September had three huge races for us in the form of Balkans International, GP Lugano and Milano - Torino. It also contained the annual PTHC cobbles double-header, which we haven't missed since its inception and always takes place on the manager's birthday. Back in the Rowe/Debesay days we pulled out some great results in those races, but now its just hoping for a breakaway to platform some points, otherwise it could be a 0-pointer from two of our last remaining chances to score.


Who else can be trusted to turn up in such a situation but Jamalidin Novardianto? The team legend was a key part of the 12-man breakaway, and ended up finishing 32nd in the Rheden GP, in a deep field of cobblers. Vermeersch acted as our leader in the peloton and just missed the points in 52nd.


Hours later in the Tour of the Battenkill, we missed the breakaway and began to think a double-points day might be a tough battle for van Zyl. In the end our veteran South African road captain rode one of the finest classics of his career and finished a brilliant 16th. An awesome day with points out of two races we weren't expected to gain them!


Two days later it was a PCT punchy double header. Last year at the GP Lugano Hugo Houle was 4th, winning the sprint behind the late attackers. This time out he was 8th, coming 2nd in the sprint behind a bigger group of late attackers! A solid result, even if he might have dreamed of a win if the race came our way - hard to do with our best support squad with Areruya south of the border!


So far in Areruya's classics campaign, he'd won at Strade Bianche, before the other riders showed great cooperation and tactics to tire him out and beat him into third at the GP Wallonie. Back in Italy, though, and he was back to winning ways - not with his usual attacking panache, but with a dominant sprint, leading it out and never looking like losing. Feels safe to say its his favourite country to race in so far, ever since his fantastic 2021 at Tirreno-Adriatico, the Giro d'Italia and Giro di Lombardia, and in 2023 making it 2/3 of the Italian PCT classics. A chance to sweep them in Emilia next month.

Four wins, 396 points, and the team's first PTHC GC victory...

1		Los Pollos Hermanos	4250
2		Jura GIANTS	3642
3		Indosat Ooredoo	3141
4		Assa Abloy	3088
5		Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes	3045
6		Xero Racing	2926
7		Fastned	2910
8		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	2858
9		Sony - Force India	2759

Finally the boost in the rankings we'd been chasing, with nearly 500 points in our 14 RDs this month, and our meteoric rise into the promotion spots is almost complete, with Bennett in the Tour of Japan (won last appearance), Houle in the Euskal Bizikleta (won last appearance), and three Areruya classics (is a beast), it might be a stretch to say we can finally breathe, but we can certainly attack the month with some swagger, and true belief that this miracle comeback, from the bottom half of the table halfway through the season to the Top 5, is really, truly, possible.

AbhishekLFC wrote:
Results and points keep getting better month to month and the opportunity is ripe to make the final push towards direct promotion in October

One of the biggest months in team's history kicked off with one of the team's historically best races: the Tour of Japan. Bennett won each of the last two editions of the race in 2019 and 2020, taking three stage wins and winning both of the Points and KOM jerseys. He entered this edition as one of the top favourites, and for his last race at the peak of his powers, we were greatly looking forward to this race. He had a great team around him, with Fouche and Pidcock both here to support and chase the U25 jersey.


It started perfectly, with Nils Schomber grabbing yellow with his third prologue victory of the season. We made damn sure the team didn't repeat the mistake of treating him as our new GC leader like in California in our team briefing after the stage.


Just kidding, they absolutely did do that again and Bennett lost a minute to many GC riders and two minutes to Higuita. What the fuck. I am going to jump in front of a bullet train.

Bennett showed his form with a solid 5th place on the MTT. He still had two minutes' deficit to the top GC riders but maybe a chance of some redemption on Stage 5.


Just kidding, he barely did anything on Stage 5 and then lost three more minutes on the final flat stage. He ended 17th on GC, one spot behind U25 winner Pidcock. A final hearty WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK for a season of what the fucks.


Hopefully at the Grand Prix Cycliste, Areruya could get our month back on track at a hilly classic. Billed as Part 2 of a PTHC trilogy fight this year with newly minted deadly rival Miguel Angel Lopez after the Balkans International, it was living up to that reputation as they sat side-by-side for most of the race before Lopez' teammate Polanc kicked off the attacks, and then they both followed the first big move by Skujins.


Lopez countered that move hard and nobody could follow, the Colombian quickly gaining a minute's lead which looked unassailable.

