Whereas PCT's cobblers had a big February, including both of their HC classics, for the PT cobblers March is THE month of the year. Four mandatory classics (including the 2nd monument of the year), plus optionally the calendar's sole 2-day stage race awaited them! A month eagerly expected by the top cobblers, potentially dreaded by the teams having no focus on cobbles at all.
But there were also two short PT stage races in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, which obviously also were potentially big scoring races. And last but not least, the first proper meetup for the pure climbers in Colombia - at least for the registered teams.
At least that's what was planned according to the schedule - sadly, the Vuelta a Colombia finally couldn't be held in March after all, making it an even more cobblers-heavy month.
A total of 7 races to cover - so let's not lose more time, but let's jump straight in!
First came the PT-rated Ronde van Nederland. 3 days in flat and slightly hilly terrain, exclusively won by sprinters so far unless you prefer counting inaugural winner Démare in the puncheur department. This year, a new hilly stage was added to slightly shift things towards the puncheurs - how did it play out?
Well, last year's winner Groves likes some hills anyway. And even though he had to digest the shock of his team disbanding, he repeated his 2023 success for his new team Jura! He couldn't win any stage (which he didn't last year, either), but with 6th, 2nd and 4th places was the most consistent rider, ending up on top of the GC and the points standings! He couldn't repeat his U25 win being no longer eligible, hence scored a tad lower than last year - but 347 points is still the highest individual score by far. On top of that, Jura also had Schmid in 20th place in GC (and 4th in U25), plus Rohendi in 40th and Delco in 46th. The Swiss also finished 3rd in the team standings, in what was their very first PT stage race win in history. All in all, it's 441 points for Jura - a score only beaten by Fastned's Tirreno campaign so far.
2nd place went to one of the best suited riders for this race, Yates. The Brit won stage 2 and finished 5th on day 3 - right behind Groves; a reversed order would have reversed the GC outcome as well. Yates also took 3rd place in points, for 254 points in total. cycleYorkshire also had Romo in 21st GC and 4th in U25 (behind a Jura rider as well, with Schmid), plus Kanerva and Bonnamour in the Top 50. They ended up 4th in the team standings (behind Jura again, unlike posted in the results), totalling 340 points all things considered.
3rd place in terms of team scoring might be a tad surprising - not Fastned with 3rd best scorer Vansevenant, nor Xero with #4 Pidcock - no, it's Rabobank! Grosu was "only" the 5th best individual scorer in the race (despite finishing 4th), due to no U25 points. The Romanian took two 3rd places on the first and the final day - without completely failing stage 2 (18th), he could also have kept Groves from becoming the first two-times winner of the race. So, Grosu was 4th in GC, 7th in points, and scored 183 points. But Rabobank also had Kron in 22nd, Gerts in 25th and Evenepoel in 35th (plus 6th U25) - and won the team standings. Which is worth 287 points for the Dutchmen, 7 more than their compatriots from Fastned who had almost no depth.
The cobbled PT classic Strada Appia Antica then came next. PT's first cobbled race of the year, definitely an eagerly awaited one - and one with a very particular route. First the hills, then the cobbles.
And the one who - rather surprisingly - handled this combo best, was Sulimov! Launched by teammate Senechal with 10km to go, he kept a small gap all the way to the finish line to celebrate a great solo win in Italy! With Senechal getting a strong 6th place and Kamyshev a disappointing 25th place, that's 349 points for Tinkoff, who start the cobbles season with a big bang!
He was the strongest in the chasing group, but top favourite Pedersen just came short of catching Sulimov. The Dane had to settle for 2nd place. Additionally, Grieg had a total of 7 out of their 8 riders in the Top 50, most notably De Gendt and Bohli inside the Top 20. All in all, a nice 269 points haul, somewhat making up for the missed win.
Pure cobbles skill weren't what mattered most here, confirmed by a strong Polanc taking 3rd place! Evonik may only have had only two more riders in the Top 50 - Kurianov and Eekhoff - but 174 points is still a decent start of their cobbles campaign.
