We have another old team in the mix, this time from Indonesia. With five top riders at 32, the verge of decline, they will be looking to win this year, worrying that if they don't, I suspect those guys may have a suicide pact so they can get before father time takes them.
The squad is led by new transfer Martijn Keizer. Unfortunately, he isn't Prussian, which is a huge missed opportunity pun wise. Regardless, he is one the of the top stage racers in the world, and should really thrive in PCT. He's a great climber and is amazing against the clock. His weakness is hills, but honestly I feel that he will be able to survive them most of the time with good planning. His support is also stellar - Brenes and Augustyn are great riders in their own right. Again all 30 plus though - hopefully Indonesian social services can handle this many pending retirements.
Matthew Goss is the sprint leader, and he's solid. Really solid. A great classic sprinter. Unfortunately, with guys like Degenkolb and Mohs in the division, and without any real solid domestiques or leadouts, I'm not sure he'll be a big winner this year. I wouldn't be surprised if Goss lays a goose egg for victories this year, but I think he'll be around most of the time. He'll score.
On the hills, Malaysian Mohamed Shawal Anuar Aziz has far too long of a name. Though at least his hill train is just as long. Unfortunately, Anuar Aziz's points total will be limited by his intense fear of showing his jersey or being exposed to sunlight, leading him to frantically hide in the pack and avoid the goblins that apparently snatch you if you try to attack. Hopefully with his helpers protecting his fragile psyche, he'll be able to go up the road with leaders and score some points he theoretically is capable of.
Keizer is also the best time trialist, and behind him there's pretty much nothing. Nikolas Maes was added over the offseason, and he's pretty solid over the cobbles. He'll either be an amazing under the radar signing that surprises everywhere, or he'll be an underwhelming puddle of ambiguity. I don't have enough time to think about which one.
Indosat are a strong team. I like their versatility, and they have some solid leaders and good depth. I'm tempted to put them in a promotion hunt. But like Fablok, they better got on the scoring quick this year. Their team is old as dirt, with a lot of guys looking at one last shot at their peak. They have only a talent or two in the wings, so they are in need of a rebuild after this year either way.
Kraftwerk Man Machine
As cannibals, Kraftwerk Man Machine try to keep their inner circle tight knit and closed off from the outside world in an attempt to preserve their bizarre and terrifying life style. At least, I assume that what man machine means in this context. It's the first thing I thought of - a machine grinding up men to be eaten by hungry German cyclists. Hence, the team's leadership remains pretty much intact from last season.
The Manx Missile, Mark Cavendish, is the main guy. In the sprints, he is king. Well, not really. There's better sprinters now in the division. Of course, that didn't stop them from importing 7 million leadout men for him this past off season. This is one of those times where I sit and scratch my head. You can only have one or two guys leading out Cavendish at a time. Are they going to sprint in a line from 5k out? Only Haller and maybe Kreder are capable of sprinting for themselves as a secondary guy I feel, so it's not like they're just playing their options. So let's be honest, there's only one explanation. It involves Mark Cavendish with a full stomach, a pile of bones, and a few of these guys "missing" by the end of the year.
Their second major discipline is the hills, where Aleksandar Flügel leads. Both he and Cav are 32 by the way. Does anyone feel like the MGUCI won't be able to support all these retiring riders taking pensions? Just a thought. Anyway, Flugel is a top guy, but he doesn't stand out in anyway. He's kind of just there at the front, following attacks, speeding over hills, feasting on the blood of soigneurs, and getting solid results. He's a good leader, and he's German which fits the regional focus. His domestiques are also really quality, just like with Cav. Also very solid regional focus for them.
Leading in the TT's we have Lucas Schädlich - one of the top guys but nothing super special. But past we have another team where multiple disciplines have been completely ignored. Did they eat all of the climbers and classics guys already at the off season retreat? I just don't like to see this, because it's so limiting. Even having one cheap 3rd or 4th tier guy on a terrain is usually worth it to me. But then again, I also have no leaders on my team, so maybe I shouldn't judge. Besides that, no real wildcards or super good young talents.
While having a cannibalistic Fourth Reich in the PCT peloton is not the most comforting feeling, I think they have a solid squad here, and it's almost completely built on their national focus, which is admirable, though it will scare the French and Polish teams. Not much changed over the transfer season. They've invested hard in two terrains, and they will score well on them, but I'm not sure it's enough. Not that I think they'll be fighting for relegation much, but with two 32 year old leaders being counted on for most of the points, here's another team that needs a rebuild next season. That's starting to get repetitive to even say.
