Berhane's Kenya performance was crucial this month, otherwise our ppRD this update would have taken a hit. Most other races were fairly meh (Beijing in particular a big disappointment), but not over much racing took place for us in July in the grand scheme of things. Still nothing to complain about looking at the overall table though, confounding pre-season predictions .
ryant wrote:
Obviously sad we've dropped a spot but since we have a few extra race days and I think we're racing Bulgaria we should get enough points to overhaul Desigual again. Meintjes still has Maroc and Portugal to go this year which should deliver a nice handful of points and we still have some other favourable races as well. Hopefully as our PPRD suggests we manage to deliver promotion this year!
Ah, there goes my gamble that the majority of 80+ climbers would avoid the long PTHC races and Monsalve could sweep up points to keep us from relegating
Oh I hope we're the exception to that thinking as well
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
beagle wrote:
Pretty strong month from our perspective with temporarily two guys in top10! I believe Izagirre has one of the best pts/wage ratio in MG this season, which means I don´t look forward to renewals
Thanks roturn for the update.
Just checked and actually it`s the other Izagirre being 2nd on that list.
That said, the amateurs obviously fool this list a lot with their 5k wage.
The very, very best by far is Kneisky for EA Vesuvio followed by Stüssi and Aidan and Novardianto.
The best ratio with a wage of more than 100k are Brambilla and Laengen.
But Ion Izagirre is the first with a wage of more than 150k indeed not far ahead of Goos or Fraile.
All of them are really impressive though.
Groenewegen on my end also one of the very best. On a 380k contract this is quite decent, so hopefully not willed to ask for too much more. Similar with Sicard and his 600k contract.
Thanks for the update roturn. ISA really walking away with this one. At least we are looking pretty safe for promotion. Big surprise for me is Schelling scoring more points than Amador, it will be interesting to see how they end up in the final rankings
ryant wrote:
Obviously sad we've dropped a spot but since we have a few extra race days and I think we're racing Bulgaria we should get enough points to overhaul Desigual again. Meintjes still has Maroc and Portugal to go this year which should deliver a nice handful of points and we still have some other favourable races as well. Hopefully as our PPRD suggests we manage to deliver promotion this year!
Very glad to not see Emelia there, but Portugal will be a tough battle with Bennett - maybe we should let him win to increase his wage demands next year though?
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
ryant wrote:
Obviously sad we've dropped a spot but since we have a few extra race days and I think we're racing Bulgaria we should get enough points to overhaul Desigual again. Meintjes still has Maroc and Portugal to go this year which should deliver a nice handful of points and we still have some other favourable races as well. Hopefully as our PPRD suggests we manage to deliver promotion this year!
Very glad to not see Emelia there, but Portugal will be a tough battle with Bennett - maybe we should let him win to increase his wage demands next year though?
But surely you want to win to lower his wage demands, after all arent I selling him to you this off season?
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
ryant wrote:
Obviously sad we've dropped a spot but since we have a few extra race days and I think we're racing Bulgaria we should get enough points to overhaul Desigual again. Meintjes still has Maroc and Portugal to go this year which should deliver a nice handful of points and we still have some other favourable races as well. Hopefully as our PPRD suggests we manage to deliver promotion this year!
Very glad to not see Emelia there, but Portugal will be a tough battle with Bennett - maybe we should let him win to increase his wage demands next year though?
But surely you want to win to lower his wage demands, after all arent I selling him to you this off season?
I think I have made it very clear over the last two off-seasons that I would pay ridiculous sums of money to Meintjes to have him come to Xero, so either way we get him it's a win
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
Decided to unfortunately take another look at the individual rankings today, which I usually gloss over. I'm just venting and complaining, so nobody even needs to read it. I just need to get it out.
It's quite funny that Ranneries has more points than both Kragh Andersen and Juul-Jensen. I mean, not funny for me, but a funny occurrence. Ranneries vs. Kragh Andersen still makes no sense to me. Backup stats supposedly matter more in this version for sprinters, EXCEPT acceleration. Well, AKA is a flat beast who is better in every single applicable stat to Ranneries except acceleration. He is over 2.50 OVL points higher than him. So I'm not sure how Ranneries is actually doing better.
Garby has also been utter trash, although I kind of expect that at this point. He's always been one dimensional, except now he doesn't even attempt to stay with the pack on mountain stages. When he goes in the breakaway, he can't hang with guys with 75-76 mountain. It's quite pathetic.
But the biggest fall this year has undoubtedly been from Christopher Juul-Jensen. He always overperformed in PCM 15 due to his acceleration, but this has swung the pendulum even farther the other way. He has just been completely incapable of doing anything for some reason, and I can't figure out how that reason is stats. When I look at his comparables, for instance, he's just not even in the same realm as most similar riders.
For instance, I just can't figure out how Bellis has 523 points compared to Juul Jensen's 24. That means Bellis has outscored Juul-Jensen by 22 times this year. I never thought a few points in sprint could do that, especially when JJ's average is still higher due to seemingly other important factors, like mountain and resistance. I'm just confused.
But of course it's not just one guy, JJ is worse than almost any other comparable puncher this year, especially when you account for the fact that some others are superdomestiques, and he is an undisputed leader. Seeing this all year obviously clouded my judgement, because I blamed PCM 18 for ruining punchers way too prematurely based on my own experience. It seems that the effects I thought were normal have applied only to JJ along with a few other guys.
Then I compare him to other riders on my own team. 9 riders have scored more than him this year. They include Christian Ranneries, who everyone said was too useless to even keep on my team, and Thomas Vedel Kvist, who has not led a single race for me of any kind this year. He scored more from leadout duty than JJ has as a pure leader. Even guys like Bjelkmark are vastly superior to him in actual value. They have half his points in a third of the wage.
Vanspeybrouck continues to be the only reliable point scorer on my team. I can't believe I ragged on him so much last year, when really he's been the only stable leader I've had. Sinkeldam has also come up big. I never pegged him as my third best scorer, and indeed, he wouldn't be if I wasn't relegating. But his emergence has been solid nonetheless. I do admit, seeing Nolf have so much success this year has ticked me off a bit, knowing how crappy he was for me both as a leader and domestique. Suddenly he's viable again.
I guess if anything good can come from this season, it's that I have a very clear idea of who the game doesn't like now. That will make parting with otherwise valued and long standing riders a lot easier when I relegate and have to condense my team.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
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