we've got spots on some further action by the guys from Euskaltel Team! One team lead by JJ Lobato found themselves in Dubai, the other team lead by Igor Antón competes in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.
Dubai Tour
The first stage saw a breakaway that looked like they have won but under the work of our orange boys they couldn't take it playing too much around. However our train with Irizar and Aberasturi, getting used to each other better and better, weren't strong enought to beat Giacomo Nizzolo's train.
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana
Igor Anton had a rather good opening prologue, finishing in the top 30 of the opening prologue - Bodnar won for Tinkoff.
more to come soon...
Spoiler
have a problem with my savegame, don't know how to fix it currently
to update you on the current situation: I have consulted many people on daily now, but it looks as if there is no way to rescue my save game...I might continue the career now simulating to the point where we are right now and then continue from there, you guys agree with that?
Kaixo Croatia14! I'm a bit late to the party, but really nice story! You're absolutely spot-on about the Euskatel racing style w all miss.
Sad to hear about save game troubles. I hope you can resolve it. Maybe stimulating and then editing your mayor victories back in with the editor? ( I'm not very knowledgeable about the editor, no idea how hard it'd be to give Anton his GC win etc). Zorte on!
we've got spots on some further action by the guys from Euskaltel Team! One team lead by JJ Lobato found themselves in Dubai, the other team lead by Igor Antón competes in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana.
Dubai Tour
The first stage saw a breakaway that looked like they have won but under the work of our orange boys they couldn't take it playing too much around. However our train with Irizar and Aberasturi, getting used to each other better and better, weren't strong enought to beat Giacomo Nizzolo's train.
Stage 2 was pretty successful as Egoitz Garcia found his way into the break. The group didn't survive, but at least our cobbled powerhouse took both intermediate sprints, and thus placed himself 5th overall.
Garcia in the break on stage 2 - RCS
The next stage was Team Euskaltels main target, at least it seemed like it cause our boys did some major chasing to pull everything back.
Stage 3: the team is chasing for JJ - RCS
Sadly van Baarle could escape this with a well timed finesseur attack and just survived on the steep ramp up to Hatta Dam. Lobato came third behind Waeytens, who also took yellow with this result. Lobato now 5th overall
Lobato comes in 3rd on Hatta Dam - RCS
Stage 4 with another chance for our Andalucian, but he wasn't one of the men with the fastest legs this tour when the parcours was flat.
The calm opening time trial was followed by the queen stage directly. Team Astana dominated from the beginning on and brought Rosa into the lead, with Visconti in second. Anton finished 5th and thus climbed the table up to 10th.
The following flat stage was just a matter of staying save but then stage 4 was another option to go for it. And guess who attacked on the early slopes of the Alto de Xorret de Cati, with just 5 kilometers to go (including 3 steep uphill and 2 sttep downhill kilometers)?
Antón putting the hammer down - VCV
MA Lopez pushed hard for Rosa in behind, but there was no stopping our man. Durasek came very close though, but our basque saved the small margin onto and over the finishing straight!
You can't stop him when he's on a run - VCV
That also meant a further step-up in the GC, now he did sit 3rd.
The last day couldn't trouble GC winner Rosa anymore, he won with a solid advantage over Durasek & Antón, who surely is back on track this year. The flat parcour though had another surprise for us left: We allowed Bilbao to go on the break, and they made sure to hold onto their advantage. Seing the finishing line already he moved out of Laengens slipstream to the other side of the road and pushed hard for it with an early sprint. And what can we say, it worked out perfect. Once his slipstream was gone he was never going to be able to get pulled back.
a huge suprise, and a welcome one: Bilbao wins stage 5 - VCV
Superb victory and a fantastic first stage race in spain this season.
1
Diego Rosa
Astana Pro Team
14h02'13
2
Kristijan Durasek
Lampre - Merida
+ 5
3
Igor Antón
Euskaltel Team
+ 13
4
Sergey Chernetskiy
Team Katusha
+ 42
5
Giovanni Visconti
Movistar Team
+ 46
The next chance to see the boys in spain will be at the Vuelta a Murcia, keep on track for that. We heard that both Antón & JJ are there, so settle your bikes and come together.
