As our first season is mostly over and leaving just some races to be raced, the new season is closing in - as is our planning. And though our last season goal in the Tour of America is still in contest, missing all of the other goals mostly by miles (and probably the ToA goal as well) didn’t make our main sponsor very happy - especially as the other results weren’t that convincing either. Given that Le Creuset is indeed a premium brand it can’t be a surprise they’re not that keen to continue wasting their money on a backmarker team in the lowest category of the sport. At least that’s what it looks like to their PR managers and accountants, so we’ll have to do quite some persuasion work to continue our partnership in any kind of way. Maybe some good results (especially in ToA) could convince them that their money isn’t actually wasted but rather well invested in building a nice team for the years to come.
But nonetheless there is little hope Le Creuset will found the team alone in the future, so we’re already searching for some additional support or even a complete new set of sponsors. Given the experiences of this season we’ll focus on two main requirements in the process: Firstly we’ll search for a long-term partner who’s patient enough to allow us to learn from our experiences and mistakes of this season (and the seasons to come), so we can build a good team for the future. Secondly we’ll probably work with more than one main sponsor, thus making us less dependent from just one sponsor.
It’s that time of the season when you’re trying to convince your old sponsors you need more money and maybe some new sponsors to help achieving this goal (if you’re lucky) or funding you instead of the old ones (if you’re less lucky or reorienting your team). So did we, and now we’re ready to present you some of our sponsorship and equipment partners for the next season*.
Spoiler
* On request of our PR department we start with the minor sponsors only, without hinting that in the title for clickbaiting reasons. O tempora, o mores!
So we begin with our new (and old) bike supplier: French manufacturer Lapierre is in the sport for more than 20 years and supplies our team since its start.
Our wheels will be delivered by Corima, as we were able to continue our partnership with this French supplier as well.
The bike components will be supplied by Japanese manufacturer Shimano and we think no more words will be needed to introduce them.
Our riders will spend their days on fi’zi:k saddles. Hopefully they will enjoy this experience - in terms of a good feeling as well as because of their results.
And finally we were able to find a global player to join our little cycling team: Renault will supply us with the team cars, trucks and motorhomes (or at least give us a reasonable discount on the leasing rates). We’re even more proud to reintroduce a name with such a big tradition to the sport.
Despite the Tour of America still running (and not very successful for our team until now), we were able to convince some of our previous partners to increase their commitment to our team - and some new partners as well. And after presenting those secondary sponsors before, we’re glad to be able to present our main sponsors for the next season (yes, there’ll be more than one).
We’re glad we could persuade our old main sponsor Le Creuset to stay with our team, though they’re reducing their engagement and giving us ‘the chance to collaborate with new partners as well’ (according to their PR department). And though we’re of course a bit disappointed by this decision, we do understand it given our mediocre (at best) first season and took the chance offered to actually diversify our sponsorship partners.
So we searched for a new main sponsor and found it in known waters: our previous clothing supplier Ekoi steps up to be our second main sponsor (and of course stays our clothing supplier as well). Ekoi signed a long-term deal with us, sharing our vision for the team in the next year(s) (more on that in the near future). And with the expertise of Ekoi in cycling clothes, you can be sure that our new jersey will be amazing!
So you know our main sponsors for the season to come, but not the actual team name. So we’ll no longer talk around and present it to you:
Nice to read Le Creuset still has faith in the progress and is staying on as a co-sponsor. Seems like with Ekoi as other main sponsor you'll be continuing down the French road, good luck
With the 2022 season nearly over and only the NC and WC races left, we feel ready to give you our review of the final race, our thoughts of the past season, our outlook to the next season and finally our new jersey for 2023.
