@ashishek Coulda made it even better if you weren't such a scrudge but indeed, I decided to go for it this year.
@sammy you still got time, I'll sell you Intxausti for 2 mil
@Eden dont forget Valls too! Eastman's got nothing on Intxausti mate.
@knockout I am quite unfaithful to the Evonik™️ way of building a team, but I guess that's the only way the mighty Balts can conquer the world together
@tamijo it better be or I will legit be spending my whole cap on level 1 riders
From the looks of your team presentation, a great turnaround has been achieved in the off-season. Shame you had to lose Min, but potentially a worthwhile sacrifice looking at the bigger picture. The platform is in place for a very fun CT season ahead for you!
Scorchio wrote:
From the looks of your team presentation, a great turnaround has been achieved in the off-season. Shame you had to lose Min, but potentially a worthwhile sacrifice looking at the bigger picture. The platform is in place for a very fun CT season ahead for you!
Min was brought in last year to be sold this year, I was quite happy to get 500k for him, would've required some arduous effort to bring in the riders we did this offseason had we kept him
@redordead It looks 10 times better, hopefully it scores 10 times more points too
Our draft has concluded and we ended picking two guys that we liked, both were 2nd on our 'specialisation' list, but both number one choices were hail maries as they were highly desired by other teams. With our first selection we addressed the biggest need I guess, and that being a sprinter. While he is incredibly one dimensional, we really only need him to score more points than Dzervus or Kruopis did last year, which is around 60. Azizulhasni Awang is the newest Lithuanian!
Fla
Mo
Hill
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Co
Spr
Acc
Ftr
Dhl
Prl
Ovr
Flg
Wage
64
52
52
70
67
62
71
55
79
83
61
59
70
73,05
0k
And with the 2nd our intention was the bring in extra help for Benat. We debated between a MO/TT guy or a MO/STA/RES guy, and we chose latter. Therefore the newest Lithuanian is Johan Le Bon!
Fla
Mo
Hill
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Co
Spr
Acc
Ftr
Dhl
Prl
Ovr
Flg
Wage
68
75
70
68
73
74
73
57
64
66
71
68
68
72,71
0k
Our squad for 2019 season is complete, we've drastically reduced the amount of riders under contract from last year, only employing 17, with decent depth pretty much everywhere except cobbles(Ovsya is a god damn beast at level 1 though). We're quite excited to start the season at San Cristobal, where Siskevicius will try improve on his 6th placing from last year.
Here's the 2019 squad.
Without knowing our the rest of the division looks, the three leaders and the "artists" squad look like it will be harder not to promote than promoting
Intxausti alone should get you close to promoting, adding on Siskevicius points and you should go up, the added scoring from the rest should just confirm it.
I think you will be in the top 3 and if everything goes right then you could well find yourself in the title picture, although maybe not quite the favourite.
And obviously having 2 Sauber Alumni who rode together for us 2 years ago means I have to cheer them on.
@sutty Blame the DB guys (and Abhishek of course) for not giving us any good talents I know there is one worthy-to-be-signed Lithuanian in the free agency but we could not afford any dead weight for flavor sake. We were going to be very regional focus, but when opportunity arose to sign Velits, and then Benat, we knew we had to go for promotion, and that means taking best deals we could.
@Aquarius it's an artiste squad the race planner didn't look to promising, I had some bad clashes for Benat in C2 and had to pick some somewhat unfavorable C1 stage races, which worries me.
@sammy I know for sure that we will score more points than last year, but I am not too confident after doing the planner but hopefully that's more inexperience with stage racers than my incompetence.
We have already unveiled our jersey towards the end of last season, but with the squad complete it's fitting to let people gaze at the glorious 80s F1 livery like beauty. Hoping to see the jersey a lot on the podium this year.
The more concrete goals rather than 'do well and push for promotion' are shown below.
Vilnius GP
Win
Quite self explanatory. Our home race. Race of artiste. With some of TT focused teams we understand that we might need some luck, but after 9th place last season, surely it would take a massive collapse to not do better.
Sakartvelo Trophy
Top 10
Quite self explanatory. Although chosen before we even had any plans of signing a climber with calibre of Intxausti. Sadly this also means we cannot attend Tour of Bulgaria, but we can't let out Sakarvelian friends down and we might even bring home the dub.
Benelux Challenge
Top 10
Euzkal Bicicleta
Top 10
Siskevicius' best performance was in a hilly stage race. Once again, when we were deciding our goals a stage racer wasn't in our plans. But with Siskevicius and Teklit we feel confident.
Team Standings
Top 10
This and Sakartvelo Trophy goals are close to locks as far as I'm concerned.
