There was a maximum of 8 races available for PCT teams in May - but in fact, no-one decided to do Olympia's Tour, so we'll skip it in this update. With just 7 races left, we'll do "just" the full period ranking for once - let's go!
The first day of the month had a PTHC - C2 clash. The C2 classic was the sprinter's Nakhon Ratchasima Trophy, with 3 PCT teams heading to Thailand.
But this time, it wasn't really one for the sprinters, with a breakaway taking the first 7 spots - including Lierse's Piccolo, who finished 6th and got his team 19 points. Rickaert also rode away from the pack with about 10km to go, ending up 10th and scoring 10 points for Assa Abloy. Unfortunately for McCormick, Boivin finished only 26th, one spot short of the final scoring place.
In the PTHC Cheshire Cycling Tour - a classic despite its name - PCT took 6 Top 10 spots, clearly capitalizing on a rather weak PT field. And with only 19 teams present, depth results were easier to achieve than elsewhere - which is exactly what Lampre did. Although GVK "only" ended up 6th, they also had Daniel in 11th, Riesebeek in 14th and Kumara in 18th - with Thwaites picking up the final 2 points for 50th, that's 140 points for the Italians!
Lierse did it the other way round - not much depth, but an outstanding top result, with Gamper taking 3rd place! Verwilst still added some points with his 27th place, which makes it 106 points in total. Fastned were the 3rd best team, with Van Hooydonck finishing 5th, Van der Hoorn 23rd, and Robeet 47th. That's 91 points for the Dutchmen.
Let's continue with cobbles - and the final classic of the month, the C1 Jour de Dunkerque. This was a great race for "Swiss" teams - for once, not for Jura and Theuns, though. Instead, it was Sauber's Tom David finally finding his legs and winning the race! Schoonbroodt and Marzuku in 14th and 15th almost made this a 100-point race - Sauber scored 97 in total.
2nd place then goes to UBS, despite Jacobs and Spengler only finishing 13th and 17th respectively. But Bohli had the race of his life - at least there's no reasonable explanation for him taking 4th place here! All in all, UBS scored 57 points - which is one more than Fastned got from Van Hooydonck's 2nd place.
On top of these 3 classics, we had 4 stage races. The shortest one to cover is the C2 Int. Österreich Rundfahrt, with just 2 participating PCT teams. And both did reasonably well, actually. Popo4Ever sent the two legends Taaramäe and Pluchkin - the latter being the race's record champion with 4 wins from 2018 to 2022. However, Pluchkin decided to leave the leadership duties to Taaramäe - who did very well and missed out on the GC podium by just 6 seconds! 4th place for the Estonian (getting also a 4th place on stage 2), 17th place for Pluchkin - 46 points for P4E!
Indosat were even more successful in terms of stage results, with a win by Arifin on stage 5! Salinas added a 12th place in GC, with Kolar finishing 21st - plus some U25 points by Ahmad and Wibisono, plus good stage finishes by Kolar and Setiawa, that's 35 points for the Indonesians.
Then there was the PTHC Tour of Lithuania - way better balanced than Cheshire, with 12 teams each from PT and PCT. Maybe a bit surprisingly, McCormick ended up being the top PCT team, scoring 149 points. They posted the best time of a PCT team in the TTT, taking 4th - and setting the base for the team standings win! On top of that, Bagioli won the U25 jersey, finishing 12th in the GC. Narvaez with 16th place also added a good amount of points - another great race for the Americans' puncheur squad!
In 2nd place, we have Sony, who took 1st and 2nd on the first two stages with Vesely, who also took home the points jersey and finished 27th in the GC. With 3 more Top 100 finishers, that's 134 points for the Indian outfit. 3rd goes to Jura, despite being only the 5th best PCT team in the TTT - Errazkin limited his losses there, and went on to finish 4th in the GC! Four more Top 100 finishers make it 126 points for the Swiss.
