Van Lerberghe has already raced this season in Great Ocean, but this will be the first time he rides for us on his favoured cobbled terrain. A big reason why we chose this race is because of its clash with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, where a lot of the big name punchers should be. We hope Van Lerberghe can take advatage of this. Paprstka and Bovenhuis are here in support. Boev and Kreder are here to give us a different option in case Plan A doesn't work out.

The same team then travels to Belgium to participate in Gent - Wevelgem. Van Lerberghe faces the strong CT cobbles line-up for the first time. The long duration of this race could become a factor and could suit him well. Boev, supported by Kreder, could also become more of a factor in this race, if he survives at the front till the end and the race is decided by a sprint finish.

The last race with which we filled in Kelderman's calendar. The team management will be the first to admit that this race perhaps does not suit Wilco the best, but we believe he has a good shot at the first stage, and with his moderate TT stat, should not fall too low in the GC after stage 2. Stage 3 will perhaps be a case of how the stage is run, to see if Kelderman can stick with the climbers. Dumoulin is also here for the TT on stage 2 and the support team of Bardet, Watson, Henttala and Storer will support Kelderman.

Van Lerberghe leads in another cobbled classic this month as Van der Sanden replaces Boev in the rest of the team. Just six riders for us in this race, as Schelling misses out owing to his presence in Hong Kong.

Kelderman's first C2 race and we off course have high hopes. The downhill finish makes for harder predictions this time around, but we're still hoping for a podium result from our leader. Watson and Bardet could also become important come the closing stages as the rest of the profile is not too difficult to drop either. Bardet in particular could use his climbing and downhill skills to good effect. The support staff of Bovenhuis, Storer et al. are here as well.

All-in on Kelderman for this one. We expect this race to be decided in the series of six short climbs that lead up to the finish. We hope Kelderman can use his firepower exactly here and leave the competition behind. Watson, as always is here, along with the same team that went to Colombo, barring Kreder.

We massively misunderstood how this race might play out and probably made a mistake by sending out pure cobbles riders to this race. Boev in 37th as our best result shows how much we got this wrong!

1	Xandro Meurisse	Xero Racing	5h59'44
37	Igor Boev	Philips	+ 8'08
41	Tomas Paprstka	Philips	s.t.
52	Bert Van Lerberghe	Philips	+ 11'07'
56	Michel Kreder	Philips	s.t.
61	Ide Schelling	Philips	+ 12'28
72	Jasper Bovenhuis	Philips	+ 14'01
98	Jefferson Cepeda Hernandez	Philips	+ 20'16

Nothing much to say except blaming ourselves for our race choice and moving on.

Kreder joined the break for us.



Kreder was the last breakaway rider to be caught but eventually was caught. We played a lead role in closing down initial attacks. Van Lerberghe and Paprtska found themselves in the lead group on the fourth pass of the Kemmelberg.

An attack by Rathe was countered by Van Lerberghe but this didn't last long. More attacks followed but our duo stayed with them. Paprtska then made the next attack with less than 5 km to go.



Three riders joined him while Van Lerberghe was in the next group. Paprstka took 3rd in the sprint.



Van Lerberghe won the sprint in the next group to finish 5th.



Bovenhuis also finished in the points.

1	Oliver Naesen	Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes	6h51'39
3	Tomas Paprstka	Philips	s.t.
5	Bert Van Lerberghe	Philips	s.t.
17	Jasper Bovenhuis	Philips	s.t.
33	Igor Boev	Philips	+ 6'32
38	Michel Kreder	Philips	+ 9'03
76	Ide Schelling	Philips	+ 17'12
97	Jefferson Cepeda Hernandez	Philips	+21'28

A great race for us as our strategy worked out well. We couldn't get the win as Van Lerberghe didn't get into the lead group in the decisive move. But 3rd and 5th is a great result and Bovenhuis added some more points on top. Great start top our cobbles campaign for the season.

Stage 1 saw Bardet joining the break but he was surprisingly dropped early and couldn't compete even for KOMs.

Watson fell off the back of the peloton with quite some way to go. Kelderman, however was one of the four riders who followed an attack by Slagter. The five riders got away and took advantage of a reduced and unorganized peloton. Kelderman finished in 5th, in a group a four behind stage winner Preidler.