date
race
team goal
results
03-09 to 23-09
Tour of America
C1
Top 10
stage Top 3 and Top 10s
11-09 to 14-09
Tour of the Middle East
C2
-
GC Top 5; stage Top 3s
28-09
GP Lugano
C1
-
Top 5
12-10 to 15-10
Euskal Bizikleta
C1
-
GC Top 10; stage Top 5
18-10
Zuri Metzgete
C2
-
Top 10
Tour of America
Given that the Tour of America was our last goal race of the season and is a GT, the results we got were rather disappointing. Missing the Top 10 goals by miles was already expected (Henao got 30th in the end), but indeed we hoped for some good stage results or even a stage win nonetheless. Apart from a stage podium by Boivin in stage 10 we got a couple of further stage top 10s from him and three other stage top 10s from Chevrier (two 6th places) and Henao (9th) from the breaks respectively.
All in all, just disappointing.
Tour of the Middle East
Given the disappointing concurrent Tour of America (did we already mention it?) this race wouldn’t have needed much to be a success, and it was one indeed - in its own right! Alaphilippe finishing 11th in stage 1 was okay, but his second place in stage 2 was great. Regrettably Teuns stayed passive in the stage 3 final climb and only finished 8th despite being one of the favourites, but Berlin got a surprising 4th place instead. But Teuns made up for it in the deciding mountain stage, finishing an impressing 3rd in the stage and 4th overall - our first real good finish in the GC of a tour. And Berlin even got 11th overall as a bonus. As we said, this race was a success.
GP Lugano
Chevrier got into the Break of the day, but drafted veteran McEvoy got the result for us, finishing 5th in the sprint of the reduced field. Not too bad in a C1 race.
Euskal Bizikleta
We came to the Basque country with quite some hopes for a good result, as both Teuns and Alaphilippe were well suited for the profile of this race. Given our expectations, the first two stages were just underwhelming as neither of both had any impact on the race. But on stage 3 Teuns got 4th from the decisive attack (but without a time gap awarded) and stayed with the favourites group in the last stage, resulting in a 6th place overall. Gogl got 8th in that stage, getting his first result this season worth mentioning. All in all it was another good performance in a C1 race.
Zuri Metzgete
In Switzerland the team showed once again a good late season performance, showing the team colours working for Teuns who’s been among the race favourites. But he finished in a group, wherein his lack of sprinting skills resulted in place 8. Thiery did well too, finishing 11th after some hard work late in the race. But those points weren’t enough to overtake Staffbase in the rankings and because Bordeaux’ Wackermann won the race, we even lost a place to them.
The 2022 season was the first of our team, so it was mainly about learning. And well we had a lot to learn, as the results weren’t really good. The recap of the races has been done earlier, so we will focus on the more overall aspects of the season and a short view on each riders season.
First of all, our season planning wasn’t really good. As we’re a new team that’s not overly surprising. but as other new teams like Colombini have shown a good season planning and the right rider(s) could have made our season at least a good bit better. A major part of this was our race selection, as we raced in plenty of races where we didn’t send the right kind of riders to, in part because we hadn’t any right kind of rider for them (especially cobbled races and TT-heavy races). This was mainly our own fault, as we chose the races more from a geographically point of view (will they match our sponsors?) than in regard of their profile. The final lineup of the team just didn’t match the race selection as well as it could have. This came together with our goal selection, which was focused on the GC of hard stage races (and for some reason we can’t remember mainly C1 ones, too), without us being able to acquire a really good GC racer. Henao did his best, but wasn’t able to get the GC results needed in those races (or come even near). So we missed all our season goals by miles, which leaves us worried for the next season budget. But we have one big advantage in the next season regarding all those points (apart from the learning effect of course): we hopefully will know some of the riders we can plan the season around, as we don’t start without any riders like this season.