C1 was represented as well, with the 6-day Tour de Romandie. Although a rider with a red-and-white country flag won, there was no home win - instead, Hong Kong native Choi took the GC crown. One third and two fourth places in the uphill stages were enough - thanks to Sony showing a decent TTT, finishing 8th. Choi also finished 2nd in points and 3rd in KoM, being the best scorer with 153 points. Sony ended up 2nd in teams - this plus Kozhatayev and Carboni adding Top 20 GC spots results in a very solid 180 points haul.
Oomen was really strong as well, with two 5th and a 2nd place in S3-5; Lierse losing 3" to Sony in the TTT ended up being decisive, as Oomen lost the race by 1"... He took the green jersey and 136 as a consolation prize. With only Van Gils scoring 2 U25 points on top of that, Lierse end up with 138 points.
Which is just 7 more than Jura in 3rd place. Although Stüssi got no notable stage results, the TTT win on day one (including lots of ranking points on the first two days) set him up for a 3rd place GC finish. Darbellay finishing 15th in the GC also contributed to the team's result, as well as all the TTers getting stage and ranking points in the TTT. 131 points in total for the local team.
Norway... What a weird race that was! In the absence of a strong climber's field, this was pretty much everyone's to take - well, almost. The winner was pretty obvious right from the start - but his team didn't score the highest amount of points.
Instead, the top scorers were... Bralirwa! Uwizeyimana taking a GC podium sounds pretty wild, and it is - mostly thanks to a huge ITT performance. On top of that, Silvestre found his good old legs again, winning a stage and taking the green jersey. And Izagirre also got a GC Top 10 - they just couldn't stop scoring in Norway... 265 points for the Rwandans in a race without their top leaders - what a masterpiece!
2nd place might be surprising as well - at least it is to me, as it's Jura GIANTS! No stage win, the best rider in 10th place in the GC - how is that possible? They brought lots of TTers, of which every single one disappointed. But they brought lots of them - and four actually did a good job in the hilly stages, to finish 10th (Küng), 11th (Brunel), 13th (Masnada) and 14th (Stüssi). Brunel also came 2nd in the U25 standings, and Jura won the team classification - a surprising 203 points given how the race went for them!
And finally, finally, in 3rd place we have race winner Dunbar. A 2nd place in the ITT set the foundation for the GC win, with the two hilly stages not being very convincing, though. It's 193 points for the Irishman - and his team, as nobody else managed to score.
So, let's take a look at the overall numbers for May. We had "Jura" in the Top 3 three times - for all three non-C2 stage races - and while the Swiss weren't the best team in any race, consistently high scoring still brings them another monthly win! It's 488 points for them, or a PpRD of 28.71 - the 2nd highest of the month.
The fight for 2nd was really close - and in the end we can say that Bralirwa's 3 additional race days gave them the edge over Sony. The Rwandans had an unexpectedly stellar Tour of Norway, whereas the Indians were top in Romandie - at the end, it's 421 vs. 419 for Bralirwa. Sony had the best PpRD of the month with almost 30, by the way.
It's then a 100 points gap to the rest of the Top 5, which are Fastned and Indosat. The former can surely be happy with their scoring, their 24.77 PpRD average is the 5th highest of the month (0.01 higher than Bralirwa), so that's some efficient racing. Indosat on the other hand covered their mandatory C2 race days this month, hence their PpRD couldn't be expected to be overly high anyway. Dunbar and Yates still got some solid points in.
The lower half of the Top 5 then is really close; we have just 19 points between 6th and 10th! The teams ranging from 287 to 268 points are Lierse, McCormick, Zwift, Lampre and UBS. McCormick only used 11 race days for this score, which gives them the 4th highest PpRD in May. UBS needed 19 RDs for their 268 points...
Sauber in 11th are the final team above 200 points, thanks to some great cobbles results in May. With only 10 RDs used, that's also a PpRD above 20 for them - which should give them some room to breathe in the relegation fight as well. Kraftwerk, Colombini, Assa and Xero are the final Top 15 teams - all scoring between 196 and 181 points. Take Sauber in as well, and it's another 5 teams within just 21 points from each other... By the way, Assa with only 7 RDs used are #3 in terms of PpRD.
