Disagree with a lot of the Netia analysis - but some valid wage points again And I do agree with most of what you said about Nordstrom - I'm firmly in the Dowsett will send them down camp
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
jandal7 wrote:
Disagree with a lot of the Netia analysis - but some valid wage points again And I do agree with most of what you said about Nordstrom - I'm firmly in the Dowsett will send them down camp
Hey, feel free to disagree. I'd like to hear you thoughts. I just have issues with a team literally trying to cause wage inflation.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
You're just jealous because we have the two coolest Danish riders. Explains why you were so harsh on Lasse as well, who deserves that much and more. <3
Gotta love a team that makes my life even more difficult by literally putting the wrong division in their team name. And unfortunately, their team is actually pretty good, so there's not much I can do to imply they'll relegate for it. I was very confused when I first looked at this team in the DB because I had accidentally scrolled past the top 3 riders on the team, and so I thought I had found the truly worst team I've ever seen in my life. I was so excited. I was gonna tear into them so hard. Turns out they had to actually have leaders though to ruin my day.
The best rider on their team overall is very unique, which should be really... interesting. Lahcen Saber is as good as most top sprinters in the division, but also has a lot of talent on cobbles. He's like a very poor man's Kristoff. Certainly this is an awesome rider to have. I reckon on easier cobbled races he'd be a favorite. However, I think this will also make planning very difficult. With his limited race days, do they send him to sprinters races, or cobbled races? Is there a perfect middle ground? Can he race enough under MGUCI restrictions to make this skillset worth it? I certainly hope so. I love to see guys like this succeed. Or achieve catastrophic failure to the point of misery. One of the two. They don't have a top classics guy or sprinter to overshadow him, so I reckon they're counting on him for both. If he can't, a guy like Alexander Krieger or Remco Te Brake will have to step up, but there's no stairs in front them, that's for sure.
Alright, now that my figurative boner has died down for Saber, let's get on to roasting more overpaid dirt. Sergio Luis Henao Montoya not only has too many names, but has an incessant fear of hills and time trials as well. Teams have tried everything to help him. They've had him ride blindfolded so he can't tell if a climb is under 5km. Nothing seems to work. The idea that a climb is short seems to scare him for some bizarre, unknown reason. Unfortunately, climbs come in all shapes and sizes. We practice diversity and climb type positivity in MG. It's 2018! At least a guy like Jarlinson Pantano should be good support for him, as they can hold hands and cry about their fear of speed bumps together.
Rui Costa, on the other hand, has far more variety in his skill set. His main act is as a puncheur, but he can also time trial pretty well, and even doesn't sprint terribly towards the line. A well rounded, great rider to have on time team. he should score plenty in those hills/TT stage races. Ramunas Navardauskus has a very similar mold, and should be able to help the cause. I like how the domestiques on this team often have similar characteristics to the leader. It should lead to some great team chemistry, efficient scoring, and homoerotic undertones on the team bus.
The depth is also pretty good on this team, though not having a true four headed leadership is a missed opportunity for a team with Philips in the name. Like a screwdriver though, most of the helpers on this team are efficient and help get the job done easier. Most guys who aren't great are young talents, with some notable exceptions. It's important to note that some of those talents are on loan and have zero future with the team, but I digress.
Philips surely is not a CT team. A few unique and solid leaders who should score well, with good depth behind them. That's a recipe for success. The oldest recipe in the book. Anybody could do it. Common sense really. Like it can't possibly be that fricking hard to just do that, but so many team are loads of crap instead... Anyway, Philips have a really good team that I think will fight for promotion. Saber's planning and success will determine if they get there or end up stranded in mid table no man's land.
Probable Admission
The team, all names, sponsors, and attributes portrayed in this preview are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. No person or entity associated with this article received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement, in connection with the depiction of doping products. No bicycles were harmed in the making of this analysis.
I have been informed there are some topics I am not allowed to discuss under fear of prosecution, so instead I will give a mock preview of this completely unrelated and fictional team I just made up.
