If we were sceptical at the start of the season of a good Contador performance in any race, it would have been this one. However, for one reason or another, two of the very top PCT stage racers weren't at the race. How would we do?.....


Contador did his GC hopes no harm on the mountainous prologue. He would finish that stage 3rd, the subsequent flat stages showed what a top domestique Navarrete is by keeping Contador well out trouble. In said flat stages Mansilla really did mix it up, finishing 6th and 4th respectively. A welcome sight for his next race, the Tour of South Africa.


Having initially missed the split, the Spanish champ did rally to finish within the 6 man group on stage 4, a stage where some big favourites lost time. Contador up to second in GC.




After a sprint on stage 5 there was some great action up Mt Seymour. Siam Cement showed their mountain muscle and put Sella into the GC lead after some great team tactics. Contador recovered well, after initially being distanced, and finished 3rd, limiting the losses there.

All this meant 15 seconds separated Contador from the GC win. The race would be decided on the final stage TTT!



15 seconds were needed, 40 is what we put into Siam Cement. Contador wins the Tour of Vancouver by 25 seconds. The team put in a great performance to finish 5th on the day and 7 seconds down.


A ginormous points haul comes to us from this race. Contador taking the HC, GC, win as well as finishing well placed in the secondary classifications and Iglinski (21st) in the points go a long way.

1	Alberto Contador	Bonsucro	21h01'10
2	Emanuele Sella	Siam Cement - Lenovo	+ 22
3	Martijn Keizer	Aegon - Lavazza	+ 51
4	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Team BPost	+ 1'19
5	David Abal	Buff - Polska	+ 1'29
6	Rafael Valls	Euskaltel-Air France	+ 1'41

	Place	GC	Points
Stage 1	A Contador (3)	A Contador (3)	14
Stage 2	L M Mansilla (6)	A Contador (3)	6
Stage 3	L M Mansilla (4)	A Contador (3)	8
Stage 4	A Contador (4)	A Contador (2)	11
Stage 5	L M Mansilla (14)	A Contador (2)	4
Stage 6	A Contador (3)	A Contador (2)	16
Stage 7	Bonsucro (5)	A Contador (1)
Final			200
			259

Contador wins the Tour of Vancouver. Will the equilibrium be restored by a poor performance from Roy in our next race, the Tour of South Africa?.....

After two non selective stages, onto stage 3, where Roy would put in an attack! Wow! The attack would be brought back but it was a great sign to see. How would the bunch sprint go?...



... perfect from our side! Coming into the last kilometre the early break had a narrow advantage. Mansilla, as cunning as a fox, positioned himself well on a Dutch sprint train and with a gritty sprint managed to pass the break and hold off the rest. What a unexpected beautiful stage for Bonsucro!

After Roy's hopeful attack on stage 3 what damage could he do on stage 5? Nada. Outside the top 40 on a selective hill stage, the poor streak continues for him. Egidio made our only break of the race on the final stage and eked out a top 10, nice but doesn't change the fact we only appeared on one stage of this race and still only have four points from breaks all season long.

So to answer 'Will the equilibrium be restored by a poor performance from Roy in our next race, the Tour of South Africa?.....' Yes it would

GC:

1	Maxime Monfort	Gazelle	23h57'50
2	Hassen Ben Nasser	Team Kenya Airways	+ 35
3	Domenik Klemme	Grupo Nutresa	+ 1'08
4	Robin van der Hugenhaben	Team TomTom	+ 1'13
5	David Boily	RBC Pro Cycling	+ 1'41

	Place	GC	Points
Stage 1	L M Mansilla (21)	L M Mansilla (22)
Stage 2	L M Mansilla (29)	L M Mansilla (20)
Stage 3	L M Mansilla (1)	L M Mansilla (6)	20
Stage 4	Bonsucro (11)	L M Mansilla (35)
Stage 5	L M Mansilla (17)	L M Mansilla (35)
Stage 6	C Egidio (10)	L M Mansilla (38)
Final
			20

It would prove to be an eventful day in Holland for the team. Egidio, though he was not suited for the terrain, gave his all in a rare breakaway for the team, though he would be caught.