Trans and Genii then are the final teams above 100 points - the latter finally at least getting a PpRD above 10, which might bring them back some hope.
Tryg on the other hand won't be happy with 76 points in 13 days of racing, whereas Los Pollos at least just used 7 RDs for almost as many points (71). Another bad month for the Mexicans, though - who will be happy that Zmorka Time has now started...
DuckDuckGo, Popo4Ever, Glanbia, Zalgiris and Spark are at the end of the table - the latter having only raced in Norway, with their 5 RDs being the minimum value this month.
Team
Che
Nak
TdR
Ltu
Aut
Dun
Nor
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Jura GIANTS
0
0
131
126
0
28
203
488
17
28.71
2
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
0
0
91
18
0
47
265
421
17
24.76
3
Sony - Force India
80
0
180
134
0
25
0
419
14
29.93
4
Fastned
91
0
0
76
0
56
99
322
13
24.77
5
Indosat Ooredoo
2
0
85
0
35
0
193
315
20
15.75
6
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
106
19
138
0
0
11
13
287
17
16.88
7
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
0
0
149
0
0
133
282
11
25.64
8
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
0
124
0
0
0
158
282
13
21.69
9
Lampre - Pinarello
140
0
0
81
0
24
29
274
13
21.08
10
Team UBS - Tissot
46
0
32
21
0
57
112
268
19
14.11
11
Sauber Petronas Racing
86
0
19
0
0
97
0
202
10
20.20
12
Kraftwerk Man Machine
21
0
81
50
0
0
44
196
17
11.53
13
Colombini Cycling
0
0
0
100
0
0
88
188
11
17.09
14
Assa Abloy
0
10
0
0
0
0
171
181
7
25.86
15
Xero Racing
4
0
68
63
0
0
46
181
17
10.65
16
Trans Looney Tunes
4
0
20
48
0
0
67
139
19
7.32
17
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
0
0
85
0
0
0
37
122
11
11.09
18
Tryg - Gobyk
0
0
28
0
0
32
16
76
13
5.85
19
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
0
0
0
0
36
35
71
7
10.14
20
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
0
0
0
0
0
4
56
60
7
8.57
21
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
0
0
0
0
46
0
0
46
9
5.11
22
Glanbia
0
0
0
0
0
0
36
36
9
4.00
23
DK Žalgiris
0
0
33
0
0
0
0
33
11
3.00
24
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
0
0
0
0
0
28
28
5
5.60
Full Ranking
After half of the season - which isn't true for most teams in terms of RDs used, but it is in terms of months of racing done - Jura have taken back the PCT lead! The newly promoted Swiss are having a far better 2nd attempt in PCT than their first try two years ago - after 83 days of racing, they're totalling 1,981 points and are projected to end up with 3,891!
Unlike Jura, Fastned definitely were expected high up; they may have lost the lead, but with a solid month they still improved their PpRD and are clearly on track for promotion. It's 1,862 points for the Dutchmen - which is just 4 points more than another rather surprising team...
...which is Bralirwa! Sure, they often had a good start to the season - but this year, it's by far not all about Stallaert. Meintjes is doing a great job - and so are former top puncheur Izagirre and even "domestique" Uwizeyimana! The Rwandans have the 3rd best PpRD - just slightly behind Jura - and given that their team has no major weakness and lots of strengths, it's really starting to look great for them!
It's not just the absolute number of points that could make the Top 3 feel comfortable - but also the gap to the rest. Assa Abloy - having switched places with Los Pollos - currently hold at 1,534 points, or 300 less than Bralirwa. To be fair, they have also raced far less - and they still have the highest projected score of the division!
As already mentioned, Los Pollos lose another place, and now are on the last spot eligible for automatic promotion. They're another 100 points back - but as said before, they still have some nice races left for the division's clear-cut #1 time triallist Zmorka... And I'm sure Aular, Higuita, Zepuntke, Manninen and Sütterlin will do enough to at least get that Top 5, if not more!