Pandomnium Ambivalence are a very interesting team, hailing from their home region of Mars. By far the best rider on the team is Callus Ewwwwww, a terrific young sprinter who is just now reaching his full potential. He's super talented. In the real world, he would be one of the best in the PCT division, challenging guys like Degenkolb for the top results. Very few weak spots for him as a guy who can get over both hills and cobbles if necessary. His partner in crime, Rocky Noodles is also an awesome sprinter and would be the top leadout man in the division, provided there are no false flats involved.
In this team's theoretical and unlived past, they were very good at cobbled classics. Deranged Thompson has been a mainstay in my fan fiction for a while, although he's getting older. He combines success over the cobbles with a terrific burst of speed usually unmatched in such selective races. Though he prefers his road flattened to at least 125 grit. His partner in crime is former beast but now sad old man, Marvin Burgerlord. He could still fly over the cobbles for a bit, but these long, competitive races are starting to get to him. Not that he's gonna mind the 300k he gets for them in my imagination.
For stage races, the team have employed Andruuw Tellastory as their leader. He's not the best climber in the division, but he's versatile on climbs and doesn't have a terrible time trial. He can hold his own without much help in hope of getting some solid points. Similarly, Sermon Yeet, the team's top puncheur, makes up for his inability to match the top punchers with his intangible skills, rapid acceleration, and very solid sprint, making him a favorite whenever he can hang on. His friend Juulio Alt-F4, is almost a lesser carbon copy, so that would be his main help along the way.
However, besides their top sprinter, nobody in the mythical Premium Abomination team are really top leaders. They rely on minor points and planning their supposed calendar well in order to score. Unfortunately, as fun as it is to dream up these unreal scenarios, the hypothetical manager of this team would probably be too absent to make that work and make it all worth it. Without amazing depth, leaders, or the motivation to plan perfectly, they probably wouldn't compete that well.
Overall, Possible Abduction is a pretty terrible team with a few bright spots, that would most definitely relegate if put into this year's PCT division. For that reason, it's a good thing they are utterly and completely fake.
Repsol - Netflix
Repsol are a team that focuses on climbing. That's a given. Whether it's long mountains or short, steep hills, this team has a lot of guys willing to take on the challenge.
For stage races, Merhawi Kudus has gotten a contract so fat that it jumped Eritrea's GDP per capita by 20 spots in the world ranking. While he hides cash under his saddle, the team hopes he will be competing for top places in stage races. Kudus can climb really well and can keep the gap to just barely insurmountable on his TT bike. His helper, Jakub Novak actually likes his aero form, constantly posing with it in the mirror, but last time I checked we don't do duo TT's in stage races, so Valens Ndayisenga might actually end up being the more useful super domestique.
The Spanish squad that apparently hate Spaniards will be led on the hills by Sven Erik Bystrom, or at least I think they will? There's like a dozen guys on this team who theoretically could lead, but all of them have pretty big flaws and probably couldn't do it well. So they go for the Soviet strategy instead and will just throw more riders at the climbs until somebody gets a result on a good day. Duchesne, Barrio, and Levarlet will be the main forces toward advanced mediocrity there.
Of course, Repsol have not forgot about other terrains. Jurgen Roelandts is a very capable sprinter in this division, who would really benefit from even just one other mother*cking rider who has a top speed faster than a Lusitanian Slug. The guy is probably wondering where his signing bonus accounts for the 8 riders he's supposed to ride in place of on every flat stage.
Likewise, new import Sep Vanmarcke is a capable cobbled classics specialist in a division where "capable" simply isn't good enough to win races anymore. He'll score, but probably not much since nobody else on the team seems to have seen a cobblestone in their entire meaningless existence. I mean, there's Fabien Taillefour, who loves the rhetorical idea of cobbles, but goes into a catatonic fetal position when he realizes the stones protrude as tiny inclines in the road.
So this leaves me with the question, where are all the Spanish riders? I mean, I'm told this is a Spanish team. I didn't follow CT that closely, but, damn. Spanish riders are not an uncommon entity. I mean, there has to be somebody that fit the mold a little better than the guys they signed. Hey, I get it, not every team has a big regional focus. But still, having the rotting corpse of Luis Leon Sanchez as the main representative of your home nation is embarrassing and also smells really bad.