Kelderman did as well as he had too in the ITT on Stage 2, and despite losing quite a bit of time on the stage, he took the lead, being much faster than the other four riders ahead of him overnight. He would wear the leader's jersey overnight.



Kelderman stayed safe throughout Stage 3 and in fact launched the first move just outside the kilometer banner.



He couldn't hold onto the lead but did finish 7th on the stage. There were no gaps on the stage and Kelderman held on for the GC win.

1	Wilco Kelderman	Philips	8h27'01
41	Joonas Henttala	Philips	+ 5'58
42	Michael Storer	Philips	+ 6'30
72	Romain Bardet	Philips	+ 8'56
78	Calvin Watson	Philips	+ 9'39
113	Ide Schelling	Philips	+ 14'34
150	Tom Dumoulin	Philips	+ 24'07

Incredible result for us winning a C1 race. Kelderman continues his good start after Yekaterinburg and wins another race. Co-incidentally, this is only our second ever GC win in our history and the first non-CT one. Kelderman finished 7th in the Points standings and Storer claimed 4th in the U25s.

Kreder joined the break in this cobbled race too.



Nine riders, including Paprstka and Bovenhuis join the first group.



With less than 20 km to go, Van Lerberghe found himself in the second group behind the leading group of nine, after multiple splits in the pack.

The groups back together and Van Lerberghe was in the leading positions as the sprint started. He wasn't fast enough to take the win but did finish 4th.



Paprstka and Bovenhuis also picked up points with 17th and 21st.

1	Bert-Jan Lindeman	Minions	4h35'49
4	Bert Van Lerberghe	Philips	s.t.
17	Tomas Paprstka	Philips	+ 1'21
21	Jasper Bovenhuis	Philips	s.t.
67	Geert Van der Sanden	Philips	+ 9'25
77	Michel Kreder	Philips	+ 11'53
98	Jefferson Cepeda Hernandez	Philips	+ 16'18

Another good result on the cobbles after Gent-Wevelgem as Van Lerberghe continues his good start while Paprstka and Bovenhuis do well again in support.

We worked at the head of the group chasing the six man break but were not able to catch them and Gregaard took the win from the break itself. Kelderman finished 13th in the after the reduced bunch sprint, with Watson in 18th as our other point scorer.

1	Jonas Gregaard	Carlsberg - Danske Bank	4h42'09
13	Wilco Kelderman	Philips	+ 22
18	Calvin Watson	Philips	s.t.
61	Jasper Bovenhuis	Philips	+ 58
75	Romain Bardet	Philips	s.t.
80	Michel Kreder	Philips	s.t.
83	Ide Schelling	Philips	s.t.
86	Jefferson Cepeda Hernandez	Philips	s.t.
90	Michael Storer	Philips	s.t.

A disappointing result, firstly because we couldn't organize ourselves or the pack in the chase, and then low finish from both Kelderman and Watson in the bunch sprint.

Again, we got busy chasing the break and this time, the break was caught. Storer put Kelderman into a great position inside the final 10 kilometers but our leader failed to follow a move from three of his rivals. Kelderman did a lot of the with two others in the chase happy to just sit behind. The chase group did catch one of the attackers but the others managed to stay away and decided the race between them. Kelderman ran out of energy after his chasing and could only finish 7th.



Watson and Storer also picked up points for finishing 18th and 19th, respectively.

1	Xavier Quevedo	Carrefour - ESPN	5h00'41
7	Wilco Kelderman	Philips	s.t.
18	Calvin Watson	Philips	+ 1'29
19	Michael Storer	Philips	s.t.
27	Romain Bardet	Philips	+ 2'20
72	Ide Schelling	Philips	+ 5'26
85	Jefferson Cepeda Hernandez	Philips	s.t.
111	Jasper Bovenhuis	Philips	s.t.

Another under-performance and results like these bring back bad flashbacks of last season and Kelderman's struggles on the hills. As opposed to Colombo, the his support did well, especially Storer, but he couldn't make it count in the crucial moment. Let's hope this doesn't become a regular occurrence in the rest of the season.

quadsas wrote:
God damn cobbles ruining my master plan. I guess I should've applied the curse to others not just Wilco, silly me...you win this time Mr. Abhishek, you win