So, we still have the same teams on the Top 5 spots as one month ago. However, the next three teams have closed in - and not just slightly! Lampre are still in 6th, but they're now less than 100 points behind the Chicken! And so are Sony, who trail Lampre by just 12 points, having moved up from 10th to 7th - with some potentially great Choi races due next month...
Indosat are still in 8th place, but they're above 1,300 points as well - meaning just about 130 behind Los Pollos. With some more great Dunbar races to come, such a gap can vanish in no time. By the way, Lampre, Sony and Indosat all have race roughly the same amount, with 79, 79 and 78 RDs used up.
However, one of the biggest winners this month are McCormick! The U.S. Americans still don't need McNulty to do a great job - they're now up from 14th to 9th place! And they do have the 6th highest PpRD, so imagine what happens when McNulty actually resumes racing... We'll find out very soon! Their 1,137 points are about 300 less than Los Pollos, for sure, but...
Team UBS then round off the current Top 10. Just 5 points behind McCormick - but with 23 race days more spent! Despite being in 10th place, the Swiss actually have the 6th lowest PpRD of the division - relegation danger might be closer than it actually looks like...
Outside the Top 10, we have 3 teams within just 11 points from each other. Popo4Ever currently hold at 1,092, 6 more than Lierse and 11 ahead of Xero. The Belgians probably can be the happiest about this situation, having gained 3 spots this month - but with all three being seen as promotion contenders pre-season, none of them can really be glad about that 350 points gap to the Top 5... Some work still to be done!
Tryg and Sauber are the last teams above 1,000 points, with the Danes being among the month's biggest losers having dropped 5 spots. However, unlike the Sammarinese, their PpRD currently looks rather healthy - but we've seen how quickly that can change...
DuckDuckGo also lost 5 places this month, but they do have some more RDs in stock. Their 961 points are just roughly 200 above the relegation area, though, so there's definitely some work to do for them, too. Which also holds for Kraftwerk, another 13 points down.
It's then a 130 points gap down to the bottom 7, who are looking most likely to be in relegation danger. Colombini indeed do have the 7th lowest PpRD, but they haven't been too bad lately. Which clearly also holds for Zwift, who have found their mojo and are only going upwards. If Powless and Jorgenson continue to be amazing, don't be surprised to even see them knock at the door of the Top 10 later in the year!
On the other hand, Zalgiris are having an awful time - which also shows in the rankings, as they're now on the first relegation spot. Just an example of how close success and failure sometimes are: go and compare Uwizeyimana and Lasinis. One just took GC 3rd and 110 points in Norway - the other left with 0 points... When you're on a roll, you're on a roll - when you aren't, points are hard to get by...
But well, it's not like that didn't hold for other teams. Genii are 21st now - one reason might be Penasa no longer outperforming his stats. And behind him, there's honestly not that much - and it shows in the rankings. One out of just 4 teams below 10 PpRD - not looking good...
Which is true as well for Trans, whose puncheurs have been far less successful than last year so far. There's still time to turn things around, but it's looking tricky.
Even more so for Spark and Glanbia - both of which admittedly were expected to struggle, but to be that far away from safety already at this point surely isn't great. Both have some decent TTers, who might bring them much needed points in the next couple of months - we'll see if any of them can still turn things around!
