We took a huge gamble when we decided to not only go here but even going here with a strong team aiming for a good GC result.
Luckily the startlist didn't feature the best climbers of the PCT so Anacona was mentioned as one of the top favourites before the race began.
Samuel got us off to a good start by finishing 5th on the prologue.
On stage 3 he went out chasing bonus seconds and came in the provisional lead.
Sadly the final part of the stage went crazy in a combination of full-on sprint trains and crosswinds and Samuel lost contact with the peloton losing the jersey before even getting to wear it.
A great effort nonetheless. The team made sure to kep Anacona in the pack avoiding stupid time losses today.
On stage 5 we had the first uphill finish. Equally anticipated and feared.
Fortunately Winner is in great shape and spirit staying awake and taking full advantage of the hard hill.
Zardini was too strong, but a 2nd place on a hilly stage with a lot of GC riders losing quite a bit of time is excellent.
The boys put in a strong effort on the TTT. The three national champions guided Anacona to the finish line losing about a minute on the stage winners.
Most importantly it was some good damage control in the GC keeping Winner within half a minute of the lead despite dropping to 3rd.
A good position for us before the mountains begin.
Naturally we were very exited ahead of the first mountain stage.
Anacona was very awake and perfectly placed when the favourites started moving and he kept himself close to Berhane at all times.
So close that he got another second place. A wonderful way to end the first week of the race.
Looking at the provisional GC and the team competition really bears witness that our team here has much more to offer than just Winner Anacona.
Paavo have spent two years on other teams while being contracted to us. On paper that have made him the second best Finnish rider on hilly terrain.
While his force is on hilly terrain he have had some problems with his physique not really making him able to ride as well as he should have had so his training have focused on getting stronger overall.
We expect him to ride for us next year as part of our hill squad.
Sakari Lehtinen
Sakari is destined to becoming the perhaps best Finnish rider in history. That might not be saying much, but still.
Both this year and last he have been a good helper. Most recently he showed his class by finishing alongside the favourites on Mt. Washington in Tour of America.
His future is a bit more uncertain, except for the fact that we will do everything to renew him. He is at a level in his development where he will most likely need to race on the highest development to develop best possibly, but still we really enjoy having him around.
Olli Kulppi
Last season Olli rode for us and was one of the most attacking riders on a very docile Team Live Nation.
We had much doubt ahead of this season whether to keep him around to lead us on cobbles or whether we should loan him out to support optimal development.
In the end we came to a deal with Evonik - ELKO where he could get to learn from Boonen himself. We are very happy with that decision as Olli had a great season not only helping Boonen to some good result in the fall of his career but also proving that he really is a man of the future.
The youth jersey win in KBC De panne and a 22nd place in his debut Paris - Roubaix standing out as the highlights for him personally.
Next year it will be a tough decision once again whether to keep him to lead us on cobbles or loan him out to support his further development best possibly.
Matti Manninen
Granted. Matti would not have a contract if he wasn't Finnish.
After having been with us as a stagiaire last year we decided to give him the chance this year to take a step up. He did not impress even though he did get a bit better.
A rider like Matti needs to chase breakaways and he doesn't. At this point it seems very likely that we will not offer him a contract for next season, but time will tell.
Risto Aaltio
Risto joined us ahead of this season. Calling him a talent might be pushing it considering his age, but he have done well on flat terrain.
He was supposed to be a helper for Westling, but since the Swede decided that he didn't feel like sprinting at all this season Risto haven't had the best environment to prove his worth. However with a stage 5th in one of the sprints where Westling was supposed to be and several breakaway attempts over the season he have proven that there is more than meets the eye.
We will most likely keep him on the team next year as he has the potential to be a strong helper on the falt also in the future and he have shown the right kind of spirit despite having a worthless leader.
Philip Lindau
Actually the plan was to keep Lindau on the team this year, but we found ourselves in trouble getting enough race days for our talents without compromising our leaders.
So we came to an agreement that he could go home to Sweden racing for Swedbank-PEAB tihs season, which have been good for his development.
Philip will never be a superstar, but he is turning into a very strong helper and we will certainly offer him a new contract as he is a handy type to have around for pretty much every kind of race.
Gökhan Hasta
Turkey is not a country that is overflowing with talent, but Gökhan is one of the few.