With one man standing from the break the sprint for minor places were on. Our Colombian sprinted well and can be happy with a good finish.

1	Sean Downey	Pendleton's	4h20'28
2	Sven Vandousselaere	Team BPost	s.t.
3	Mark Cavendish	Eddie Stobart Procycling	s.t.
4	Maciej Ulanowski	Children of Chernobyl Foundation p/b Nemiroff	s.t.
5	Daryl Impey	Team Kenya Airways	s.t.
6	Matteo Pelucchi	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	s.t.
7	Jaime Alberto Castañeda	Bonsucro	s.t.

Points: 45

This season Manarelli hasn't had many chances to sprint for the win. So we were happy that he contested the sprint at the end of the quiet race. The top 5 goal was missed out, but not by too much, and besides it went much better than last season! Decent race, all in all. Emerson Santos (29th) picks up some more points.

1	Nolan Hoffman	Project: Africa	3h48'24
2	Tosh Van der Sande	Eritel - Sonatrach	s.t.
3	Heinrich Haussler	Karcher-Adira	s.t.
4	Daniel Vesely	Becherovka - Petrof	s.t.
5	Tyler Farrar	Azteca-NBCSN	s.t.
9	Carlos Alexandre Manarelli	Bonsucro	s.t.

Points: 36

Bad luck got us good. Deep into the race Contador would puncture and sure dreams of victory evaporated as quick as anything. Despite a heroic effort by the team to bring him back and an amazing final climb by Contador, passing rider after rider, he was never going to make it back in. In the end settling for 8th place.

What a rotten shame.

1	Janez Brajkovic	ONCE-Eroski	5h41'22
2	José Rujano	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 31
3	Emanuele Sella	Siam Cement - Lenovo	s.t.
4	Ryan Eastman	Project: Africa	+ 1'16
5	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Team BPost	+ 1'40
6	Igor Antón	ONCE-Eroski	+ 2'27
7	Natnael Berhane	Eritel - Sonatrach	s.t.
8	Alberto Contador	Bonsucro	+ 2'34

Points: 43

Well to his credit Roy would put in an mid stage attack, however, it was never getting away and he would finish in the usual quagmire of just outside the top 40. With just two cobbled races left all season, Ballan and Sanz are yet to place inside the top 50.

1	Lars Boom	Aegon - Lavazza	5h27'53
2	Danny Summerhill	Azteca-NBCSN	s.t.
3	Sebastian Langeveld	Strava	+ 24
4	Filippo Pozzato	Gazelle	+ 1'38
5	Pieter Vanspeybrouck	Team BPost	s.t.
6	Matteo Trentin	Risa - Ergon	+ 2'18
7	Stijn Vandenbergh	Grupo Nutresa	+ 8'49
8	Nick Nuyens	Gazelle	s.t.
9	Alessandro Bazzana	Aegon - Lavazza	+ 10'26
41	Jérémy Roy	Bonsucro	s.t.

Points: 0

The last point scoring race of the month for the team. We had nefarious! hopes that Iglinskiy could sneak a good GC place, however, our real hopes were that Mansilla could win on stage 2. A stage well suited to the Chilean.



'Well suited to the Chilean' - the stage certainly was. Mansilla led the sprint for an age and still beat the rest by bike-lengths and bike-lengths. Unfortunately, a breakawayman from a CT dirt wildcard managed to hold off and deny us some much needed relief.


On stage 3 faint GC hopes went up in smoke as Iglinskiy would be one of many to fall and lose a truck full of time. That ain't even the worst of it.. On the eve of stage 3 the team would....



You will hardly be surprised, then, that on stage 5 our best placed came home over 17'00 down towards the very rear of the race. Iglinskiy retreated to the toilet and abandoned the race.

F. W. Murnau, Bela Lugosi & Vincent Price couldn't haunt us more than these terrible performances, by Bonsucro, both here and in Guatemala.

