The first PTHC race of the season takes place in Indonesia, more specifically in East Java. Last year’s surprising winner Beltran came back in search of another win, but the competition has definitely only become stronger. Matthew Goss, winning the flat first stage during the last two editions, is also back as part of home team Indosat Ooredoo, although it doesn’t seem very likely for him to complete his hattrick due to the sprinting competition and decreasing during the off-season.
GC Favourites
Name
MON
HIL
STA
RES
REC
ACC
Madrazo
85
76
81
80
81
72
Lecuisinier
85
75
78
80
79
74
Phinney
85
77
77
74
76
75
Herklotz
84
79
79
80
78
76
Tenorio
84
76
78
76
79
67
Taaramäe
84
77
75
81
77
71
Quintana
82
74
77
76
76
66
Cattaneo
82
70
76
80
80
70
Beltran
79
81
73
72
72
76
Lopez
79
82
76
74
74
78
The list of favourites could be very long, as the field seems to be stacked with great climbers. Nevertheless, choices had to be made in order to point out ten riders.
First of all, the trio with the 85 mountain stat. Madrazo finished second last year and has the best back up stats of the three on the list and probably of any stage racer there is. The Spaniard has come back with a mission, and that mission is to win the Tour of East Java.
Easier said than done when two of your main rivals are Phinney and Lecuisinier, as they hope to win the first PTHC race of the season themselves. Both riders did not participate in last year’s Tour of East Java, and have come to see whether this race suits them or not.
Other favourites who are very strong when it comes to climbing are Herklotz, Tenorio and Taaramäe. The German from Team Puma – SAP is actually the best hilly racer of the real mountain goats in East Java, which could prove to be a very valuable asset on this terrain. Tenorio has come here to finish in the top-5 as it is an objective set by his manager, while Taaramäe will try to make Estonia and manager ember proud of him once again.
A lot of other mountain goats a little bit further down the line who should be contending the top 10 and maybe top 5 spots, with honourable mentions to former winner Berhane and Hirt, who managed to finish fourth last year in an equally strong field.
Included in the list of favourites are also last year’s winner Beltran and the slightly better version and fellow countryman Lopez. If the race follows a similar approach as last year, those riders will be far from worthless at the finish, with Kwiatkowski being an honourable mention in this department.
All that climbing will have to wait until the second stage though, as first the riders will have to survive a short and flat stage for the sprinters. A lot of quality sprinters were sent here in order to grab that points jersey.
Sprinter favourites
FLA
RES
SPR
ACC
Degenkolb
76
71
84
81
Coquard
73
74
84
83
Lo Cicero
72
63
84
78
Swift
73
69
83
81
Bewley
77
75
82
82
Vanderbiest
74
69
82
77
Groenewegen
73
71
82
81
Samolenkov
74
71
81
79
Saber
75
72
81
79
Vesely
73
68
81
80
A lot of strong sprinters present, all with their own specific qualities. Bewley, Degenkolb and Coquard seem to be the most complete of those 10, but what do I know? Honourable mentions definitely go to the winner of the first stage in the last two years, Goss, who will probably be functioning as a lead-out for Vanderbiest, as well as Holloway, who's performing very consistently in Qatar. There are many other interesting sprinters and climbers though, as seen on the startlist below. Good luck to all participants!
Great first preview, thanks for having joined our reporter team
Really, really hard to name a favorite; on a good day, all of those you named could win stage 2 and therefore the GC. If we continue to see mountain stages with the top riders waiting for the last 1,000m, there's probably no way around Lopez and Beltran. But if a team decides to push hard on the long climb and drop those strong puncheurs, Herklotz would be the most obvious guess, having great resistance and the best acceleration and hill stat of the climbers.
For the flat stage, I guess Moser - Sygic will do most of the work, with Bewley being pretty much the only one having a full sprint train. Vanderbiest has last year's winner Goss, as you say, and Samolenkov will try to make good use of Moser (the rider, not the team). But it will be messy as always, and given the short stage length pretty much any decent sprinter could be in the mix.
Personally, it hurts a bit to see three former riders in this race with Freuler, Gamper and Fedeli, all of which I'd love to welcome back one day. Wish them the best of luck
Thanks again for the preview, looking forward to the reports
First race goal of the season. I obviously don't expect to win again, but I hope Beltran has enough in him to finish top 5. The startlist is crazy though
In the same vein Saber is very much an outsider for the sprint stage, so any points there would be ok. We have brought all our climbers here also, hopefully Beltran gets some support from them and we can get some of those PTHC depth points
First race of a declined Uran and he can be lucky if he breaks the top ten. Vesely scoring would be a bonus, especially after TDU. Thanks and welcome Nemolito!
First of, always nice to see new reporters! Thanks for helping to run this game!
Nice preview, awful lot of top riders (as expected though).
Still had to send Olivier here in the hope for him to enter the top10 or at least coming close to it with Groenewegen hopefully showing up in the opener.
Great to see 6 of the 7-8 best stage racers of the MG already competing in January as also an early duel between MAL and Beltran.