And some early calendar news! Our January is likely very similar to most teams in CT. Season opener in San Cristobal should see the first appearance for new signing Teklit.
Jan 10
Clasico San Cristobal
Jan 22 - 31
Vuelta a Tachira
Jan 31
Great Ocean Road Classic
The squads for January races will be announced shortly.
With season opening in the next few days, DK Zalgiris has announced their startlists and goals for January races.
Clasico San Cristobal
A fairly unbalanced squad, but one capable of scoring decent amount of points. Siskevicius will have his first of many races alongside Teklit, this classic will serve as a cohesion builder and, hopefully, proof that they can both coexist and score big time together.
Evaldas Siskevicius - Top 10 Darijus Dzervus Justas Beniusis Tesfar Teklit - Top 20 Alexandr Ovsyannikov Jhonatan Narvaez Lucas Hamilton Sulkhan Akhmaevi
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Vuelta a Tachira
Season opener for Intxausti and an opportunity to instantly establish ourselves as a promotion favorite. His season long entourage of Le Bon and Juodvalkis will obviously be there as well. Early test for Awang to prove Zalgiris that he is capable of scoring points in stage races.
Benat Intxausti - Stage Win, Top 3 GC Darijus Dzervus Egidijus Juodvalkis Azizulhasni Awang Johan Le Bon Jhonatan Narvaez Lucas Hamilton Sulkhan Akhmaevi
---
Great Ocean Road Classic
A whatever race for us. Unless, of course, Nepomnyachsniy can pull some magic off.
Alexandr Nepomnyachsniy - Top 20 Tesfar Teklit Kai Reus Aidis Kruopis Justas Beniusis Andreas Hofer Tushantha Rajapakshage Alexandr Ovsyannikov
Season was opener was kind to us. Our conscious decision to send Siskevicius and Teklit with no real support somewhat paid off. Siskevicius took down 2nd in a tight affair, narrowly losing out to Chaves from fellow promotion candidates Azteca. Teklit, on the other hand, finished 42nd, even though he was in prime position to score us some extra points. And I assume that's where the lack of real support came in. Hopefully that's just a fluke blunder and not a trend in the future, as both of them will be supported better during the rest of the season.
@hillis: I've decided to not fuck around anymore, been working so far
Tachira and GORC Round Up
Vuelta a Tachira
scrub photobombing the finish
Tachira went almost to plan. Our race goals were achieved, with Intxausti taking down Stage 5 and GC. In addition to that, Benat got himself the points jersey and finished 2nd in KoM, which he was gutted to missed out on, as separation was only a sole point.
The first 4 sprint stages went fairly well. As in we scored at least a point, which was really the point of coming to Tachira and it was perfect opportunity to score depth points in most likely a lot weaker field than in most stage races. To sum it up:
Stage 5 was the only one that we came out empty-handed, but we knew real shit was coming up next. Stage 6 was the first one for climbers, and Benat did not have the yips and took it down with authority, leaving everyone in his dust. Whilst there was still plenty of racing to do, that win pretty much ensured at least a top 3 finish for him.
Stage 7 was a mountainous timetrial, and I would be lying if I said that 5th for Benat was satisfactory. He did increase his lead over Pinot in 2nd, but that stage was tailor made for him and he did not deliver what was expected of him.
Stages 8 and 9 maintained status-quo, Pinot and the rest of pretenders tried hard to crack Intxausti, but the mixture of Basque blood and Baltic Pagan rituals was enough to crush everyone's spirits.
Stage 10 ended up in a mass sprint, and that was all she wrote. Johan Le Bon was the surprise performer, even flirting with Top 10 in GC at one point, eventually dropping down but, still, overperforming his salary.
1
Benat Intxausti
DK Zalgiris
34h40'11
2
Thibaut Pinot
GCN ProTeam
+ 34
3
Thomas Faiers
NENT Racing p/b Hootsuite
+ 2'07
4
Robert Kiserlovski
BNZ Cycling Team
+ 2'13
5
Kenny Elissonde
CYBEX Platinum
+ 4'39
---
16
Johan Le Bon
DK Zalgiris
+ 11'33
25
Egidijus Juodvalkis
DK Zalgiris
+ 15'02
80
Jhonatan Narvaez
DK Zalgiris
+ 44'16
83
Lucas Hamilton
DK Zalgiris
+ 45'40
113
Sulkhan Akhmaevi
DK Zalgiris
+ 1h19'20
122
Darijus Dzervus
DK Zalgiris
+ 1h29'40
140
Azizulhasni Awang
DK Zalgiris
+ 2h02'27
Awang finished literally last in GC, that should be worth some points, 1st and last place finishers, not easy to do.