It's his second year on contract with us, though this year he have been gathering experience on the highest level with Red Bull - Huawei, where he have been cannon-fodder and have even raced a full set of monuments. That did not teach him to appreciate cobbles the slightest bit though.
By now he have develped into a very strong mountain helper for us or second tier CT-leader.
He will get offered a new contract, but if a new team from his region appears next year we are willing to discuss his future.
Essa Khalifa
Essa was one of the riders, who got sacrifized when we decided to reduce numbers on our roster.
However he went and won his national championship and since no other team offered this talented Arabian a contract we decided to invite him back as a stagiaire, which have been good for his development.
He still has the potential to develop into a very handy helper so we might offer him a contract this year depending on how things work out. FA is still a risk for him though and no matter how things end we would love to see him on an Arabian team.
After an inspiring first week Linus decided that he felt like taking part in the sprint when the race was back on the flat.
Since there was no drama we wer happy to let him and he did a solid job considering that he is far from having the speed needed to compete at this level.
Stage 9 featured a big summit finish on Mt. Washington. Anacona rode it defensively.
Löfkvist took the stage but Winner did great to limit his losses with the help of Chris and Sakari, who both finished in the same group making us take over the lead in the team competition, while Lehtinen entered the youth competitions top 10.
Stage 10 saw another summit finish, though not quite as hard as Mt. Washington.
Once again Winner remained calm in the first wave of attacks.
Smartly done as many wasted a lot of energy only to get reeled back in allowing Anacona to put in an attack with 2 km to go cracking Berhane.
He got a gap and even though he didn't manage to catch Löfkvist he gained some time on everyone else and took the GC lead.
A massive day for us as a team!
Stage 11 was flat and featured no drama. Perfect.
Stage 12 was the big mountain time trial. Anacona did his best, but simply didn't have the legs needed today.
With Löfkvist continuing his amazing form winner dropped to 2nd in the GC after the stage, which is still a great position for us.
Branislav however had a great day getting a top 10 on the stage.
Stages 13 and 14 were flat and uncomplicated. That's a good thing right now.
The last week got off to a terrible start with Anacona losing time on both Antón, Löfkvist and Berhane on stage 15. The good thing to take from that stage is that the team worked hard to minimize the gap shown by the Fact that we had 7 riders among the first 10 finishers in the peloton.
The following stage had an uphill finish, which suits our leader much better.
Once again Berhane was too strong, but Winner worked hard trying to get rid of Löfkvist and Antón. Unfortunately the climb wasn't quite long enough though so he didn't gain any time.
But then once again we had a challenging downhill finish. Really not Anaconas thing it seems…
Berhane and Antón got away. Winner and Löfkvist took up the chase but to no avail ending up losing more than half a minute on the challengers.
The hilly stage 18 showed the same picture: Anacona can't keep up with Berhane, Löfkvist and Antön unless the road goes straight up a mounatin.
So time for the long dreaded flat ITT. We hoped that the small hill could hav some significance and it probably did. At least Winner didn't lose as badly as we had feared considering that Antón is the better rider on paper and have looked much fresher in the last week.
Another strong stage from Branislav though.
Anacona lost his podium spot so that gave a clear focus for stage 20.
Samoilev have been feeling great this last week so h went in the early break hoping to be able to go for stage glory.
Unfortunately he just wasn't the strongest today, but a stage 4th is still another fine result from our Belarussian.
Meanwhile further back Winner had his eyes on the podium fight riding an agressive race and dropping Löfkvist in the process.
Sadly Antón stuck to Anaconas wheel all day, so no gain in the important part for us.
In fact we are a bit bummed out that Löfkvist got dropped without Winner gaining a spot. We would really have loved to see the Swede take the win here.
On the final day we didn't have much planned so Lehtinen went in the break.
Obviously they weren't allowed to last all the way but it's always nice to see our youngsters on the attack.
While we had hoped for more after the second week I think all-in-all we can be satisfied with 3 stage 2nds, 7 additional top 10's, a GC 4th and a couple of days in the lead of both GC and team competition.
I certainly think we came out of the race with our honour intact.
That and the fact that everyone on the team made it through the race allright.
Another race for us to measure the team aginst the PCT teams as we headed to Canada for this small stage race composed of the two former classics.
