The CT update includes the 3 C2HC stage races in Vancouver, Danmark and Langkawi and C2 races in Amissa Bongo, Pico Basile, Cristobal, San Luis, Sakartvelo and Chile.
The later table shows the HC Berlin Pro Race and C1 South Africa, Monterrey TTT, Torshavn, Celtic Chrono and Kenya.
The last update saw Carrefour passing the whole podium for the top step followed by Carlsberg and Centovalli Fiat with also Los Pollos Hermanos and Philips on promotion spots. How did that change?
Well, very likely Carrefour still in that top spot as they scored best in the main CT events, in especially in Danmark but also Vancouverwas great and so far San Luis!
Sauber came closest, in especially late in Chile with Ranaweera and Frankiny doing nicely while Philips in 3rd was carried a lot by Keinath in the mountains and Kelderman in San Luis despite finding no answer to Novak.
Carlsberg in 4th mainly due to Warbasse`s win in Vancouver and Fabbro in Sakartvelo. So couple of promotion favourites have scored well.
Project Africa next followed by Centovalli, who are still not scoring as good as in the early months but still doing very nicely regularly.
Last
Team
VAN
DAN
TdL
TAB
BAS
CSC
TSL
SAK
CHI
Total
1
Carrefour - ESPN
138
209
66
39
1
2
156
0
27
638
2
Sauber Petronas Racing
185
31
86
79
56
3
4
3
108
555
3
Philips
96
119
123
0
13
40
89
13
41
534
4
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
65
60
220
0
0
34
69
45
26
519
5
Project: Africa
162
49
105
13
26
1
46
15
9
426
6
Centovalli - Fiat
68
59
108
111
0
27
40
0
0
413
7
Tryg - Ritter Sport
78
32
41
0
43
49
37
25
102
407
8
Guave's Sunlight Cycling
25
85
36
0
0
0
68
21
27
262
9
BNZ Cycling Team
92
6
25
0
18
37
26
26
24
254
10
Nordica - Enel
57
30
90
0
6
0
16
0
0
199
11
McCormick Pro Cycling
44
7
87
45
8
0
7
0
0
198
12
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
24
8
23
72
20
1
0
13
34
195
13
Los Pollos Hermanos
39
46
23
22
23
0
27
0
13
193
14
Trans Cycling Team
29
96
41
0
0
23
0
0
0
189
15
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
0
54
4
48
0
32
30
0
6
174
16
Glanbia Foods Cycling Project
41
78
14
0
0
0
40
0
0
173
17
Eddie Stobart
25
21
9
55
0
0
45
0
12
167
18
Team Europcar
2
35
33
0
0
0
10
0
54
134
19
Sotto il sole di Riccione
2
29
28
14
1
0
13
19
19
125
20
Strava
7
2
16
46
0
17
0
0
0
88
Racing against the bigger PCT teams might see you struggle a lot, not so much though in the cases of Centovalli and Project Africa. First actually took the win in Berlin while later scored hugely in their home race!
Also Strava had some solid performances, in especially in Torshavn while Europcar`s scoring in South Africa also must be mentioned alongside couple of smaller scorings by other teams as seen below.
Last
Team
BER
TSA
TTT
TOR
CC
KEN
Total
1
Centovalli - Fiat
87
76
0
0
0
0
163
2
Project: Africa
0
84
20
0
2
0
106
3
Strava
0
25
0
46
0
0
71
4
Team Europcar
0
66
0
0
0
0
66
5
Glanbia Foods Cycling Project
0
6
15
0
9
0
30
6
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
23
0
0
0
0
23
7
Trans Cycling Team
0
0
20
2
0
0
22
8
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
10
0
0
0
0
0
10
9
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
0
0
10
0
0
0
10
10
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
0
8
0
0
0
0
8
11
Tryg - Ritter Sport
0
0
0
0
0
7
7
12
Guave's Sunlight Cycling
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
13
Sotto il sole di Riccione
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
In total Carrefour obviously remains at the top and also with a race day advantage over Centovall in 2nd. Same for Carlsberg and Philips next though as those must be clear promotion favourites seeing their race day advantage. All 4 teams though have a gap to the next, which makes the fight for the last promotion spot the most interesting for now.
Tryg climbed up to 5th closely followed by Project Africa and also Los Pollos Hermanos not far behind, different to Bralirwa, who struggle to keep contact.
Race day wise though the biggest advantage on the side of Sauber in 9th. They still have a solid chance to enter the top5, in especially when having more races like Chile.
Strava might be a similar case but still have another 200 points to gain first.