Speaking about our riders, here are some thoughts about their 2022 season for those who might be interested:
Spoiler
We start the rider recap with our sprinters and here with Julian Alaphilippe . He got the first win in the team history in Jelajah, so he’ll be part of the teams history forever. But he also delivered in most other races, accumulating another three 2nd places and one more 3rd place plus numerous Top 10 finishes, thus occasionally beating far better sprinters. So we’re entirely satisfied by his performances. Apart from the win, which he’s missing, the same goes for veteran Guillaume Boivin with 4 podiums and a dozen or so Top 10 results. As he’s not on his peak any more (and sadly further declining) that’s what we could expect from him.
Next are our captains for the hilly or mountainous races. Dylan Teuns got three podiums as well plus 2 nice GC finishes in Middle East and Bizikleta, but most of all he won the teams first (and until now only) classification as KoM in California. So he showed he’s probably our best option for the harder races right now, even more so as his GC results came in the last couple of races of the season. Sebastian Henao got two 11th places in GCs (but only in C2 races California and Vancouver), showing that he’s probably more of a domestique or stage hunter (as shown by his great stage win in Andorra).
Apart from the aforementioned drafted veteran Jonathan McEvoy was our only rider to score a podium result with two surprising 2nd places in Romandie. Add a 5th place in C1 race Lugano a you get the surprise rider of our season. Speaking of surprising results: Antoine Berlin got 11th in Middle Easts GC (and 4th in a stage), Cyrile Thiery got stage Top 10s and 2nd in KoM in Österreich Rundfahrt (HC!) and Clement Chevrier got two 6th places from breaks in Tour of America. All those results were above expectations for those riders who were mainly signed as domestiques.
So what about our other domestiques? Maxime La Lavandier and James Piccoli showed themselves in some breaks. Other as Michael Gogl and Chris Hamilton who weren’t very impressive in breaks (when they made them) or results, but though they showed good work for Teuns near the end of the season, they never were able to show something for themselves although we would have expected them to. And finally Francois Bidard and drafted Geremie Nzeke were never really seen (though they had by far the fewest race days in the team).
Speaking of racedays: the most racedays of our riders had our youngest ones. And because most of them were still lvl 1 those RDs were much needed to develop them as fast as we could. And all of them made it to lvl 3! So we expect them to be much more in the focus next season. But for the 2022 season the likes of Alan Boileau , Joris Delbove and Arman Garibian were mostly just helpers, while Alexandre Balmer and Red Bull Zalgiris’ loanee Rokas Kmieliauskas were seen in some breaks. Especially the latter showed quite some promises there so quadsas probably will have some delight with him. Last of all our only lvl 2 rider was Matis Louvel from whom we mostly remember his brave but fruitless attack in the middle of the slaughterhouse that’s called Tour du Faso stage 3.
To quote the great Taskmaster Greg Davies: “So what have we learned today?” Well, first of all we’ll have to get our season planning right - including goals, race selection and rider selection for the races. Apart from that we’ll need some improvements to our squad (but who doesn’t). In accordance with our sponsors we’ll try to achieve this while focusing more on our focus region which is France (and maybe French speaking countries as well). Given that we have some riders who didn’t match our expectations and / or are not from our focus region plus some riders who are to decline, that means we’ll have quite some work to do in the transfer season. But we have already some riders on our list, especially to improve our GC and TT department. So some managers can already guess they’ll get a call (metaphorically) from us in transfers.
A second focus in team building will be to further develop our young riders - and to acquire some more! We decided to make this a central part of our team philosophy, a decision which not the least originated in the great results of riders in our colours (though they were only guests) in Tour de l’Avenir. Of course that’ll mean we probably will be in CT for some more seasons as a big part of the squad will be young riders who won’t contribute many points. But we feel getting promotion someday will be a much more satisfying experience with riders who were developed by us. Of course that doesn’t mean we won’t have any experienced riders (we’ll need some results anyway) or won’t sell any young riders (as long as your wallet’s big enough ). And of course we’re open to develop your riders too, if you’re willing to appropriably support our project (Kmieliauskas is our first advertisement for this). So that will add to our demanding transfer season as well.