You'll never get an answer out of Areruya until the day he died for why he did what he did next. Was it a Cannibal-like desire to win absolutely everything, or was it just a need not to see Lopez win over him, but he chased hard, attacking and leading the group for kilometre after kilometre, long after everyone else had started thinking of second place, determined to chase down the lone leader. Eventually he had chasing company from Buchmann and Paez. Eventually they roped in Lopez as well as breakaway stragglers.


However this didn't leave anyone involved in that business left with much energy for the final sprint, with Areruya finishing 11th the best of the riders mentioned thus far, with Lopez falling out the back of the group and ending up 17th for his efforts. Perhaps the very definition of a Pyrrhic victory for Areruya in their burgeoning rivalry, and a second straight awful result from a race we thought would be a key source of points in our promotion chase, our two key leaders, our greatest ever rivals, stumbling as we come around the bend onto the finishing straight.

After doing so well to put ourselves in a position to see this comeback through, were we really going to throw it all away now?

After stumbling in the first two races of October, we had three more left in our promotion bid. Areruya had a PTHC and HC classic, but first it was time for Hugo Houle, finishing a disappointing season, to defend his GC title in the Basque Country.


He missed out on bonus seconds but looked in sharp form on the first stage, as he and old rival and race favourite Arnaud Demare finished 4th and 5th respectively. On Stage 2, Demare would grab 12 bonus seconds while Houle could only manage 11th.


On the tougher Stage 3, Houle made a final selection of 17 but could not manage much in the sprint. Going into the final stage, which he won in an upset last season on the hilltop finish, he sat tied with 10 others in 4th on GC, 20 seconds back of the yellow jersey Hayakawa.


Stage 4 saw a win for ex-Xero man Meurisse, as a large group of riders finished together, including Lagane, who would win the GC as the only rider who was ahead of the Houle group on GC heading into the stage. Houle was passed by Dzamastagic for the top of the s.t. group on stage countback, but still managed a very solid 3rd on GC to finish his season with a great result and his head held high. Some crucial points for us too as we hand the reigns over to Joseph Areruya for our final two races of the campaign.

@red - If it is to be so, it would have been a great one to go out with, yes

@Abhi - Can always trust our Canadian legend to turn up big when it matters!

Hugo Houle had got us back on course, and now possibly the biggest race for us left was the Japan Cup, not least of all because it was actually our final Goal Race of the season. As it was an OR option with winning the Benelux Challenge, which we would have achieved, safe to say it would be a disappointment not to achieve it. We had a discussion with Areruya about energy management after the events in Canada, and we were good to go.


On the third-to-last climb, it was once again Areruya and Lopez animating the race, trading respective attacks and neutralising the other.


Vansevenant was the most active in the race, attacking twice and getting away with Beltran, being dropped by Beltran, caught by a favourites' group and attacking again to try and catch Beltran, which was matched by Areruya as everything came back together on the final circuit.


Areruya set a high pace in the closing kilometres, and it looked like it would be a sprint after the descent.


He was on the front row coming out of the descent but was forced on the outside of the final corner, as Sagan lead from Lopez just ahead of our Rwandan champion.


And Lopez would finally get some measure of revenge for the Balkans International as he overhauled Sagan to win, with Areruya only managing third. A solid finish in a PTHC field, our goal achieved and a big dose of points to our total, which moved us into a still-not-quite-real-feeling third place in the PCT with one race to go. Last year Areruya had a poor showing in the Giro dell'Emilia to drop us to 12th with 8th on the table at the end of the season. This time around, it was time for his redemption through securing our promotion.

The traditional PCT season closer of the Giro dell'Emilia saw Areruya put up his worst performance since he fully developed as a rider in last year's edition, over-extending himself, finishing 8th and losing multiple ranking positions in the process. This time we feel fairly confident our rankings goals will be achieved as we sit 3rd in the division with a small cushion to the promotion barrier - however we will need to be absolutely sure, and there's no better way to do that than for our man to get a little redemption here.


Areruya went for an opposite approach to last year, keeping his powder dry as his the team set a high pace in the peloton which saw next to no attacks. Kipkemboi's day was done at the foot of the final climb, leaving Areruya in good position in a group of 27.


Under the red kite everyone opened their best sprint, and Areruya sat in a great position alongside the Sony past and present of Kelderman and Benoot, with Buchmann also on the front row.


With 500m our promotion looked secure as Areruya lead the sprint comfortably and would surely not miss the podium, however he more than anyone would want to do it in style, could he hold on? Buchmann and Benoot didn't look like cracking, Kelderman predictably did.