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
Proj
1
1
Carrefour - ESPN
1533
100
15,33
2300
2
3
Centovalli - Fiat
1461
114
12,82
1923
3
2
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
1380
100
13,8
2070
4
5
Philips
1369
94
14,56
2184
5
7
Tryg - Ritter Sport
1095
108
10,14
1521
6
4
Los Pollos Hermanos
956
107
8,93
1340
7
8
Project: Africa
949
109
8,71
1307
8
6
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
937
110
8,52
1278
9
14
Sauber Petronas Racing
843
91
9,26
1389
10
9
Strava
714
95
7,52
1128
11
10
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
685
102
6,72
1008
12
12
Guave's Sunlight Cycling
639
106
6,03
905
13
13
BNZ Cycling Team
625
83
7,53
1130
14
11
Trans Cycling Team
592
87
6,8
1020
15
15
Team Europcar
535
102
5,25
788
16
16
Eddie Stobart
468
90
5,2
780
17
19
Nordica - Enel
405
80
5,06
759
18
18
Glanbia Foods Cycling Project
402
96
4,19
629
19
20
McCormick Pro Cycling
395
95
4,16
624
20
17
Sotto il sole di Riccione
362
98
3,69
554
Edit: Fixed Trentino now. This basically reduces the points scored by participating teams as the wrong point scale category was used.
e.g. Los Pollos Hermanos ahead of Project Africa again and so on.
Edited by roturn on 30-04-2021 08:28
Individually Baugnies drops from 1st to 4th as the classics are less often these days.
Instead the climbers take over. Pinot 1st and Warbasse 3rd with only Reinhardt as best sprinter due to high consistency in between.
Kelderman follows while Ranaweera made the biggest jump from 57th to 6th but also Keinath and Novak made multiple steps forward.
Cort Nielsen in 8th while Naesen as 9th struggles the same as Baugnies and Moscon to finish the top10 as 2nd best puncheur.
The expected downfall. Looking at the calendar, can't really be hoping on gaining any places tbh. Top-10 isn't sure yet, but it does look decent. Thanks for the update!
Thanks for the update. McCormick where we expect to be but Kuss and Keough both solid pieces to build around once half our budget isn't going to a rider who has virtually no points.
Not where I was hoping. Still time to step up so hopefully we can do that. Still some huge races to go for us! Let’s hope we can step it up a little bit heading into these races!
We can still make a comfortable top 10 I think so that’s the goal from here
Thanks for the reminder. I thought I had updated it the last time already but apparently was not finding time.
I should have seen it this time as the Trentino coloumn was marked red but have probably just had a look on the new races.
It`s fixed now in PCT and CT.
85 points for Pinot as winner and 55 for Warbasse look a lot more like C2.
We are a bit in no man's land and lacking big scorers, or even notably consistent performances. In any case it will be fun to strengthen the team next season.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Position-wise it's looking better after the Trentino fix, but that nice buffer I had over Bralirwa is now gone, and since I already asked Baugnies to work for him in Kigali, we won't be able to defend ourselves
A weird choice to train Cort looks like is paying off, but depending on how many RDs he has left it could lead to very tight battle for 5th, we all know that it's better to just barely make it, so I predict whoever finishes 5th will be the best PCT team
Last month and half have seen an improvement with Kelderman's 2nd place in San Luis, unexpected success in Denmark and great consistency by Keinath. Great to see them both in the Top 7. Although the Top 5 individual standings goal is looking in doubt suddenly! Also, Boev with 113 points at 0 wage
Carrefour looking more like having the division wrapped up. They've been great so far.
Happy to have gotten into the top 7! We are in with a long shot for promotion, but honestly it will be nice to take another season to add some depth to our roster.
Thank you for the fix! Didn't mean to nag, but I knew that reducing the scales for a race Warbasse was 2nd in would reduce how great we looked, and I didn't want to get excited prematurely.
I'm certainly happy with where we are. Our third place is definitely not secure by any means, but we're projected to hold it by PpRD. That's not really my main concern though. I think Carrefour are running away with the title, and there's not much anyone can do about that. What's good is that we have a very high chance of promoting. Over 400 points down to 6th place, and projected to be even more by the end. If we don't tank horribly, we should automatically promote, and with 4/5 goals completed. That is undoubtedly a success for us, if it happens.
Warbasse has been the one carrying us the whole way. My team has a history of crazy overperformers and crazy underperformers. De Maar, Juul-Jensen, even Appo all had their moments. Now it's Larry's. I picked him up for an absurd amount of money two years ago, but somehow he's lived up to that fee, at least compared to the other options I had for that money. His versatility is his main strength allegedly, but to be honest, his TT's have been pretty disappointing. It's his pure strength in the mountains, and his awareness of moves, that has gotten him glory for us, and that is very surprising. I couldn't be happier. We're very lucky PCM 18 likes him so much.