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
Proj
1
2
Jura GIANTS
1981
83
23.87
3891
2
1
Fastned
1862
85
21.91
3571
3
3
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
1858
78
23.82
3883
4
5
Assa Abloy
1534
64
23.97
3907
5
4
Los Pollos Hermanos
1435
71
20.21
3294
6
6
Lampre - Pinarello
1354
79
17.14
2794
7
10
Sony - Force India
1342
79
16.99
2769
8
8
Indosat Ooredoo
1301
78
16.68
2719
9
14
McCormick Pro Cycling
1137
65
17.49
2851
10
13
Team UBS - Tissot
1132
88
12.86
2096
11
7
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
1092
78
14
2282
12
15
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
1086
77
14.1
2298
13
12
Xero Racing
1081
71
15.23
2482
14
9
Tryg - Gobyk
1047
74
14.15
2306
15
16
Sauber Petronas Racing
1000
77
12.99
2117
16
11
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
961
65
14.78
2409
17
17
Kraftwerk Man Machine
948
65
14.58
2377
18
19
Colombini Cycling
816
63
12.95
2111
19
22
Zwift Pro Cycling
772
55
14.04
2289
20
18
DK Žalgiris
754
65
11.6
1891
21
20
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
720
85
8.47
1381
22
21
Trans Looney Tunes
660
77
8.57
1397
23
23
Spark-BNZ Racing
429
62
6.92
1128
24
24
Glanbia
399
57
7
1141
June will be the month with most RDs spent across the PCT teams by far - 580, which means 24 per team on average. We'll see to which extend especially all that PTHC and HC racing will reshuffle the rankings - stay tuned!
Edward Theuns was racing, but not very successfully. Given that Joseph Areruya took a break as well, the two keep their 4th and 5th place respectively, being the final riders above 500 points.
Joeri Stallaert still sits in 6th with 467 points - but already the first race in June could clearly change that, with even 2nd place being within reach if he does great in the rare 2-day stage race Franceville.
Doing well in stage races is what the next two did - Louis Meintjes in Romandie, and Eddie Dunbar in Norway. They moved up from 10th to 7th and from 20th to 8th respectively - and especially for the latter, the sky seems to be the limit. Currently, they total 444 and 437 points, but especially Dunbar still has barely raced...
Matti Manninen and Robert Stannard both lost two spots to these stage racers, and are now in 9th and 10th place. Bralirwa are the only team with two in the Top 10 - looks like they really got their transfers right this year!
Only one rider - Sergio Higuita - actually dropped out of the Top 10; he's now sitting in 11th, 22 points behind fellow puncheur Stannard.
Among the most notable improvers besides Dunbar are Van Hooydonck (26 -> 12), Paillot (30 -> 16), Oomen (35 -> 19), Choi (52 -> 23) and most impressively Jorgenson (105 -> 28) with a stunning Norway performance.
Thank you once again for the detailed update, Fab!
A month without a lot of racing for us. Decent result in Dunkerque by Zepuntke and shit result in Norway except for the stage win, so one placer lower in the rankings compared to last month. Team will need to pick up the pace again soon if they intend on promoting. Congratulations on leading the rankings again, Fab
Quiet months for us, with only a C2 classic and Tour of Norway on the programme. Tour of Norway went way better than expected, with Paillot continuing to perform at a very high level in the hilly TT races. I'm excited to see how far up he can go on the individual rankings this year - he's certainly well ahead of where he was at this point last season.
Dreading June a bit, with Tour de Suisse, Criterium de Dauphine and Tour of California taking up a lot of racedays without us really bringing a top-tier contender. Hopefully Faglum Karlsson and Chaves can make the most of it, but fully expecting our PpRD to drop in the coming month. Some good races for Dainese and Paillot/Salas as well, though, which I'm looking forward to
Thanks a lot Fab and well done on your great season so far!
Even with Eastman yet to get going it looks like we are toast- just too big a gap to safety. To be honest only Kennett overperforming has saved us from complete embarrassment. We are entering into more Glanbia-friendly territory for the rest of the season but it looks like the step up was badly miscalculated.
Still ToA should be fun and some decent young riders coming through
It's obviously been a great month for us. Although it didn't really feel like that. The TTT in Lithuania was awful, and so was the ITT in Norway. In Lithuania, Errazkin saved the race with his most valuable result so far. In Norway, we didn't get the expected individual top result - but depth saved us this time. I was really surprised when I saw the final score, was expecting clearly less after barely making the Top 10.
