This is the attitude we took to the last couple of stages in Baltic Chain Tour and how we imagine Ahlstrand was seeing us:

The first conclusion is that Anacona continues to disappoint and should look to return to CT racing next season while Vastaranta didn't find his miracle legs but did as well as can be expected from him.

Lo Cicero however returned to racing in amazing form finishing 2nd in Thailand after a suboptimal leadout and domination the last half of Baltic Chain Tour to take the GC and points jersey after a bit of a slow start in the race.

To no great surprise for anyone:

First up is our 3rd and final PT-race of the season where Breschel will be the big name of a young group including among others our two Latvians.
The dream is to have the Latvian NC shown on home soil and some generally agressive riding all-through.

From there we go to Ukraine where Paillot and Vastaranta will be our main men.
Last and least Breschel will be leading an opportunistic team at Grand Prix de la Ville d'Oran

Start		Race	Days	Cat.
13-Sep		Tour of Northern Europe	8	PT
17-Sep		Tour of Ukraine	5	HC
26-Sep		Grand Prix de la Ville d'Oran	2	C1

The 3rd and final PT race of the year for us where we will be focusing on being visible. Especially out two latvians should be highly motivated to show themselves on home soil.


Neilands was the first to show the jersey by taking a spot in the break while Matti was the second by being taken down in a huge crash.


The UAE-champion Essa Khalifa had amazing legs on stage 3 going in the break and winning most of the KOM's putting him comfortably in the mountain jersey at the end of the day.


On stage 4 Leipins went out showing his Latvian NC jersey, which is the most positive thing to say about a day we were destroyed completely.

Unfortunately he lost it again on stage 6, but with a 4 point gap his goal for the remaining of the race was clear.

Khalifa gave it another attempt on stage 7, but ultimately wasn't quite strong enough and ultimately finish 2n in the KOM-battle 4 pts short of the win.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Team Time Trial	24th	+ 1'59
Stage 2	Matti Manninen	75th	s.t.
Stage 3	Matti Breschel	140th	+ 5'53
Stage 4	Matti Breschel	134th	+ 14'07
Stage 5	Samuel Halme	38th	+ 2'18
Stage 6	Matti Manninen	63rd	s.t.
Stage 7	Matti Breschel	116th	+ 9'01
Stage 8	Matti Breschel	31st	s.t.

1	Roger Kluge	Pokerstars.com	26h15'58
141	Matti Breschel	Valio - DeLaval	+ 30'08
144	Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 30'25
148	Essa Khalifa	Valio - DeLaval	+ 30'56
153	Samuel Halme	Valio - DeLaval	+ 33'38
156	Risto Aaltio	Valio - DeLaval	+ 36'09
163	Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	+ 39'51
169	Krists Neilands	Valio - DeLaval	+ 43'59
174	Emils Liepins	Valio - DeLaval	+ 52'49

We went to Ukraine with a split goal: Paillot for the TT and GC and Vastaranta for stage results.


And boy does Paillot live up to his end of the bargain as he powers to a dominant TT-win 30 seconds faster than Dekker on 2nd.


Chris Anker made sure to show the jersey on the final stage after what have otherwise been a very anonymous season for him. With him among others Philip Lindau.


And there you have it: CAS sprinting for a stage win.
To no great surprise he finished 8th out of 8.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Jukka Vastaranta	17th	s.t.
Stage 2	Jukka Vastaranta	13th	+ 13
Stage 3	Jukka Vastaranta	13th	+ 2'50
Stage 4	Yoann Paillot	WIN	- 30
Stage 5	Chris Anker Sørensen	8th	s.t.

1	Thomas Dekker	Compal - Merida	14h56'06
4	Yoann Paillot	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1'29
13	Jukka Vastaranta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 4'02
69	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 9'13
94	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 13'14
101	Chris Anker Sørensen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 14'14
136	Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	+ 19'47
144	Jesse Kaislavuo	Valio - DeLaval	+ 21'33
149	Roope Nurmi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 22'10

Running out of race days sadly we will be netering a flat´ classic without Lo Cicero leaving the chance for Matti Breschel.

He didn't take the chance.

1	Raúl Granjel Cabrera	Aeropostal Venezuela Ciclismo	2h55'12
33	Matti Breschel	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
52	Essa Khalifa	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
76	Krists Neilands	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
78	Roope Nurmi	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
88	Jesse Kaislavuo	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
103	Sami Tiainen	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
104	Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
112	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u91t0_wfL6k

While it was great to finally se Paillot really deliver in Ukraine it was really inspiring to see Essa Khalifa trying hard to challenge the PT riders.