Repsol has revamped their entire roster after promoting, and that's admirable. Sure, they forgot that not supporting leaders on some terrains to the point that they don't even have water carriers can be an issue. Deaths from dehydration can lead to some nasty lawsuits, believe me. But as long as they have the money to deal with that, I think they have enough talent to maybe stay up - in the division, and in the MG competition for most inefficient diffusion of talent.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
I was holding back from commenting till you posted about us, but I've been reading everything before this too...
Firstly, great job with the previews. Your analogies and puns are on point and I don't think I've laughed so much reading any set of previews before
Coming to my team, mostly agree with what you said although I'm not very confident about fighting for promotion because not just Saber, I'm finding it a bit difficult to predict what any of my three leaders will achieve. It'll be fine margins with the competition in the PCT this season. And more than anything, I hate not having a cobbles leader because of how the transfer season went. Would've freed up Saber for more sprint stages, because as you rightly said, Krieger and Te Brake don't really have a 4th gear!
And don't worry, we keep domestiques away from their leaders on the team bus to prevent any funny business
Now, talking about my team. The lack of more Spanish riders is simply that there weren't good Spanish FA, and all end up very overpriced. Tried to sign De La Cruz as secondary stage race, he ended up in 400k. Had to sell Valls because i needed both money and wage cap. All the Spanish talents prices were so high, that it would be easier to get German talents from Puma than battle with Mre and LLS
Made big bids for both Madrazo and Tenorio, but the first one wasn't accepted and i was overbidded for Tenorio to the point i couldn't bid more. I also tried something for Marquez. Intxausti and Abal were never in my plans given both are 32 and both are climbers that hate hills. Probably not the best rider to make a huge investment
The only Spanish cobbler is Altur, who happens to be in a Spanish team who also just trained him to 81 cobbler, so it was an impossible mission to sign him.
The only good sprinter is Guerao, who is in a team that put all their goals thinking of him, so another no chance.
Then Hugo Boss manager missing the first part of transfers made me impossible to buy them riders as i had planned, and by the time they were active in transfers, my team was sealed.
And what was left were crappy domestiques i wasn't interested even if they were Spanish. Anyone, for next year it's something to improve, to have around 8-10 Spanish riders in the team. Roson and Rodriguez next year will be close to max and will be already 2 great domestiques, and if Euskaltel ends up relegating as everyone predicts, they might free some Spanish riders
Thanks so much to everyone who's read and complimented these previews! They've taken longer than I expected and I've stayed up very late to finish them, but I'm having a blast and I hope you are too! Only a few left.
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Coming to my team, mostly agree with what you said although I'm not very confident about fighting for promotion because not just Saber, I'm finding it a bit difficult to predict what any of my three leaders will achieve. It'll be fine margins with the competition in the PCT this season. And more than anything, I hate not having a cobbles leader because of how the transfer season went. Would've freed up Saber for more sprint stages, because as you rightly said, Krieger and Te Brake don't really have a 4th gear!
Yeah, I can see that. Like I said, not having leaders on those terrains is risky. But given how many teams have ignored terrains even when they have mediocre leaders at best, I think you'll be fine, cause at least you have a couple of known point scorers to fall back on.
Aquarius 97 wrote:
And what was left were crappy domestiques i wasn't interested even if they were Spanish. Anyone, for next year it's something to improve, to have around 8-10 Spanish riders in the team. Roson and Rodriguez next year will be close to max and will be already 2 great domestiques, and if Euskaltel ends up relegating as everyone predicts, they might free some Spanish riders
No need to explain man. I see your struggle. You've built a team with what you have and what made sense. When the top guys of your country are so good that everyone wants them, it's impossible to land who you want. I mostly included that bit so I could make the LLS joke. I wanted to make a further joke regarding it too, but it was 3 am and I couldn't think of anything.
I'm not sure if it's a good sign or a bad sign, but SPAR apparently need three title sponsors in order to fund their team. It's a big budget project, with a lot of pure talent. Unfortunately, nobody has ever told any of those talented riders how to pedal at different speeds, a trend that could hurt them in every area this year.