Romandie on the other hand went better than expected, didn't really think a podium for Stüssi would be realistic - especially after the small gaps in the TTT and the modifications of stage 4. But he did a great job. Theuns wasn't far away from doing great as well in Dunkerque, but he was a bit over-optimistic to use his great legs in useless attacks. Can happen, still not an awful result.
I knew we had to do well this month, with 3 races including some form of TTing. We definitely achieved the goal of increasing our PpRD, going from 22.62 to 23.87. That may not look like a big difference, but it gives us some margin of error for less productive months - especially June.
We'll definitely be gone from the top of the rankings by the end of June, with Bralirwa and Fastned probably passing us after Franceville already. Tour de Suisse will be very stacked and high points are improbable - just like in California (although there aren't that many great TTers among the PCT stage racers). Hallstatt has always been an awful race for us, even back in the Quintana days. Frankfurt is a dice roll - and so we're basically left with Amissa Bongo as a potentially good scoring race. Although if our TTers and Bol do as bad as in Norway, we might not have a good time there, either...
So, I might sound pessimistic - and indeed, one overperformance in any of these races could save the month. But it may very well happen that we'll lose a lot of ground in June - if we don't, I'll start believing that we can promote. Right now, it sure looks great - but other teams have had huge drops in the second half of the year...
Individually speaking, Theuns obviously stands above the rest of the team. He'll no longer be PCT's top cobbler after this month, but that's OK. What really matters in our fight for the top spots is team depth anyway - we've got 4 riders above 200 points, and 7 above 100. At least the latter isn't matched by any other team currently. Many leaders - Theuns, Bol, Masnada, Errazkin - have already reached their points target, and hopefully won't stop scoring. Stüssi has only just started his stage racing season, and is set to reach the target 200 points as well - hopefully by the end of June already. Which mainly leaves us with the TTers who are behind schedule - but with TT-heavy stage races like Amissa Bongo, Arab Tour and maybe Denmark yet to come, they'll surely catch up a bit. Which could be crucial to reach a Top 5 in the end - by now, I'm rather positive we'll finish inside the Top 10.
Generally speaking, great to see Sony making up for some heavy Benoot failures. Choi is as awesome as ever, and Vesely found his sprinting legs as well. They had an awesome month - and potentially another great one ahead. Promotion isn't that far away anymore... On the other hand, Los Pollos really need to pick up the pace again, but I'm sure they will. Indosat are also pretty hot now, with Dunbar getting his first GC win - more to follow?
No big surprises at the bottom of the table. Mre has proven again that he's a great planner, the Jorgenson move in Norway was huge and leads Zwift out of the relegation zone for now. Glanbia, Spark, Trans, Genii were all more or less expected to struggle - would be nice if some of them could turn things around! Hopefully not at the expense of UBS or Sauber, though, who look to be most at risk of dropping down...
Thanks for the great update Fab. Good news for us. I had South Africa, Lithuania and Norway in mind as upside races for us and they all went well. Odd to be in a good position with Boswell sitting as the 7th highest scorer on the team.
Kuss with just 5 points which means Holloway's reign as the highest scoring McCormick rider continues. A different landmark has fallen as Narvaez has taken half a season to establish himself as our highest scoring non-US rider (probably did it in South Africa alone).
June is obviously big with McNulty going to Suisse and California. But then not a lot to get excited about in July and August before the big one in September.
Apologies to Tinxia, I pirated Trans' puncheur depth strategy and it is working better for us than them.
Thanks for the lovely update and all the detail put into it / it is much appreciated
We had a decent month, a few good races and some actual success in our C2 race days that we have now very happily put behind us. We’re in a decent spot, but things can unravel quickly and I expect McCormick at least to pass us this month.
We have a lot of race days this month where we’re going to be depending on luck - Java and Suisse are gonna be absolute slogs if we don’t get results on the flats stages or join breaks. California will be a big race for us - it could ultimately define whether we have an ok month, or tumble down the ranking which is likely with the gamble taken for that race. Hanko was good to us at least - hopefully we haven’t used all our luck for the month.