After our good start into the season we as the team continued our claim to make Euskaltel a big name in the current world of cycling again. Therefore we took on the iberican early spring calendar of races to prepare ourselves for the first big WT objectives: Paris-Nice and the Tirreno.
Vuelta Ciclista a la Region de Murcia 'Costa Calida' (1.1) 13th of February, 2016
JJ was our leader here, but couldn't climb over the Alto Cresca with the best. Valverde took it in a sprint of two against Luis Leon Sanchez, his teammate Ion Izagirre finished in third. Our best rider was Pello Bilbao in 13th.
Clasica de Almeria (1.1) 14th of February, 2016
At the revenge race on Sunday it was an easier profile, but still hard enough to make JJ a top candidate for the win. We invested quite a lot in keeping things together, so that Aberasturi could guide our leader to the finale. But there other teams were stronger, and JJ lost a little bit of time in the battle for positions. IAM rode the strongest leadout, but Howard has been beaten by Tsatevich and a strongly winning Coquard. Only 6th here for JJ, even more painful as he also got beaten by spanish rivals Rojas and Mas Bonet.
Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol (2.1) 17th - 21st of February, 2016
Samu started his season at the Ruta del Sol, having a podium in mind. As expected Movistar rode a fantastic race for Valverde, who won the GC in a dominant way. Samu wasn't quite there yet, so that he couldn't really ride with the best. Zakarin and Dani Navarro completed the podium, while we only achieved a 7th overall. On the bright side, Jonathan Lastra was able to steal a 4th place from a spare breakaway win on stage 3. Also, Jokin Etxabe was second in the mountains classification for two consecutive days.
Other Races February - March 2016
Irizar had a decent TT start into the season, besides his helper qualitites he achieved an 8th at the Algarve time trial. We've seen breakaway performances from Oscar & Fran inthe Tour Cycliste International La Provence, sadly not crowned. Instead, Julen showed his potential by finishing 13th overall there.
The french last february weekend of Classic Sud Ardeche and La Drome classic was a goal for Pello again. While he climbed with the best he lacked the speed on the finishing line, which made it one 9th and one 13th. At the Classic Sud he even had Romain with him in the last part, coming 17th himself. Classic Sud saw a breakaway by our routined man Egoitz.
On the early march weekend in Italy, containing Strade Bianchi and GP Industria, we had a strong team lined up for Samu. He did well, finishing on the podium behind Sagan and Stybar. Our experienced squad there did help a lot, and those riders got their chances at Industria. We made the race as hard as possible having Omar, David & Julen on the attack on different stages of the race, but at the end all came down to a sprint of a group of 20. Navardauskas won ahead of Fedi, for us though it was many Top 20s but the best it got was a 13th by Omar. However, Oscar in the Top50 in both races is a rather good sign for our hilly classics future.
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
@sutty: well, sometimes stuff twists around for good
@IanButler: tbh I didn't recognize neither Murias Taldea in PCT 2018 nor the big expansion of Euskaltel yesterday before writing the "comeback" but being into it now there might be a way to work this in
@Tamijo: re-tracking <3
@Raziz: you can't just not continue a project that has opportunities laying as wide open as this
@jandal: well, somebody has to take up the narrative story section when you can't get your lazy ass to go anymore jokes aside, there are some fantastic stories going on currently, and thus I have to try and work myself into this elite circle...and it has been time for bringing back the story section in PCM16
Croatia14 wrote:
@jandal: well, somebody has to take up the narrative story section when you can't get your lazy ass to go anymore
Well played And it's coming back very soon as usual
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Two weeks of hard racing lie behind us now. 3 of our hasiberris, riding their first respective WT races, will draw their impressions of their World Tour debuts.
Paris Nice
6.-13.3.