Kulczyk - DMTEX
Okay, I'm not even going to try to pronounce this team's name. That cluster of random letters and abbreviations is a disservice to the integrity on mankind. Proof that God dies more and more every day.
Call-in Sick decided that the best way to promote from CT was to buy some of the top CT leaders for next season's promotion hunt. Rafa Valls, last season's CT dominator, has decided to join forces with rival Pierre Paulo Penasa and form the Golden State Warriors of MG. Unfortunately, they forgot that the team is now in a higher division of the sport. That sure hasn't stopped overpayment though! Apparently management has also forgotten that the salary cap exists, and has tried to spur a 21st century gold rush to fund their team. Mediocre riders everywhere will be enticed by the apparent riches they can receive at Coldchicken - DEMON TECH.
Valls and Penasa are almost the same rider. Now mind you - Valls is slightly better in most aspects including hills and TT strength, but he has a worse kick. Penasa is making a fairly reasonable 210k, and Valls is making... 350k. 350k. 350k. Absolutely insane. Now maybe you can justify spending that much on a leader when he can wreck CT for you, but these guys will be looking for minor placings GC wise most of the time, unless they get incredibly lucky. The labor advocates won't complain though.
On the hills, Enrico Barbin is the leader. Nowhere near the top with his skill set, but not a bad guy for... 260k!!! 260k for a guy who like many others on this team, could very well fit into a CT team. It's insane. Maybe the manager and sponsors are just super generous or something. They make me feel like even I could get six figures to ride on their team. The guy has a nice kick, but there's at least a dozen guys better than him in the division, most getting paid less, some far less. No amount of support will change that.
At least their secondary guys, while not great, are on somewhat decent contracts. Anthony Lavoine and Sam Bennett will get their fair share of points from minor placings throughout the season. Ryan Mullen is a really nice young time trialist who while not among the best in the division, is only 24. And in general, the TTT team isn't that bad, and they can use it in races Valls goes to. They have a couple of talents in the wings too, but non one with a ceiling higher than a domestique.
The team might have thought they were made of money, but they aren't. The wage cap isn't a suggestion of good faith, and eventually Cauliflower Chick's Dirty Tents will have to realize that. They haven't a ignored any terrain, but they have ignored their wallets. With more reason contracts or the lack of redundant guys in general, they could have bought another top leader and a few domestiques for him. Instead, they've dug themselves quite the hole. They've even made it difficult for them to contend in CT next year given that these contracts won't fit in a CT budget - unless they just ignore that again. In that case, the title is almost there's! Just a few more counterfeit bills to print out, and they're set!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Next up we have a team with a very interesting name that includes their alleged current division in a quirky fashion. Unfortunately, they've made the mistake of assuming PCT will be their division going forward. After all, despite the name, they don't seem to have built a PCT level team anywhere that I can see, at least not this year. Maybe it's a case of saying it enough times in an effort to make it come true? They also haven't tried to improve much - they didn't buy a single rider from another squad over the transfer season, though they did sell.
Yet another team with quite a lot of sprinters depth. Tom Van Asbroeck is their main guy. He's fast, but not one of the best. he does manage to get over hills better than most though, so he'll have to utilize that in his schedule in order to score big. His heir apparent, Fernando Gaviria is very peculiar. Given the recent decline in early development of young riders on tour (due to the MGUCI's crackdown on child labor), it's strange that the MG Gods have allowed this young behemoth to become so good at his age. Gaviria can arguably climb even better than Van Asbroeck, and can while not having quite the same top speed, can get their faster than you can say "loser - pizza". Somehow, my scouts say he can also still improve without putting any extra effort or money in. I repeat, who let this happen?
Kenneth Vanbilsen is the big gun on cobbles. Pretty much a classic classics specialist. He does well on cobbles and hopes that will be enough in a tough selection at the end of the race. Unfortunately for him, with the amount of cobblers that have been imported into PCT this year, it will be difficult to get the really top results, at least consistently, when he has nothing that makes him stand out. Most of his opponents are better in one aspect or another.
The last guy with leader scoring potential is Zico Weaytens, though once again, I'm tempted to say he doesn't really stand out. I mean, the guy's name is Zico, which is cool as hell, but skillset wise, he's pretty much the most basic, boring hills leader possible. He can follow leaders up the climbs and then he's... there. That's pretty much it. Doesn't even really have good intangibles, so I think he might underperform.
That's basically the terrains that Lierse has given much thought to. On mountains, Manuel Senni can hope to do decent in balanced GC races. Not a single time trialist exists. Depth wise, they are stellar though. Waeytens has a few slid guys despite the loss of Stuyven. Stijn Joseph has been a rock for them for going on five years, so hopefully he's good enough for Vanbilsen. And of course, there's another team with 50,000 lead out men. I don't see the point, but a lot of them are young, so it's a little more understandable.