Due to a major calendar shake-up, the cobblers then made the trip across Europe, to Hungary, for the PT-rated Macskako Kerekparverseny. Cat circle race according to some, Cobblestones Cycling Race according to others. No matter the actual meaning - the course definitely did have some cobbles, and also some hills.
Which are the perfect conditions for Polanc to shine - the Slovenian already finished 2nd last year, but went one better in 2024! Whereas it looked like Pidcock would take an upset win, he faltered on the final meters, where Polanc simply powered up the final incline to beat everyone. Sadly from Evonik's point of view, he was the only rider of his team to actively participate in the race, so the team "just" got minimum points otherwise, but that's still 260 overall - the rise through the rankings should definitely have started for them now!
2nd - once again - was Pedersen, who may be stronger than Polanc on flat cobbles, but simply couldn't match the latter on the final uphill. Still, it's a good start to the cobbles season - better than last year's 3rd/5th combo. And Grieg also had some pretty good depth, with Bohli getting a Top 30, and all of Ssabagwanya, De Gendt and Abrahamsen finishing inside the Top 50 as well. 221 points for the Danes, making it 490 in the first two cobbled races. Not bad...
In 3rd place, there was yet another one of these strong cobbles/hills hybrids. No, not Gerts, who went too early. But it was Theuns, who after a rough start in Strada Appia got everything right this time - most of all his sprint timing - to get another podium despite his first decline! Jura also had Schmid in the Top 50 after a mid-race attack - and most importantly Küng, Paprstka and Delco (67 Cob, don't ask me how he did this) taking 20th through 22nd. Quite some depth as well, and a massive 214 points haul for the Swiss.
Then we finally had a PTHC stage race - but not the expected one. Instead, the cobblers flew over to Gabon, for the calendar's only 2-day stage race, Franceville Classique. One day for the sprinters who can handle some cobbles - and then a brutal day on the cobbles, almost a pure race of attrition.
Without any doubt, the best rider on these two days was David Per! He may have struggled a lot in the first two cobbled classics of the year, but in the race named "Classique" which wasn't one, he was simply brilliant. Already on day one, he participated in the sprint - and he did not only participate, he took 3rd place! On day 2, he then just demonstrated his great overall skills - not only rouleur and cobbler skills, but also tactical skills. He caught all of those who went too early and took a fantastic solo win, more than 2 minutes ahead of the rest! The GC win plus the points jersey were his well-deserved reward - alongside 271 points. But Carlsberg also had Meiler, Resell, Bolivar and Cannister in the Top 50 - the latter ending up 2nd in U25 - and they finished 3rd in the team standings, for a total of 339 points - or 169.5 PpRD if you want!
And guess who came 2nd? Of course, it has to be Pedersen! The Dane just can't win this year it seems - whereas it looked great for him on S2 for a long time, he just went too early and ran out of steam in the end. 2nd on the stage, 2nd in GC, 3rd in points - and 2nd in team standings. 180 points for Pedersen, but with Bohli taking a pretty surprising 17th place and Stokbro finishing just outside the Top 20, Grieg picked up 251 points overall.
Tinkoff missed out on the race podium with Senechal's 4th place, but as usual, they had some great depth - for example, being the only team with two riders in the GC Top 10, as Kamyshev picked up the final spot. Sulimov also got a Top 25, netting the Russians the team standings and 224 points in total.
Next was the TTers' festival in the Czech Republic, also known as PT's Praha - Karlovy Vary - Praha. Once a classic, it's now THE stage race for even the totally uphill-allergic TTers. Which obviously isn't Wirtgen's case, but he's still the world's best TTer. On paper.