There would be one stage left, though. One stage for redemption. Many of the top name sprinters had abandoned and Mansilla was still here and was the favourite.


After a terrible race for both teams, we both really took the race by the scruff of the neck on the final stage. It would be Mansilla vs. Bar for the win, and...



The magnificent scotch bonnet comes through! In a really close dramatic sprint, where thankfully, the break was spoiled, Mansilla takes his second win of the season after the Reijnen lead-out. After such a start to the month that one sprint goes a long long ways to making it up.

With that stage win we could feel good/refreshed going into our debut GT. The Vuelta a Espana.

	Stage	GC
Stage 1	P. Nicácio (27)	P. Nicácio (27)
Stage 2	L.M. Mansilla (2)	L.M. Mansilla (3)	13
Stage 3	C. Egidio (13)	C. Egidio (10)
Stage 4	P. Nicácio (42)	C. Egidio (16)
Stage 5	P. Nicácio (85)	C. Egidio (30)
Stage 6	L.M. Mansilla (1)	C. Egidio (30)	20
Final			7
			40

tsmoha wrote:
Tough luck for Conta. Hated to see this happen, though his climb was pretty epic then.

Also some bad luck with Roy. A pity this first group with him and a few others slowed down when the leading riders went too far ahead. Could have been a Top-15 otherwise.

- No breakaways
- 1 screenshot of the Spanish Champ (on the floor)
- Less than 6 Bonsucro screenshots in total

	Stage	GC
Stage 1	J.A. Castañeda (14)	J.A. Castañeda (17)
Stage 2	P. Tzortzakis (108)	P. Tzortzakis (66)
Stage 3	J.A. Castañeda (28)	P. Tzortzakis (47)
Stage 4	A. Diniz (57)	A. Contador (82)
Stage 5	A. Contador (29)	A. Contador (61)
Stage 6	A. Contador (38)	A. Contador (40)
Stage 7	A. Contador (36)	A. Contador (39)
Stage 8	A. Contador (20)	A. Contador (23)
Stage 9	A. Contador (26)	A. Contador (22)
Stage 10	A. Contador (37)	A. Contador (22)

Sad. Depressing. The ONLY words. Time for a long break.

On then to the Tour d'Andorra, five mountainous stages. Our goal: top 5. With Contador here for us, surely this goal would be accomplished? Right...

Well after Contador punctured at the worst time to perhaps cost him victory in our 'win goal' we could and would take nothing for granted. With the bad run of luck we were on, even with Contador, we didn't overly fancy our chances.



Taking the pressure off Contador, Diniz would show well in the break on stage 1, a rare break for us, he would be tied in the lead for the polka dots at the end of the stage. However, Contador would somehow be dropped by the likes of Panyatov, so taking the pressure off had little effect. Uphil work to meet the top 5 goal after that.

We made our last break of the race on stage 2, a large sized break where Rodrigo Melo represented us. Contador would hotly contend the mountain sprint, better signs then stage 1 proffered.



The early season notion that Contador was infallible should have been well and truly extinguished after stage 3 - with the likes of Valls, Rujano and Keizer constantly out-finishing him here. The top 5 goal looked hard to attain from here.


Though Contador came up with well with a solid podium finish on the penultimate stage mountain time trial. His finish would see him rise to 5th in the GC. Could he hold on on the final stage?


He somehow lost 2'00 to Keizer on the final climb, but Contador secures our top 5 goal! If nothing else we have that to celebrate. Sure, it was much harder than it should have been, but a goal completed is a goal completed. Thank the heavens!!

