January & February wins Michal Kwiatkowski - Tour of Toowoomba Stage 4 Michal Kwiatkowski - Tour of Toowoomba KOM Michal Kwiatkowski - Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco Stage 4 Michal Kwiatkowski - Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco KOM Gratien Casse - Tour of Bishkek Stage 1
In February, the main team started its journey as well - and wow, how did they start it! In our first ever race in history, Eduardo Gonzalez sprinted to our first ever win in the opening stage of the Tour of Oman (CT.2), hence claiming the yellow and green jerseys as well - what a beginning!
Eduardo Gonzalez winning our first ever race on the first occasion!
He had to let go of both jerseys after stage two, were he achieved a still very good 6th place. And even worse, our mountain goats still seemed to be hibernating on stage 3, were an underwhelming 24th place by team oldie Daniel DÃaz was our best result.
At least, Javier Gomez joined the breakaway on the final day - and he held on until the finish line, taking 5th on the day and 10th in the GC. This gutsy move finally somewhat salvaged our race - but the climbers now had to step up!
And then, it was already time for our season highlight, our home stage race, the Tour de San Luis (CT.2) - obviously the most important race of the year for our sponsors! Hence, we tried to find a strong line-up, that should be able to challenge for the win on all stages. Plus, the junior team was here, too.
But let's not make it too long. Our lead sprinter, Rick Zabel, was pretty much a no-show, scoring only one Top 10 result (6th) from three sprint stages. He added a 10th place on the first hilly stage to this, which in turn was a good result. On the downside, all our climbers and puncheurs finished way further back - hence a good GC result was already out of the question even before reaching the mid-race stage.
At least, the juniors did a good job, with Miquel Espinosa claiming the KoM jersey on stage one and keeping it for two days. In the end, Ruben Gorriarán finished 4th in that ranking, having joined several breakaways.
But back to the main team. And on day four, we finally got the result we were hoping for, as Fernando Gaviria won the time trial, with Javier Gomez additionally taking a nice 8th place!
Fernando Gaviria celebrating his first win of the year.
Unfortunately, that was the last really good news. The fact that Fernando Gaviria scored our highest GC result (21st) thanks to a successful breakaway attempt says it all. Second best was Rick Zabel, while our uphill guys Armando Huamán and Javier Gomez only took 29th and 32nd. At least, the former took 2nd place in the U25 standings.
With this extremely unsatisfying result, we already feel a lot of pressure from our sponsors - if we don't want our budget to be cut back, we'll have to do much better in the next races in South America!
There was a U23 stage race as well, the Tour of Bishkek (U23). Germán Ollero gave us a first sample of his potential, by taking 4th in the time trial (on s.t. with the winner), and finishing 10th overall.
That's all for the first two months - let's hope the young guys continue doing well, and the main team riders - especially the climbers - finally end their winter sleep!
February featured the first focus race on the team’s calendar, Tour de San Luis. Excitement and jitters surrounded the entire crew of Cadejo - Bike Xpress that travelled to the beautiful Argentina. It was a week of hard work and concentrated effort and although it also brought tiredness this was easily left forgotten but the joy and satisfaction of the results achieved on the race. The team celebrated its first victory when Guillaume Boivin won the 2nd stage of the tour. In the general classification Julian Arredondo finish 7th assuring the team’s presence in top 10. These excellent results were accompanied by 3 other presences in top 25 (Diego Ochoa 14th, Guillaume Boivin 20th and Sebastian Lander 23rd), Boivin finishing 4th in the points classification and the team 2nd in the teams classification. At the end of the tour the riders and the staff were full of excitement and optimism for the development of the team’s project.
In the other races where the team started Cadejo – BikeXpress achieved a few results with a certain degree of success. In Tour de OmanDustin Browne finished 2nd on the last stage of the tour, while Pedro del Mar secured a 17th position in the general classification and Dustin Browne a 5th place in the U25 classification.
In Volta ao Algrave our riders were present in top 10 of each stage, Guillaume Boivin 5th, 8th and 10th and Anders Newbury finished 9th in stages 3 and 4. Following these results Anders Newburry reached the 13th position in the general classification. At National Capital TourCiriaco Guirado went strong in the first 3 stages maintaining a top 10 position in the general classification until all the effort caught up to him in the final stage and he dropped all the way down to 46th. Still, Guillaume Boivin managed once again to fly our flag high finishing 4th and 6th on 2 stages and Iurgi Salgado was close to the top of KoM classification finishing 2nd.