Sarabia did his best to get in the break on stage 1.
Unfortunately the group was too big to be allowed away and Ignacio wasn't aware when Michael Vink made his winning move.
Vastaranta forgot to take part in the sprint and Sami Tiainen failed to finish the stage underlining a very disappointing day for us.
We didn't get anyone in the early break the following day as all focus was on getting Jukka to the finale in god shape.
Knowing from experience that he can't quite match the top punchers in the division he made his moves from further out.
Several attacks, but sadly Risa just managed to reel them idropping their own race on the ground in the process.
Jukka had spent too much energy to join the final wave of attacks but got a solid 15th son the stage.
Unfortunately the peloton was very big and ee got punished hard for his lack of sprinting on stage 1.
The route in Greece suited Jukka very well on paper so we had our hopes up.
His legs flet good and when teh attacking began with just over 30 km to go he decided to cover it all.
On one hand good to see on the other rather silly as it was highly unlikely at best that they would be able to make ti to the finish line.
He carried his over-eagerness into the final reduced bunch sprint once again going far to early and in the end getting a disappointing result considering that he looked like he probably was the strongest rider today and could have won had he used his head a bit more along the way.
Some old-school Thrash Metal about a guy who wakes up and realizes that there isn't anymore milk in the fridge:
Lyrics:
Spoiler
I woke up, can't wait to eat
Got my cereal, boy was I beat
Opened the fridge, and to my dismay
There was no milk, my mother will pay
I want some milk, my coffee grows cold
I want some milk, I should've been told
I wish I had some god damn milk
My Cheerios just ain't the same
I wish I had some god damn milk
Too bad the milkman never came
I can't go out to the store
I'll just wait till my mother buys more
I'll just have wheat thins and beer
If I get sick, the toilet is near
I want some milk, my coffee grows cold
I want some milk, I should've been told
I wish I had some god damn milk
My Cheerios just ain't the same
I wish I had some god damn milk
Too bad the milkman never came
I want some milk, my coffee grows cold
I want some milk, I should've been told
On Pasture Elsewhere
Olli Kulppi, Evonik – ELKO
Olli started his month in Britain in what would be a somewhat disappointing experience for both him and the team.
Fortunately Luis Leon Sánchez salvaged a decent GC putting him on top of the individual PCT rankings with a strong TT, but all-in-all the team and Olli should have done better.
There was much more optimism ahead of Rheden GP where he once again was part of the team supporting Boonen
Olli did't get much of a result for himself, but a 2nd place for Tommeke was nice for the team.
Olli's Results
Race
Result
Team
HC
Tour of Britain
GC
113th
7th
Tour of Britain
St. 1
122nd
12th
Tour of Britain
St. 2
135th
20th
Tour of Britain
St. 3
165th
3rd
Tour of Britain
St. 4
149th
11th
Tour of Britain
St. 5
109th
11th
Tour of Britain
St. 6
129th
13th
Tour of Britain
St. 7
88th
17th
Tour of Britain
St. 8
172nd
77th
HC
Rheden GP
89th
2nd
Philip Lindau, Swedbank – PEAB
Swedbank haven't got much of a cobbles team and Rheden GP was no exception for neither the team nor Philip.
Much better was it in Plouay wherre Lindau was allowed to go in the early break.
They made it last until 5 km from the finish line. Having had Philip out in front all day allowed his team to save energy and Reimer thanked him with a 2nd place.
Philip's Results
Race
Result
Team
HC
Rheden GP
154th
74th
C1
GP Plouay
56th
2nd
Paavo Paajanen, Vesuvio - Accumalux
Paavo had a free role in Rheden GP and converted that into finishing as best Vesuvio rider. Not that 71st is that impressive, but it's still something I suppose...
Paavo's Results
Race
Result
Team
HC
Rheden GP
71st
81st
Gökhan Hasta, Red Bull – Huawei
Off all the classics he have raced this year Liechtenstein is probably the one suiting his qualitites the best.
The same goes for his team so Gökhan was granted a hard days work on the climbs.
Gökhan's Results
Race
Result
Team
PT
GP Liechtenstein
99th
7th
Bull of the Month
We had a busy September with a lot of race days and many riders putting in some good efforts. One ride did stand outr though:
That of Winner Anacona in Tour of america putting him in the race lead for a few days ultimately ending up on 4th in the GC.
