The 2016 route of Milano-San Remo is the longest around, 300.7 km. We gave it our best shot, protecting our two top puncheurs Hoem and Silva and keeping them at the front of the peloton as long as we can. Silva beat his team rival Hoem easily and made the top 25, he was 22nd. Hoem was 39th, Gougeard 41st. Silva's result was deemed notable by our sponsor, so it was a good race for us.
One rider was successful with a late attack, Fabian Cancellara. By AVG he's the best rider around, AVG 84, closest are Gilbert and Quintana with AVG 82. Cancellara attacked 30 km out and won with a solo ride, a minute ahead of the reduced peloton. The sprint for 2nd went to Kristoff, he beat Degenkolb, Sagan, Ciolek, GVA, Stybar, the rainbow jersey of Nizzolo, EBH and Demare.
Race squad: Bibby, Del Pino, Golem, Laengen, Lemesle, Pomoshnikov, Bruno Silva, Sütterlin
We only have 24 riders this season and thus can't be happy that the concurrent Criterium International is a goal race, when we also have Catalunya and the first WT northern classics on the menu. So we had to pull out some riders from Catalunya for the other races and only Bibby, Pomoshnikvo and Bruno Silva finished the race.
We still had a rider in the breakaway on every stage, but only once did it bring a tangible result, Pomoshikov was 5th on the final day. Which was a pretty good result, he was in a breakaway of 9 riders and the other 8 were definitely better: Caruso, Villella, De Marchi, Brajkovic, Brutt, Egoiz Garcia, Roy and Contador - who's also a breakaway king this season, this was the third time we faced him in an escape group.
Pomoshnikov was already in the breakaway on the first stage, with no success. Just like Bibby on stage 2, Del Pino on stage 3, Golem on stage 4, Bruno Silva on stage 5 and Bibby again on stage 6.
The Volta a Catalunya went to Quintana in convincing fashion, 2'43'' ahead of Froome, Pinot completed the podium. They were followed by Uran, Rolland, Rubiano, Rabottini, Velits, Brajkovic and Mollema. One meagre WT point for all that effort from our guys.
As you can see, report lengths will vary. In these first few months it's all about breakaways, most of which fail and even when they beat the peloton the competition is stiff. But that will change as riders improve over time, with our low wage budget we can invest in good trainers. We already have 7 trainers, one for each training type, all of them with 7/10 in their speciality, costing us 50k per month in total.
March 2016: Criterium International
**** goal: Stage Win
Race squad: Bolivar, Brown, Del Pino, Garby, Golem, Sütterlin
This was a 4-star goal we were bound to miss, I should have renegotiated it to a top 10 GC finish. A flat stage followed by an ITT followed by a mountain stage, breakaways need not apply. Sütterlin was 5th in the ITT, a decent result. And while there were a few riders we just couldn't beat on the last day, our 4 climbers all made the top 10. Del Pino was the strongest that day, finishing 4th, only behind Atapuma, our ex-rider Schmäh and Diego Rosa. Golem, Brown and Bolivar were 8th, 9th and 10th and those were their final GC positions, too.
So we easily made the top 10 in the GC. Should the Criterium International be a goal race again, I have to remember to change the goal to a GC result. Atapuma won ahead of Schmäh and Rosa.
Let's face it, our team cannot compete on cobblestones. There were no interesting riders for our wage budget last summer and there are so few WT northern classics races, so we didn't mind neglecting this one area. Next season we'll increase the squad size from 24 to the full 30 and will try and hire a few specialists for these races.
In the E3 Harelbeke, our riders were all dropped rather sooner than later. Our best performers were Wojtasik and Lasse Hansen, who finished 31st and 40th, 9'43'' behind the winner. Victory went to Peter Sagan, only GVA came close. Kristoff beat Degenkolb in the battle for 3rd, they were followed by Stybar, Terpstra, EBH, Turgot, Roelandts and Langeveld.
