Wrap-up cowming up at the farmhttps://t.co/LnNrDPpbmw

— Valio - DeLaval (@Atlantius_PCM) February 20, 2018

The month started on par and went downhill from there.
Monterrey gave us about what we expected and while Paillot was slightly under expectations on the Isle of Man Pökälä put in a great ride that oerall put us whre we needed to be for that race.

Then we went to Norway expecting some good scoring from Gautier, but he raced his worst race in our colours so far.
Home favourite Boasson Hagen was untouchable and for some reason everyone else was content with a bunch sprint for 2nd. Except for Cyril who didn't even feel like sprinting...

Kenya and the flat U23 race we never had any expecations for so they didn't disappoint.

A somewhat underwhelming month leaves us with an obvious winner:

We will be racing a lot more in August than we did in July, but that doesn't mean that we expect much more success.

In Deutschland Tour we will have a strictly In both Germany and Austria we will hav a team hoping for the odd stage win at the most.
Manninen will get his chance to sprint in Germany in the hope that the mountains will deter most of the top sprinters from showing up. Also Vastaranta will be in there while Faglum Karlsson will be our top climber in the race.

Austria has a TT so we will be sending both Paillot and Pökälä there alongside our "climbing core" (barring Marcus).
Our biggest hope is obviously breakaways.

Gautier will of course be leading us both in Euskadi and our return to the Isle of Man. Due to race clashes he will have the most support in the latter
Nevertheless we hope for some active racing from him in both races to give us the points we need to survive.

Before the season the big highlight was expected to be the Baltic Chain Tour which takes us on home soil and which was won by Lo Cicero last year.
However the way our sprinting department have ridden this season leaves us quite nervous for this one.

In l'Avenir we will once again team up with Spotify. This year just represented by Tobias Ludvigsson.

Start		Race	Days	Cat.
1-Aug		Deutschland Tour	8	PTHC
5-Aug		Int. Osterreich Rundfahrt	7	HC
5-Aug		Clasica San Sebastian	2	HC
14-Aug		Baltic Chain Tour	5	C1
16-Aug		Manx International	2	C1
23-Aug		Tour de l'Avenir	8	U23

Another hilly classic means another race where we desperately need Gautier to perform.

Brynjolfsson tried getting us represented in the early break but his group was deemed to strong to get away.

As usual EBH and TvG opened the attacking and as so often before Gautier ended up left behind in the first big group.


He came into the sprint for 5th in good position but once again didn't quite manage to show his kick in racing conditions.


Ultimately it isn't a terrible result but it's yet another in a line of slightly below what we had hoped for, which isn't quite enough in the battle against relegation.

1	Edvald Boasson Hagen	Grieg - Eftel	5h27'26
8	Cyril Gautier	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1'23
65	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 2'34
87	Philip Lindau	Valio - DeLaval	+ 4'01
88	Ahmad Arissol	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
93	Essa Khalifa	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
98	Samuel Halme	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
121	Kari Brynjolfsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 5'51
136	Oskari Vainionpää	Valio - DeLaval	+ 12'30

Our hope here mainly lies on breakaways even though we have sent Manninen to help him gather some experience for next year nd perhaps even picking upp the odd point.

On stage 1 Manninen found himself a spot at the back of one of the sprint trains.
Wrong train and a bit too far back, but that's part of the learning experience for him..
Nevertheless he put in a strong sprint just squeezing ahead Silvestre, Manarelli and Guardini to take 8th place and a ranking point.


The following stage followed more or less the same script. Once again Matti took the last spot on the last train and once again put in a solid effort to take 8th place and a single point.


We were invisibl on stage 3, but on stage 4 Falgum Karlsson tried to get in the break but was denied the action.


After having been a bit encouraged by the first two sprint stages the boys decided to trry to provide a train for Manninen on stage 5.
Howeveer it couldn't at all compete with the more established trains and Matti would probably have been better off using the same strategy as previously. Nice try though.


They continued missing the breakaways and even though 12th on the hilly stage 6 wasn't bad for Jukka it didn't really bring us anything either.

Finally on the last stage we hit the break with Paajanen and through a strong effort he even managed to take 2nd place on the stage.

He couldn't keep up with Thurau but just managed to keep the sprinters at bay.