With a busy month behind him Guillaume Boivin is the team’s best rider in the February rankings, 37th in Continental Tour and 58th in Prestige, while Cadejo – BikeXpress occupies the 17th position in Continental Tour and the 30th in Prestige, respectively.
March is another more relaxed month on the team’s calendar. The team’s leaders are preparing for the races that the sponsors see as more important on the calendar, therefore the young riders have new chances to hone their skills while other cyclists of the team have the opportunity to accumulate race days.
Two races in this month, where both GC specialists will kick off their season. Terrain isn't perfect for them, but anyway suited to their skills. Podium is achievable by both riders, the team expects to score some points.
Vuelta a Mallorca
First race for Engeldinger, who failed to show somehow his luxembourgish jersey. In the queen stage he was bad positioned in crucial moments, but also bad supported by the team, outclassed by numerical superiority of other teams who often let him to chase alone. In the end lost almost 4 minutes, and 13th place in GC, too low. Let's take it as a warming-up race, also stages where not so selective for his climber abilities, but we aim to improve performance in next races. Hofland caught some top10 results, but always far from podium. Nothing more to report from other riders, who never joined a break.
National Capital Tour
Talansky start his season with already a critical TT stage, and starts quite well with a 6th place, with good chance to step up on podium on stage 3 with the uphill finish. Big surprise with Hofland reaching top10 beating some pure specialists. However most of the peloton manage to arrive togheter in the only mountain stage, climbers failed to make any gap and almost nothing moved in the GC. Moreno collected again a couple of top ten10 in sprnits, this time up to 4th place, but showed a great day in the climb, finishing inside the first group. That means 8th in GC and some points scored, which cover a bit the lack of a top5 spot for Andrew. 19th place for both, Van Zummeren in the TT and Hall in GC, are the only other remarcable facts of the race. Again no riders joined a break.
The bulk of our points were scored at Algarve where the team scored 2 stage wins from Fredrik Ludvigsson and Tom-Jelte Slagter, the GC with Ludvigsson and the team's GC. The team also scored solid points in Oman and the Nations Capital Tour. The Palm Classic, which was our season opener, was average at best scoring only 20 points
It's doing the same thing over and over again, expecting things to change. So kind of how our last races were exactly the same as our season start. In his second stage race of the year in Paris - Nice, Nerz showed the world why he is Magnum - Madshus' best paid rider. He won two stages in the CT.1 stage race, also ensuring the GC win.
At the same time, Rui Costa disappointed in the classics again, but did manage a respectable sixth place in the Istrian Spring Trophy, a stage race with a time trial. Domestique Valgren Andersen pleasantly surprised with a ninth place in the GC there as well.
Van Avermaet is without a doubt the disappointment of our season so far, as the Belgian senior hasn't been able to get any top-20 so far, which is quite painful for a man with his palmares. Our other Belgian, sprinter Robert, has also not been able to collect a strong result. Hopefully the two veterans find their legs from a couple of years ago back soon.
Nerz winning his first stage in Paris - Nice, showing off his spectacular muscles
But to start from the beginning, our season scoring began with a surprise second place for our young sprinter Tobias Wauch in our very first stage of the season in Amissa Bongo, a result which was matched later in the race by Plarre.
9th in the GC there was quickly followed by 6th in Christchurch for Plarre, where Julian Schulze got a great 9th as well.
Our performance in Oman was expectedly mediocre, while Daniel Auer got a first taste of riding in a leader role in Mallorca that he converted into 5th overall.
In the National Capital Tour, our two new stage racers Breuer and Runge got to ride for themselves thanks to a lenghty TT deciding most of the GC, but sadly they couldn't convince in that. Still, 13th and 14th overall were decent results by the duo.
The surprise result of that race however was our youngster Andy Janssen taking the KoM jersey home after several breakaway appearances!
Overall, those three results combined gave our team more points than if we had gotten third overall with just a single rider.
The classics season got underway shortly after, with Plarre's 7th in Iberica being the only good result in four races. The WT presence in the other C.1 races was just too much for us, while our cobbles lineup in Kobenhavn found that race too unselective.
This brought us to our two best races of the year so far though.
First up in Istrian Spring Trophy, Matthias Plarre made up for a mediocre opening prologue by hanging on to Dan Martin's attack on stage 2 long enough for third place, and he performed even better the day after, attacking first on the finish hill with nobody able to pass him.
Those results got him third overall as well as the KoM jersey to make the race a big success for the team.
Plarre tops our team in points scored so far this season thanks to some decent classics results and his great effort in Istria, while Herklotz needed just three race days to catch up to Schnaidt, who had ups and downs in his sprint results up until the win in his latest race.
