cunego59 wrote:

I feel like you're messing with me at this point Thanks, though! To everyone else, too, as before

redordead wrote:

Not messing with you at all I really like your team, I think you're in for a great season

aidanvn13 wrote:
Great signings and great team I was after a couple of those names myself, but thought I'd rather not make an enemy of you

Fortunately we don't have too much of an intersection terrain wise - will be cheering you on come cobbled classics.

As previously mentioned, the leadership roles have been filled, but that did not mean the roster construction had come to and end. There was still some money to be spent and some deals to be made, so we went ahead and did just that.

First, while we have two fast men in Stallaert and Silvestre, there are plenty of stage races with a sprint stage or two that will not fit into their schedule. So we went into free agency to look for another sprinter, and we found him outside of our usual fishing grounds. And then, we added to our hills department via deals.

Madushanka Perera

4.100

28yo

Sprinter

€50.000

Sri Lankan Madushanka Perera is our first rider from the Asian continent. He joins us for the minimum salary of 50.000€, mirroring our signing and the role of Rüdiger Selig - who was not willing to settle for an amount close to that - from last year.

Despite not being from our focus regions, at 28 years old he has the potential to stay with us for a while - or he'll follow Selig once more and seeks greener pastures after a (hopefully) successful season with us. He'll have plenty opportunity to show his skills, that's for sure.

Andrea Vendrame

4.100

27yo

Puncheur

€75.000

With Perera in, and coming off a disappointing previous season, Eritrean sprinter Mikiel Habtom became expendable. We eventually landed on a deal with our friends at Jura - Fiat for Italian puncheur Andrea Vendrame, who joins us in exchange for Habtom and 125.000€.

Vendrame offers a blend of puncheur skills and speed that we previously did not have on our team. Whether from reduced bunch sprints or breakaways, we hope he can score a decent amount of points this year.

Loic Vliegen

4.100

28yo

Puncheur

€70.000

Without a true contender for the hills, and in a division that is as stacked on that terrain as it maybe ever was, our strategy there for this year is to throw as many darts as possible and hope that some of them stick. Vendrame was one of these dart throws, and when Loic Vliegen became available from Aegon - Peroni at just 80.000€, we decided to make him another.

Not quite as fast and a bit weaker physically than Vandrame, he is still a solid pure puncheur and we hope Vliegen can play a good role in a handful of races, too. He is also eligible for C2 races, which could come into play.

While neither Vendrame nor Vliegen are from our usual focus regions - and in case of Vendrame, we even gave up such a rider to acquire him -, we feel like these moves both increase our short term chances of survival, as well as set us up well for the future, as both riders should have value on the trade market given their skill set and age. For whichever division, we have hopefully established a sturdy foundation from which to progress - and ultimately foster our core rider group even more.

At this point, our budgets are pretty much maxed out. We're happy with where we're at, but if there is interest in any of our riders, our PMs are still open. It ain't over until it's over, after all.

With the transfer window closed, it is now time to present our full squad for our first year in the PCT division. It's been a challenge for sure, but we look back on the last two weeks with very few regrets. Let's go through the riders by specialization before concluding with some general thoughts.

Like last year, cobblestones are our strongest area and our main focus. With Naesen out and Stallaert in, we've upgraded our leader in the hopes that he'll carry us to safety. Lampaert adds to last year's stalwarts Okbamariam and Schoonbroodt to support and assist Stallaert throughout the year.

While Valens Ndayisenga is still our strongest pure climber, the signings of Mektel Eyob and Bonaventure Uwizeyimana give us additional options, the latter especially for stage races with time trials. We'll see how they fare against the competition of the division though, as neither are particularly close to the top tier.

Fabio Silvestre was the second big addition of this off-season next to Stallaert - who could also be counted in this category - and will be our leader for all flat classics and sprinter stage races. Madushanka Perera will spend his season mostly hunting for decent results in other stage races. Looking at sprint dynamics last year, we've consciously decided against bringing on any leadouts, though how much those experiences will be worth this year remains to be seen.

This is a new category as we didn't have any dedicated time trialists last year. Jacob Fiedler should hopefully score a good amount in flat time trials, while Joey Rosskopf will be our leader for hilly stage races. Note that both Uwizeyimana and Hadi are also decent time trialists who might fare well in those races, while Fabio Silvestre has a chance to do well in a few prologues.