Points
1
Benat Intxausti
DK Zalgiris
92
2
Thibaut Pinot
GCN ProTeam
91
3
Thomas Faiers
NENT Racing p/b Hootsuite
86
KoM
1
Thomas Faiers
NENT Racing p/b Hootsuite
42
2
Benat Intxausti
DK Zalgiris
41
3
Robert Kiserlovski
BNZ Cycling Team
34
Great Ocean Road Classic
Discrimination by reporter to cover up Teklit, a black rider
This was a race. I saw a 1 next to Teklit's name in my dream, turns out there was another one next to it.
What's next for THA BIG DAWGS MAGGLE? There's quite a bit of racing to do in February for Zalgiris.
Tour de Langkawi
Azizulhasni Awang Kai Reus Darijus Dzervus Aidis Kruopis Justas Beniusis Egidijus Juodvalkis Johan Le Bon Lucas Hamilton Goal - Something
7 stages of pretty much no expectations. Maybe prologue will end up well? Can Le Bon score some points if Tachira wasn't a fluke? Other than that, Awang might get us a couple points too, but terrain does not seem too favorable for one of the greatest of all time, he'll get them next time.
---
GP Herning
Alexandr Nepomnyachsniy - Top 15 Andreas Hofer Tushantha Rajapakshage Alexandr Ovsyannikov Jhonatan Narvaez Sulkhan Akhmaevi
Now this will be interesting. We already know Intxausti can do it. Can Nepo deliver on the cobbles too? Top 15 might be quite modest, but again, no idea if he's capable of delivering. Short handed squad might be a hindrance in the end.
---
Volta a Catalunya
Benat Intxausti - Top 5 GC Kai Reus Andreas Hofer Tushantha Rajapakshage Justas Beniusis Egidijus Juodvalkis Johan Le Bon Jhonatan Narvaez
This one's scary, yet exciting. We already know from other teams goals that some of the best PCT climbers will be in attendance. But we feel confident in fluking our way into top 5 at least. A flat timetrial might net us a stage win even. While some may consider sending Benat here is a waste, not sending him to his home race would be a bigger joke.
---
Gisborne GP
Evaldas Siskevicius - Winner Aidis Kruopis Alexandr Nepomnyachsniy Tesfar Teklit - Top 20 Azizulhasni Awang Alexandr Ovsyannikov Lucas Hamilton Sulkhan Akhmaevi
It's happening. Awang will be there to wind people up. We are too big, too strong to not win this. (we won't win because I didn't send one of mountain doms here for some reason, but let's ignore that)
---
Hong Kong Challenge
Evaldas Siskevicius - Top 20 GC Egidijus Juodvalkis Justas Beniusis Tesfar Teklit Kai Reus Lucas Hamilton Sulkhan Akhmaevi Jhonatan Narvaez
Fun race, Stage 3 is not really a hilly finish, but Siskevicius can win Stage 1, Reus won Stage 2 last year, on the off chance that Stage 3 will end up being somewhat quiet, maybe even a very good GC showing. This is more of going to Hong Kong type of deal rather than trying to score a lot of points thing.
Hofer on 100k total investment with a beastly performance, he might even go over 100 points for the season.
---
Coppa Placci
10th - Siskevicius
Peloton not catching the breakaway cost us another good result. Coppa Placci fuckin SUCKS bro
---
Betonexpressz GP
8th - Awang 15th - Dzervus 23rd - Nepomnyachsniy
Pretty sweet scoring in a hilly finish, our guys can't handle any elevation change.
---
Lincoln GP
12th - Nepomnyachsniy
Now 12th in a hilly cobbled race? Sometimes I just don't get it.
---
Corsica International
lol. an actual joke
---
Seems like our planning and some questionable performances from our top guys in some races may cost us promotion. Granted, there's still half of the calendar to go and only Intxausti has used up half his race days (21/40), we might still be okay especially with some CT hilly stage races coming up for Siskevicius. Hofer's surprise performances could negate some of Benat's complacency issues. We'll see, but we're gonna need to perform
Him v Eastman will make for a very fun season in CT.
but indeed, I decided to go for it this year.
I know there is one worthy-to-be-signed Lithuanian in the free agency but we could not afford any dead weight for flavor sake. We were going to be very regional focus, but when opportunity arose to sign Velits, and then Benat, we knew we had to go for promotion, and that means taking best deals we could.
but hopefully that's more inexperience with stage racers than my incompetence.
Clasico San Cristobal
Vuelta a Tachira
GP Herning
Gisborne GP
Hong Kong Challenge