The final race of the season for us and one where we have high hopes and expectations for Vastaranta.
Both Renäng and Pökälä was motivasted for the prologue but once again things just didn't add up for especially the Swede, who was so strong on prologues last season.
Nice to get Samuel in the youth jersey though.
The following stage was a tricky sprint stage where we made sure to keep Jukka up there to avoid any stupid mess.
Stage 3 was the first of the hilly stages and the favourites were beaming with expectations. So much that the big attacks started way sooner than we had expected catching Vastaranta unaware forcing him to play catch from far out.
He couldn't quite get away but the team put in a great effort to reel in the break.
Vastaranta had wasted too much energy to take part in the sprint. Sadly he took things a bit to easy and sat too far down in the peloton as small cracks apparrently appeared causing him to lose over a minute despite having an almost intact pack shortly before the finish line.
Good job by Ignacio though staying in the first big group thus sneaking him on to a GC 2nd place!
Jukka had a lot of anger in his legs after his blunder on stage 3 so when the hills came back he attacked from far aout and kept on attacking until he was all alone.
He kept going and going and no one could match him behind. A wonderful win to put him back up in the GC as well.
Sarabia covered the counterrattacks and got our team on the final podium spot as well.
Great job today from Jukka and Ignacio in South America. Going for a strong finish end to the season. pic.twitter.com/h4qeKeacyx
Stage 6 was supposed to be a sprinter stage but it was more tricky than first anticipated and taight by stage 3 we decided to race the sprint with Sarabia leading out Vastaranta.
we got rewarded with a stage 3rd and enough bonus seconds to now occupy 3rd and 4th in the GC.
The following sprint stage was much more straight forward so we just kept ourselves out of trouble.
With two riders so high up in the GC we focused on controlling the race along with fablok on the final stage.
We did that perfectly, but unfortunately things didn't pan out in a way that allowed us an attack on the highest GC spot.
Still 3rd and 4th in the GC is a brilliant result for us and a very nice end to the regular season.
That and 2-3 in youth along with a 2nd place in the team competition.
For this final month of the regular season we'll dig up another version of the classic Milk Cow Blues that we have previously heard in two other versions.
This time with the legendary British band the Kinks:
On Pasture Elsewhere
Philip Lindau, Swedbank – PEAB
Lindau only had one race day left in the Swdbank jersey: Giro dell'Emilia where he was riding in support of Hoogerland.
The Dutchman did well to be part of the finale but it's probably not thanks to Lindau's help as he was largely invisible and quickly got dropped.
Philip's Results
Race
Result
Team
HC
Giro dell'Emilia
154th
11th
Paavo Paajanen, Vesuvio - Accumalux
Paavo also rode Giro dell'Emilia with a slightly better result. Though he had a free rolse so we would have been very happy had he shown himself a bit.
He did better in Tasmania where he hit the break on the largely flat stage one.
The following day it was all about Gastauer and Paavo put in a good effort finishing inside the main bunch while Gastauer finished 2nd on the stage.
Going into Lombardia the team was buzzing with anticipation of winning the PT title thanks to a comfortable lead after Tasmania.
Sadly Gastauer crashed hard and was forced to leave the race. In the resulting confusion also Schleck was caught in the wrong part of the peloton when it cracked and the team was nowhere to be seen in the finale ultimately losing the title to Festina on the last day.
Too bad as we would have loved having a PT-winner on our team next season.
Paavo's Results
Race
Result
Team
HC
Giro dell'Emilia
80th
17th
PT
Tour of Tasmania
GC
50th
4th
Tour of Tasmania
St. 1
117th
26th
Tour of Tasmania
St. 2
82nd
2nd
Tour of Tasmania
St. 3
90th
5th
Mon
Giro di Lombardia
92nd
45th
Olli Kulppi, Evonik – ELKO
Olli was the busiest of all our loaned-out riders this month starting out in Milano-Torino.
While riding an anonymous race Siskevicious got the team a good result by winning the pelotons sprint while Olli's day effectively ended when they hit the first climb.
From there he travelled to Burkino Faso for teh small stage race featuring a long stretch of cobbles on the first stage.