Just like last year, hills are easily our weakest area. Still, with the additions of Loic Vliegen, Andrea Vendrame and Mektel Eyob, we've gotten stronger and can hopefully land a few surprises or maybe a breakaway result here and there.

Once more, a very important category. El Sabbahi, Moise and Samuel Mugisha have developed from last year and new signing Natnael Tesfatsion immediately becomes our most promising youngster. Finally, we signed two stagiaires in Henok Mulubrhan and Yacob Debesay, who will have the opportunity to put themselves forward for a proper contract next year. Jonas Rutsch meanwhile spends the season at Eurosport x GCN to develop further.

	Rider	Type	AVG	Age	Wage
	Valens Ndayisenga	Climber	75,24	27	€ 115.000
	Bonaventure Uwizeyimana	Stage Racer	74,84	28	€ 115.000
	Janvier Hadi	Allrounder	73,09	29	€ 50.000
	Moise Mugisha	Puncheur	69,87	24	€ 50.000
	Samuel Mugisha	Rouleur	68,9	24	€ 50.000
	Mektel Eyob	Climber	74,61	28	€ 55.000
	Tesform Okbamariam	Cobbles	73,51	30	€ 50.000
	Natnael Tesfatsion	Puncheur	70,1	22	€ 100.000
	Henok Mulubrhan *	Puncheur	68,57	22	€ 10.000
	Yacob Debesay *	Puncheur	68,07	22	€ 10.000
	Souheil Khederi	Puncheur	73,44	30	€ 50.000
	Houcaine El Sabbahi	Sprinter	71,49	24	€ 50.000
	Jacob Fiedler	Time Trials	75,03	34	€ 150.000
	Joeri Stallaert	Cobbles	78,56	30	€ 850.000
	Loic Vliegen	Puncheur	74,47	28	€ 70.000
	Yves Lampaert	Cobbles	74,36	30	€ 70.000
	Fabio Silvestre	Sprinter	78,11	31	€ 370.000
	Madushanka Perera	Sprinter	75,49	28	€ 50.000
	Joey Rosskopf	Time Trials	75,05	32	€ 100.000
	Andrea Vendrame	Puncheur	74,66	27	€ 75.000
	Bob Schoonbroodt	Allrounder	74,15	30	€ 60.000
	* Stagiaires	Average	73,41	27,6

As I mentioned at the top, there are few major regrets we have this off-season. The thing that gives us the most pause is the national composition of our squad. Our share of Rwandans dropped from 6 of 20 to 5 of 21 after we unfortunately weren't able to fit Didier Munyaneza into the team. The number of African riders dropped from 13 of 20 to 12 of 21, though that is still a good number. And with Rutsch out on loan, we have only one German left, which does not make our title sponsor Stevens very happy.

But in the end, we sacrificed the short-term national representation in favor of increasing our chances of staying in the PCT, thus hopefully creating a more stable base from which to re-focus on the development of our key regions in the future. In the process, we've increased our average overall by almost two full points while getting less than half a year older. Only two riders will regress at the end of the season, and while Fiedler and Rosskopf will (hopefully) be among our better points scorers this year, they will be manageable losses.

The big question for this season is obviously: Will we be able to remain in PCT? We think we've done about as much as we could to reach that goal, but it is far from a certainty. On the other hand though, we simply want to enjoy the season as much as we can, and we have fun riders on every terrain, so there will hardly be any race where we don't have at least an outside chance to score a few points. Thus, we can look forward to every report with pleasant anticipation and that, ultimately, is what matters most.

Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:
I think your African focus is impressive, particularly in the talents.

I am a big fan of the no lead out strategy unless you have a really top tier sprinter and Silvestre's flat means he can better take care of himself.

Good luck in the PCT.

knockout wrote:
I love what you did these transfers. Stallaert, Silvestre and Fiedler is a nice group of leaders, strong depth signings and a lovely focus on Rwandan/Eritrean riders. Really hope that things work out succesfully for you!

We're back with a belated jersey presentation and a recap of the first four races of the year, the first races in PCT in team history! And as luck (and a strong individual performance) has it, we can combine those two a little bit.

First, let's have a look at the jersey in full:



Like last year, we're indebted to designer extraordinaire the_hoyle, who has updated his design from the previous season. Once again, we present our colors on a timeless white background, but with a modernized pattern, going from stripes to beautifully arranged triangles.