Auer gets a few more chances to lead and is expected to back up Herklotz' scoring in races they ride together, while Wauch and Janssen are complete surprises this far up the rankings after impressive rides.
Schulze is making very good use of his U25 eligibility and has a Top 10 outright in Christchurch to his name as well.
Team
1
Education First x Palace - Nippo
1
CT
1352
2
Magnum - Madshus
2
CT
1285
3
Trans Cycling Team
3
CT
1269
4
ICBC Cycling Team
4
CT
1252
5
Pedal Africa for Qhubeka
5
CT
1237
6
Polestar ProCycling p/b Telenor
6
CT
1216
7
Bosch Cycling Team
7
CT
1215
8
VisitUkraine p/b Nemiroff
8
CT
1178
9
Latvijas Balzams - Olainfarm
9
CT
1078
10
Strava - ANZ
10
CT
1032
The overall rankings show a very close battle at the top of the Continental Tour so far, with less than a C.2 stage race win separating Bosch Cycling Team from first placed EF.
With Herklotz only having used 3 of his 48 race days after this first quarter of the season, we are confident that this position can be improved upon once his big races come between May and August.
First, we will struggle in April though, with plenty of cobbled races that will be decided between the WT teams and Senechal/Phinney.
We will have to perform well with Auer in South Africa to stay within touch of the front, ideally grabbing a Top 5, and maybe Wallonië Prijs is unselective enough for Plarre to be up there.
Edited by cio93 on 29-03-2021 15:57
Omloop: Sagan decided on a very passive approach, keeping to the back of the group, late to react to attacks though he never seemed to have a problem bridging a gap. But he did start his sprint a bit early, 4th is a fair result.
Clasica T-A: The race was won by a late attack, a shame that Sagan missed the move. He finished 10th, on par with our expectation. Slightly worrying is that Arndt completely lacks motivation to help his captain, once again he finished outside the top 130.
Strade Bianche: We didn't think Sagan could finish in the top 10 and weren't surprised to see him far back in the peloton when the action heated up. Thankfully other teams closed gap when they started opening up. But suddenly Sagan surprised us, slipping into a good position in a snap. Three men broke away on the steep final climb, Peter started the sprint for 4th a little too early, but 5th is an excellent result.
Roma Maxima: Sagan was the defending champion and decided on a more aggressive approach. When Lutsenko and Moser attacked he followed them, it was a fairly risky move, he made contact but lost it again, he could have been stuck between the front and the chasing group. He caught up the duo, though so did the next group, 8 riders were fighting for victory, it looked like everybody would just follow Lutsenko. But then Moser dared a late attack and Sagan took his rear wheel, the Italian champion played the perfect lead-out for Sagan's first win of the season.
Tachira: On paper neither Tao nor Ruben were quite good enough for the top 10. But Tao Hart seemed very concentrated, he did what he could, joined the groups that fought for the lower top 10 positions and finished 10th overall. Ruben wasn't far behind as 16th. For Tao it was also another white jersey after a crash ruined Colombo's chances. Lowsley-Williams represented us in three breakaways, Simon attacked on stage 8.
MSR: Our important first goal race, the result here could already make or break our hopes for this season. The team was very active in chasing the breakaway and a late attack by Van Asbroeck and Felline. Sagan seemed ready to pounce should anybody else attack, but the sprinter teams were too strong on the Poggio to let that happen. Cavendish at first stayed behind Kittel on the Via Roma but realised Van Poppel was already too far ahead, so he launched his sprint ahead of his German rival. Van Poppel celebrated a clear victory, Cavendish held off Kittel to finish 2nd, Sagan was 10th. That made the goal race a great success.
Dwaars: In contrast the Dwaars door Vlaanderen was slightly underwhelming. Partly due to the early breakaway being caught very late Dibben was 20th, Stannard just 46th, even behind his domestique Stefan van Winden.
E3 Prijs: We've won our first WT classic! Thank you, Peter Sagan! He made it into the final selection of 7 riders and used his cleverness and vast experience to win the final sprint.
Gent-Wevelgem: We hoped that Sagan would make it into a small group which decides the race to gain more points for his WC campaign. Instead, it became another more standard mass sprint with Demare taking his third win in a row - and Cavendish finishing 2nd, which is another great result for us from the Manxman. Sagan was only 16th, only 5 WC points for him, but we can hardly complain.
Paris-Roubaix U23: Andrew Shelton surprised many people, including his directeur sportif, by finishing 3rd in the U23 edition of Paris-Roubaix. A great result and the first ever podium for our development team.
