redordead wrote:
Should be fun to see what Geraint can do in the two cobbled classics. Ras Tailteann is a race that should fit well for Salleh.

Good luck

The undisputed king of GP Herning is coming back this year! Geraint Thomas won this race 4x times. He started with his won 2008 for team British Airways - Cyclingnews and then he was three years in a row winner of this classic 2016, 2017 and 2018 for Podium Ambition. We hope with support from Tesfay Abraha and Luka Pibernik can come close to top 3in this race!

Geraint Thomas fourth on first cobbeld race!

At the start of February our team ride on the first cobbled race for this season.
Our main candidate was Geraint Thomas and the second one Tesfay Abraha.


In the first circuit, we had Rok Korošec in a breakaway with seven other riders one of those was another Slovenian Gašper Katrašnik from Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team.

Just at the start of the Kemmelberg - 3rd Circuit the last one from a breakaway was caught from the leaders who were split from the rest of the peloton.
In a leader's grope were both of our leaders, Thomas and Abraha.

At the Kemmelberg - 4th Circuit group of the leader was caught from the peloton and became 26 riders group.

42km to the finish at Wevelgem there were still 19riders in the peloton and Only Geraint Thomas from our team. Abraha used too much of his power before and he was split and behind the main contenders for the win.

5km to the end there was a split and three groupe in a first were Manamalage, Nolf, Weber, Van Lerberghe, Paprstka and Maes.
In the second group were De Vreese, Thomas, Naesen, Taubel, Schoonbroodt,Sinkeldam and Taillefour.
And the last one with Maes were Okbamariam, Rathe, Schlechter, Kluge and Basso.

In the last two km, our leader Thoma Geraint and Naesen attacked and bridged over to the front group to Weber and Paprstka.

In the last kilometer Naesen attacked and won the Gent - Wevelgem race!
On the last pack finished Weber, while Paprtska finished in 3rd place just before our Thomas Geraint on 4th place!

1. Oliver Naesen	Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes	6h51'39
2. Sascha Weber	BNZ Cycling Team	s.t.
3. Tomas Paprstka	Philips	s.t.
---------
4. Geraint Thomas	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
25. Tesfay Abraha	Trans Cycling Team	+5'06''
73. Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+17'12''
79. Luka Pibernik	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
81. Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
94. Rok Korosec	Trans Cycling Team	+18'27''
98. Jaka Primozic	Trans Cycling Team	+21'28''
142. Mohammad Ganjkhanlou	Trans Cycling Team	+40'23''

GP HERNING

After a race Gent - Wevelgem our team still had another cobbled race in front of a first one-week race in Catalunya.
On a rainy day, the peloton started a shorter race in Denmark GP Herning compares to Gent - Wevelgem.

Immediately after the start it became to the first attacks and became a smaller group of eight riders and our Luka Pibernik.
Before we reached the 100km mark to the finished Luka Pibernik and some other riders were already in a peloton.

74km to go ''Geraint group'' was caught behind with a smaller gap to the leaders.

43km to go Thomas was back in a peloton! In front was still nine leaders group with 1'50'' gap.

40km to go, Thomas, was in a third group.

5km to go in a front was group of 8 riedrs: Naesen, Van Lerberghe, Owen, Insausti, Taubel, Schreurs, Van Avermaet and Chatarunga.

In the last few kilometers, Thomas Geraint tried to got to the first group and used a lot of the power for the finish sprint.

Bert-Jan Lindeman wins GP Herning, the second was Van Avermaet takes 2nd, ahead of Nolf on the third place

Geraint Thomas used too much power for cherishing the first group and didn't have anything for the final sprint where he finished in 10th place!

1	Bert-Jan Lindeman	Minions	4h35'49
2	Greg Van Avermaet	Strava	s.t.
3	Frederik Nolf	Carrefour - ESPN	s.t.
10	Geraint Thomas	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
48	Tesfay Abraha	Trans Cycling Team	+ 6'14''
81	Luka Pibernik	Trans Cycling Team	+ 15'47''
89	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 16'18''
105	Mohammad Ganjkhanlou	Trans Cycling Team	+ 22'50
108	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
110	Jaka Primozic	Trans Cycling Team	+ 23'32''
117	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 25'43

Volta Catalunya is our first stage race and our main candidate is Tadej Poga�ar for joung clasification jearsy.