But as alluded to earlier, you won't just get to see an artificial rendition of this beautiful piece, you will also get to see it presented in full effect at the best possible place: the top step of a podium.

Fabio Silvestre was one of our two major additions in the off-season, an elite sprinter we hoped could be a pillar in our push to remain in PCT. And what do you know - at the very first opportunity, he delivers in the best way possible.

On the first day of the season, he takes the third win in team history, and the most high-profile one to date. Just like we had planned, we did not provide him with a sprint train, instead relying on his instincts to jump from wheel to wheel. And that paid off. The rest of the team was very timid in the finale, but that was only of secondary concern. Samuel Mugisha did represent us in the breakaway, which was a nice bonus.

The Hong Kong Challenge was the first opportunity for another new signing to prove himself: Joey Rosskopf. Expectations were modest, but the puncheur/time trialist hybrid was able to convince with a solid all around performance.

On both hill stages, he managed to stay in the main group of favorites, scoring a strong 8th place on the final day. A mediocre time trial prevented a better result, but a 13th place in the final GC against some high-level competition is definetely a solid start. In addition Janvier Hadi had possibly his best race of his Bralirwa career, ending up in 20th overall. Nothing spectacular, but every point counts.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of this young season - both for us and in general - was the result of the Clasico San José, a new race on the C2 calendar. Once again, a Bralirwa newcomer provided us with a big result.

Loic Vliegen joined us late in the window from Aegon, and he immediately made an impact, finishing second behind shocking winner Matthew Holmes. With a similarly stellar performance, youngster Natnael Tesfatsion finished 25th, scoring his first of what will hopefully be many more points in the future.

Two podium places in three races, that's not bad, right? But you know what's better? Three podium places in four races!

Joeri Stallaert was by far the biggest (read: most expensive) addition to the team this year. In order to remain in PCT, we depend on him to justify his wage with a big haul of points. And the Belgian is off to a great start on that path! Coming second only to cobblestone doyen Sam Bewley in a sprint from the final trio, Stallaert makes his first mark on the season, showing he can compete against the very best, an encouraging sign for the rest of the year.

Stallaert is expected to do well in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Ukraine is one of Rosskopf's bigger races of the year. Depending on the sprinting field in Southland, Stallaert and Perera can maybe do something. Everything else will be considered a bonus.

redordead wrote:
Told ya you have a good team

DarkWolf wrote:
I love the jersey, it looks great!
A slew of great results for your team, congratulations! I hoped to challenge more for the Clasico San Jose, but that race is still an improvement for Chaves after Gisborne, so it's not entirely bad. Also that result from Natnael Tesfatsion is really encouraging.

February was a very diverse month for us, in every respect. 2 classics and 3 stage races, from C2 to PTHC and from very successful to almost anonymous. In general, we continued our good run of form, as reflected in the end-of-month rankings update, which we'll look at to conclude this update.

The first PTHC stage race in team history provided us with the first "bad" race of the season. This is not entirely unexpected, as our climbers are at best 3rd tier compared to the elite of the division. That said, there were hardly any small highlights throughout, which was a bit disappointing.

Madushanka Perera had his first outing for the team, but in two sprints was only able to provide us with one 15th place - the fact that that would stand as our best stage result gives you a good impression of our overall performance. Both Andrea Vendrame and Samuel Mugisha featured in the breakaway twice, and on the final stage, all of Bonaventure Uwizeyimana, Valens Ndayisenga and Mektel Eyob went into the breakaway, with the latter ending up as 25th on the day and 35th in the GC as our strongest rider.

Halfway through the Volta a Portugal, all those mediocre-at-best results were completely overshadowed by our second big win of the year. Following a second place in his first race of the year in Franceville, Joeri Stallaert came to Belgium to one-up that. After a long hard day in the saddle, our team captain won a sprint from a reduced group of 4 to continue our streak of fantastic results in classics.

He was heavily assisted in this endeavor by teammate and compatriot Yves Lampaert, who continues to prove himself as an excellent late signing. Not only was he pivotal in distancing some of the major rivals, but he also hung on to collect quite a few points himself, finishing 9th! In addition, both Tesfom Okbamariam and Bob Schoonbroodt provided some depth points to round out a fantastic day.