Here's the problem. His season is basically over. Warbasse has only one more stage race this year, and then he's done. So, I don't expect him to be near the top of the rankings come October. He'll be overtaken pretty quickly. Other guys on our team are gonna have to pick up the slack, or our team rankings are gonna tank too. So, how about those other guys?
Fabbro and Eg have been... okay. Fabbro's Sakartvelo win puts him in a much better position than he would be otherwise. Eg is maybe farther down than I would like, but has demonstrably been a huge factor in Warbasse's success, so no problems there. They both plug away at some U25 points in every race they join, which is significant for us over a full season.
Juul-Jensen has been about at expectations for us. 16th in the rankings is quite good, no question, although I do see him as slightly better than the 6th best puncheur. His cracking hard in South Africa really hurt him there. He has plenty of opportunities left though, so I'm interested to see how he fares going forward. He's definitely redeemed himself to some extent after last year.
Not much to say about Sinkeldam. He had a good start to the classics, but fell off in those last few races. He's now into a part of his season where he's mainly a domestique for JJ.
Who's left? Oh yeah...
According to OVL, AKA is the best sprinter in CT by over a full point, but his position in results is under the spoiler. 5 pure sprinters are ahead of him right now, and another 5 are less than 20 points back of him. It's an underperformance for the ages. In fact, there seems to be basically no separation at all among sprinters, which is an interesting phenomenon. That is, except that Reinhardt has way more than double Coutinho's total and triple all of his other competitors. Reinhardt is just built for this game I guess, and AKA is not.
Not sure what I'll be doing with AKA this offseason. Training him again to be competitive is too risky, too expensive, and would not the best use of our funds if we promote. Selling him at his current value would hurt financially and hurt my team spirit though, far worse than losing Garby. So I just don't know. But there's no doubt to me that his entire career to this point has been a waste. This was his chance to really shine in CT, and he has utterly blown it.
Oh, and by the way, there has been no rider as useless as Bertilsson this year, outside of his one win at the beginning. Dude should be a great leadout for AKA. But he hasn't actually done a single leadout the entire year, and AKA seems to ride better without him in the race. Quite frustrating.
Thank you so much for the updates! Looking forward to the last third of the season!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Looks very likely that we will have two Scandinavian teams promoting. Love to see that!
Great insight in your post, bbl. AKA is a curious case indeed. I think you're right in saying that it would the team spirit. The Carlsberg fans demand no more brewskies for AKA in an attempt to get to the next level!
Thanks for the update! It pretty much confirms my feelings that we still were among the stronger teams, but clearly not among the very strongest anymore.
But we still have a PpRD of well above 10, which should be enough for promotion. Furthermore, we actually have a lot of points already in the bag, while the teams with less RDs first have to live up to their projected scoring. Alone the fact that we already have more points than the predicted final score for the 6th team makes me feel that promotion is safe by now. Which of course is a huge success!
Moreover, of the 36 missing RDs (well, 34, as Vilnius is already done and was another 10+ PpRD race), we basically just have sprints and hills left (except for Transfagarasan). 19 of those 34 RDs are Moscon RDs, which is almost half his total RDs - I definitely expect him to move up the rankings and confirm his position as 2nd best puncheur of the division.
I absolutely agree that Reinhardt has been overperforming this year - especially in HC races! About half his points come from 8 HC RDs, which says it all - and which is the main difference between him and the other CT sprinters. He has the second highest OVL of the sprinters - obviously behind AKA - so I'm not surprised to see him high up - but 2nd place is a very pleasant surprise for sure! He'll likely lose some spots, having just two races left, though.
What really makes the difference with last year is the team depth. Last season, it was basically Guillén, period. Now we have two in the Top 20, two more in the Top 50, and 6 more in the Top 100. Last year it was none in the Top 20, two in the Top 5 and 4 more in the Top 100 - a huge difference both at the top level and in terms of depth!
On the top, Carrefour will definitely run away with the title, probably by a good margin. 2nd to 4th could be close, that will be an interesting fight.
In my opinion, Tryg are the favorites for 5th. They've been on a great run lately, and they're doing well on pretty much every terrain. However, ToA could have a huge impact, especially given the HC points scale - and probably not THAT many teams participating. We'll see...
Last year we scored well in the closing quarter thanks to solid performances by Hoelgaard. Now we have an actual sprinter, and Smirnovs backing the Norwegian up, I'm confident in our chances.
