Great vids, Bikex. Rodriguez looking super strong with his 3rd 2nd place in a row, racking up the points here. Would be thrilled to leave with the points jersey, if he can do that. 2nd in GC still very much up for grabs too. I sense some great racing still to come.
Oh well. Mollema's good form had to end at some point, but 5th is nothing to be ashamed of. Happy to see that Gesink is making the most of his free role with a win and a jump in the KoM standings. If this is the way he'll compete in the rest of our mountainous races he might end up being more successful than the last two seasons!
Really strong last two stages by Verona, obviously recovered well from the crashes there and may have been a bit handicapped before. Damuseau with a freak show performance tho, the most Allianz'stic rider ever?!
The U25 jersey, 2nd in team clas and 7th in the GC is solid scoring here after the disastrous start. Illes Balears also with Herrada and Fernandez on the attack bodes well for the Verona-Breakaway mix we hoped to get, although Fernandenz surely could have chosen a more mountaineous stage for his botd.
Thanks for the reports bikex!
Edited by Shonak on 22-09-2016 14:35
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
After the first few stages and seeing both of Chamorro and Landa dropping i thought this race will be a totail fail. Then Debuscherre and mext Damuseau stepped up and saved the day. Well done guys
Fantastic performance by Uran, to turn a pretty bad race into a pretty good race! A positive one-off day is enough it seems, also what a performance by Cayetano to pull Uran's brave attack for the stage win!
Taking the team classification is fantastic, I guess it's the first time in the history of Leopard-Evonik! (well, now I remember last year's CT GTs )
Kelderman and Meersman though a complete disappointment here.
Dombrowski deserved a lot more there but the cycling gods were not with us (surprise). In fact, I've heard the cycling gods only care about Allianz and no other team.
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Thanks for the reports and videos Bikex, but here it comes. My first ragepost of the year, long overdue by now....
Seriously, Gesink? What kind of moron sees his team leader struggling to keep up (possibly falling out of the top 10 as a result) and attacks the group??? He had no chance to get mountain points or a stage win at all, but just left our leader for dead anyway. It's not as if he was doing any better than Mollema either, finishing behind him on the last stage. Not cool mate, I'm demanding an explanation.
(deep breath)
At least we still finished better than Saeco and Bunzl, two solid WT teams who are going to be ahead of us for most of the year. 9th GC and 4th KoM nets some valuable points
Porte living up to expectations. Two stage wins here is massive. Monfort still in top 20 but can be a bit higher. I think he's tired from domestique duties!
Tough pill to swallow for CCC, meanwhile Sevilla are really on a great way for auto-promo early on with such consistent results. No surprise that Portechkin leads now in (effectively) his race.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Ulissi tried his best but he is only 75 in MO so that stage was most important one. At least he didn't lost 10 minutes or so.
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 11th, GC leader for 5 days, KOTM leader for 1 day, almost PC leader. GC is of course most important, but I can't say I'm not happy about those great results from my boys . Ulissi will probably not score as many points as last year but still it's great amount of them.
ED: If I count good, 128 points just from stages, so not bad. Still won't be many from GC at the end.
Edited by dominox on 22-09-2016 17:54