@cunego - Wow, looks like someone isn't as dedicated to Areruya as his fans (well, one fan in particular) would want to believe And yeah I'll bet you're curious

@redordead - See now I feel like you're one of the haters but doing it in a different way by trying to turn him into a meme - save that for Schleck! He's just going to be a cool niche rider and I don't know why people except me and Nemolito can't see that

jandal7 wrote:
@cunego - Wow, looks like someone isn't as dedicated to Areruya as his fans (well, one fan in particular) would want to believe And yeah I'll bet you're curious

@cunego - I agree, but AreruyaFanNo1 certainly has mindless hype covered so we're really covering both bases

And there's genuinely no Schomber lore It's just every other member of the "Conglomerate" (Abhi, Croatia, knockout and trek) hate him with an unprovoked passion and pile on him any chance they get.

@Ulrich - Thanks for the support

jandal7 wrote:
And there's genuinely no Schomber lore It's just every other member of the "Conglomerate" (Abhi, Croatia, knockout and trek) hate him with an unprovoked passion and pile on him any chance they get.

redordead wrote:
But who is on wrong side this time?

AbhishekLFC wrote:

Schomber

@redordead - Interesting choices - Rowe with a weaker season than last year but that Veenendaal win was a perfect day for him showing his talents in flat classics and a solid choice for Race of the Year, even if Japan was always the winner there.

@Ulrich - He did well but Jams had a stellar season outside of the Giro stage with some great other results and consistent scoring getting him over 300 points so he managed to outdo the breakaway machine Habtemichael, who would have won it by a landslide any other year. And try as you might but I suspect that would be nearly as fruitless an endeavour as AreruyaFanNo1's

Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:
Disappointment for Habtemicheal just because he didn't win a Giro stage - maybe I need to start a campaign on the Bralirwa website to get him a move.

Six riders from our original squad last season is down to four now, and with the loan-out of Novardianto this season only Tom Davison has completed four full seasons of Xero Racing. 2017 recruitments Bennett, Ngamoki-Cameron, Kennett and Schreurs all hit three this year and have moved into the Top 10 where, aside from the veteran Fijian, they will hope to stay forever.

George Bennett finally knocks the dearly departed Anthony Roux off his perch in total points but also finally beats Roux's amazing CT 2017 points haul. Rowe also moves above the Frenchman into 2nd with the benefit of an extra PCT season, while Houle darts straight into the Top 10 joining Velits by being in the top 6 with a single season's work. Podium-bottom-step specialist Simon Clarke's 38-point lead is all that stops Joseph Areruya featuring in the top 10 already.

Single-Season Record: 670 (George Bennett, 2019)
CT: 631 (Anthony Roux, 2017)

Roux still reigns supreme, though, in terms of race wins, Bennett now hopefully within a season of matching though it could take two! Houle matches his predecessor van der Sande's three stage wins in a season to join him on the podium as Roux and Debesay can only add one more to their previous total. Two more non-stage wins but still a huge majority of our victories come from there given our (outside of Roux) predeliction towards subtop scorers (that's code for we never signed anyone good enough).

Single-Season Record: 7 (Anthony Roux, 2017)

If we include wussy ways to count victories we can see Bennett's two New Zealand national road race titles get him to within touching distance of Roux's total and we get a lot more winners! Interestingly this loose definition also allows us one victory which happened when a rider was not on our books, back when Morne Van Niekerk rode with us at the 2018 Tour de l'Avenir and won the prologue, a year before he actually signed with us!

Classification wins have never been a forte of ours given our lack of great fighting climbers, young GC men or sprinters, however this year we do finally have riders who have won more than one jersey - Luke Rowe doubles up on Cheshire Cycling Tour points jerseys, whilst George Bennett won both the points and the KOM at the Tour of Japan to add to his yellow!

Still an unbalanced table with many just here for one year at the top due to our one year of higher wages in PCT. Debesay leading the way due to his huge contract in the FA in 2017 and then unlike Velits or Houle (yet) also having a second season. Higuita and Houle straight into the top 10 with their FA wages this year, whilst Tom Davison stays in the top 10 despite being paid 50,000 every year since his first renewals.

Single Season Record: €365,000 (Mekseb Debesay, 2018)

Jean Helwani being on top here will never not be funny, which is good because he's never coming down. Anthony Roux in second place is a safe bet to do the same. Bazhkou should have third place quite easily sewn up but had a shocking season this year compared to his debut, whilst our two founding stars, Salinas and Clarke, on a CT wage are still beating out their more illustrious PCT successors with the exception of George Bennett.

With Jamalidin Novardianto's gap year this season Davison and Kennett leap at the opportunity to overtake him into the top two spots, whilst Schomber, Venter, Areruya and Bennett (as the only leader in the top 10 after this year. Jams and Kennett, currently separated by just four, will surely have quite a rivalry moving forwards in this ranking, with the former having made it his mission to top this ranking by the end of his career (as well as the next one). Nils Schomber has some ground to make up, but will no doubt have a larger RD allowance than the other two going forward

Single Season Record: 100 (Nils Schomber, 2019)
CT: 76 (Jamalidin Novardianto, 2016; Rei Onodera and Dylan Kennett, 2017)

Despite the year off, Jams still reigns supreme here despite Areruya halving the gap in his absence. Davison just manages to stay ahead of Higuita who comes hard towards the podium with 11 this year. We have also collected totals this year of all breakaway victories and breakaway-earned KoM victories to include in this list. This also made us take another look at Jams' legendary 2016 season, where we figured he average a breakaway better than every 4.8 days, earning points along the way to put him in the Top 50 of the rankings that year!

Single-Season Record: 14 (Jamalidin Novardianto, 2016)

Finally it's a ranking of our own making - the winners of the HQ Rider of the Month Awards. George Bennett taking home three this season finally passes the mercurial Roux. As you can see, it's been very spread out over the years, and the pedants among you will notice we've missed four months of our existence! These are the months where we either failed to give the award or, more likely, declined to out of apathy towards the team's performances.