(Maybe a small adjustment for future previews, to add a few more GC riders there to also show the depth, which fights for the top5-15 places).
Alongside Olivier, big support of Valls, Machado, Ciccone, Zardini, Dekker while this hopefully also means, Groenewegen is train jumping without team support.
My bet on Herklotz here showing that he basically is a 85 mo rider beating Madrazo and new top guys Phinney/Lecusinier while Tenorio remains just a level below those with Taaramae feeling decline and while still being one of the best and potential GT winner, feels the pressure of age in this short race.
Obviously a pretty stacked start list here but hopefully Dan Martin can have a good start to his season! He has a bit of solid support from Borisavljevic so we’ll see what he’s got.
I was not expecting so much firepower in this race, which immediately makes the team's task more complicated. It is never good when our leader is not even mentioned in the preview. This shows that he is not good enough or the competition is really strong in this race.
After what I saw in this preview I have to lower expectations, Top5 for Swift in stage1 and top10 for Montoya in GC would already be great results at this point.
It will be very interesting to see what Lecuisinier can do here with 85MO. Last season he would probably be favorite for 5th GC here, so he have to do better than that obviously. It is a good chance to miss a "Win Goal" though - which would then be the 2nd missed goal already after missing Qatar win.
I would expect Herklotz to be the favorite, but it's really interesting to see Phinney here. What will 85MO do to him? I suspect he's the best or second best rider in the bunch and the Madrazo and Lecuisinier would fight for the final podium spot.
Given that it is just one stage though it can really be affected by daily form.
Im slightly amoused by the surprise about the tough startlist - I was fully convinced that we'd see such a strong group of climbers here. Once most top climbers were in this pthc band i was even expecting an even stronger one as Pluchkin not being here is a bit of a surprise to me.
With Beltran as defending champion, my hopes for Lopez are obviously big but lets see what the race brings. Hoping for lots of depth points behind him too and maybe Eislers can get a result on stage 1 too.
I also see Herklotz as top favourite but its hard to predict with so many riders so close to each other.
knockout wrote:
Im slightly amoused by the surprise about the tough startlist - I was fully convinced that we'd see such a strong group of climbers here.
I fully agree. I mean, you can win points for a stage race (+ stage points) by investing as many RDs as for a one-day race - it would be strange to not see a stacked climber field here. And I really hope that this means a lot of action, especially on stage 2
Tough to pick a winner with such a startlist, but I think on paper, Herklotz looks the best. He should have the best kick on the finishing climb, and 84 is basically 85 as roturn says. Even if Herklotz and Phinney both get +1 RDC, they'd both have 85 MO, so the superior hill gives Herklotz the edge.
Quintana and Shikai are both here. We need a Top 10 or else I fear the season will be quite a long one. Wasn't expecting Shikai to be listed as the leader, only reason I brought both is because of extra race days.
Very nice to have you as another reporter who contributes to the game, Nemolito!
Obviously a very big race for us with both Taaramäe and Kwiatkowski here. Their first outing didn't give anything special combined, but that will all be forgotten very quickly if we can strike back here. Suspect Taaramäe to be our best bet, but it all comes down to how that mountain is raced.
As SotD points out, daily form could very well decide this one, which kind of makes me regret making this a goal race instead. But here we are, all the more incentive for Taaramäe and Kwiatkowski to make it work! And seeing MAL and Beltran listed as outsiders, I really hope Kwiatkowski gets to ride as a protected rider even if Taaramäe is our leader, obviously due to potential solid depth points.
Fabianski wrote:
I fully agree. I mean, you can win points for a stage race (+ stage points) by investing as many RDs as for a one-day race - it would be strange to not see a stacked climber field here. And I really hope that this means a lot of action, especially on stage 2
How about a boring uphill sprint? That worked quite well last year
A lot of pre-race praise for Herklotz which we fully intend to live up to!
Clearly this will be the most random of his races this season, especially if it goes anywhere close to last year where there was zero selection on the climb.
But, then again, this might very well be the race where his hill training will matter the most!
As some have stated, profiles like these are what made me commit to it, although obviously without Phinney in mind.
I don't believe that, despite us sending a shitload of climbers here like most teams, we will see splits all over the place on the mountain, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. If we can drop Beltran and MAL, even better.
That might only be accomplished with a strong attack though, so that's the strategy we should aim for. The descent should replenish Herklotz' energy enough for the final regardless, and of course it's one of his strongest skills in case there's a gap to hold.
And last but not least, I very much wonder whether we have retained the low gap setting from last edition?
It was set to the lowest option to ensure we wouldn't have the countback from the sprint stage decide the GC too much.
Obviously, I'd actually expect Herklotz to benefit from that, but it's not how I'd want to get an advantage.
Thrilled to see this strong of a startlist in a place we didn't send Eastman. Hoping that Chaves can join the likes of MAL and Beltran and be strong enough to survive the climb and let it become a punchuers challenge at the end.
Tour of East Java Preview