Austrian arch-duke Stefan Denifl leads the team in the stage races. When you see him climbing, you'd think he was an all time great. His legs are capable of so much on the climbs. The one thing they aren't capable of is changing speeds. Word has it that his butthole actually has cement screws binding it to his saddle, and we'd never know any different since he's gone decades never getting out of it. Regardless, he should be around at every race he's in, and has decent support. But sometimes you need to actually try to make a gap in order to get a gap or avoid Serbian bullets, and apparently he's still unaware at 31.
In a bizarre twist, their main sprinter also has issues accelerating. Óscar Guerao is one the fastest in the peloton when it comes to the finish, and he only needs ten leadout men to get him up to speed. His top speed is crazy, though most of the time you'd never know it because he causes blocks guys his response to his opponents launch literally just blocks the road. With a pace lap or two he's pretty good, and he'll be able to score, as he's shown in the past, but well below potential. Oh yeah, and he loves long stage races, but gets tired in the slipstream of a local toddler's tricycle. I don't know either.
The team have a new duo on the cobbles, as sprinter/cobbles mix Alexandr Nepomnyachsniy is joined by hills/cobbles mix Tom David from Festina. Despite having a name so convoluted that even seeing it offends me personally, Nepo is very useful for easier cobbles races, though I've noticed a lot more guys like him as I've been previewing. David on the other hand can hold his own as a puncher, and should be good for hillier cobbled races. Neither of them are great favorite for the classics, but both are versatile outsiders when they need to be. It will be interesting to see if that strategy pays off.
Pello Bilbao is a very solid lead puncher with solid support, so he should score nicely if not brilliantly. His kick is actually pretty much as good as any sprinter on the team, which is kind of sad cause it's not that amazing. Matthias Brändle is also worth a note. Not only is he an awesome time trialist, but he's a pretty good climber that could lead well in a few select places depending on planning. Unfortunately, he suffers from the fixed gear syndrome that seems to spread like the plague through this squad, so he'll hope to win as the tortoise rather than the hare.
Other than that, they have some really versatile depth guys that may not be super domestiques, but can help in a lot of different races. They also have a small assortment of young talent, led by Yevgeniy Gidich, who definitely forged his birth certificate and is actually 31 years old with a wife and kids. But I digress. His insane salary is a crutch for this year, but will be worth it if he improves on schedule.
Regardless of their money hungry sponsorship deals, SPAR - Shimano - SCG - *Insert more companies starting with S* are a pretty good team. They have unique leaders who should score pretty well, and the team is built well up and down. If it was not for the fatal flaw of needing to literally be towed to high speeds, they would be sure fire promoters. But unfortunately, their competitors won't need knives and daggers to kill their leaders with attacks, so they will underperform their potential.
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
In the worst slavery ring since KONY 2012, Aleksandr Pluchkin has apparently captured and forced dozens of innocent Ukrainians to act as his personal soldiers in PCT this year. Many have never even seen a bike let alone ridden one, but not they will be guiding the Moldovan giant across his four race day schedule this season in the second division.
The story is very sad. Pluchkin, a former multi GT winner and world champion, is well above the stage racing competition in this division. So far above that almost all of his skills are superior to the next guy. Unfortunately, so is his pay grade. With no money to spend on other riders, Team Popo4ever - whose namesake apparently is not "4ever" on the team as he is actually retired - have resorted to abducting Eastern European youth and falsifying their birth certificates to be eligible to races. In America, we call this cruel and unusual punishment. At the team HQ, it's called "resource management."
Pluchkin does have a few notable helpers. Yevgeni Nepomnyachsniy (I don't know they're on two consecutive teams), Pluchkin's favorite toy, is a very adequate stage racer in his own right, and might be the only other guy that has a chance to lead on the terrain, do to his very balanced climbing/TT skills. Paolo Scarponi, Artem Topchanyuk, Mykhaylo Kononenko, Volodymyr Dzhus, and Adrian Nitu are the other capable guys who have given up their worldly possessions and bodily autonomy to devote themselves to their lord and savior Pluchking.