A certain rider really showed the right attitude when obviously in over his head making an impact on a PT-race.
At first he didn't get anything except a few days in the KOM-jersey but now we award him Bull of the Month:

October is a month featuring a very important race for us in Cour de Solidarnosc, where we wil obviously be lead by Lo Cicero for both stage and GC.

Apart from that we will be racing in Giro dell'Emilia and Tour of East Java without great expectations.

We had next to no expectations to this hilly classic and just about lived up to them...

A stage race comprised of four flat stages can only mean one thing: Lo Cicero-time!


The train didn't quite work properly on stage 1, but in the end Manninen helped Lo Cicero to a 3rd place.


Stage 2 saw a significantly better train with an improved stage result to follow.


Things were set up perfectly on stage 3 when Ivano got over-eager and left the train far to early only to fade in the end.'

After some contoverses Lo Cicero didn't get a train and completely screwed up the sprint as a result.

Congratulations to Ahlstrand though for finally beating us and after all this was another goal achieved by "Il Toro".

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Ivano Lo Cicero	3rd	s.t.
Stage 2	Ivano Lo Cicero	2nd	s.t.
Stage 3	Ivano Lo Cicero	5th	s.t.
Stage 4	Ivano Lo Cicero	13th	s.t.

1	Jonas Ahlstrand	Spotify - Haglöfs	18h49'15
3	Ivano Lo Cicero	Valio - DeLaval	+ 18
23	Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1'01
31	Matti Breschel	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
158	Roope Nurmi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 7'38
177	Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 10'23
180	Emils Liepins	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
182	Risto Aaltio	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
185	Krists Neilands	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.

Last year we had some succes with Chris Anker Sørensen in this race. Now it has promoted with us, but seeing our mountain campaign this season we will be thrilled to be noticed.

We didn't bring a sprinter so the first stage was quiet.


Finally the team acknowledged that Anacona isn't up for it this year and Gökhan Hasta went in the break.


He did amazingly even going solo towards the summit.

However the big names also wanted this and he had to make do with a very honourable 6th place on the stage.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
Stage 1	Winner Anacona	46th	s.t.
Stage 2	Gökhan Hasta	6th	+ 49

1	Tiago Machado	Porto - Prio	6h14'06
18	Winner Anacona	Valio - DeLaval	+ 4'37
22	Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 5'12
51	Chris Anker Sørensen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 9'09
125	Jesse Kaislavuo	Valio - DeLaval	+ 17'10
126	Roope Nurmi	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
128	Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
153	Gustav Höög	Valio - DeLaval	+ 21'29
154	Matti Breschel	Valio - DeLaval	+ 23'34

Basically this was a month of confirming what we allready knew about the season:
Anacona is not worthy of leading on PCT level.
Lo Cicero saves our season proving that even on bad days he is among the very best of the division given the support he needs/deserves.
We should have shown more courage in the mountains in stead of expecting Anacona to finish the job in the end.

Though he did not hit his very top level he did achieve another goal for us:

In the World Championships we have the highest hopes for Kulppi in the B-race, but will be happy just to see our riders somewhere along the way hopefully making a small impact on the racing.

From there it's obviously time for NC's where we hope to be able to match our jersey tally of previous seasons even though a few nationalities will be leaving the team after this season - more about that when we get to discussing the off-season.

By far the race worlds-race we have been looking forward to the most as it will be Olli's first chance to lead a team of Valio-riders.

It was a hectic start of the day but in the end we managed to get Risto Aaltio in the break.

As could be expected they didn't last but they did put in a great fight allowing Kulppi to focus on staying with the favourites.

He didn't have the legs to do much more than that, but for a young lad like him we're very happy with his effort and look forward immensely to seeing him back in our colours next season.

1	Lahcen Saber	Morocco	7h17'06
8	Olli Kulppi	Finland	+ 48
19	Jukka Vastaranta	Finland	+ 7'25
37	Jesse Kaislavuo	Finland	+ 10'56
39	Samuel Pökälä	Finland	+ 11'20
43	Risto Aaltio	Finland	+ 12'03
57	Roope Nurmi	Finland	+ 17'02
71	Paavo Paajanen	Finland	+ 20'08
DNF	Matti Manninen	Finland	-
DNF	Gustav Höög	Sweden	-
DNF	Philip Lindau	Sweden	-

The two young Finns did their best, but quite frankly there's a reason they're first year stagiaires...

1	Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz	Poland	7h00'38
25	Oskari Vainionpää	Finland	+ 8'33
55	Hiski Kanerva	Finland	+ 29'06

The closest thing we came to making a mark on this race was Breschels teammate Juul-Jensen in the break.