World Tour Scoring March 2020
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Total
Majka
169
169
Cavendish
2
420
422
Sagan
150
544
694
Hart
132
132
Fernández
30
30
Stannard
23
23
Arndt
Dibben
46
46
Pöstlberger
Cano
27
27
Wagner
Simón
3
3
Guerin
Garcia
Christian
2
2
Lei
Meyer
Hansen
Lowsley-W
Cuming
McCluskey
Diederich
D. v. Winden
5
5
S. v. Winden
Birch
Total
184
169
1200
1553
RDs
7
6
20
17
28
19
23
19
33
8
180
Pts/RD
26.3
28.2
60.0
47.1
WT Rank
13
12
3
3
A month with 60 Points per race day is a new record for us. All thanks to Cav and Sagan, still very little depth scoring, sadly. Ian's COB upgrade has only hindered him, it seems. Sagan is leading the WC ranking already, our dev team is currently ranked 8th, smashing any previous record (16th or so).
January Michal Kwiatkowski - Tour of Toowoomba Stage 4 Michal Kwiatkowski - Tour of Toowoomba KOM
February Michal Kwiatkowski - Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco Stage 4 Michal Kwiatkowski - Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco KOM Gratien Casse - Tour of Bishkek Stage 1
March
none
March review
Nothing to mention from good results. Tom Van Asbroeck doing alright in the cobbled classics. Kwiatkowski having a decent result in Rome, but absolutely disappointing in Strade Bianche. Sad life...
See you in april with better news
Just for today, as the riders, the staff and all the members of our organization celebrate the birthday of the team manager.
So, have a drink on me guys.
More races for Peter Sagan, he will lead us in all the classics, while Cav is riding the Ster ZLM Tour.
Ronde: Last season the Ronde was the only cobbled race where Thomas didn't finish in the top 10, he was 15th. Sagan, however, was 6th, so once more we can hope for an improvement.
Ster ZLM: The most boring of stage races? Last season Schorn was 15th overall thanks to a single bonus second, but now we have Cavendish. He was 4th overall in 2019 and also won a stage, we'd love to see him repeat that performance. He will be supported by Arndt and Wagner who've done nothing so far.
Paris-Roubaix: The one race last season where our old captain, Thomas, did better than our new captain Sagan. But then Sagan wasn't Carbonsports' captain, the role fell to Senechal, so he could do better this time.
Campania: Points are awarded to the first 45 riders, none of our men might make it. We don't have a TT specialist so we had to nominate Meyer (74), Norman Hansen (74) and Cuming (73). Maybe one of them will have his best legs on the day.
Amstel Gold: 2019 winner Sagan is back, he'll lead the team throughout the Ardennes Week, supported by Stannard, Dibben and Pöstlberger.
Fleche: Sagan was 9th last season, we'd be happy if he could repeat that performance, the Mur is too steep for him to do any better.
LBL: In 2019 Sagan was 17th, it's the toughest of the three races for him. His performance in the Strade Bianche this year gives us some hope that he could perform better this year, but we won't be disappointed if he doesn't. Ruben Fernandez joins the classics team for this race to provide a little more support.
In the Ronde Peter Sagan did everything wrong in the final 20 km. He rode a long attack on unfavourable terrain into a headwind and kept pulling the group after the rest caught him. He didn't even recover any of his sprint energy for the finale, started his sprint from the front at the 3 km mark, blew up after 100 metres and finished a whole minute behind the other 8 riders.
But a week later he did everything right. He took his last turn at the front with 25 km to go, then just watched the others and reacted quickly to any attacks. He entered the velodrome in 4th position, saw that GVK had run out of energy to follow Vanmarcke and quickly moved up behind the Peugeot rider as he started his sprint, leaving the rest of the group in tatters and then Sagan easily outsprinted Vanmarcke in the final turn to win the Queen of the Classics.
His previous best result in Paris-Roubaix was 6th in 2018. It was the second monument of his career, 5 years after he won the Ronde back in 2015.
Beginning with April the team’s calendar becomes significantly busier. This month Cadejo – BikeXpress lines up for 5 races including its first presence in a CT.1 one. Taking part at Colombia Team GP comes without added pressure, only with the hope that one of our leaders, Julian Arredondo, would showcase with pride the kit and sponsors in his native country.
We started on another level or competition with our cycling story. In the middle of another competition, we decided to join the ICL20 competition in which we started without any expectation.
Our team is from different countries but our sponsors are from Slovenia and Great Britain. From both countries, we tried to get at least one leader and one young rider for the future.