Olli wasn't quite up to it and finished in the middle of the peloton celebrating a stage win to his team mate Flaksis.
On stage 2 he helped Flaksis protect the jersey without much ado.
Stage 3 was another flat stage with a bit of cobbles, though they were quite early on that stage.
Kulppi felt great and even took part in the sprint, where he showed his lack of experience by allowing himself to get boxed in and ending up far behind though defending the GC win for the team.
He continued his travelling to China for the Tour of Beijing.
You had to follow the race very closely in order to discover the presence of Evonik-ELKO...
Olli's Results
Race
Result
Team
C1
Milano - Torino
144th
7th
C2
Tour du Faso
GC
70th
WIN
Tour du Faso
St. 1
77th
WIN
Tour du Faso
St. 2
64th
28th
Tour du Faso
St. 3
34th
7th
HC
Tour of Beijing
GC
159th
55th
Tour of Beijing
St. 1
160th
85th
Tour of Beijing
St. 2
166th
52nd
Tour of Beijing
St. 3
156th
38th
Tour of Beijing
St. 4
155th
26th
Tour of Beijing
St. 5
166th
36th
Gökhan Hasta, Red Bull – Huawei
Gökhan started his month in Tasmania where Red Bull was aiming for a good result for both Holloway on the sprint stage and Skujins for the hills and overall.
Obviously Gökhan was part of the team around Skuins and he got to work hard on the first day as they got caught behind in the crosswinds and ultimately were too few to get back up with half the team working for the sprinter.
Seeing the good hill stage from Skujins obviously only made that worse...
Unfortunately it looked like in Il Lombardia that the team management had forgotten to tell he riders that the final race day was actually not only a race but a monument.
The Red Bull riders took a day off enjoying the beautiful countryside.
Gökhan's Results
Race
Result
Team
PT
Tour of Tasmania
GC
141st
13th
Tour of Tasmania
St. 1
183rd
3rd
Tour of Tasmania
St. 2
121st
5th
Tour of Tasmania
St. 3
94th
7th
Mon
Giro di Lombardia
145th
33rd
Bull of the Month
On one hand Vastaranta deserves the title for the way he tackled the last part of Ruta America del Sur. However he did foolishly get caught in the wrong place making this one more in a line of races where he could have done so much better had he raced a bit smarter.
So the last Bull of the Month this year is the guy who did ride very smartly in South America:
Ignacio Sarabia
Cow of the Month
These heifers are exited about being let on grass:
We are exited about the improvement we have shown compared to last year as well as the championships ahead of us.
We might be done scoring points but the coming races are very important for us as well!
We'll run a series of updates going over the teams performance this season.
This first one will focus on the big outline and then we'll go more into detail later.
Goals
Goal
Result
Win
Hanko Classic
Aaltio, 62nd
Top 5
Tour of Iceland
Pökälä, 9th
Top 5
Tour of Taiwan
Vastaranta, 10th
Top 5
Windhoek ITT
Pökälä, 11th
Top 10
Team Standings
6th
So 1/5 not that impressive I guess.
Let's take them from an end:
Hanko CLassic: Being our home race we pretty much had to go for a win and with the changes we made to our sprinting department going with full support for the 2014 Himmerland Winner Westling we were optimistic. However Westling refused to sprint all season so that made it rather difficult to win a flat classic...
Tour of Iceland: With a 6th place on the prologue and a solid race on the hilly stage Samuel showed just about what we wanted from him. Disappointing race from Vastaranta though as we had hoped he could do some damage on the hills and give us two GC options. 9th from Pökälä isn't that bad even though it's not good enough either.
Tour of Taiwan: On paper the race should be perfect for Vastaranta, but this ended up as one of many missed opportunities for our Finnish star. He quite simply wasn't sufficiently aware when things became heated and he lost a lot of stupid time in moments where he should have been at the front.
Windhoek ITT: Last year Renäng won a couple of prologues and did well in general. This year we had Pökälä as well, who on paper should be a bit stronger as he handles the terrain in general better. However none of the two had the legs on the day which combined to a stronger TT-presence in the CT peloton meant a missed goal.