1	Sam Bewley	New Zealand	6h34'43
52	Matti Breschel	Denmark	+ 8'57
117	Krists Neilands	Latvia	+ 30'21

Time to evaluate the season that has as good as passed.

At the start of the season we weren't deemed much of a chance by anyone really.
In fact the best prediction had us at 19th while the worst was 27th. In average we were predicted to just avoiding relegation at 24th. Click here for more details.

The general concern was a lack of belief that Lo Cicero could get back to his winning ways and in particular that our lead-out were too weak.
For the first we we as anxious as anyone to see how the Italian would perform after going down a division and for the second we were calm as we had already done our homework and compared our train to that of the PT topsprinters the season before.
A comparison that showed our train on the level it should be.
Thankfully both Lo Cicero and the train delivered!

As could be expected we struggled most other places - most remarkably Anacona, who after having fought for the podium in Tour of America last season only outscores Ignacio Sarabia by 1 point this season.
A huge let-down to say the least!

All-in-all we are very happy to have finished 15th and achieved 3/5 goals to help us get a head start in the transfer season where we will be looking to find a leader on another terrain to be less dependant on Lo Cicero.

3		Ivano Lo Cicero		Valio - DeLaval	1084
68		Jukka Vastaranta		Valio - DeLaval	315
71		Yoann Paillot		Valio - DeLaval	304
103		Matti Breschel		Valio - DeLaval	175
290*		Olli Kulppi		Evonik - ELKO	100
384*		Philip Lindau		Evonik - ELKO	69
199		Troels Vinther		Valio - DeLaval	66
435*		Sakari Lehtinen		Vesuvio - Accumalux	56
234		Winner Anacona		Valio - DeLaval	47
235		Ignacio Sarabia		Valio - DeLaval	46
274		Samuel Pökälä		Valio - DeLaval	37
284		Bernhard Eisel		Valio - DeLaval	33
370		Gökhan Hasta		Valio - DeLaval	18
374		Branislav Samoilev		Valio - DeLaval	17
394		Ingvar Omarsson		Valio - DeLaval	15
430		Mateusz Taciak		Valio - DeLaval	10
475		Sami Tiainen		Valio - DeLaval	6
525		Chris Anker Sørensen		Valio - DeLaval	3
556		Samuel Halme		Valio - DeLaval	1
564		Hiski Kanerva		Valio - DeLaval	1

* PT Rankings

Race		Rider	Place
	Down Under Classic	Ivano Lo Cicero	1
	Dutch Food Valley Classic	Ivano Lo Cicero	1
	Baltic Chain Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	1	GC
	Tour de San Luis	Jukka Vastaranta	1	St. 3
	Baltic Chain Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	1	St. 4
	Baltic Chain Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	1	St. 5
	Tour of Ukraine	Yoann Paillot	1	St. 4
	Tour de San Luis	Jukka Vastaranta	1	Points
	Baltic Chain Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	1	Poins
	Tour of Ukraine	Yoann Paillot	1	Youth
	Volta a Catalunya	Yoann Paillot	1	St. 1
	FBD Eire Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	1	St. 1
	Olympia's Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	1	St. 2
	Corsica International	Yoann Paillot	2	St. 2
	Tour of Norway	Ivano Lo Cicero	2	St. 1
	Baltic Chain Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	2	St. 3
	Course de Solidarnosc	Ivano Lo Cicero	2	St. 2
	FBD Eire Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	2	GC
	Nakhon Ratchasima Trophy	Ivano Lo Cicero	2
	FBD Eire Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	2	St. 6
	FBD Eire Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	2	St. 8
	KBC De Panne Tour	Roope Nurmi	2	St. 3
	Tour de San Luis	Jukka Vastaranta	3	GC
	Course de Solidarnosc	Ivano Lo Cicero	3	GC
	Tour de San Luis	Troels Vinther	3	St. 2
	Tour de San Luis	Troels Vinther	3	St. 4
	Tour de San Luis	Yoann Paillot	3	St. 5
	Baltic Chain Tour	Ivano Lo Cicero	3	St. 2
	Course de Solidarnosc	Ivano Lo Cicero	3	St. 1
	Duo Differdange	Paillot/ Pökälä	3
	Monterey TTT	Team Time Trial	3
	Isle of Man ITT	Yoann Paillot	3
	FBD Eire Tour	Troels Vinther	3	St. 7
	KBC De Panne Tour	Bernhard Eisel	3	St. 2

In the following days we will go through the herd one bull at a time.

jt1109 wrote:
More then acceptable season for the "herd" Lo Cicero had a real good one especially, will be very interested in how Kulppi rides next season always been very interested in him

Atlantius wrote:

Definitely more than acceptable, though had the sprint setup not come through as it did we would have had a tough time..