Edited by Ripley on 05-05-2019 07:43
Well, there was this one race where we had a tiny hope of making the top 10: Gent-Wevelgem. Somehow make it across the helligen in the top group and hope that less than 10 riders attack and fight for victory and the rest sit up while our man attacks. And there's only one rider in our squad who has any chance of making that happen, and even he's a long shot: Alexis Gougeard with his FLA 73 COB 65.
Despite protection from team mates he was dropped as the pace picked up in the hills. He didn't give up and with the sacrifice of his supporting crew made it back into the top group, which had reduced its tempo again. Gougeard made it across the Kemmelberg and the last hill in a big group of 39 riders. Soon after, two top favourites attacked, Stybar and Degenkolb. There was no immediate reaction from the group, a little later first Vanmarcke, then Kristoff took off. With 20 km to go and a half-full energy bar Gougeard tried his luck, just a short attack and then an effort of 72. Would the group remain passive and allow us an unexpected great result?
Our hopes were dashed when another round of attacks came from the group. Demare got away, he was followed by Debusschere and Farrar and the trio easily caught Gougeard. However, as luck would have it, Debusschere and Farrar are Stybar's team mates, so they weren't prepared to work - and neither was Demare, since Quickstep was in the majority. So with 8 km to go and only a little energy left, Gougeard took his heart in his hands, attacked again and gained 30 seconds while the others were swallowed by the group. Can he hold onto his great 5th place and not be outsprinted in the end? Yes he can! He arrives 20 seconds ahead of the group of 31 riders. Degenkolb wins the two-up sprint against Stybar, Vanmarcke is 27 seconds behind, Kristoff 65 seconds, Gougeard 5'14''. Behind him were Debusschere, Rojas, Farrar, GVK and Ciolek.
5th in a WT one-day race, a cobblestone race even, what a result! With 11 WT points we were at the bottom of the table, with these 30 points from Gougeard we climbed past Garmin, Europcar, Giant and Lampre. A very welcome result because we cannot expect much from the April races.
Well, I knew there was a slight chance for a top 10 finish. I've watched too many Gent-Wevelgem races played out, the captains attack and the rest go on strike. But even making the group with Gougeard's skillset was tough enough, I was certain he'd missed his opportunity. And that only 4 captains attack in the end, 5 counting Demare? 9th or 10th, that would have been a great result, but 5th is just crazy. Btw, I spoilered this result nearly two years ago in Ian Butler's Antonio Andolini story.
@croatia: I'm glad you appreciate my little revelation. I switched to PCM 17 soon after and played that for a year or so, before I remembered this challenge here. That's one reason it took so long.
@kiserlovski: Thanks, mate. I'm ashamed of my unformatted drivel, I really would have liked for my story to look more like yours, but I'm too lazy and too stupid.
Standings 1st of April 2016:
The current WT leader is John Degenkolb (190), who won Gent-Wevelgem, was 3rd in Milano-San Remo and 4th in the E3 Harelbeke. He's followed by Kristoff (170), who has a 2nd, 3rd and 4th place in the same races. Next is Froome (151), 2nd in Catalunya and 3rd Down Under. In the CQ rankings Gilbert (830) is ahead of Quintana (796) and Dan Martin (628).
Quickstep (520) leads the WT team rankings ahead of Movistar (484) and Katusha (365). Levefre's team also holds the top spot in the CQ rankings (3123), followed by BMC (2098) and Sky (1979). 17 wins so far for Quickstep, including 7 from Quintana and 5 from Phinney.
The biggest disappointments so far are Nibali (163k wage, just 1 WT pt from T-A), Cavendish (134k, no win in 20 RDs, 2 WT pts) and Valverde (132k, 9th P-N, 10th TDU). Also worth a mention: Tejay Van Garderen didn't find a team this season, by AVG he is #25 in the world.