Tirreno - Adriatico
9.-15.3.
Igor Anton
Leader
Samuel Sanchez
Leader
Benat Intxausti
Co-Leader
David Lopez
Lieutenant
Haimar Zubeldia
Lieutenant
Arkaitz Duran
Domestique
Romain Sicard
Domestique
Omar Fraile
Domestique
Markel Irizar
Domestique
Julen Amezqueta
Domestique
Egoitz Garcia
Domestique
Pello Bilbao
Domestique
Jon Irisarri
Domestique
Oscar Pelegri
Domestique
Jokin Etxabe
Domestique
Miguel Fernandez
Domestique
Paris - Nice (2.UWT) 14th of March, 2016 - Jokin Etxabe
We came here with quite some ambitions. Igor was in strong form in San Luis already, and wanted to continue that trend here. With Haimar & Benat, racing in orange to build up some form here, there were some great domestiques on offer.
Though the first days were horrible. Markel was there on the first day, but he wasn't happy by missing out on a Top20, telling it just was too short for him. On the next days it was heavy winds. I have to admit, that I have my trouble with crosswinds, and thus was gone early. And our team had so too. Igor & Haimar survived stage 1 together with Markel, Ion and Egoitz, but Stage 2 was too much. Crosswinds blew our team away, so that only Haimar came in in the second group and thus close to the best.
While for me the race got better when we started to climb more, many of our riders suffered. I even was the last man standing for our climbing trio that was leftover on stage 5, as Benat left the race on stage 4, not feeling well. Romain tried his luck on stage 6 from the break, without success. Even worse, Haimar wasn't prepared for leading and lost contact on the penultimate climb, while Igor at least managed to find good climbing legs for an 11th on that stage.
The final stage then was just a pure wreckfest. Sky tried to break Zakarin from the first climb on, yet I was done after one hour of racing. However, Igor once again managed to hold on well and to actually join an attack initiated by Gallopin. At the end of the day though all came back together to a group of around 20 riders, from which Igor lacked the legs to sprint for a win. Being 17th of the day he even improved to 24th overall, 7 places ahead of Haimar.
But still, going away without taken anything really with us was less than we hoped for. For me it was a tough experience. Racing just goes so fast with the pros, even reaching the first climbs is hard here. We rise with the challenges they say, so I am glad to have the opportunity to race these races. Always giving 110% is our credo here, and I can proudly say that I did that on every stage to help my mates.
Tirreno - Adriatico (2.UWT) 16th of March, 2016 - Miguel Fernandez
Samu and the guys had a good weekend here in Italy before this race, so it was only Pello and me flying over to join the team.
The first stage was one heavy experience with the team time trial. Damn, not my thing. I was the first rider to be dropped from our squad, shortly before Oscar, the other rookie here, and Julen experienced the same issue. Results were that we came in dead last. Not the start we wanted to bring Samu for the next stages.
On the bright side that gave us plenty of space for attacks. Omar was close to take the mountains jersey on stage 3. Fernando joined the break on stage 6. Samu finished stage 2 and 4 in the Top 10, meaning that he was in reach with the best for the San Vincino stage. There then we had some good support for him, but it just wasn't his day. He finished, side by side with David, on 14th. Too less for a good GC result, but giving him the option to attack on the hilly 6th stage.
There we placed Omar in the break, giving him the chance to fight for the KOM classification.. Lateron Pello launched the attack for Samu on the hill up to the Capelle sul Tavo, with the break only one minute ahead of the peloton. The duo made the bridge pretty easily, and with the help of Omar ahead ans also the Dimension Data duo that was up there too they pulled away. Giving Samu the opportunity to win now it was a matter of strength. The group blew apart, so that only our man, Sioutsou, Rebellin and Boem were up there for the final climb to Cepagatti, 1'10 ahead of the break. The belorussian was able to follow, but not for long, so that Samu had to fight alone against all. And he made it! Our first World Tour win in the bag, as he held of the pack for the win.
The closing time trial was one to take it easy then with no GC ambitions for all of us and no specialists, so we were allowed to celebrate a little. You don't win in orange all day, but it's something you'd like to get used to. Despite not having the GC result we wanted, we feel comfortable being WT winners now!
Milano - San Remo (1.UWT) 19th of March, 2016 - Oscar Pelegri
Milano - San Remo
19.3.
Juan Jose Lobato
Leader
Samuel Sanchez
Free Role
David Lopez
Domestique
Markel Irizar
Domestique
Egoitz Garcia
Domestique
Jon Aberasturi
Domestique
Jon Irisarri
Domestique
Oscar Pelegri
Domestique
I'm breathless. I've given my all. I still can't feel my legs. But damn, that felt good. Cipressa has finally cracked me. But I'm proud of having made it that far. Let's tell you the full story.
Coming here with JJ & Samu leading we have some good options for San-Remo. But still, captains told us to try and go for the break. Either Egoitz, Ion or me. And I made it. Riding together with 8 other guys we went on to go for the ultimate breakaway: The one at La Classicissima. 5 hours later I exactly new why this race is one "hell of the south". I mean: After Tirreno I felt really good. Now I felt nothing. With me left were Barta, Gretsch and Saramotins. All the others were taken by the man with the hammer. All the italians with us: Gone. All the experienced guys: Gone.
Riding into the Cipressa with 20 seconds on the pack we knew it was over soon. Aleksejs, what a nice guy he is by the way, looked into my face and knew exactly what's up next. He finished his turn on the front, and while rotating to the back he stayed beneath me for a short time, tapping me on the right arm. What he said I'll never forget, because today this felt like being there. Being an Elite. "Great job" he said to me, and then offering me a hand to shake. I took it, and for one last time my gritted teeth turned into a smile. "Thanks!" And then I was done. I guess he didn't even here my "Good luck to you too.", as he already was further behind on the steeper slopes when I found those words. Shortly later, I was swallowed up by the peloton, drifting towards the back of it quicker than Samu dropping opponents on a wild descent.
Talking about Samu, he was there up with the best on the climb, and once again David looked fresh on his side. But there was somebody I missed. And I spotted him, 30 seconds later when I was out the back: JJ. He looked totally in crisis. I would have liked to offer him up some help, but I was cooked even hotter. The rest of the day was lifting the legs towards the finishing line, only meeting Ion & Egoitz on my driftback.
But at the front the race was on. Cipressa was raced on an incredibly high speed, and afterwards attacks started so that nobody was able to come back. Sadly that also meant that JJ was out of the competion, as were many other sprinters. For a moment an attack by van Avermaet, Stannard and Elmiger on the Cipressa descent looked good, but not good enough going into the poggio. There it was Astana putting the hammer down with LuLu Snachez for Nibali, and that surely did hurt all others. Only 15 riders came over the Poggio.
To be precise, only 3 together. Right before the summit Nibali tried his long awaited attack. Stybar and Samu followed him straight away, so that the trio could find 5 seconds together, extending it to 13 on the descent to the Via Roma. With captains isolated and riders all over the road it was mostly up to Sagan to chase, but even with the help of Valverde it was never going to be enough.
At the front it was clear that without cat- and mousing the group would win. Nibali had other ideas than sprinting for the victory though attacking with 800 meters to go. Samu let the chase up to Stybar, who is likely the fastest finisher of those. And indeed the Czech, eventhough with the help of one shorter turn by Samu, caught the Shark with 250 to go. That meant Stybar sprinting from the front, with Samu in the perfect position on the backwheel of him for the long sprint. Nibali was out for the showdown at the Via Roma, but Samu needed to deliver. Samu came round Stybar with 75 to go. But no. Zdenek was too strong, and Samu finished second by a bikelength. Still: What a race by our man. It wasn't to be the win, but it was a great result for us. We can imagine to continue like this!
Dubai Tour 
Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 
, hope you can fix it.