I'm really looking forward to seeing a maxed Kulppi as well. The last two seasons he have had some amazing "above-stat" performances in big races. The big question is how to best support him though. Am I right in remembering that you had him on as stagiaire the season before I joined?

Ristos role on the team is to do the hard work preparing things for our sprinter and he has done that better than anyone expected pre-season.


Future:
There will always be need and room for a Finnish work-horse to control things for our sprinters.

Anaconas season embodies how difficult it can be to go from CT to PCT. Last year he finished 8th in the individual rankings. This year he wasn't even caught on camera…

Future:
Anacona will not be leading us next season. Depending in his wage demands he can look forward to a likely return to CT or a role as a dedicated helper to someone stronger.

Breschel was one of the final additions to the team and one of the relatively high earners.


While his season was far from miraculous he did a good job scoring us some points in races that would otherwise have been clear 0-pointers.
Especially his solo ride to 4th place in Gent-Wevelgem brings fond memories.

Future:
Matti is not getting any younger, but if we can agree on a salary he might get another season as lietenant for Kulppi.

What is likely Bernardos final season was without many highlights, though he is to be credited for contributing to the 3rd place in Monterrey TTT.

Future:
We want to thank Bernardo for three years of service and wish him the best of luck in his likely retirement.

The Austrian was mainly signed as support for Breschel on the cobbles but was occasionally allowed to chase his own success, most notably in the stage 2 of KBC where he took a stage 3rd from the break after Breschel had crashed earlier in the race.

Apart from that Eisel did a good job earning his salary despite age starting to take it's toll on him

Future:
As he continues to get older retirement seems more and more likely, but he might be up for a season providing some depth and experience to a CT team.
He won't be offered a new contract with us though.

We could try to make a big deal of but quite frankly it's quite simple.

The sponsors are all happy with how the season fared and we are very happy with our sponsors so nothing will change at all in that regard.

That will also mean that we keep the current jersey design.

With the sponsor announcement out of the way we can also make the first two NC's for 2017 public:

[url=https://pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=42865&pid=1233347#post_1233347]knockout wrote:
[/url]
Good news everyone!

Another Finnish rider mainly here for depth and support. His main task being TTT's and chasing breakaways.

Hitting the break in Le Tour certainly stands as a highlight for him alongside the podium in Monterrey.
Future:
He will always be able to get employment with us as an important member of our TTT-setup alongside with his ability to get in breakaways.

Gökhan Hasta was one of the riders, who largely got his season ruined by working for a worthless captain.

However on his final race day of the season he showed both the right skills and attitude indicating that our mountain season could possibly have been better without Anacona.
Future:
Hasta have grown with us since the first season and thus he does have a special place despite not quite fitting in in terms of nationality.
He will likely be offered a contract, but if the right deal for him and us comes along it is not guaranteed that he will be wearing spots next year.

Joonas have been very anonymous this year, but he is still developing and have been locked in a helping role without getting many chances for himself.
Future:
We are dedicated to developing Finnish talents and Joonas still haven't reached his absolute top level. He will have to take a step up next year though.

Gustav was mainly hired as a stagiaire to allow him to race in l'Avenir.
He didn't make much of his chance though.
Future:
Of our three stagiaires he seems the least likely to be offered a full contract for next season.

Jesse was hired to provide some depth and gather a bit of experience proving that he is worth investing in for the future.

By providing some good work for his leaders on the cobbles and getting in several breakaways he had a very solid season.
Future:
He could very well be looking at another year in a similar role as this one.

Joining us as a stagiaire he managed to hit the right break and taka a stage top 10 in his very first pro race.

A very nice start, which he followed up by climbing better than expected in l'Avenir.
Future:
He certainly made the most of his time as a stagiaire and he will be seriously considered for next years roster.

As in earlier seasons Khalifa rode his way in to our hearts with some aggressive riding with many breaks.

Obviously his stint in the KOM jersey of Tour of Northern Europe stands out.
Future:
For every season that passes we grow more and more fond of Khalifa. Odds are he will be offered a contract, but it would also be interesting to see him in a bigger role for a team focusing on his home region.

Olli took a couple of steps down the hierarchy at Evonik as the team took a step up the latter.
However he did occasionally give samples of his talent. Especially when he reduced the favourite group to a mere 7 riders in Strade Appia Antica was impressive and his race in the B Worlds makes us exited for next year.

Future:
Olli will be given a prominent role on our cobbles-team next year when he comes home after two years in Latvia.