But once again, the race was ridden on the road - and on the road, a different story from the expected one was written. One of the story's main characters: Marlen Zmorka. No, he didn't win the race, he "only" finished 2nd. 2nd in the prologue, 2nd in the long TT, 2nd in GC - but first in the points standings, and also first in the team standings with his Oxxo mates. The Ukranian scored 309 points - the highest individual score - with Sütterlin contributing a 9th place GC finish for 91 points, and Festina/ELCO legend Vlatos ending up 12th in GC for 64 points. Erdenebat, Ocampo (2nd in U25) and Eaton all made the Top 50 as well. In the end, it's 547 points for the Mexicans and the new 2nd highest score of the year, just 11 points short of Fastned's Tirreno output.
Next up are EA Vesuvio. Not because of Wirtgen mainly, who wasn't even the team's highest finisher. No, it was Tanfield who had a sensational ride in the stage 3 TT, taking 4th place - which also was his final GC outcome. Wirtgen only finished 9th in the long ITT, something went horribly wrong. 8th place in GC is a totally surprising result - fortunately, he is part of a great team where anyone else can take over the leader role. Tanfield did this job, and Munton also got a solid 17th place finish. Onodera and Pelikan made the Top 30, Hepburn and Jungels the Top 50 - only De Bod missed out in 51st place... Despite Wirtgen's fail, that's 375 points for the Luxembourgers.
So, once again the GC winning team didn't get the highscore - and not even 2nd in this case. For a reason; 5 of Grieg's riders finished far behind the peloton on the final stage, throwing away potential Top 50 outcomes, due to their chasing duties. At least they successfully defended Würtz' yellow jersey, with the Dane getting back-to-back GC wins. But otherwise, only Dal Col made the Top 50 in 39th place, hence the pretty low overall score of 359 points for Grieg.
What's left of the month then? Well, two more cobbled classics. E3 Prijs first, hills and cobbles once again. And there were two main questions: Can Pedersen finally get a win? And will Per show his Franceville form or rather his Strada Appia / Macskako face?
The answer - to both questions - is: Per is on fire! So no, no Pedersen win; instead, Per continued his great riding from Gabon, outsprinting Senechal by a slim margin to take back-to-back wins! Last year, he mastered a group of 6; this time he even had 7 rivals, but all of them had to congratulate him in the end. Carlsberg also had Matsangos and Meiler in the Top 50, scoring 270 points in total.
As previously mentioned, Senechal was narrowly beaten to the line - still doing two places better than teammate Kamyshev last year. Speaking of the latter, he was among the most disappointing riders in this race, ending up 28th - two spots behind Sulimov. All in all, that's 214 points for Tinkoff.
For once, we also had Wisniowski showing up; one of the most expensive riders last off-season had a rough start to the year, and even though he couldn't quite finish on the podium yet, this 4th place still was his best result to date. Assa Abloy also had Girmay taking a great 17th place, and Rickaert finishing 21st, for 182 points in total.
Just like in February, a monument to round off the month. The Ronde van Vlaanderen this time the biggest race of the year for the cobblers who like hills.
Well, hills didn't matter a lot this year. The winner simply was the world's best cobbler - which on paper, and this year also out on the road - is Mads Pedersen. When a group of 6 including him arrived on the final kilometer, there never was much of a doubt he'd win this race - and he indeed did! It was his 2nd win in the Ronde, and his 3rd monument win overall (he also won the 2022 MSR). With Stokbro, Bohli, Jansen and De Gendt, Grieg got four more riders in the Top 50, resulting in a great tally of 349 points!
Wisniowski struggled a lot in his first races of the year, but has finally found his legs recently. The 2nd podium in a row for him, 2nd place this time after 3rd in E3. Loaned-in future monument winner Girmay got another strong result with 18th place, boosting Assa's score to 265 points!
Per's story is very similar to Wisniowski's - bad in Strada Appia and Macskako, great in E3 (win) and the Ronde (3rd); in addition, he won Franceville. After getting 6th here last year, he managed to repeat his 2022 result this time, only missing out against two of the greatest MG cobblers of the present. With Meiler only taking 31st place, Carlsberg didn't get much of a depth result, but 205 points still were narrowly enough to be the 3rd highest scoring team (King Power follow with 202).