While it was nice with some decent stage results the race as such was, as expected, a big set-down in terms of the relegation battle as our closest competitors, the Minions, ended up taking the GC win with Urán.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
St. 1	Matti Manninen	8th	s.t.
St. 2	Matti Manninen	8th	s.t.
St. 3	Jukka Vastaranta	41st	+ 1'36
St. 4	Paavo Paajanen	76th	+ 9'12
St. 5	Matti Manninen	13th	s.t.
St. 6	Jukka Vastaranta	12th	+ 1'42
St. 7	Marcus Faglum Karlsson	76th	+ 15'52
St. 8	Paavo Paajanen	2nd	+ 42

1	Rigoberto Úran	Minions	33h29'38
64	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 27'36
92	Marcus Faglum Karlsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 38'26
104	Jukka Vastaranta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 45'28
126	Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h03'11
155	Roope Nurmi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h28'57
160	Olli Kulppi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h31'46
166	Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h41'16
177	Sami Tiainen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h54'56

Another stag race with mountains. Not good for us but still we have slightly more capable climbers here so with some luck maybe some small points at least.
Our biggest hope is Paillot for the final TT though.

Höög tried to get in the break on stage 2, but his group wasn't allowed to get away.


Paillot was supposed to save a horrific race on the final TT. He didn't...

The fact that Hasta took the first GC spot without points and Lehtinen would have doubled his points by climbing two spots in the GC says a lot about our season.
We have bot had the margins on our side but we haven't been good enough at chasing them either!

	Best Rider	Place	Time
St. 1	Gökhan Hasta	29th	+ 4'26
St. 2	Sakari Lehtinen	22nd	+ 3'08
St. 3	Joonas Henttala	85th	+ 54
St. 4	?	>10th	?
St. 5	Branislav Samoilev	20th	+ 1'59
St. 6	Sakari Lehtinen	75th	s.t.
St. 7	Yoann Paillot	8th	+ 24

1	Andrei Amador	Team UBS	25h02'52
37	Sakari Lehtinen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 15'01
51	Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 21'04
59	Branislav Samoilev	Valio - DeLaval	+ 27'46
68	Yoann Paillot	Valio - DeLaval	+ 35'16
69	Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	+ 35'32
103	Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h04'54
134	Joni Kanerva	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h25'14
157	Gustav Höög	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h58'52

This was one of those obligatory top 10 races where Gautier was supposed to take advantage of his good acceleration to grab a nice finish.


Omarsson crashed early on but was quick to get back on his bike with no real damage done.


He was quick to get back and help in the effort to control the early break.


Gautier kept a decent position near the front of the group chasing EBH

With 3,5 km to go he was almost perfectly placed.

But then he cramped up and rolled over the line as 24th with Lindau coming on 32nd.
A horrific result from Cyril by any measures!

1	Edvald Boasson Hagen	Grieg - Eftel	4h23'46
24	Cyril Gautier	Valio - DeLaval	+ 40
32	Philip Lindau	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
36	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 2'01
40	Ahmad Arissol	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
58	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 3'17
72	Branislav Samoilev	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
91	Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 4'29
111	Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	+ 8'09

This is easily the most important race of the season for us!
We get to race on home soil and with no route changes and the defending champion on the squad we had appointed this the absolute season highlight again this season.
But then last season we had Il Toro, this season we only have Ivano.


The cobbled prologue went according to plan meaning no major time losses and a solid 15th for Olli.


On stage 2 we saw Vastaranta put the hammer down preparing things perfectly for Vinther and Manninen leading out Lo Cicero.

Sadly Lo Cicero is still far from his best only managin 6th place despite a fine train.


In Finland no one felt like helping us and even though Lo Cicero was the fastest among the sprinters it only amounted to another 6th place as the 5 escapees just made it to the finish line. At least we managed to close the gap making the GC damage a little smaller.


In Sweden we were presented with another (sadly) classic scenario this season. A good leadout but Lo Cicero choosing to go elsewhere making it all in vain.
Except this time it wasn't all bad as Manninen took 7th on the stage getting enough bonus seconds to put him in the youth jersey!


Another day, another good train

And another sub-par sprint from the Italian now only managing 10th from a position where Il Toro would have won by a mile.

Somehow he still managed to scrape together a solid GC 4th though, the downside being that we hardly gained any of the lost ground on our closest competition.


Manninen winning the youth jersey was a very nice bonus though and he will surely come back to this race in the future looking for more success.
Also Kulppis good prologue secures some minor points for him.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
St. 1	Olli Kulppi	15th	+ 8
St. 2	Ivano Lo Cicero	6th	s.t.
St. 3	Ivano Lo Cicero	6th	s.t.
St. 4	Ivano Lo Cicero	5th	s.t.
	Matti Manninen	7th	s.t.
St. 5	Ivano Lo Cicero	10th	s.t.