All in all we aspire to be a mainly French team with a focus on long-term development of riders, to someday make our self-developed captains win the races for us.
And after all that re- and previewing we come to the most important part of this post (at least for the casual reader, according to our PR department): the revelation of our 2023 jersey. But firstly we send big thanks to our jersey designer Ezeefreak for his great design (and his input in the working process).
With our new dual sponsorship it’s no surprise that our new jersey reflects this change in an entirely new design. And as our 2022 jersey was kind of a tribute to a famous (or to most people rather infamous) design of the past, our 2023 jersey will be one as well. And one of our sponsors offers a nice casserole (the dish, not the cooking device) if you guess the original
Beautiful jersey, you'll get the hang of it next season surely. I'll be watching your progress as for that Monegasque, I don't think hes PCT material sadly
Wow, very cool jersey, I really like it! Cool reflection on the first year, looking forward to how you do in your first full off-season to move into the promotion fight next year
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Great to see you stay around, and nice to see that you were able to get some reinforcement on the sponsor side The jersey somewhat reminds me of the Renault - Elf one, by the way - which might not be a complete hazard, given your new vehicles supplier
A bit similar to Bordeaux (and Staffbase), your first season might have been a bit rough, but I'm sure you learned a lot. Seems like you're quite strong in some other sports game, so I'm sure you'll eventually find success in this one as well
Your main terrain of focus were the hills, given your roster - and with Teuns, your main star also was a puncheur. Your hills depth is great for a CT team, but I wonder if you put too many eggs in the same basket. Unfortunately, at least the later versions of PCM don't often yield good team results (especially when having a race favorite), and so the scores of the likes of Hamilton, Gogl and especially Nzeke are ridiculously low for their skillset (although the latter has really weak energy stats, to be fair).
On the other hand, McEvoy was a great pickup in the draft - actually the highest scoring one of the drafted riders! A puncheur as well, but a special one, given his good sprinting - with so many hilly CT races ending on the flat, he was just a cool rider to have.
Alaphilippe and Boivin didn't do a horrible job, either, but I guess both might have been held back a bit by their low resistance. Still, I think both got their memorable moments. And Thièry also did a decent job for you, after I could unfortunately not keep him due to wage cap reasons
If you can get another strong leader besides Teuns, and optimize your planning for your riders' skills, you should definitely improve next year - maybe even get in promotion contention? Good luck
First season is always a learning process. Check out my horrid first roster for evidence of that. But plenty of of opportunities ahead, and very excited to see where your team goes!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Fabianski wrote:
A bit similar to Bordeaux (and Staffbase), your first season might have been a bit rough, but I'm sure you learned a lot. Seems like you're quite strong in some other sports game, so I'm sure you'll eventually find success in this one as well
Well I hope so, as I started with an even more horrible season in the NFL Fantasy game and got the win the next season. So nothing less than winning the CT next season will be a disappointment But seriously: We don't aim at promotion next season (though we won't complain if we get into the contention) as we aim at aa long term development. But we would appreciate more than two wins and want to achieve some sponsor goals next season.
Fabianski wrote:
Your main terrain of focus were the hills, given your roster - and with Teuns, your main star also was a puncheur. Your hills depth is great for a CT team, but I wonder if you put too many eggs in the same basket.
The unfortunate thing is we didn't even aim on this focus but rather didn't get the riders for our desired focus. So there are already plans to change that.
Fabianski wrote:
The jersey somewhat reminds me of the Renault - Elf one, by the way - which might not be a complete hazard, given your new vehicles supplier
That's not just no complete hazard, that's actually right! I want to highlight Ezeefreaks placement of the Renault logo which I find ingenious given the background.
The summary of our sponsor goals is short and easy: We missed all of them and mostly by miles. So we’ll probably have to be thankful if we don’t get a negative budget next season For a deeper analysis we refer to our former big season review post.