This will be the first race for a number of our riders Hardy, Camargo, and Ignatiev who will be our ''leader'' or biggest help in TTT.
From Sotber, Munoz, and Knox we don't expect anything except to get some extra experience for the new season where we will keep only Munoz and Knox from those three.

We hope that Hardy, Venter, and Camargo can come to a couple of points compared to how strong it's the competition.

As we say C1 races are races where our young talents can get extra experiences and we are not targeting high.

TinxiaS wrote:
Volta Catalunya is our first stage race and our main candidate is Tadej Poga�ar for joung clasification jearsy.

redordead wrote:


The likes of Dunbar and Bernal look better bets, but I'll be cheering for Pogi all the way

Our first stage race started!
In the first month and a half, our team was racing on one-day races and Catalunya is the first stage race for us.

We didn't enter into this race with high goals. The main was to see Tadej Poga�ar on the top 3 in the Young classification.

Shortly after the start of the first stage on Tour of Catalunya, our guy started breakaway! Munoz went to attack and Sotberg (our team) joined him soon with Oram, Allonca, and Katrasnik.

Between the last intermediate sprint and Kom our guys Munoz and Sotberg lost contact with breakaway. Both were caught by the peloton on the top of kat. 3 climb where Katrašnik won the sprint for KOM jersey. Oram and Katrašnik finished the racejust acouple of meters infront of a peloton!

Oram won the stage in a front of Katrašnik!
Nobody from our team was in a top 20

U25:
1	Gasper Katrasnik	Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team	3h54'46 (1)
2	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 20 (2)
3	Beka Nareklishvili	DK - SVA Zalgiris	+ 24 (3)
-------
12	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	+ 24 (12)
22	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 24 (22)
23	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 24 (23)

2. stage, Tour of Catalunya - Venter's attack!

AT the second stage Slovenian Gašper Katrašnik went on the attack again to catch some extra points. He was joined by Vichot, Goncalves, Tanovitchii, Egidio, Jallays, and our rider Venter.

on the 37 km, Katarašnik won KOM (cat. 3) in a front of Vichot and Venter and Vicho won the first intermediate sprint 130km to go. The breakaway had a 5'30' gap from the peloton and Venter was still in the game for catching some extra points.

At the second KOM at Alt Dels Pinars De Bado (2nd cat.) Venter was in 4th place and was able to catch some points.

After the second intermediate sprint, Venter went on the attack on a short but steep climb The Alt el Muntanya (1st cat.). He finished in third place.

Vichot wins the fifth KOM in a front of a Venter.

At the last hill at the second stage, our Venter won the KOM at Alt de Collsacreu! The peloton was 1'30'' behind.

10km to the finish and still 1' in a front of the peloton Venter went on a tack again in a group with Vichot and Tanovitchii but he was caught 5km to go.

Vichot won the race a couple of meters in a front of the peloton.

Result

1	Arthur Vichot	Bakkafrost	4h41'08
2	Krisztian Lovassy	MOL	s.t.
3	Ramunas Navardauskas	Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling	s.t.
------
76	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
84	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
87	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
94	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
97	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
98	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
99	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
120	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.

GC

1	Arthur Vichot	Bakkafrost	8h35'46
2	James Oram	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	+ 6
3	Krisztian Lovassy	MOL	+ 20
------
42	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
82	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
87	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
90	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
92	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
98	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
99	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
111	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 4'09

KOM

1	Arthur Vichot	Bakkafrost	52
2	Nicolae Tanovitchii	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	40
3	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	36

U25

Xuban Errazkin	Desigual	8h36'18 (1)
Florian Stork	Bakkafrost	+ 0 (2)
Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	+ 0 (3)
-----
Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	+ 0 (9)
James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 0 (12)
Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 0 (13)
Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'37 (16)

Team:

Glanbia Foods Cycling Project	25h48'54 (1)
Team Europcar	+ 0 (2)
Nordstrom - CA Technologies	+ 0 (3)
-----
Trans Cycling Team	+ 0 (15)

3. stage, Tour of Catalunya, TTT

Our team young team with one ''extreme'' time trialist Ignatiev finished in the last place.

