Not a great start for big Kris, especially considering he got beaten by Saber (and it was one of our win goals). No need to panic, still 31 points in the bag, 15 pprd return is not horrific.
---
HC Tour - Tour Down Under
Stage 1
8
Tomohiro Hayakawa
Red Bull Zalgiris
s.t.
Stage 4
5
Tomohiro Hayakawa
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 1'04
Final GC
26
Xuban Errazkin
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 2'20
Unfortunately, unlike last year, not much, if anything at all, has been achieved here. A few points, sure, but an untimely time loss for Errazkin cost us a decent chunk. 13 total points, good for a massive 2pprd.
---
C1 Tour - Hong Kong Challenge
Stage 1
7
Sebastian Schönberger
Red Bull Zalgiris
s.t.
Stage 1 KoM
1
Sebastian Schönberger
Red Bull Zalgiris
32
Stage 2
3
Rafael Reis
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 1
Stage 2
5
Justas Beniusis
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 3
Stage 2 GC
2
Rafael Reis
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 1
Stage 2 KoM
1
Sebastian Schönberger
Red Bull Zalgiris
32
Final GC
3
Rafael Reis
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 25
Final GC
14
Jose Fernandes
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 2'34
Final KoM
2
Sebastian Schönberger
Red Bull Zalgiris
32
Final Green
4
Rafael Reis
Red Bull Zalgiris
27
Final U25
6
Justas Beniusis
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 8'27
Final U25
7
Remco Evenepoel
Red Bull Zalgiris
+ 8'40
Final Teams
1
Red Bull Zalgiris
The Best
24h43'52
As may be obvious from results sheet, this was a decent tour for us. Once again, not as good as last year, but definitely satisfactory. Unfortunately, Fernandes cracked a bit too hard on the final stage, dropping him way down in standings, but other than that it was a dang enjoyable race. I believe that is 133 points, certainly not a bad return of 44pprd.
That makes our month total of 177 points and 16pprd.
---
FEBRUARY
HC Classic - Le Samyn
Headliner - Kristoffer Halvorsen
---
PTHC Tour - Tour of Ukraine
Headliner - Rafael Reis
---
HC Tour - Circulo de Juarez
Headliner - Kristoffer Halvorsen
Looks to be a fun month for us. Circulo de Juarez is another win goal of ours. Not a lot of racing, but no skippers, expectations have to be pretty high. A bad February could really set us up for a massive failure this year.
2022 season is in the books, so let's take a quick look at how Zalgiris did.
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
Proj
1
1
Amaysim Cervelo
3955
163
24.26
3954
2
2
Zara - Irizar
3390
163
20.8
3390
3
3
Minions - Subwoolfer
3278
163
20.11
3278
4
4
Cedevita
3261
163
20.01
3262
5
5
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
3257
163
19.98
3257
6
6
Binance
3054
163
18.74
3055
7
7
Kraftwerk Man Machine
2975
163
18.25
2975
8
13
Philips - Force India
2766
163
16.97
2766
9
8
HelloFresh - Lampre
2761
163
16.94
2761
10
9
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
2716
163
16.66
2716
11
10
Bralirwa - Stevens
2650
163
16.26
2650
12
11
Assa Abloy
2648
162
16.35
2665
13
12
Xero Racing
2648
162
16.35
2665
14
14
Team Popo4Ever
2479
163
15.21
2479
15
16
Red Bull Zalgiris
2371
163
14.55
2372
16
15
Sauber Petronas Racing
2362
163
14.49
2362
17
18
Trans Looney Tunes
2340
163
14.36
2341
18
17
Indosat Ooredoo
2338
163
14.34
2337
19
19
Voyagin - Bird
2187
163
13.42
2187
20
20
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
2091
163
12.83
2091
21
21
Strava
2031
163
12.46
2031
22
22
Volcanica - Fox
1973
163
12.1
1972
23
23
Crabbe-CC Chevigny
1812
163
11.12
1813
24
24
Project: Africa
1641
163
10.07
1641
So the answer to how we did is..not great. Consistently mediocre, staying in the 14-16 pprd range for the entire season. As we will see later, apart from Halvorsen there just wasn't any scoring elsewhere.
Pos
Rider
Nat
Team
Total
1
Jonas Ahlstrand
SWD
Volcanica - Fox
1066
2
Joseph Areruya
RWA
Xero Racing
892
3
Eddie Dunbar
IRL
Indosat Ooredoo
884
4
Mattia Cattaneo
ITA
Minions - Subwoolfer
846
5
Sam Oomen
NED
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
814
6
Kristoffer Halvorsen
NOR
Red Bull Zalgiris
810
..