Rankings: While many predicted us as a certain rankings podium team we were more modest. Good thing that. Firstly we knew from last season that riders and entire teams can underperform, which I think is also the case for many of our riders this season but more on that later. Secondly we were sufficiently confident that we would be able to promote that we sent strong riders to some PCT-races to test them with next season in mind. We might have been able to score better otherwise but we don't regret our decision. Especially not the many days spent on Tour of America, which was a great experience.
Rankings
CT Team Ranking
1
Novatek-Panarmenian.net
1669
2
Strava
1652
3
Fablok - Dunlop
1591
5
Indosat - ANZ
1453
6
DeLaval - Kiitokori
1440
7
Generali - Kronenbourg 1664
1250
Rider Rankings
1
Anthony Lavoine
Fablok - Dunlop
594
2
Maximiliano Richeze
Sancor Cycling Team
513
3
Frantisek Rabon
Novatek-Panarmenian.net
490
8
Winner Anacona
DeLaval - Kiitokori
408
7
Jukka Vastaranta
DeLaval - Kiitokori
408
47
Chris Anker Sørensen
DeLaval - Kiitokori
162
56
Branislav Samoilev
DeLaval - Kiitokori
138
57
Ignacio Sarabia
DeLaval - Kiitokori
136
84
Samuel Pökälä
DeLaval - Kiitokori
93
304
Paavo Paajanen
Vesuvio - Accumalux
87
PT
356
Gökhan Hasta
Red Bull - Huawei
73
PT
155
Sergiu Cioban
DeLaval - Kiitokori
43
341
Olli Kulppi
Evonik - ELKO
23
PCT
234
Viktor Renäng
DeLaval - Kiitokori
16
242
Bernardo Colex
DeLaval - Kiitokori
15
272
Sakari Lehtinen
DeLaval - Kiitokori
10
309
Mateusz Taciak
DeLaval - Kiitokori
5
311
Risto Aaltio
DeLaval - Kiitokori
4
349
Linus Dahlberg
DeLaval - Kiitokori
2
-
Sami Tiainen
DeLaval - Kiitokori
0
-
Matti Manninen
DeLaval - Kiitokori
0
-
Philip Lindau
Swedbank-PEAB
0
PCT
-
Mattias Westling
DeLaval - Kiitokori
0
-
Essa Khalifa
DeLaval - Kiitokori
0
Two riders in top 10 is nice, though we had hoped to see one of them in top 5. Why that didn't happen will be discussed when we get to the individual riders at a later point.
One more rider than last year on 0 points, 2 if we count Lindau is disappointing. Mainly because our lead sprinter and the Finnish champion are among those.
Bull of the Year
The winner will be named at the very end of the season but let's just sum up who got to be Bull of the Month during the year as they are all automatically nominated:
January:
Jukka Vastaranta
February:
Jukka Vastaranta
March:
Winner Anacona
April:
Chris Anker Sørensen
May:
Ignacio Sarabia
June:
Branislav Samoilev
July:
Chris Anker Sørensen
August:
Branislav Samoilev
September:
Winner Anacona
October:
Ignacio Sarabia
That means we have five nominees. Do you see anyone worthy of becoming Bull of the Year missing on the list?
When we are done going through the rider summaries we will cut it down to 2 riders and you will decide the winner through a voting via the Twitter account. All opinions will be considered up to the selection point as well.
We will got over the season of each individual rider on contract with us, discussing both the past and the future.
Risto Aaltio
Risto was signed before this season as a rider to help Westling prepare for the sprints. So his main task got complicated as anyone, who have followed the team will know.
However he showed good spirit going in several breaks and occasionally trying to sprint himself in the absence of the guy, who was supposed to be our sprinter. On top of that he have started developing nicely despite with his 27 years of age being older than the traditional talent.
We are very happy with his season and we will happily offer him to follow us up to PCT.
Winner Anacona
When we announced the signing of Anacona it drew quite a bit of attention as many had huge expectations for him despite his lacklustre acceleration.
He had a season of ups and downs. Winning Trentino in strong style, though without any stage wins and his great ride in tour of America stands as highlights.
In other races with smaller mountains or lower concentration of climbs he struggled to show his skills and on more than one occasion it was left up to his designated helpers to save the race for us. Not because of crashes or the likes but simply because Winner either didn't bother trying or couldn't race the climbs the way they needed to. Seeing how he handled these CT-mountains we are very happy we decided to send him to America in stead of keeping him "home" for more lacklustre climbing.