Oh yes he can! For the 13th time this season, Areruya takes victory, and this is one of the sweetest of them all - our rankings position secured, a final sweet victory taken, the team back into the Pro Tour, and our main man sailing past 1500 points to cap off one of the greatest seasons the division has ever seen. What a man, what a moment!

@redordead - Well, we'll give all the predictors their usual credit or shaming in the next post I'm not sure I can fairly give the same expectations to Areruya as you do looking at the calendar and the quality of competition - but I'd love to be proven wrong

@Dippofix - Thank you!

MacC - 1st - Way over-ambitious. He had a "TT factor" as part of the statistical mumbo-jumbo and when he made it more powerful, it still only put us down to 2nd. Hint: The PCT needs a way stronger "TT factor" than even the most extreme prediction models seem to manage!
cunego59's H2H sweepstakes - 2nd - Not his opinions, but his creation - does he deserve credit? Probably not!
knockout - 4th - Wasn't expecting the Fall of the MALamo in Balkans ("...even if Areruya wants to try to compete with Miguel Angel Lopez for the Balkans victory" ), otherwise perfect <3
redordead - 4th - The only full-on PCT preview this year, his comments weren't too accurate but the ways he was wrong balanced out to make his prediction pretty good!
Ulrich Ulriksen - 5th - Thought we'd score about 800 points less than we actually did, but I guess he did predict us to promote still.
Croatia14 - 5th - Idiot, non-managers don't know enough about the MG to comment on such matters.
kandesbunzler26 - 10th - The old moral question of can we make fun of a predictor who openly blames a shitty model he made and is the only one forcing himself to abide by? Yes we can, this sucked!
Fabianski - 10th - What does he know about the 2023 PCT? Shoutout for saying "even 5th" as our wild best case scenario.
whitejersey - "On paper it should be hard for Areruyra to have a stronger year than last year" - That's right we're digging up random HQ comments because this made me laugh reading back. This was post-training, to be clear.
AbhishekLFC and jandal7 - Too lazy to write anything about the PCT this year huh boys?

jandal7 wrote:

redordead - 4th - The only full-on PCT preview this year, his comments weren't too accurate but the ways he was wrong balanced out to make his prediction pretty good!

@Croatia - Not sure a 75/78 MO/HI guy could have scored enough points behind Areruya at nearly every race to get us to Jura or LPH - from next year you're definitely right though!

@redordead - That's an impressive claim Looking forward to it

The team had two returning goals and another returning goal race, this being the first repeated goal as it was the only one that was achieved in 2022! And while last year this was achieved by the skin of Joseph Areruya's teeth, in 2023 he dominated the competition, winning three stages, the GC and the points in confident fashion. Read our full recap here.

An agonising defeat here, denied by a couple of bonuses won by a wheel length on the final stage after gaining another three stage wins in fine style which also saw him win the green jersey. In the high mountains for a guy like Areruya to lose to a huge name in Lachlan Morton by such a small margin is a pretty awesome achievement, and while losing is never nice, especially missing out on a goal, this was still a real turning point in our season, coming along with Pidcock's GC win in Benelux and kicking off our comeback in the rankings. Read our full recap here.

Our other repeating goal, last year Areruya struggled for much of the race before beasting the final stage to claim a stage win and 4th on GC. This year, despite the looming Lopez threat, we chose to repeat the goal believing we should at least be 2nd here. What happened was even better than that - he claimed yellow with a stage win after a superb finish on Stage 3, then on the climactic Stage 6 chased down a powerful Lopez attack alone, overhauled the Colombian and repeated his win from last year to seal a magnificent GC victory along with his two stages and once again the Points jersey. Read our full recap here.

This was our choice in our OR goal, and since it came after we would have already achieved its alternate option (Pidcock winning the Benelux Challenge), there was added pressure on Joseph Areruya in the midst of the promotion fight to achieve this one. As Alan Shearer would say though, pressure is for tyres and although he couldn't beat MAL again, Areruya claimed his first podium in a PT or PTHC classic with a solid ride and made it 3/4 goals achieved by him this season. Read our full recap here.

And our season was completed by becoming by far our most successful season in goals to date, with 4/5 achieved and the other missed by just four seconds. Despite looking like this goal was down the toilet at the end of June, we came back strong and even made the final podium after a great effort across the board, from Areruya's superstar showing to the efforts of our domestiques to somehow score points in flat and cobbled classics in the back half of the season. Read our full recap here.