In hindsight this was another race where we should have switched the goal from stage win to KOM. The first stage to Geraadsbergen was the toughest, with four cobbled hills and a dozen cat. 4s in total. Marc Goos was part of the breakaway and collected 51 KOM points, which were enough to win the classification. As we've seen so often so far and will see more of in the near future, Goos nearly made it to the finish line ahead of the favourites, but not quite. He was caught by a group of 10 riders and, exhausted, finished 11th. Taylor Phinney won the stage and went on to win the race, too.
A day later Bettencourt got his day in court (haha), he collected 30 KOM points and finished 2nd overall in the classification. But with a long flat stretch in the finale the peloton caught him and the rest of the group well before the finale. On a completely flat stage 3 the breakaway made it, and it included our best sprinter, Franczak. But sadly, he was unable to follow the late attacks from the the Dutch riders in the group, Goesinnen and Duyn, and only won the sprint for 3rd place, 31'' behind. Let's face it, probably a mistake from the directeur sportif, Franczak should have been able to win the stage.
So we got the KOM jersey and we even got two riders in the final top 10, Goos finished 7th, neo-pro Jan Bo Meinert 8th, two goals we would have achieved, but we failed in securing a stage, which is what the sponsor actually asked for. The top 10: Phinney, Gaudin, GVK, Gusev, Senechal, Nuyens, Goos, Meinert, Cornu, Drucker. That's the 8th victory this season for Phinney, after he also won the ITT on the final day. The time trial specialist will double that total until the end of the season and become the most victorious rider of the year.
Racing below WT level is so much easier, especially if all that is required is a top 10 result. We were pretty sure Franczak would be able to achieve that, so we tried to do one better. Goos used the last little lump on this generally flat course for a late attack, just as the breakaway was caught, and he managed to solo to victory. Franczak added a 5th place with his sprint, all our other riders were in the top 20. That's the second win of the season for Aviva Cycling after Hoem's stage in T-A.
Edited by Ripley on 07-05-2019 07:05
The nominal favourite for cobblestone races and defending Ronde and Roubaix champion Cancellara decided against defending his titles, he'll be riding the Basque Country Tour instead.
After the success in Gent-Wevelgem we again threw all our support behind Gougeard and he repaid us with an impressive 14th place. Granted, he was 7 minutes behind the top 10 and 14 minutes behind the winner, but I can keep my mouth shut if you can.
The Ronde 2016 went to Peter Sagan. He had plenty of time to celebrate his victory, he arrived alone, 1'32'' ahead of a trio of riders. Degenkolb won the sprint for 2nd, he beat Terpstra and Vanmarcke. Boasson Hagen and Breschel were 5th and 6th, with a gap of 3'03''. Kristoff was next, exactly 4 minutes behind, the rest of the top 10, Turgot, Langeveld and Nuyens, were 7'05'' behind.
@croatia: Having finished this season long ago allows me to foreshadow a little and I'll reveal that Goos still has his most important result of the season ahead of him. That's not true of Gougeard, but of course it's tough to beat his fantastic Gent-Wevelgem.
@kiserlovski: Thanks, mate. I'm ashamed of my unformatted drivel, I really would have liked for my story to look more like yours, but I'm too lazy and too stupid.
Don't worry, it's perfectly fine as it is right now.
Congrats on very nice results in De Panne, Limburg and RvV, curious to learn more about Goos' other results.
For Aviva the Vuelta al Pais Vasco was pretty similar to the Volta a Catalunya. With two minor differences: While we didn't even get a single WT point out of this race, we did get the mountain jersey. It went to Pomoshnikov and he collected his 26 points all on stage 1. He seems a safe choice for the early breakaway of a hilly opening stage, with his AVG 70 he isn't threatening, but his HIL 74 isn't terrible, either.
He seemed to have a shot at winning the stage, he was the best of the breakaway riders and dropped his opponents Kolobnev, Geschke, Battaglin and Gatto. But he was outsprinted in the final kilometre and finished 8th. We got even closer to a WT point on stage 5 with Hoem, who finished 6th. In this case, the breakaway just held off the peloton, or rather, Castroviejo won the stage ahead of Degand and Chavez, but Hoem was overtaken by Betancur and Gilbert in the last 500 metres.