Speaking of young guys, this is a very youthful team. And I mean very youthful. Like racing without their parents present would have them put in protective custody. The good news is that most of these guys are already good helpers, and project to be leaders. Gianni Moscon, Niccolo Bonifazio, and Sam Oomen all have the potential to be leaders later in their careers. That youth coming in the wings makes it easier to not make moves this transfer season I guess, though relegating with all those talents onboard would be a catastrophe.
When you have that many talents, I think sometimes it's best to at least make sure you have a team not in danger. However many times they have PCTeam in their name, that doesn't mean it will stay that way. With good planning I think they score enough to stay up. But with their rider types, planning is that necessity. And if they put as much into planning as they did into the transfer season... Lierse CTeam is on the horizon.
Meiji - JR East
I really love this team. I'm not even sure how I can make fun of it because I love it so much. They've gone full out with their regional focus, which I love. The team is entirely made up of Asian riders, mostly Japanese. Unfortunately, that's made it hard to come up with a good theme or way to roast them. The only thing I could think of was anime, but I'm not a fricking weab, so I have no idea how that would even work.
2016 PCT champion Tomohiro Kinoshita continues to lead the team for another season. It's hard to say a guy whose won the division will have a breakout year, but he certainly will have a bounce back year. With EBH out of the division on no other punchers stronger than him, he certainly has the ability to finish in the top 5 of the rankings at least. He's only 27 after all. How is that even possible, side note? He doesn't have the best support, but that hasn't been an issue in the past so, I suppose it's fine and if it's not, I'm glossing over it anyway.
Next, we see the awesome GC tandem of Chen Shikai and Ki Ho Choi. Yes, Choi is very overpaid. The surplus wage in that 325,000 could have gone to funding some development for youth cycling in Asia, which is necessary considering the ratio of 1 cyclist: 1,000,000,000 people. Instead, Choi gets to bathe in gold in his Hong Kong mansion. Either way, he's still a very talented rider. Both he and Shikai are awesome climbers, and balanced GC guys - Choi handles other terrain slightly better, but Shikai has better raw talent as a stage racer. They are an awesome tandem, both also very young, and will be able to contend in every mountain race including clashes. One problem - neither of them have much of a kick. This will hurt them when things get aggressive in the mountains. Hopefully their key helpers can help them drag it back if it comes to that.
Beyond that, Kenji Itami is their main sprinter. He's got a kick that erupts more intensely than Fuji, but often he finds himself tired before it comes to that point from hills, pace, or race length. Not to the point where it stops him from being useful, but it makes it harder to plan around. A guy like Kazushige Kuboki will be useful at the end of tougher stages, and he can also TT if there's a race that fits that skillset. I mean, he's mediocre at all of those things, but on paper he looks cool.
No major leaders for TT's or cobbles, though Shiki Kuroeda can score a bit in easier races including the latter. I can handle focusing on a couple of terrains though when you have really proven scorers leading them. Depth is also really good, and the team has a young core, made even younger by the Japanese life expectancy, which should guarantee most of these riders at least another 400 years at peak performance. Still even more talents in the wings too.
I see Meiji as a promotion contender, and I don't think I'm alone. Great leaders, great depth, great youth, great regional focus. Sure, they've failed to live up to promotion expectations in the past, but Japan failed to live up to expectations by losing World War II, and now they're a superpower again. Plus, Meiji has a young core ready to burst rather than a nuclear one. So overall, the future's looking good.
Minions
Minions? Minions of who? That's the question we all wonder when we see a team that has no sponsor and is made up mostly of Americans, but is for some reason registered in Qatar. Well, the answer is very simple.
The evil supervillain raising from radioactive, abandoned deserts is Rigoberto Úran, but that's pretty obvious, as he's the only guy on the team capable of riding a bicycle outside of that flat desert. The guy's a beast. Climbing and time trialing are nothing to his physical form. By sapping the strength of all of his teammates, he has been able to harness the life energy of ten beings and become one of the best stage racers in the division. A fair play I guess. It's worked. He has some minions too, although maybe combining them into a henchman might have been worth it.
There's also Ruben Zepuntke , who transferred in from T-Mobile a few weeks back. Safe to say he's as confused as anyone to be leading this team. Cobbles are his friend. People attacking on the cobbles are not. Unfortunately for him, people attack on the cobbles. It's kind of a thing. On the bright side his Belgian clone Niels Albert is already on the team, and manages to be almost the same guy but with less talent. Should be a fun year on the pave then. Some more minions are there as well, including De Haes, who after five years has actually morphed into a small, unintelligible, yellow cyborg, with his family suing to pull the plug.