A season roughly as we expected, but worse than many others had predicted. We are content and he will get offered a new contract, but hopefully he won't be our outright mountain leader next season.
We will be listening to offers when that time comes.
Sergiu Cioban
Cioban was part of the team around Vastaranta and by all accounts he did some solid work while also getting a few decent results in races, where he got his own chance as well as when Jukka missed the mark early in Ruta America del Sur.
We'll probably keep him on for next year unless he sees a good fit at a CT-team.
Bernardo Colex
Bernardo had a very anonymous season but put in some solid work in mountains and as part of out TTT-squad.
His future is uncertain, since he is also not getting any younger.
This year Linus was a good teammate for a crappy leader. After having had some good days last year sprinting to secondary results he was now part of Westlings train with a free role in cobbled races or lumpier sprint stages.
Once again being a lead-out man sucks when your sprinter doesn't sprint so it became bit of a weird season for him.
However he did good last year and could very well find himself part of a train for a new sprinter or just in a stage hunting role for us next season. Could also be sold to CT of the right fit is found.
Gökhan Hasta
Spent his year in the Red Bull - Huawei-jersey where he rode a full set of monuments and the Giro d'Italia.
He gained a lot of experience, but learned only little about winning. The monuments taught him among other things that it really is true that he hates cobbles...
However he is turning into a very competent climber/stage racer and we will certainly offer him a new contract. We are not opposed to selling him to a team, where he would fit in better should one such emerge.
Next season he should have the class to co-lead a CT team and should the right opportunity for him arise we will discuss his future with an open mindset.
Essa Khalifa
Essa rode for us last year but spent the first part of this season riding amateur races at home before joining us as stagiaire to gather some much needed experience. He only showed his NC jersey when he crashed in l'Avenir.
His future is very uncertain and could very well depend on whether or not he wins his NC and which teams appear on CT level.
Olli Kulppi
We decided to loan Olli out to Evonik - ELKO this year for him to learn from perhaps the best cobbler of all time Tom Boonen.
And boy did he learn. While Boonen haven't quite got the same winning form as he used to Olli helped him towards some strong results while getting personal highlight through the youth jersey in De Panne and a 22nd place in his debut Paris-Roubaix, where Tommeke finished 2nd.
While we would love to see him on cowspots next year the best thing for his development would be a year on PT level. Should we decide to og that way our plan A is to allow him to follow Evonik up and have another year in a good well-known atmosphere.
Lehtinen is one of our most prized talents, who have grown into a competent climber and will grow even more in the future.
This season he was mainly in the role of the helper and did great. The way he sat with many of the favourites on one of the big mountain finishes in Tour of America bears witness to his talent.
When not helping out in the mountains he showed his excellent racing mind chasing break after break no matter which terrain was presented to him.
There is no doubt that Lehtinen will be contracted to us next season, but he might find himself wearing a PT jersey in order to develop best possibly.
Philip Lindau
Lindau didn't make much fuzz on his year with Swedbank-PEAB not scoring a single rankings point.
He was part of many good results though with the recent Baltic Chain Tour massacre standing out.
He will get a contract, but could do with a year on PT level to develop best possibly. We'll see what happens.
Matti Manninen
Who? Manninen was overall the worst rider on the team and was only with us because we feel obliged to help develop Finnish cycling and there isn't really much of a talent pool around so he got the spot last year...
We have told him to go home and get his act together and then come back and negotiate a new contract on the same terms as anyone else if he feels he manages to find that extra level in the offseason.
Paavo Paajanen
Had it not been for a lot of bad luck on the final day of the season we would be getting a PT-ranking winner back from Vesuvio - Accumalux. With his 87 pts he contributed a bit to the teams rankings, but most importantly he was part of getting several good results with Paris - Roubaix as a clear highlight.
Not many Finnish riders can brag to have lead the peloton on Champs'Elysses!
We look forward to getting Paavo on the team adding some depth to our hills-squad next year.
Paavo Paajanen 
Philip Lindau 
Gökhan Hasta 
Essa Khalifa 
Tour of Britain
Winner Anacona 
Giro dell'Emilia
Tour of Tasmania
Tour du Faso
Tour of Beijing
Ignacio Sarabia 
