SotD wrote:
Might be a mistake at my end when making development plans for Jay Vine, but I had him at 78MO 76HI, not "only" 77MO.
No mistake - as he won't be training eligible the current development plan I have for him sacrifices some MO for better FL, SP and STA, plus hopefully a slightly lower cap hit. His training will be the same this season either way though, so definitely a chance I reconsider when the time comes.
redordead wrote:
You have a pretty deep team like usual I think, but De Bie is probably still the biggest factor whether you have a good or bad season.
I would agree, on paper this is a weaker team than Aegon and we saw last season that an underperforming De Bie is likely to end up in relegation. For me I think the range of outcomes is anywhere from 10th to 20th depending on how the De Bie, Barguil and Kemboi trio perform.
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Great depth in the squad with an almost complete overhaul in leaders and their top deputies! Looking forward to how it translates in the races
Glad to see someone thinking there is great depth as that's my biggest concern compared to last season I think we may be slightly weaker outside of our leaders - Prado and Razumov may outscore Cras and De Bod, but adding talents and losing Tiller has cost us depth elsewhere.
Croatia14 wrote:
Barnabas was a bargain, and if you remember out Kemboi talks when you signed him we surely have a pretty similar taste
Yeah for sure, I was quite surprised he was available at such a low wage. Hadn't planned at all to replace Bol, so was a good opportunity to be able to take. Can never have too many high FL/high RES sprinters right?
A successful race for the team overall, despite a disappointing debut in our colours for De Bie. Peak impressed in the sprints, taking a podium in a strong field, and benefited from the lack of selection on Stage 2 to hold the U25 jersey for another day. The bigger beneficiary was Cataford though, who far outscored even our most optimistic prediction, more than compensating for De Bie's misfortune.
[PT] Tour of Qatar
Key Results
Stage 1
Salem Kemboi
9th
Stage 2
Salem Kemboi
4th
Stage 3
Salem Kemboi
3rd
Stage 5
Salem Kemboi
7th
Stage 6
Salem Kemboi
5th
GC
Salem Kemboi
2nd
GC
Alexandor Cataford
30th
Points
Salem Kemboi
2nd
Points
Target
Actual
+/-
Salem Kemboi
129
249
120
David Dekker
11
5
-6
Alexandor Cataford
7
16
9
Gianni Vermeersch
5
5
0
Hamza Mansouri
5
5
0
Jake Stewart
5
5
0
Patompob Phonarjthan
5
5
0
Jhonatan Casillas
5
5
0
----
----
----
Lidl Cycling
172
295
123
Summary
While this was a win goal for the team, we came here knowing that would be hard to achieve. That meant that 2nd on GC and some strong stage results for Kemboi was a more than acceptable result, with Cataford continuing his good start to the season. The only disappointment was that Dekker couldn't steal some U25 points, but the overall performance more than made up for it.
compared to last season I think we may be slightly weaker outside of our leaders - Prado and Razumov may outscore Cras and De Bod, but adding talents and losing Tiller has cost us depth elsewhere.
[PT] Tour of Tasmania 
Barnabas Peak
Sean De Bie
Alexandor Cataford
Jodok Salzmann
Xianjing Lyu
David Dekker
Hamza Mansouri
Jake Stewart
Lidl Cycling
[PT] Tour of Qatar 
Salem Kemboi
Patompob Phonarjthan
Jhonatan Casillas
Warren Barguil
Alberto Bettiol
Magnus Cort Nielsen
