, we will be a force to reckon with when the road goes up and down.

After quite a succesful transfer season for us so far, we felt like we lacked 2 riders. A real cobbler, but to be fair Minions don't care about them, and a fighter. The opportunity came along to sign a fighter on a cheap wage, and we took him.

Mauro Santambrogio



Coming from ProTour team Festina - Canal+, Mauro Santamborgio is a 31-year old fighter from Italy. He comes on a minimal wage (50,000 bananas), which is good considering that was nearly all we had left. There's still room for a stagaire or two, but it looks like this will be the Minions squad this season:

The Minions are very much into signing riders from obscure countries, because they get free NC's. Last year we had Tareq Esmaeli from Qatar. He's joined this year by Yasmani Martinez of Cuba and by our most recent signing:

Shaquille Sinclair



Shaquille Sinclair is the double Jamaican national champion. He is a young talent coming from a loan deal with Children of Chernobyl Foundation p/b Nemiroff. He will develop here this season, and after eating some healthy bananas he'll return to Ukraine next season. We're glad we could acquire his services for this season, and of course a new NC-jersey to show off with.

Cobblestones are the Minions' arch enemies. The only one in our suqad to overcome their fear is Jakob Rathe. We signed Fabrice Jeandesbosz as the new leader for the cobbles, but given his ability it would be nearly impossible for him to participate for the top spots, whereas Rathe is a decent sprinter in addition to his decent cobbles ability.

Generali - Kronenbourg 1664 signed Taillefour as their cobbles leader. However, they felt they lacked decent support for him, and all the decent helpers were already signed by other teams. Luckily for them, Minions are very nice and gave Fabrice the option to talk to them. After a long negotiation and many slammed calculators, he left the team and will ride for Generali. We wish him the best of luck in his role as super-domestique to Taillefour.

But we got something in return:

Maxime Le Montagner



This young Frenchman will ride for us this season, despite still being owned by Generali. We got him in return for Fabrice's services for the upcoming season. Unlike his name would suggest, Maxime Le Montagner is a sprinter, and will probably be one of the key element in our sprint train.

The Minions look to the future, and gave a young talent a contract to ride a few races for us. They're the cycling versions of interns, though they get paid. Not much, but they get paid.

Simon-Pierre Gauthier



Simon-Pierre Gauthier is a young ride from Canada, joining us from August onwards. He will get paid 10,000 bananas for his services during the last months.

With this signing, our squad is complete. A big overview will be posted when the Minions are done with their dress-up party. Some impressions of the party can be found under the spoiler:

After the dress-up party ended in a five-way tie for first place, the Minions finally got the time to present their full team to the public. The rider's ability has been rated in a number between 50 and 85, which 85 being good and 50 a little bit less good. The overall stat involves a difficult calculations even Minions don't understand. And we've made a small assesment in every category.



Mountains/Stage races

The leaders of last year, Haga and Montenegro, both stayed here. The first one was supposed to be loaned out but in the end it didn't materialise. This year, we've signed Martinez as our new leader, hoping we can score better results. Salas will replace the useless domestiques we had last year

Sprints

Last year, our riders were out of breath after a speedbump. Only Friedman managed to retain a contract, even though his role will be tuned down. We've signed Tolleson as our new sprinter and built a decent train around him (including aforementioned Friedman, Murphy, Le Montagner and Sinclair). He might not be the fastest sprinter, but he has proven he can get over mountains, which could be quite usefull.

Hills

Selander was the man last year, and he was tangled up in the same situation as Haga. This year, he's part of a trio with Kinney and Duggan. With a lot of hilly races on the calendar, we can at least have one decent rider every race.

Time trial

Haga stayed, Griffith stayed at the very last moment, new signings Duggan and Martinez have a decent ability against the clock. We've actually build ourselves quite a nice TTT-squad.

Cobblestones

Are work of the devil. That's the general opinion around here with the sole exception of Rathe. He has assured the place of absolute leader in every races that includes them, and gets 7 useless domestiques per race who will drop after the first rock on the road.

Overall

Comparing to last year, the team has improved. The signings of Martinez, Kinney, Duggan and Tolleson add etra strenght to our squad, and with last year's leaders staying as well, we will not be throwing a party when we finish 24th. Goal for the season: finish 23rd or above! We're looking up (literally)!