The rest are just minions. Xavier Quevedo is the sad attempt at a lead punchuer. Damion Drapac and his intense fear of wheelchair ramp inclines leads the sprint team. There's a few TT guys, led by Reinhardt Janse van Rensburg, that could champion them to a top 15 in a C1 TTT, and all the honor that comes with it. Every little kid's dream is to be a part of something that special.
I feel like I haven't talked about this team enough compared to the others, and I apologize for that. In all honesty there's just too many useless minions on this team. I like big squads, but some of these guys, or creatures, or things, or whatever they are, don't deserve contracts. Even if Uran tries to use his superpowers to slow down the earth's rotation around the sun, there still aren't enough days in the year for him to score points. And he's their guy. Zepuntke is young and has some talent, but I'm not betting on him with his unwillingness to convert to a bicycle with gears that allow for change of speed. Beyond them, not much. But I guess when you call your teams minions, they can only serve one leader. I thought that leader was Uran. Maybe it's actually relegation.
Just waiting for an Italian WWII reference from bbl then?
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
Sure, they've failed to live up to promotion expectations in the past, but Japan failed to live up to expectations by losing World War II, and now they're a superpower again
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
Honestly, it's a miracle that Netia is still in this division. It seems like they've been trying to relegate for 3 years, but are so bad they couldn't even accomplish failure. Garbage trucks sometimes gets confused and dump their bags from the day in the team bus because the team is such utter trash.
Three times the charm I guess. Michal Kwiatkowski will lead them once again, and like everyone on this team, he gets a fat paycheck to do it. Half a million bucks for the 28 year old. He's a good climber/puncheur hybrid. A capable leader. But God, that contract is awful. If his wealth got partitioned like his country always does, he'd still be able to make millions of pizzas with all that dough. That said, he should be able to score in hilly/mountain combination stage races, like usual. He's got some hill support, but he'll be left alone and scared on longer climbs.
Oh wow! I see a "leader" in another terrain. It's Maxime Vantomme, the most basic possible sprinter in existence. I mean, he's fine, but I'm pretty sure every team besides my own in this division has a sprinter at least near his level. And you could probably buy two very slightly worse sprinters for that wage that will score more. But that's just my opinion. At least he has legend Kristian Sobota leading him out, because for some reason this Polish - Faroe team feels the need to hold quality Danish riders captive for years on end - just ask Mads Pederson as he gets trained in grotesque ways clearly against God's will.
The next two guys actually cause me pain to talk about. Norwegian champion Kristian Dyrnes gets a chance at leadership. Or at least, I assume he will? Gotta think Kwiakowski won't go to standard hilly classics, so Dyrnes it is. I like his rider type. Most years I'd be after him. But it's a little much to see the poor man's Juul-Jensen as a very, very rich man. In fact, twice as rich as him. 300k! Even if he pulls a complete 2017 JJ, it's not a great value.
But somehow it gets even worse with Lasse Norman Hansen. Despite similar riders making five figures, he is taking home a whopping 250k this season in order to top ten in a few prologues and win the annual 100m sprint from a standstill that I just made up. Ludicrous. It's as if Netia created an imaginary salary floor they had to hit and tried to get there as quickly as humanly possible. These insane contracts are long term issues, which no one seems to realize. They will be a cancer to negotiate down in renewals, especially for a team looking to cut down or sell off to fit in CT.
We have another dev team here. Dev teams are short sighted if they're going to relegate, which Netia are destined to do. Gonna be a lot of issues wage and space wise when all these guys max. They have the talents, but they may not have the means to make it work. Of course, I don't wish ill will towards any teams, but if their hands are tied by the time the next top Danish talent emerges... maybe it's just the world cleansing and restoring itself to rightful order.
Nordstrom - BioWare
Oh how the mighty have fallen. When I was a kid, Bioware were investing their money in things like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, one of the greatest game ever made. Today, they're investing it in crappy cycling teams partnered with a preppy department store. Worse betrayal than Bastilla turning to the dark side and joining Malak. I guess he was right about evil in the galaxy.