We hope that in the next few stages our experienced riders and Poga�ar can go into the attack and catch some KOM points.

Results

1	Uri Martins Sandoval	Azteca - NBCSN	50'48
------
135	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'53
136	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
137	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
138	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
139	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
140	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'55
141	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'57
142	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'59

GC

1	Fabio Duarte	Azteca - NBCSN	9h27'06
------
103	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'53
104	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
105	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
106	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
107	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
108	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'57
109	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'59
131	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.

U25

Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	9h27'14 (1)
Egan Bernal	Polar	+ 28 (2)
Xuban Errazkin	Desigual	+ 33 (3)
------
Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'45 (11)
James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'45 (12)
Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 3'51 (13)
Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 7'24 (19)

Results

1	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	5h16'56
2	Sergei Pomoshnikov	MOL	s.t.
3	Justo Tenorio	Desigual	s.t.
------
33	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	+3'35''
53	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+8'39''
55	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
56	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
65	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+ 8'55''
74	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 9'39
90	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 16'16
91	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.

GC

1	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	14h43'52
2	Fabio Duarte	Azteca - NBCSN	+ 38
3	Ryan Eastman	Azteca - NBCSN	+ 40
------
41	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	+ 7'38
74	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	+ 12'42
75	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
76	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
79	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+ 13'02
80	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 13'48
88	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	+ 20'19
100	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 23'58

KOM

1	Arthur Vichot	Bakkafrost	52
2	Nicolae Tanovitchii	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	40
3	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	36
------
12	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	12

U25

Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	14h48'15 (1)
Egan Bernal	Polar	+ 2'37 (2)
Petr Rikunov	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	+ 6'12 (3)
------
Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	+ 8'19 (6)
James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 8'19 (7)
Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 9'25 (9)
Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 19'35 (13)

Before the first group, there was already a breakaway with 8 riders and two from our team young James Knox and Venter who was in a breakaway in previous stages except for yesterday not and collecting KOM points.

Oat the first 3cat climb Venter was the second one on the top and took the extra KOM points.

28km to go breakaway was back together in the peloton.
Ramunas Navardauskas won the 5th stage, Tour of Catalunya.

Results

1	Ramunas Navardauskas	Adastra N Hell Energy Cycling	3h44'30
2	Alexandr Ovsyannikov	DK - SVA Zalgiris	s.t.
3	Kristian Dyrnes	Nordstrom - CA Technologies	s.t.
------
94	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
95	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
97	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
100	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
104	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
121	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+2'29''
131	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
137	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.

GC

1	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	18h28'22
2	Fabio Duarte	Azteca - NBCSN	+ 38
3	Ryan Eastman	Azteca - NBCSN	+ 40
-----
41	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	+ 7'38
70	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	+ 12'42
71	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
74	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+ 13'02
80	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 15'11
83	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 16'17
88	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	+ 20'19
102	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 26'27

KOM

1	Arthur Vichot	Bakkafrost	52
2	Nicolae Tanovitchii	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	46
3	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	40
------
12	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	12

U25

Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	18h35'14 (1)
Egan Bernal	Polar	+ 8 (2)
Petr Rikunov	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	+ 3'43 (3)
------
Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	+ 5'50 (5)
James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 8'19 (8)
Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 9'25 (9)

6. stage, Tour of Catalunya - Hardy, Kox and Sotberg in a breakaway!

On the last day of the Tour of Catalunya, we had 3 riders in a breakaway of 11riders. Next to 4 riders of Guava's team, our team was second with the most riders in a group who were Hardy, Knox, and Sotberg.
130km to go, breakaway group, just became bigger for two riders and they had 2'51'' lead on the peloton.