Interesting to see Los Pollos form dip continue - things have to change for them sooner or later, far too good of a team to stay down for long. Assa killing it with Jura is good to see. Zwift were my pick for the bottom this season, but Mre is showing his experience with his planning choices surprisingly lifting his team out of the relegation zone - can they stay out though?
Apologies to Tinxia, I pirated Trans' puncheur depth strategy and it is working better for us than them.
At least for you is my plan working.
I don't know if it's really a thing, but maybe sprint actually matters more now for puncheurs? I mean, Calmejane is pretty much the same rider as Bagioli and Narvaez - and the three have almost identical scores: 220 (Narvaez), 212 (Bagioli), 210 (Calmejane). With the McCormick riders having the big TTT advantage in South Africa, and Bagioli being U25 eligible on top of that, I'd say Calmejane has had a good year so far.
On the other hand, Waeytens and Bystrom are pretty similar to Boswell in their statline - and their scores are pretty similar, too (70, 72, 89). I didn't do an in-depth analysis across the division - but with Hi and Spr being pretty much the only difference e.g. between Boswell and Bagioli/Narvaez, it looks like Spr is even more important than Hi now... And if you look at Meurisse - 329 points! - this might indeed be a thing. Turgis being rather in the "Bagioli zone" could then be due to Meurisse being picked as the leader as they mostly were racing together...
Maybe rather something for testing and potentially OVL adaptation (hence more fitting for suggestions thread), but that's my quick thoughts on the subject.
Monsalve's fully starts soon with Hallstat, Java and California so hopefully that will give us an edge in the fight for the promotion spots. Daniel has been a continuous disappointment this year due to the uptick in the competition on the PCT cobbles. Luckily it's not quite a Mads P esque underperformance but I don't think it would have been unheard of for him to have 100 points more than he right now if we had been on the higher end of our rolls on him. But the fact that we as a team only got 24 points out of Dunkurque is insanely poor, and I still don't really know what to say to that tbh. Luckily we still have Franceville, Benelux, Kigali and Rheden for our cobbles contingent to help our scoring a bit. Especially Benelux is a race that we always score incredibly well in so I still have hope!
Coutinho's performances have been lacklustre as well but I always knew that he was going to be a lottery ticket and there is 100% some planning stuff I didn't do properly for him to succeed so that falls back on me more than anything else, even if PCM22 sprints have been a bit weird at times. But even if the sprinting has been weird the top 10 still has the four best sprinters in the division currently so I don't think we can criticise it too much at our level tbh.
Glanbia still hasn't raced a ton but still sucks to see them so far removed from redemption, hopefully Eastman provides some solid entertainment for them during ToA!
Going to be interesting to see if Jura are able to hold on to the top spots with Theuns' season lacking towards its end, if I have seen correctly, I must admit I don't have a full scope of how many TT races they have left, still a surprising result for them regardless!
Even with all that said, we won't have the full scope of the division until after June's done!
Compared to others, it seems like we have a pretty calm month ahead, with only 20 race days. And the two stage races that make up the bulk of those, Amissa Bongo and California, are very high variance. If Izagirre and Uwizeyimana pull something out of the hat again, we might be in very good shape, else the rankings could look quite differently for us in the next update. Even Stallaert in Franceville and Meintjes in Hallstatt could go a number of ways. Should be very interesting to follow.
Seems like I was a bit too pessimistic about my performances due to a lot more RD used than the direct rivals.
But then again the last period even highered my PPRD as well and the other teams first need to keep their PPRD over the same amount of RD then.
Right now dropping to 4th in the projections is all fine, top5 is the only thing needed and seeing the clear gap now between 5th and 6th it looks all fine.
Individually Groenewegen, Olivier and Hooydonck all look good with Cras showing up there as well while Vansevenant is obviously lower than expected but as unmaxed rider I could only have hoped for a bit better performances. Point wise it`s likely fine with 1-2-3 decent showings in the end.
Thanks for keeping us updated Fabianski and a nice reading as well.