The Minion have decided that they will ride in every American continental race this season. Counting those and our obligatory HC-races, we had 5 race days left. Therefore we decided to send a team to the Tour of Slovenia as well. Our full calendar:

Nation	Race	Class	Date
	January
	Clasico San Cristobal	C2	10
	Vuelta al Tachira	C1	22-31
	Great Ocean Road Classic	C2HC	31
	February
//	Benelux Challenge	C2HC	1-6
	Geraardsbergen-Bosberg	C2HC	21
	GP Sallanches	C2HC	27
	March
	Tour de San Luis	C2	3-9
	Giro del Trentino	C2HC	20-24
	April
	Zimnyanya GP	C2HC	1
	Philadelphia International Championship	C1	18
	May
	Rund um den Eschborn-Frankfurt	C2HC	1
	Tour of Scotland	C2HC	18-23
	June
	GP Herning	C2HC	2
	Circulo de Juarez	C2	4-8
	Tour of Iceland	C2HC	9-12
	Monterrey TTT	C1	29
	July
	Tour de Pologne	C2HC	2-8
	Tour de Slovenie	C2	25-29
	August
	USA Pro Cycling Challenge	C2HC	1-7
	Cigar City Brewing Twilight GP	C2	16
	September
	Tour of America	C1	2-22
	Acropolis Cup	C2HC	3
	Grands Prix Cyclistes	C1	19-20
	GP Yekaterinburg	C2HC	24
	October
	Colombian Venteaux	C1	1
///	Ruta America del Sur	C2HC	8-15

And now, we will reveal our squads for the January races:

Clasico San Cristobal



Yasmani Martinez
Bjorn Selander
Timothy Duggan
Mauro Santambrogio
Sebastian Salas
Jakob Rathe
Tareq Esmaeli
Maxime Le Montagner

Martinez will make his official debut for us in his Cuban home race, Clasico San Cristobal. He, Selander and other debutant Duggan will hopefully lead us to a good classification. Santambrogio, Salas and Le Montagner will debut as well.

Vuelta al Tachira



Yasmani Martinez
Nick Kinney
Bjorn Selander
Fabio Montenegro
Timothy Duggan
Sebastian Salas
Jakob Rathe
Mike Friedman

Martinez will continue to Venezuela where he'll lead us in the Vuelta al Tachira. Kinney will start here as well, and Montenegro will open his season close to his home.

Great Ocean Road Classic



Taylor Tolleson
Mauro Santambrogio
Alex Howes
Tareq Esmaeli
John Murphy
Maxime Le Montagner
Mark Griffith
Shaquille Sinclair

Tolleson will make his debut on the other side of the planet, in Australia at the Great Ocean Road Classic. He comes with a sort-of sprint train, including Jamaican NC and debutant Sinclair. He will ride in this jersey next season:

Profile



Startlist



Good

Esmaeli showed our colors by going into the break, which was nice for the sponsors.



Mixed

Selander finished in a point scoring 19th position. We had hoped for more, but given the strong startlist we're glad he could score some poinrs.

Bad

Martinez finished 26th and scored no points in his home race. We expected more from him in his official debut for us

Results

Pos.	Rider	Team	Time
1	Jose Mendes	Severstal-Mercator	5h11'36
2	Frantisek Rabon	Novatek-Panarmenian.net	+ 49
3	Janier Alexis Acevedo	Alpina - Avianca	+ 1'00
4	Kristijan Durasek	Fablok - Dunlop	+ 1'10
5	Patrik Sinkewitz	Netia - Norske Skog	s.t.
19	Bjorn Selander	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	+ 8'07
26	Yasmani Martinez	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	+ 8'17
27	Mauro Santambrogio	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
49	Timothy Duggan	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
54	Sebastian Salas	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
65	Tareq Esmaeli	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	+ 9'17
122	Jakob Rathe	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	+ 14'37
129	Maxime Le Montagner	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	+ 17'47

Profile



Startlist



Good

Tolleson was mentioned as a dangerous outsider, which is probably one of the first time ever one of our riders was rated this high. If he gets more of those mentions in the future, he might actually be a good buy.

Mixed

Both Tolleson and Santambrogio attacked mid-stage, getting some gaps. The first one actually rode ahead of the bunch for 10 kilometers. Unfortunately, both riders were caught.



Bad

Unfortunately there was no result. Santambrogio became our best rider in 24th, whereas Tolleson waisted too much energy by attacking, dropping to 41st. Griffith was our only other rider in the first group.

Results

Pos.	Rider	Team	Time
1	Maximiliano Richeze	SanCor Cycling Team	4h25'42
2	Claudio Corioni	Strava	s.t.
3	Wes Sulzberger	Gatorade - SIS	s.t.
4	Michael Matthews	Compal-Merida	s.t.
5	Michael Vanderaerden	Verkefnid Iceland	s.t.
24	Mauro Santambrogio	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
41	Taylor Tolleson	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
48	Mark Griffith	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
100	John Murphy	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	+ 17'08
111	Alex Howes	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
113	Tareq Esmaeli	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
136	Maxime Le Montagner	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.
143	Shaquille Sinclair	Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions	s.t.