10km to go peloton managed to catch most of the riders from the breakaway but it came immediately to attack from Eyob who distance from the peloton again.
In the last 5km, Hardy tried to escape with other riders but he wasn't successful.

The winner of last stage is Merhawi Kudus, who is the winner of the Tour of Catalunya 2020!

Results

1	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	4h35'50
2	Sergio Luis Henao Montoya	Berg Cycles	+ 51
3	Paolo Scarponi	Bakkafrost	s.t.
------
26	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+2'26''
32	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	+3'03''
73	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	+7'49''
76	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
95	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+10'05''
99	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
106	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	+11'11''
122	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+13'39''

GC

1	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	23h03'52
2	Ryan Eastman	Azteca - NBCSN	+ 1'51
3	Justo Tenorio	Desigual	+ 1'54
------
31	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	+ 11'01
53	Jonathan Camargo	Trans Cycling Team	+15'48''
71	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	+ 20'51
72	Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
82	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 25'32
87	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 26'42
93	Mikhail Ignatiev	Trans Cycling Team	+ 31'50
108	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 40'24

KOM

1	Arthur Vichot	Bakkafrost	52
2	Nicolae Tanovitchii	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	46
3	Merhawi Kudus	Repsol - Netflix	40
4	Jaco Venter	Trans Cycling Team	40
------
15	Romain Hardy	Trans Cycling Team	12
38	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	2

U25

Egan Bernal	Polar	23h14'55 (1)
Eddie Dunbar	Repsol - Netflix	+ 47 (2)
Petr Rikunov	Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	+ 4'30 (3)
Juraj Bellan	Nordstrom - CA Technologies	+ 9'46 (4)
Tadej Pogacar	Trans Cycling Team	+ 9'48 (5)
------
James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	+ 14'29 (9)
Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	+ 15'39 (11)
Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	+ 29'21 (14)

Nemolito wrote:
It was really nice to report on your team in the Volta a Catalunya! They were very active, and came quite close to stage success in the second stage. Too bad the weak TTT had everybody out of the top-30, and also handicapped Pogacar quite a bit in the battle for the U25.

Nevertheless, I'm sure that some more positive results will follow!

1. stage of Ras Tailteann - disappointing start

The first stage was a complete disappointment after Salleh finished in only 22nd place.

2. stage of Ras Tailteann - Salleh back in top 10!

From the start to around 15km to the finish there was a breakaway but entering into 10km to the finish we had 6riders in the peloton and big hopes for a good result.

The peloton was lead by our young riders Sotbers and Primoži� for a good result by Salleh.

Around 3.5km to the finish we started on one side of the road a train for Salleh with Mezgec and Abraha and on the other side it was a Guaves train.

It was way too soon to go into the lead-out train but because of no radio communications, we couldn't give our riders all new instructions for the finish.
As we predicted it was wrong and too early Salleh went in a sprint already 1km to the finish which is extremely long finish.

In the end, Asbjorn Kragh Andersen won the stage, and Salleh our leader finished in 7th place which was the first good and top 10 results after two weeks.

Results

1	Asbjorn Kragh Andersen	Carlsberg - Danske Bank	3h22'59
2	Marco Guillen	Los Pollos Hermanos	s.t.
3	Alexander Krieger	Tryg - Ritter Sport	s.t.
------
7	Mohamed Harrif Salleh	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
11	Luka Mezgec	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
17	Tesfay Abraha	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
33	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
58	Mohammad Ganjkhanlou	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
59	Jaka Primozic	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
76	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
96	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.

GC

1	Asbjorn Kragh Andersen	Carlsberg - Danske Bank	8h18'05
2	Ismael Kip	Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
3	Issiaka Cisse	Centovalli - Fiat	+ 7
------
14	Mohamed Harrif Salleh	Trans Cycling Team	+19''
31	Luka Mezgec	Trans Cycling Team	+25''
38	Tesfay Abraha	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
55	James Knox	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
63	Mohammad Ganjkhanlou	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
66	Jaka Primozic	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
78	Cristian Munoz	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.
82	Andre Sotberg	Trans Cycling Team	s.t.