1	Martijn Keizer	Aegon - Lavazza	21h49'51
2	Tiago Machado	Prio - Porto	+ 1'34
3	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Team BPost	+ 3'00
4	Alberto Contador	Bonsucro	+ 3'52
5	José Rujano	Mobil - Aeropostal Ciclismo	+ 4'29

	Stage	GC	Points
Stage 1	A Contador (10)	A Diniz (10)	6
Stage 2	A Contador (5)	A Contador (9)	5
Stage 3	A Contador (7)	A Contador (6)	3
Stage 4	A Contador (3)	A Contador (5)	10
Stage 5	A Contador (3)	A Contador (4)	10
Final			97
			131

Contador, now, has just one more race this season. He will start the Tour of Austria as the favourite and, in truth, after this recent run we will be a bit sour if he can't take a stage win on the way to a final GC win for Bonsucro.

Now to catch up on some one day races during July, a sparse period for us, ahead of a packed jelly-roll August!


After finishing 3rd as a CT team here last season, we expected a finish of around fifth place taking into account everything. Just not the day for the team.

1	RBC Pro Cycling	1h18'07
2	Aegon - Lavazza	+ 9
3	Team Kenya Airways	+ 10
4	Karcher-Adira	+ 20
12	Bonsucro	+ 1'18

Points: 15





A few people said Ballan would be a good card on the cobbles for us to have. How wrong they were - he finished in his best position this season here: 68th.

192 started. 191 finished. Roy was on the startlist. Roy didn't finish.

With complete anonymity on our part in the above races and to break up this text:

----

Some races which weren't really our cup of tea out of the way, mercifully! Next up we move into a packed August. We are going all in to say: Contador to win his last race of the season!

knockout wrote:
Roy

Such a joke

We wondered if Roy would even finish in the top 30 here, so we set him that challenge at least.... He finished 31st. GRRRRRR!

Fortunately for us, Maldonado made the break and would hold on well for a 29th place finish. 5 points for us then from the Uruguayan: our tally of points gained from breakaways is up to around 17 points now this season.

Points: 5



No highlights of us in Malaysia. Castañeda and Manarelli, 115th and 116th respectively, could have challenged for the top 10 on most days of the week - but not this day. Both would end over 16'00 down, Ballan (24th) scores his first point of the season and brings us our only point of the race.

Points: 1

The last race of the season for Contador. Could he end it in style? He started as the 'hot favourite'!



After the team helped to bring back the strong early break, Contador, despite Brajkovic clinging on to his rear wheel, would prove to be too strong for everyone else. Victory on stage 1: the ideal start!



However, we would have to relinquish the GC lead on stage 2. Contador perhaps being too much of a champion by riding for too long on the front of the favourites group, he couldn't follow Brajkovic's attack on the mountain top finish and would only finish in 4th on the stage.


After wearing the yellow jersey on stage 2, Contador was in the points jersey on stage 3 and the polka dots on stage 4! Dapper! On said stage 4 he would only finish behind breakaway riders as he put time into everyone else, that said the GC deciding stages really ended on stage 2.


As our Uruguayan champ contested the sprint on stage 7, a very rare sight, we saw the closure of the race and Contador's podium safe. Despite being the favourite coming into the race, this is a race we can look back upon with relish. Finishing in the top 50, a good race sees Diniz and Camargo leave with some points. What a time in Austria: cue music from Anton Karas!

With that Contador's season is over. However, scoring 234 points here he certainly left with a bang. Nothing more to say but: thank you Spanish champ! What a season!

1	Janez Brajkovic	ONCE-Eroski	29h46'41
2	Alberto Contador	Bonsucro	+ 1'37
3	David Abal	Buff - Polska	+ 3'11
4	Jurgen Van den Broeck	Team BPost	+ 3'48
5	Ryan Eastman	Project: Africa	+ 4'17

	Stage	GC	Points
Stage 1	A Contador (1)	A Contador (1)	41
Stage 2	A Contador (4)	A Contador (2)	13
Stage 3	A Contador (8)	A Contador (2)	8
Stage 4	A Contador (5)	A Contador (2)	10
Stage 5	A Contador (15)	A Contador (2)	5
Stage 6	A Contador (15)	A Contador (2)	5
Stage 7	A Contador (13)	A Contador (2)	6
Stage 8	H Aguilar (7)	A Contador (2)	2
Final			156
			246