Holding over from before the Pluchkin cult is Oleksandr Prevar, who is a mid tier puncher leader at the very best, and with nothing setting him apart is likely actually worse. In exchange for drinking the Kool-Aid, he should be given the right to use some of his deity's domestiques, since he has been afforded none of his own. The top sprinter is Maciej Ulanowski, whose only motivation to sprint is to get to the finish faster, otherwise the hills, pace, or will of his holiness Pluchkin might force him to collapse on the side of the road. Oleksandr Golovash is a time trialist. Not one of the best, but should guarantee that the emperor never has to face the cold wind in his face in a TTT.
It's a sad tale indeed. A team hijacked by the pride of one man, risen to the level of immortal over his poor, helpless followers. Their roles reduced to a state of subhuman, with only one goal. Without any other attempt at scoring, will Pluchkin be able to carry them to promotion? No, clearly not. He can barely race, even if he wins every single one. And there's only one of him. Do I think the first ever double relegation in the history of MG is likely? No, probably not. Am I rooting for it? I wanna say no, but hell yeah. I want someone to prove once and for all that you can have a one leader team to succeed in this game, and it would be hilarious to see that happen to the same team not once, but twice.
Team Reddit
I browse Reddit daily, I'll admit. I enjoy the platform it allows. However, there's clearly a disconnect between the atmosphere of the website and its revenue. Last time I checked, Reddit was mainly funded by community donations and sponsorships. Apparently they're not funding Reddit at all, but overpaid cyclists on an anonymous MG team. Is that... ethical? You be the judge.
The team's crowned jewel is Alexey Lutsenko, and he's really good. He's an awesome puncher overall, but his real talent is the speed of his attack. He has been known to beat cars in short drag races with his acceleration, and his kick could split a mountain in half. This puts him at a significant advantage against guys with a similar skillset. Plus, he's only 26 years old, so he'll be doing this for a long time. Now, the bad. His contract is for 1,050,000 big ones this season. Yes, you counted that correctly. Over 1 mil for this guy. You'd think he was Jesus Christ riding his bike over the Sea of Galilee for that kind of money. He's an investment, and maybe they can get that salary down a little in the future, but especially if he's successful, I doubt it. For now, it's crippling the ambitions of the team.
Marlen Zmorka is the next leader on the time, in the time trials. Yes, he's very talented, and again, he's very young at only 25, but the PCT division is just so saturated with top time trialists this year. Wins will be few and far between I reckon, despite his skill. His comparative lack of climbing ability will hurt him in hilly TT's against the likes of Coppel and such, and he's effectively completely useless in any other role. I'm not saying he's bad, but when that's your second best leader, you need to consider some budget reallocation. At least he'll have a solid TTT squad behind him that could get some results, though again, those guys have a lack of versatility and ambition even surpassing simple things like staplers and my inner sorrow.
And that's where the party dies. Cameron Meyer is one of those sprinters that can't get up to his top speed too fast, but when he gets there he's... still below average. So basically, he sucks at his job overall, but is also especially bad at some parts of it. A great role model. And yeah, he's their only lead sprinter. Andrea Manfredi is theoretically their leader for mountains, but... come on. He would be better off ditching cycling for rock climbing because going directly up mountains with no other obstacles or people around is literally the only thing he's somewhat good at... and he's still way, way, waaaaaaaaay below the best at that.
At least there's some hope in other parts of the squad, including some useful depth guys and young talents. Lucas Manuel Gaday is a bright spot for the future. he's their top classics rider, and while he probably won't score much this year, he should be very good in the future with his diverse abilities in cobbles, hills, and sprints. Of course, that's if he ever gets there at all, since he needs to experience the top end of the sport, and is instead stuck on a mid table hopeful pro continental team. Yikes. Tick-Tock goes the internal clocks, both for his development and frustration with management. At least he'll collect a whopping 280k for his troubles.