71
Rafael Reis
POR
Red Bull Zalgiris
308
91
Jose Fernandes
POR
Red Bull Zalgiris
227
103
Xuban Errazkin
ESP
Red Bull Zalgiris
188
105
Justas Beniusis
LTU
Red Bull Zalgiris
186
144
Mihkel Räim
EST
Red Bull Zalgiris
122
152
Tomohiro Hayakawa
JPN
Red Bull Zalgiris
110
154
Remco Evenepoel
BEL
Red Bull Zalgiris
109
247
Murilo Affonso
BRA
Red Bull Zalgiris
49
250
Sebastian Schönberger
AUT
Red Bull Zalgiris
47
283
Oscar Cabanas
AND
Red Bull Zalgiris
35
284
Giorgi Tediashvili
GEO
Red Bull Zalgiris
34
288
Venantas Lasinis
LTU
Red Bull Zalgiris
33
298
Felix Grossschartner
AUT
Red Bull Zalgiris
31
332
Kashyapa Siriwardena
SRI
Red Bull Zalgiris
24
342
Mantas Januskevicius
LTU
Red Bull Zalgiris
22
356
Wen Hao Li
CHN
Red Bull Zalgiris
18
402
Ziga Groselj
SLO
Red Bull Zalgiris
9
422
Andris Smirnovs
LAT
Red Bull Zalgiris
7
472
Simone Consonni
ITA
Red Bull Zalgiris
2
Now were any of these performances super terrible? Not really, just not great all around. Guys like Reis definitely could've done a lot more, but 71st is not the end of the world. It's hard to say whether this is a fine performance, unlucky or even a lucky one. Now whether Halvorsen will be great in PCM22 is the biggest question. If he's not, then we are in trouble.
---
And finally in season wrap-up, Red Bull and Zalgiris have decided not to extend the sponsporship after two mediocre seasons. We are going back to the roots and will ride under DK Žalgiris name once again. The main goal, as always, is to Make Lithuania Great Again
Well looking back at your introductory posts it sounds like your only goal for the year was loaning in Evenepoel, so you did that and did it in style with a solid season for him! Interested in how you manoeuvre in the off season to move forward.
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
I guess this was more of a transition season and finishing comfortable in midtable is not bad at all. Halvorsen did about as well as expected, plenty of room to grow and improve next year.
I like the "back to the roots" approach for next year (maybe because I don't like RB that much )
This year surely was a bit rough for you. Reis is just somehow broken (as seen in his King Power years), sometimes even being among the first riders to get dropped in mountain stages (I remember the 2020 Giro...), so to see him way below the amount of points he should score with his skillset isn't overly surprising to me.
On the other hand, Halvorsen once again bossed the PCT sprints, with only Ahlstrand being even slightly stronger. Definitely a great rider to have for the next 5+ years!
I guess you also were pretty unlucky with your TTers compared to other teams (looking at Zara or Minions as examples), but at least both Fernandes and Beniusis have a bright future ahead. Less daily form variations with PCM22 should do them well. And once Kmieliauskas will be maxed, well, you'll have a real beast in that department.
I think Errazkin did a decent job as well - you sure have the depth in your hills department, but maybe a slightly stronger leader could make quite a difference in terms of scoring.
jandal7 wrote:
Well looking back at your introductory posts it sounds like your only goal for the year was loaning in Evenepoel, so you did that and did it in style with a solid season for him! Interested in how you manoeuvre in the off season to move forward.
The main offseason goal is to have you write as many passive aggressive attacks as possible, gotta make it three years in a row with at least one.
redordead wrote:
I guess this was more of a transition season and finishing comfortable in midtable is not bad at all. Halvorsen did about as well as expected, plenty of room to grow and improve next year.
We were actually at points teetering towards relegation. Plenty of room to grow and transfer options is damn right.
Fabianski wrote:
I like the "back to the roots" approach for next year (maybe because I don't like RB that much )
This year surely was a bit rough for you. Reis is just somehow broken (as seen in his King Power years), sometimes even being among the first riders to get dropped in mountain stages (I remember the 2020 Giro...), so to see him way below the amount of points he should score with his skillset isn't overly surprising to me.
On the other hand, Halvorsen once again bossed the PCT sprints, with only Ahlstrand being even slightly stronger. Definitely a great rider to have for the next 5+ years!
I guess you also were pretty unlucky with your TTers compared to other teams (looking at Zara or Minions as examples), but at least both Fernandes and Beniusis have a bright future ahead. Less daily form variations with PCM22 should do them well. And once Kmieliauskas will be maxed, well, you'll have a real beast in that department.
I think Errazkin did a decent job as well - you sure have the depth in your hills department, but maybe a slightly stronger leader could make quite a difference in terms of scoring.
Good luck for the offseason
Well hard to say whether it was just bad luck in more important races for Reis or just lack of support (didn't have a single helper over 76mtn). Lack of acceleration is probably the main culprit.
Halvorsen is goated and I'd love to train him even further, but with moving to PCM22 it's probably not the right time to go further all in on him just yet.
Looking forward to race against this legend Baltic team!
) 