Silva was in action a day earlier, and once more Contador snuck into the breakaway. Disappointingly, Silva couldn't hold on in the finale, Contador won the stage ahead of Devenyns, Gorka Izagirre, De Clerq and Tony Martin. Silva finished 1'23'' behind as 12th, overtaken by Uran, Dan Martin, Rui Costa, Betancur, Froome and Pinot.
So even having our two top riders in breakaways that succeeded, we haven't got a WT point to show for it, let alone the important stage win the sponsor was hoping for.
Cancellara's decision to visit the Basque Country wasn't completely unsuccessful, he won the first and last stage and wore the leader's jersey for a day. Stage 3 finished with a tough climb, the Arrate, and Uran won 20'' ahead of Dan Martin, Rui Costa and Kreuziger were 34'' behind, Spilak 53''. Everybody else lost at least 1'30''.
Stage 4 produced similar gaps, the stage went to the breakaway, but further behind Uran and Dan Martin gained time on their rivals, Costa and Froome were 18'' behind, Pinot and Nibali 30'', the rest 49''. The ITT (simulated, like all TTs) on the last day only produced small gaps and hardly changed the GC. FDJ's top earner Uran wins the Vuelta al Pais Vasco 25'' seconds ahead of Dan Martin and 40'' ahead of Rui Costa. They were followed by Kreuziger, Froome, Spilak, Dennis, Nibali, Pinot and Ion Izagirre, the best Spanish and Basque rider this year was 2'20'' behind the winner Uran.
Hoem had been able to conserve enough energy to set a high pace on the final three walls and was relieved to see that his opponents fell off one by one on the first of these climbs. But at the same time the attacks from the peloton started, by Ulissi, Dan Martin, Kreuziger, Kwiatkowski and many more and they got worryingly close. But Hoem had the energy to finish it off, winning by 49 seconds ahead of Dan Martin, Kreuziger and Rubiano. What an exciting stage, and it ends with our first World Tour victory, plus a 5-star goal!
Thats what we like to see.
Sorry to ask this, cant help myself: If you are afraid to overperform, why not play on EXTREME
Yeah, that was a great stage, nailbiting from start to finish, a reason I still play PCM after so many years and seasons.
As for extreme, I think I have to make the change starting with the next career. But I do have three counter points:
- I don't think it will help with the most problematic races.
- The wage restriction of this career is my own "solution", my own added difficulty level.
- Last but not least, I like to overperform because it makes me feel clever.
It was an absolutely brutal edition of Paris-Roubaix. Aviva may have even played a part in that, causing a first selection in the first sectors. But it was mayhem from there. Gougeard had to ride the final 120 km all on his own, he finished 45th, 32'47'' behind the winner, our only rider to make the time cut. In fact, just 52 riders made it to the finish line in time.
The reason for the high pace was basically Quickstep and the fact that their whole team was ahead, while after the first splits Sagan was losing minutes in the peloton without much support. Quickstep just pushed on and on, dropping riders left and right, including some of their own team mates, but like a hydra they always still had plenty of riders leading the top group.
But eventually, everybody was on his own. Quickstep's plan worked and Van Avermaet won the race 29'' ahead of Vanmarcke, Degenkolb was 1'44'' behind. Next came Roelandts with a gap of 4'51'', then Chainel, 5'53'', Kristoff was 6th, 6'36'', and only then came Sagan in a group with EBH, Thomas and Turgot, 7'01'' down. The largest group to finish the race consisted of just 13 riders, 12'04'' behind, and included Trek's captain Demare.
From Aviva's standpoint, this was not the worst result of the season, believe it or not. You won't have to wait long for the lowest point of the season, of the whole career, I'm pretty sure.
great for the rankings as well!