This team relies on one guy, and that's Lutsenko. What's there not to like about Lutsenko? He's young, talented, and should even overperform given that his attacks send sparks flying behind him. Well, there's over 1 million dollars of wage cap, and frankly, that's what I don't like about him. Counting on one guy is bad. Counting on one guy who isn't far and away the most dominant of his rider type is even worse. Way, way worse. Without a ton of luck, looks like Team Reddit with be relegating off the front page of r/all. Unsubbed.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
It's been quite the roller coaster at the World Cycling Centre. After starting as a bottom of the barrel youth development team late in transfer 2016, they shot up the rankings to win the CT title last season. This season, they've promoted, and as a response, they've consciously decided to go back to being a development team for young talents... without young riders. Okay, that's not super fair, as many are out on loan, but still. Not much youth in the team, and not much talent either. I guess this is the part where the roller coaster goes underground?
Of course, it's not all ugly. David Boily leads the team again with his strange combination of mountain and hills. He's not a top puncher, and not a top climber. But in races where both are necessary, he can take advantage of the one dimensional attitudes of his rivals. The Canadian version of Kwiatek isn't nearly as appealing, but with good race selection he at least should score consistently. Additionally, he no longer has to be a top climber, because two big stage racers join the team.
"Big" for lack of a better term at least, because neither Natnael Berhane nord Jianhua Ji will be "big" in terms of scoring. First off, they are almost exactly the same rider - great pure climbers that can handle shorter hills too, but don't know where aero bars go on a TT bike and hit the snooze button instead of responding to attacks. Berhane is clearly the better of the two by a small margin, but in effect, they serve the same role. The formula of having two weaker GC guys when you miss out on the big one make sense, but it falls apart when they fill the exact same niche. Where are all these race days coming from? There are simply not enough pure mountain races on the circuit to make both of them viable. Chances are they will take turns leading while the other ones gets some snacks from the team car.
Carlos Betancourt has raw talent on the hills, and can compete near the top when he's on form. When being the key word. Last year he came into the year fat from partying all winter, like always, leading to what would be an extremely disappointing season. Minions actually staged a ceremonial sacrifice of his bike with some cannibalism on the side because of their immense hatred for him. At least with Boily around, he'll be able to pick his races better and really maximize scoring. It just proves this team is so fricking weird that rider diversity is their biggest strength in one discipline, and yet they completely ignored it in another.
Next, we move onto flat roads. Bumpy flat roads at least. Robert Bush is a cobbles specialist who can also sprint. Sam Harrison is a sprinter that can ride cobbles. What do they have in common? Well, they're both from Anglo countries. They both ride for WCC. And one last thing... that's right! They both don't have a hint of a chance of scoring as leaders in PCT. They're a nice duo that complement each other well, but there are simply too many similar rider types who are as good in the division, and too many guys that can win from pure strength on the cobbles. They'll get some minor placings if they're lucky, but don't look for repeats of last year in CT.
To make matters worse, Harrison also now has absolutely zero chance of performing in normal sprints. So, to complement him, the pure sprinters will need to stick around after the hills more than before. Jaime Alberto Castañeda is the faster one on paper, though Saulo Lay has the better kick, at least when he's able to overcome his fear of height more than 5m above sea level.
While WCC don't have many of their youngsters riding for them this season, which makes their status as the world's development team kind of strange, they are young. Most of their main leaders and role guys are in their mid to late 20's, and their depth guys are versatile and useful all over the calendar, so at least they do have a really big base to build on, though seeing as their national focus in anywhere but Europe (which would offend me if I was a stupid European), not sure where that base would be built.
World Cycling Centre spell their name differently than I would, but I'm willing to let that slide. What I can't slide is the blatant inconsistency in building of this team. The same team that managed to have two very different punchers who can complement each other across the calendar for only 430k has has two identical 3rd tier climbers for 625k. Combine that with sub par sprinters, no time trialists, and CT level cobblers, and you have issues. I love the unique rider types on this team for they are. They're fun. It will be a fun team to watch, though not sure about they're chances to avoid relegation. With riders like these and no clear game plan, it will all come down to race planning. Hopefully the smart side of the team's construction comes out there, for their sake.