This team is based around 5 riders: Pieter Serry - GC leader & hill/mountain stages
Geraint Thomas - Hill, TT, cob
Edvald Boasson Hagen - Hill, TT, cob, sprint
Andrej Rajsp - Sprint
Simon Spilak - 2nd GC mountain leader
As I said we went into the season without any expectation as we didn’t have luck at another competition until a month ago.
Our team is a mix between older leaders and young riders who can
The season started with a superb stage win for Edvald Boasson Hagen. This was the first race and first stage for our team and immediately a surprising win.
In the next few races, each and everyone of our leaders exploded. Serry as our most expensive rider finished 3rd in one day race Christchurch - Akaroa. Edvald Boasson Hagen won the Clasica Iberica and with Geraint Thomas both finished in TOP 5 on Rheden GP.
Our Slovenian sprinter Andrej Rajsp showed his speed in sprints of a bit difficult flat stages.
Simon Å pilak who is our second GC leader for mountain races finished 2nd stage Tour d'Indonesia in second place, TT in 3rd, and in GC he finished in 6th place.
We could say that the Istrian Spring Trophy is our home race as it’s just across the Slovenian - Croatian border. A bit surprising but our team won the team classification.
In the individual CT ranking, our Edvald Boasson Hagen finished with 661points in the first place, and in the CT team, our Trans Cycling Team is in third place with 1269 points.
In Prestige Ranking our Edvald Boasson Hagen is in 6th place and Trans Cycling Team in 13th place.
If this is the indicator of how our season will go then we are speechless.
Some very good results, TinxiaS. Good to see EBH perform after he had a difficult 2019 season. I reckon you should have booked a few cobblestone WT races for Thomas, though.
Ripley wrote:
Some very good results, TinxiaS. Good to see EBH perform after he had a difficult 2019 season. I reckon you should have booked a few cobblestone WT races for Thomas, though.
Thanks.
Was EBH in WT in 2019 or CT?
I was thinking to book a couple of WT cobblestone races but in the end even that both of them (Thomas and EBH) are really great in this terrain I stayed on the ''safe'' side. Because this is my first ICL managing season and I didn't know what to expect but for the future, if I will manage to get that kinda top-level rider I will definitely book WT race. Edited by TinxiaS on 02-04-2021 09:04
Ceramica Panaria - Autogrill - Cipollini 
Michal Kwiatkowski - Tour of Toowoomba Stage 4 
Gratien Casse - Tour of Bishkek Stage 1 
Tierra del Fuego 
Copa America de Ciclismo (
Andrés Cruz finished on a good 10th place, scoring the first points in our first race.
Eduardo Gonzalez sprinted to our first ever win in the opening stage of the 
Tour of Oman (
Javier Gomez joined the breakaway on the final day - and he held on until the finish line, taking 5th on the day and 10th in the GC. This gutsy move finally somewhat salvaged our race - but the climbers now had to step up!
Rick Zabel, was pretty much a no-show, scoring only one Top 10 result (6th) from three sprint stages. He added a 10th place on the first hilly stage to this, which in turn was a good result. On the downside, all our climbers and puncheurs finished way further back - hence a good GC result was already out of the question even before reaching the mid-race stage.
Germán Ollero gave us a first sample of his potential, by taking 4th in the time trial (on s.t. with the winner), and finishing 10th overall.
CADEJO - BIKE XPRESS - FEBRUARY REVIEW
Guillaume Boivin won the 2nd stage of the tour. In the general classification 
Sebastian Lander 23rd), Boivin finishing 4th in the points classification and the team 2nd in the teams classification. At the end of the tour the riders and the staff were full of excitement and optimism for the development of the team’s project.
Dustin Browne finished 2nd on the last stage of the tour, while 
Volta ao Algrave our riders were present in top 10 of each stage, 
Anders Newbury finished 9th in stages 3 and 4. Following these results Anders Newburry reached the 13th position in the general classification. At 
Ciriaco Guirado went strong in the first 3 stages maintaining a top 10 position in the general classification until all the effort caught up to him in the final stage and he dropped all the way down to 46th. Still, Guillaume Boivin managed once again to fly our flag high finishing 4th and 6th on 2 stages and 
Iurgi Salgado was close to the top of KoM classification finishing 2nd.
Van Avermaet is without a doubt the disappointment of our season so far, as the Belgian senior hasn't been able to get any top-20 so far, which is quite painful for a man with his palmares. Our other Belgian, sprinter 
Daniel Auer
Andy Janssen
Lewis Pugh
TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA
