Actually seeing how well we did points-wise (quite unexpectedly, turns out I didn't overhype Lecuisinier and he was in fact as good as I thought), I'm quite a lot happier about this Tour! Who would have thought we would outscore Saeco!
Thanks Bikex for the in-depth coverage with all those great videos too, and congrats to everyone who had a better Tour than ourselves!
Sad to are us miss the podium but Siskevicus getting 6th on GC saves the day <3 Dion Smith in amongst it in the youth classification is nice as well
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
What an amazing tour for us, didn't see that coming!
Michael Matthews with no support consistently made top 10 on the sprint stages. Our home grown youngsters Chevrier, Guerin, Gouault and Viennet really came of age in this race, all finished in the top 50. Bardet never had a bad day and won 3 stages, superb!
Congrats to Ollfardh and Bikex for dominant performances from Van Poppel and Nibali.
Big thanks to Bikex for the super videos, will be watching Stage 20 a few more times I think
Twas a bad tour for Saeco really with Spilak hacking is way round to a Zubeldia like 10th. He did stick his nose out once or twice and a couple of our speedy finishers did some leg work on some of the bunch gallops - but dismal showing really. All eight finished but no champagne celebration - Vegata zero pointer WOW!
Sorry for the lack of posts over the christmas days / during the tour de france.
Short summary of my thoughts on the race:
Sagan a big disappointment for me. Imo he should have been tied 2nd sprinter (with Van Poppel and Degenkolb but behind Demare) but he only got a single podium result throughout all sprints. Wearing the yellow jersey for a week saved his points hunt and was a nice highlight but it still was a disappointing race from him.
The team performance on the cobbled stage was a joy to watch. Great team work, destroying the pack of favourites with our youngsters and having two guys in the front group was fantastic. Would have loved to see Eisaks trying something or Geyer & Selig trying to keep up a bit longer instead of sitting up but it was a great stage for my team anyway.
Generally, the sprint results were kinda weird. I have absolutely no idea why Van Poppel was so dominant with Demare and Degenkolb a lot worse.
Geyer delivered fine performances after he wasnt needed to defend the yellow jersey anymore. Slowly climbing in the GC and some attacks iirc at some point. Proves me that my idea to invest a bit into his training might be worth it
The other positive surprise from my team was Ovechkin. Sick how he got 4th in the opening TT
Stybar one of the best surprises of the Tour. Awesome how he could stay up that high in GC!
Also Suntory. W O W !
Geniez another rider who finished a lot higher in GC than expected.
The negative surprise of the race definitely Illes Balears. So hard to see them failing so hard when they could really need some success this year.
Thanks for the update Bikex!
When you have a disappointing month but you move into pole position for promotion
Spoiler
oh yeah felt good to get those first bananas in
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
We're in 6th place in the CT standings and in 7th in the Prestige rankings - a couple of spots lower than I had predicted at the start of the season. Hoping to move into the top 5 soon. Promotion seems out of reach at the moment.
3 big months to go, with 10 races in total and a whopping 7 of them in August. Looking forward to it...
Great month for us thanks to Van Poppel. We're 9th in both rankings now, it would be nice if we could finish in the top 10 at the end of the season.
The U23's continue their good work. Still leaving 2 WT teams behind them in the Continental rankings, as well as 2 CT teams in the prestige rankings. The U23 rankings are for Podravka though. No 0 point grand tours there
Also love how Gonzalez single handedly pushes Panama above Belarus, New Zealand and other cycling nations from the U23 Tour.
We're still somehow above the relegation zone! I thought Spark would ovetake us, but I'll take it and really hope we can somehow keep everyone else below us. Vegeta looks easy, but Saeco especially will be hard to stay above of.
I really like the look of this year so far! 3rd behind Carbon Sports and mighty Bunzl is great, we got even close to the leaders. And we have a Quintana race left which is great
Italo still unreal for that team Feryn though not where I'd have expected them at this point, while Filliers somehow has 2 dominant riders (which don't look like they normally should be that dominant ) saving their season
the 4-way relegation battle is interesting, though I wouldn't count out Vegeta with Majka who should have plenty of race days left...
oh well and CT standings are perfect, with likely all 4 teams upfront being able to promote which is nice!
) saving their season