It seems like Nordstrom have fallen into the classic trap of playing PCM without any stages installed. Thus the hilly version of GP Plouay appeared to be the only race on the calendar. Having 97 punchers under contract would make sense in this case. Unfortunately, there are multiple terrains in professional cycling and across race categories this season. Compounding the problem is the method that the team is using to score results on the one terrain they can. Getting every puncher on the Star Forge can lead to competition for leadership, which is not always good. Laurent Pichon is their best puncher, at least in my eyes, as he has more all around skill without many weak spots. Alex Dowsett, on the other hand, may technically handle hills more efficiently, but is unlikely to score good results as consistently. Good luck getting him to take on a lesser role though. That infighting will hurt team morale and make it hard to really go for one guy. And then of course, there's 25 other punchers on the team capable of results who might just say screw it and try for themselves. More does not equal better, a lesson learned early but apparently not by all.
There are some secondary guys on other terrains that must have woken up on this team super confused and forgetting that they're not punchers. Unfortunately, none of them are as powerful as Revan after his amnesia. David de la Cruz is one of the best CT stage races not in CT, which is a shame. Never fun to have a guy that's supposedly good at everything, but just isn't good enough at pretty much all of them. Unless they plan on using him as a hills domestique, which is also a very distinct possibility.
Guillaume Boivin is a pretty fast sprinter, though not one of the best. He can make it over some hills, but I struggle to see what stages he'll make use of that. He's better than a lot of guys over climbs, but he's still going to be dropped most of the times it's selective, so it won't help him much. Plus he'll probably get dropped as his own team forgets he exists and does a team attack on the toughest part of the course. It's a bigger conflict of interest than when I used Zaalbar's life debt to make him slaughter his 14 year old best friend in front of me. I was dark side that playthrough, so it's fine...
Finally, there's Guillaume Van Keirsbulck, who has absolutely no chance in this division to do anything. The guy wouldn't even be the top lieutenant on some teams, and yet he's getting paid even more than overpaid Frederik freaking Nolf. At least he's Belgian cause that's on the same... uhhh… planet(?) as the sponsors? That's always important.
I guess it's a shame only five teams can relegate, cause so many more deserve it this year. Another team that wish they had a few better choices in upgrading their force abilities last transfer season. Could have gone a long way with leaders. Either way, Nordstrom will most certainly be relegating this season, whether they get the light or dark side ending.
Novatek-Panarmenian.net
Novatek have a lot of quality leaders, and those are hard to come by. I'm impressed. They're pretty old, but they know they're doing. Now, one thing I still need to find out is why a Russian team wants so many NATO leaders on their team, but let's move on before the KGB gets any ideas.
Dan Holloway has been at the top levels of the sport for a long time, and he returns for another season at Novatek. At first glance, he looks like the average sprinter at this level. But what that doesn't tell you is how he uses his engine before the sprint. The guy is a beast on flat roads the entire way, and uses that to make sure he has a lot of energy and the perfect wheel heading into the final sprint. I think the American will do really well at undermining the West's regime from the in... I mean, scoring points in the sprints. To keep an eye on him, I mean help him, is Russian Aleksandr Serebriakov. He's the perfect secondary sprinter on a solid wage, and can leadout out in the most important races.
On the hills, we see another top duo in Maurice Schreurs and Dominik Klemme. looks really good on paper, but they better try to keep their race days apart as much as possible, or their gonna have leadership problems just like Nordstrom. They're too similar to hope they sort it out imo. Both are veterans who think they can win at this level, even if a Klemme's attack actually slows down the rider in his slipstream. No super domestiques for them, just a bunch of guys ready to collect intel... I mean bottles. Yes, bottles. That's it.
They also have two of the most powerful time trialists in the division, which is really cool to see - both from Oceania. While Michael Ford is probably the slightly better pure time trialist, Jesse Sergent is the more useful rider. He's better able to utilize that time trial engine on the flats, which will be super useful for a sprinter like Holloway. Of course, he gets compensated for the utility with way too much money, although that insane raise is more on Compal than Novatek. They aren't as good as the very top guys in the division, so good luck to them trying to win races, but at least their strength against the clock will help them time missiles off the southern border... I mean score points, of course. Plenty of mines, I mean minor placings, will be had easily for them.
Their depth is not the best, but it's not really trying to be. A bunch of guys literally armed and ready to inject the serum in the target... or mark an attack, I should say, on any terrain. They signed plenty of new recruits for the upcoming season, and it will be interesting to see which ones end up as stars on the team, and which one's end up being edited out of official photographs.
That's about it for Novatek. No cobbles guys, as that would be too suspicious. A really strong team that definitely capitalizes on having strong leaders in most terrains, and that's the recipe for success. If they promote, which is likely, it should be really interesting to see which PT Russian team Putin will endorse next year, and which one will disappear at a "training" camp in Siberia.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ 
Kraftwerk Man Machine 
Kulczyk - DMTEX 
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam 
Meiji - JR East 
Minions 
Nordstrom - BioWare 
Novatek-Panarmenian.net 