Balmer
Alexandre
67
69
68
67
69
70
63
63
61
68
71
75
62
1>3
67
72
70
70
71
72
66
63
61
68
71
75
65
max
68
76
73
74
74
75
70
63
61
69
72
75
69
We chose the Stage Racer way for obvious reasons. And after we’ve already seen him in some breakaways in the last season we hope for more of this next year. Furthermore we expect him to support our GC captain(s) (given we got at least one) in the mountains and TTTs.
Boileau
Alan
66
69
70
61
64
67
68
62
66
72
64
66
60
1>3
66
72
72
64
66
69
71
62
66
72
64
66
63
Version 1
max
67
76
75
68
69
72
75
62
66
73
65
66
67
Version 2
max
67
75
77
65
68
71
73
62
67
76
71
67
64
We chose the Stage Racer way for Boileau as well. To be honest: we’re not really sure if we go this way in the next seasons too or maybe choose to develop him into a more punchy kind of rider. But for now we decided to maybe sacrifice some hill stat for better backup stats even if we go this way. Next year we expect him to show himself in some breaks and help our captains apart from that.
Delbove
Joris
64
68
68
58
66
69
70
62
60
64
66
70
58
1>3
64
72
70
58
66
71
72
62
60
67
69
71
58
max
65
76
74
58
67
73
75
62
60
71
73
72
58
For Delbove we went with the Climber Way (V1) as his TT skill is hopeless in any case. He’s probably the least talented rider of this class but should be a useful mountain domestique some day (and next season as well).
Garibian
Arman
67
67
66
66
67
68
69
55
60
68
65
69
66
1>3
68
71
68
69
70
71
73
55
60
69
65
69
69
max
70
76
71
73
74
75
78
55
60
71
66
70
73
Given someone who can afford to train him, Garibian is easily the biggest talent we have with his is big backup stats. But for now he’s merely a domestique for any kind of stage race.
Louvel
Matis
71
64
69
67
68
72
67
69
67
66
66
65
67
2>3
73
64
70
69
70
74
68
71
67
66
66
65
69
0
max
77
64
72
73
75
78
70
76
67
66
66
65
73
Louvel’s our best (and only) talent for the classics. We went for the Fabian route, priorizing TT skills over sprint. Without training he probably won’t become a leader (though he’s the best cobbles talent France has at the moment and has nice backup stats, so chances are someone will invest in him), but he’ll be a really versatile domestique for any kind of flat race including TTTs in any case.
Sucks with the goals for sure, I have been there before too but a lovely bunch of talents for the future. Especially Balmer and Boileau will be great assets in the future.
I think that you have several significant talents on your hands here. Balmer should become an excellent stage race domestique alongside Garibian, and Delbove seems a decent climber. Much more exciting, however, are Boileau and Louvel! I think the former looks really exciting as a puncheur. Even if most of the physicals are quite low the solid acceleration and excellent MT should make up for that. Louvel might have a harder time scoring immediately but is a superior candidate for training. Combining those FL and HL stats with a decent CB capability is already a recipe for a decent flandrienne; the TT ability opens up that additional niche that ought to make him a solid investment.
I really like the core you have got building with that talent pool, not sure on first glance they are all being trained how I would but I understand the argument for each one, especially as you seem to intend them as helpers which is fair enough and makes me like the ambition to be a much improved team by the time they are all maxing which I am sure you will do
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Julian Alaphilippe . He got the first win in the team history in Jelajah, so he’ll be part of the teams history forever. But he also delivered in most other races, accumulating another three 2nd places and one more 3rd place plus numerous Top 10 finishes, thus occasionally beating far better sprinters. So we’re entirely satisfied by his performances. Apart from the win, which he’s missing, the same goes for veteran 
). And of course we’re open to develop your riders too, if you’re willing to appropriably support our project (Kmieliauskas is our first advertisement for this). So that will add to our demanding transfer season as well.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
as for that Monegasque, I don't think hes PCT material sadly