All of our 10 C2 race days this year are one day classics. Loic Vliegen excelled with a second place at the Clasico San Jose in late January, and on the cobblestones of the GP Herning, Bob Schoonbroodt delivered another good result. While not quite being able to hang on to the first group, he won the sprint for 9th place of the first chasing trio.

The Tour of Ukraine - two time trials, a hill stage - is the exact type of race we pay Joey Rosskopf big bucks for (well, if you consider 100k big bucks). Unfortunately, after an okay 13th place in Hong Kong last month, he wasn't able to continue on that path. In fact, his two time trial performances were abysmal for a rider of his caliber - 67th and 49th!

A 31st place in the hilly stage did little for his GC ranking, which ended up being 43rd. Similarly, out time trial leader Jacob Fiedler was not able to muster more than 67th in the final time trial, which proved more hilly than it looked on paper - that's the charitable reading, at least.

In their stead, Bonaventure Uwizeyimana had his best outing for us yet, a strong 15th place in the opening TT laying the groundwork for a decent 26th overall, and Janvier Hadi slipped into the points in 50th place as well. Still, in total it feels like we ended up way below our possibilities - though in light of our overall performances, I won't complain too much.

Our final race of the month was the Tour of Southland. Three flat stages, two hilly ones. Madushanka Perera and Joeri Stallaert, who had five race days left over, were our main hopes for points in the sprints, but it wasn't meant to be. Perera finished 11th, 10th and 13th with Stallaert not even trying.

However, we still avoided our first zero pointer of the year. Thanks mostly due to a good performance on the first of the two hilly stages, both Souheil Khederi (who finished 13th on the day, his best result in our jersey ever) and Loic Vliegen somehow managed to get into the backend of the Top 30 to combine for a massive 3 points.

We missed to report on the first rankings update in January, which had us - incredibly - in 3rd place with the highest PpRD. We knew we wouldn't continue like that, but the February rankings still looked incredibly kind for us:

Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	23		Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff	921	34	27,09	4741
2	9		Duolingo	686	31	22,13	3873
3	21		Red Bull Zalgiris	686	42	16,33	2858
4	24		Team UBS	579	34	17,03	2980
5	4		Bralirwa - Stevens	576	30	19,2	3360
6	6		Carrefour - ESPN	534	32	16,69	2921
7	8		cycleYorkshire	516	31	16,65	2914
8	20		Project: Africa	513	39	13,15	2301
9	3		Binance Cycling	485	36	13,47	2357
10	18		Podium Ambition	472	19	24,84	4347
11	15		Los Pollos Hermanos	470	40	11,75	2056
12	1		Aker - MOT	441	20	22,05	3859
13	22		Sauber Petronas Racing	429	36	11,92	2086
14	10		Eurosport x GCN	394	33	11,94	2090
15	5		Carlsberg - Danske Bank	365	28	13,04	2282
16	19		Polar	356	11	32,36	5663
17	25		Tryg - Ritter Sport	346	41	8,44	1477
18	2		Assa Abloy	316	32	9,88	1729
19	17		Philips - Force India	283	25	11,32	1981
20	16		Minions	253	21	12,05	2109
21	14		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	231	18	12,83	2245
22	11		Indosat Ooredoo	230	19	12,11	2119
23	7		Cedevita	226	16	14,13	2473
24	26		Voyagin - Bird	159	17	9,35	1636
25	13		Kraftwerk Man Machine	158	13	12,15	2126
26	12		Jura - Fiat	155	23	6,74	1180

5th overall and 6th in PPrD is more than we could have dreamed of at this point in the season. Obviously, we're overperforming a good bit right now and especially the stage races that are still to come will not be great for our PPrD, but we're incredibly happy with where we're at and the cushion we have already built up on the relegation ranks.

We also have Joeri Stallaert in 3rd place and Fabio Silvestre in 17th of the individual standings, which is fantastic but also an indication of the top heavy-ness of our roster - Yves Lampaert is our next best rider in 89th. But this is just a snapshot at the beginning of the season of course.

A very busy month for us, much of which has already been raced of course, since we're a little late with this summary. We'll review March in two parts, the first of which hence will come out relatively soon.

High hopes for Silvestre in the first and Stallaert in the latter part of the month, of course, but also lots of opportunities for other riders to prove themselves. Looking forward to all of it (or what is remaining of it now) - it does feel like we're playing with house money already after these great first few weeks and months.

Laurens147 wrote:
Great to see your team performs like this in the first PCT year