1	Tom Van Asbroeck	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	15h59'51
4	Ivano Lo Cicero	Valio - DeLaval	+ 25
20	Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 48
24	Olli Kulppi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 49
54	Jukka Vastaranta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 56
85	Troels Vinther	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1'01
98	Yoann Paillot	Valio - DeLaval	+ 4'14
129	Joni Kanerva	Valio - DeLaval	+ 6'52
139	Gustav Höög	Valio - DeLaval	+ 9'19

Youth Jersey: Matti Manninen

Vien wrote:
Lo Cicero has certainly disappointed this season. At least Manninen is making up for it a bit!

Here's for calling the cattle to some proper effortshttps://t.co/55FZ35jpTJ

— Valio - DeLaval (@Atlantius_PCM) March 12, 2018

This was not a good month.
Two disappointing hilly results and still no sight of Il Toro when we raced on home soil.

Mountain stage races went as they do: Anonymously.

To no great surprise the lacklustre efforts of the last couple of months have resulted in us now occupying one of the relegations spots.

Everyone have been disappointing. Except one that is:

Emily the Cow Ran Away From the Slaughterhouse And Became a Star

September will not be the month we are saved.

Tour of Northern Europe lead by Manninen, Vastaranta and Kulppi will be fun but for obvious reasons won't bring any points.

Supposedly we have a slightly bigger chance of scoring in Colombia, but only ever so slightly looking at how our climbers have ridden so far this season...

Milano-Torino however should bring something. This kind of finish seems to suit Gautier better than San Sebastian and Manx.
It certainly would do us good of Gautier could finally hit a +5 day.

Start		Race	Days	Cat.
14-Sep		Tour of Northern Europe	8	PT
18-Sep		Vuelta a Colombia	5	HC
30-Sep		Milano - Torino	2	C1

For once we have a race with no tension at all as we're just here for the experience hoping to show the jersey close to home.
Last year we held the climbers jersey which was great and a similar sort of effort would be greatly appreciated.


The opening TTT featuring a lot of cobbles was tough, but fun even though we had a hard time keeping together towards the end.


Once again Vastaranta was inspired by riding on the highest level and put in a late attack on stage 3.
It didn't bring much in terms of results but great publicity adding a bit to his legendairy status.


Both Kulppi and Arissol tried getting in the break on stage 6.

The big early move waas nutralised though but Olli made his way into the smaller group that would form the break lasting to just 3 km before the finish line.
Good to see!


On stage 7 we managed to get both Vastaranta and Arissol in the break.

Jukka was on fire taking full points on the climbs and entering the final 20 km alone.

He still held on to the lead going into the final 5 km. He was caught with 3,5 km to go but still managed to hold on to 4th place. An amazing result for him - only sad that he can only find this kind of racing legs in WT-races...
With Vastaranta only one point behind Vermeltfoort in the KOM-competition everything would come down to the single Cat 3 climb on the final stage!

Vastaranta failed to get in the break on the final stage but at least he gave us all a good show.
Unfortunately Arissol had to abandon within the final km.

	Best Rider	Place	Time
St. 1	TTT	18th	+ 1'52
St. 2	Jukka Vastaranta	20th	s.t.
St. 3	Olli Kulppi	65th	+ 2'32
St. 4	Olli Kulppi	44th	+ 8'40
St. 5	Ahmad Arissol	45th	+ 1'42
St. 6	Olli Kulppi	18th	s.t.
St. 7	Jukka Vastaranta	4th	+ 33
St. 8	Matti Manninen	26th	s.t.

1	Lars Boom	Aegon - Lavazza	26h27'12
50	Jukka Vastaranta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 22'39
78	Olli Kulppi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 31'34
110	Kari Brynjolfsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 39'18
125	Matti Manninen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 44'06
169	Roope Nurmi	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h16'01
DNF	Ahmad Arissol	Valio - DeLaval	St. 8
DNF	Hiski Kanerva	Valio - DeLaval	St. 4
DNF	Essa Khalifa	Valio - DeLaval	St. 4

We expect nothing from this trip to Colombia seeing how uninspired our climbers have been the entire season.
Now would be a good time to wake up and chase a mountain jersey or some minor GC points though!

The upside from this race is that we're finally done riding mountains this season.
The downside being that our climbers never really started riding this season…

	Best Rider	Place	Time
St. 1	Gökhan Hasta	112th	s.t.
St. 2	Branislav Samoilev	50th	+ 12'29
St. 3	Gökhan Hasta	52nd	+ 20'09
St. 4	Sakari Lehtinen	50th	+ 53
St. 5	Sakari Lehtinen	50th	+ 28'17

1	Andrei Amador	Team UBS	21h30'36
55	Branislav Samoilev	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h02'04
58	Sakari Lehtinen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h05'30
61	Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h07'30
72	Marcus Faglum Karlsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h17'00
96	Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1h39'34
DNF	Joni Kanerva	Valio - DeLaval	St. 2
DNF	Raimondas Rumsas	Valio - DeLaval	St. 2
DNF	Gustav Höög	Valio - DeLaval	St. 2

This was the only race all month we had any real hopes and expectations for.
Obviously Gautier was the one, who needed to fulfill them.