Xero Racing p/b Octagon
Xero Racing? More like Zero Racing, cause that's how many points they're gonna score. Get it? Ha! I did it! I'm so glad I'm the first person to make that joke. We'll just skip over the fact that somehow an Octagon is powering this team. Powering what exactly, I don't know. Their riders sure seem to be out of power a lot.
I cannot even bring myself to properly express how bad this team would be if Peter Velits did not fall into their hands with a little pink bow in his hair. But he did, and what a gift he is. One of the top GC guys in the division - a fantastic climber with a good TT, good rhythm and good endurance. His drawback is that in his advanced age, he sees attacking as a petty and disrespectful antic of those damn kids. Therefore, refuses to participate. Seriously though, He might single handedly save this team, even with his flaws. The fact that the team could have very possibly been constructed without him is an astonishing show of bravery and stupidity. George Bennett will be his top helper on the climbs, and may get chances for himself too, with Abolfazl Gilanipoor also worth a mention... at least on this team.
Next we have the sprinters - two guys with below average speed for leaders who try to make it up in other ways. Luke Rowe is a flat beast who can ride cobbles well too, and uses that adaptable nature to score when he probably shouldn't. Similarly, Tosh Van der Sande excels in long, grueling stages, and ca make it over hills, although not to the extent where is could really make him a favorite on any given stage. The latter especially is very overpaid, and planning alone with not be enough to save the duo's scoring. The fields will just be too strong unless they actually take out half the sprinters against them, but the MGUCI has a xero tolerance policy towards that kind of thing.
After those guys, the drop off is insane. And I know what you're thinking: but bbl, you've only mentioned a full guys and all but one are below average anyway! And yes, they are. That's why I said it was crazy this team could have been in PCT without Velits. I had to dig deeper than ever before to make this preview enough paragraphs to not feel bad about my effort level.
Anthony Roux is one of the worst puncher leaders in the division. Originally I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt because he loves to attack and he's young. Then I realized it's not 2011 anymore and the dude is 31 years old, so there goes that bargaining. Mekseb Debesay is a guy to look for in the coming years. He can ride hilly and cobbled classics well, and has a great acceleration, but the fact is he won't score much yet this year. You can try to go down further to a TT/hilly combo guy like Stanislau Bazhkou, but I mean, come on now. We're really grasping at straws here. I'm just saying names hoping they'll mean something at this point. I'd eat my own chain ring if any of these guys score more than an undisclosed amount of points I can make up after the fact.
Wow, this team is bad. Really bad. They won't score zero points, though they may deserve to. Velits will make sure of that. Falling into their hands for an insanely little amount late on in the transfer season. And yet even with a gift big enough for every childhood Christmas combined, the team still sucks. It's uncanny. Looks like they should be an amateur team with a bigger budget. Relegation here they come. Xero/10.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Wow, you hated my team Absolutely loved every sentence of it though, except you going after Roux. Come on now My personal favourite was:
The fact that the team could have very possibly been constructed without him is an astonishing show of bravery and stupidity
Thanks for a really entertaining preview bbl, great work. Chapeau!
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
baseballlover312 wrote:
Minions actually staged a ceremonial sacrifice of his bike with some cannibalism on the side because of their immense hatred for him.
Xero Racing? More like Zero Racing, cause that's how many points they're gonna score. Get it? Ha! I did it! I'm so glad I'm the first person to make that joke. We'll just skip over the fact that somehow an Octagon is powering this team. Powering what exactly, I don't know,maybe it's the shape of their wheels.
Fixed that first paragraph for you can't believe you setup that joke and didn't roll with it, maybe that's because the octagon's don't roll?
Welp, that's all I got guys! No rankings for me, as I actually have very little objective idea of where everyone will finish, as you can probably tell.
Thanks so much for reading, and I hope it was something most of you enjoyed and got a few laughs or screams out of.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
And I do agree with most of what you said about Nordstrom - I'm firmly in the Dowsett will send them down camp 
Explains why you were so harsh on Lasse as well, who deserves that much and more. <3
Philips - Continental 
Probable Admission 
Repsol - Netflix 
SPAR – Shimano – SCG 
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff 
Team Reddit 
World Cycling Centre 
Xero Racing p/b Octagon 
My personal favourite was: 