As we hit the hill for the first time we are strongly represented in the front of the peloton.
It could mean that Gautier have reported good legs, but we also have a terrifying track record of our leades performing worse this season when the team have been working during the stage.

The second and final time upp the hill we have Hagen starting the fireworks.

Gautier tries to join the 4 chasers but reacts to late and can't quite close the gap.

He pushes on but as so often before he uses more energy than those in his wheel and has to make do with a 9th place in the end.

A few positions lower than we had hoped and what he deserved with his riding but that is our season in a nutshell.

1	Edvald Boasson Hagen	Grieg - Eftel	4h32'38
9	Cyril Gautier	Valio - DeLaval	+ 2'00
35	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 2'54
48	Jukka Vastaranta	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
53	Branislav Samoilev	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
64	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
116	Philip Lindau	Valio - DeLaval	+ 5'26
161	Joni Kanerva	Valio - DeLaval	+ 7'29
183	Gustav Höög	Valio - DeLaval	+ 11'23

Shortly in the farm you'll see why we listen to the blues...https://t.co/UMyR1XOMly

— Valio - DeLaval (@Atlantius_PCM) April 7, 2018

We expected this to be the worst month of the year for us and in that regard it lived up to expectations.

A nice show in Tour of Northern Europe doesn't matter when we get a grand total of 1 point in Colombia and once again fails to deliver a top result in Milano-Torino.

After a month this bad we will a couple of small miracles to survive in PCT.

In a widely disappointing month the award goes to the rider, who showed the jersey in the best manner:

The most impressive thing we saw on our trip to Colombia...

October will be busy and was expected pre-season to be one of our best months with GP Kigali the only race we don't expect to challenge for top results.

We start the month riding from Copenhagen to Malmö over the bridge in the classic TTT.
That is mostly for fun, but we have brought a strong team nonetheless as we want to make a good show of ourselves so close to DeLaval's HQ.

To no great surprise we will be lead by Gautier in both Giro dell'Emilia and Japan Cup. Now is time for him to find his early season form again and deliver at least two top 5's.

With 4 flat stages there was never any doubt that we had to go to Barbados with our strongest train. The pre-season goal was an outright GC win and that is more or less still what is needed if we are to survive in PCT.

GP Kigali will hopefully see us represented in the break giving us a chance for an upset like in Portugal early in the season. We don't expect much though.

Start		Race	Days	Cat.
01-Oct		Copenhagen-Malmo TTT	2	PT
04-Oct		Giro dell'Emelia	2	HC
11-Oct		Barbados Cycling Festival	4	HC
16-Oct		GP Kigali	2	C1
18-Oct		Japan Cup	2	HC

We had brough our strongest TT'ers to what seems likely to be our last PT race for a good while


They looked good crossing the bridge.


They continue the good riding taking provisional 6th as best PCT team on the finish line.

1	Jayco - Cobra9	1h11'52
8	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1'23

1		Jayco - Cobra9	1h11'52
38	Branislav Samoilev	Valio - DeLaval	+ 1'23
39	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
40	Joonas Henttala	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
41	Yoann Paillot	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
42	Samuel Pökälä	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
117	Samuel Halme	Valio - DeLaval	+ 3'11
164	Raimondas Rumsas	Valio - DeLaval	+ 7'44

At this point every single race is crucial. Especially the ones featuring one of our big leaders.


Omarsson did a massive pull to reel in the break and prepare things for Gautier.

Such a massive pull that he transforms it into an attack once the break is caught.


Meanwhile Gautier makes sure to keep his place near those he needs to beat.


Ingvar did an exceptional job to bring Cyril to the final climb as the only leader in both decent position and energy level.


Still once again Gautier manages to get himself boxed in.


He does his best but as so often before this season he doesn't put the kick we know he has to use in the finale and finishes last in his small group.

1	Domenik Klemme	Novatek-Panarmenian.net	4h54'24
7	Cyril Gautier	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
22	Ingvar Omarsson	Valio - DeLaval	+ 18
86	Philip Lindau	Valio - DeLaval	+ 2'57
89	Branislav Samoilev	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
101	Sakari Lehtinen	Valio - DeLaval	s.t.
127	Paavo Paajanen	Valio - DeLaval	+ 5'32
143	Gökhan Hasta	Valio - DeLaval	+ 7'57
161	Gustav Höög	Valio - DeLaval	+ 15'57