Even though one race is missing compared to the schedule, it's pretty sure that this wouldn't have changed anything at the very top of the monthly rankings. A month that was very heavy on cobbles and had the most important stage race for the TTers. Guess who could come out on top after all of this?
It's obviously Grieg! And thanks to Franceville being scheduled in March this year, they even managed to beat Aker's pretty insane March score from 2023, which was 1,593 points. It did take a monument win to get there, though, as Grieg scored 1,631 points this month - or 96 points per day of racing!
The team in 2nd place is definitely more surprising. No top cobbler (but a decent one), no top TTer (but decent depth) - but besides these two disciplines, there also was the Ronde van Nederland. And winning this one was a "big point" for Jura, who end the month with 1,371 points, or 81 PpRD!
3rd place is much more predictable again, with Tinkoff being good on cobbles and in TTs. It still took a rather surprising Sulimov win in Strada Appia to get to 1,335 points, which also is a very strong performance.
We then have Carlsberg and Rabobank as the final teams above 1,000 points, and in particular the former could've landed on the March podium if Colombia hadn't been rescheduled. A Top 5 for both of them surely is a good outcome, even though Carlsberg certainly regret the two bad Per races.
Fastned, Evonik, King Power, Aker and Oxxo are the teams in the second half of the Top 10. King Power are the first team without Franceville, resulting in a 60 PpRD average, 6th best of the month. Evonik could've podiumed with Lecuisinier performing like last year in Colombia - but it will be their "bonus race" in a later month then.
Xero, EA, MOL, Cedevita and Assa are the next bunch of 5, separated by just 47 points (and only 25 behind the Top 10 in Xero's case). Assa certainly hoped for more, but Nederland and the first two cobbled races were disappointing for them, we'll see if that helps to move them up from last place.
Lidl and cycleYorkshire are 70 and 100 points respectively behind the Top 15, but they also have about the same margin to the bottom 5 teams. These are led by Gazelle, followed by Puma and Polar, all between 500 and 600 points.
ZARA and Moser definitely had a rough month - the latter barely crossing the 300 points mark. The latter had to be expected this low, the former might be a tad disappointed by Gaday, who really struggles at PT level cobbles.
Here are the full numbers for March (the RDs have been adapted to the actually raced scheduled, i.e. excluding Colombia):
Pos
Team
Ned
App
PKP
Fra
Mac
E3
RvV
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Grieg-Maersk
64
269
359
251
221
118
349
1631
17
95.94
2
Jura GIANTS
441
80
295
101
214
148
92
1371
17
80.65
3
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
193
349
127
224
104
214
124
1335
17
78.53
4
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
40
95
85
339
85
270
205
1119
17
65.82
5
Rabobank
287
90
48
172
97
164
185
1043
17
61.35
6
Fastned
280
97
157
61
142
80
131
948
17
55.76
7
Evonik - ELKO
124
174
56
111
260
95
125
945
17
55.59
8
King Power
103
112
216
0
152
115
202
900
15
60.00
9
Aker - MOT
100
132
143
67
128
130
179
879
17
51.71
10
Oxxo - Frisby
97
40
547
6
45
40
49
824
17
48.47
11
Xero Racing
224
78
222
103
82
40
50
799
17
47.00
12
EA Vesuvio
157
50
375
0
46
76
74
778
15
51.87
13
MOL Cycling Team
131
153
40
143
117
80
108
772
17
45.41
14
Cedevita
50
106
260
0
90
111
143
760
15
50.67
15
Assa Abloy
84
77
69
0
75
182
265
752
15
50.13
16
Lidl Cycling
262
82
59
0
160
55
64
682
15
45.47
17
cycleYorkshire
340
40
148
0
49
35
40
652
15
43.47
18
Gazelle
45
82
61
114
50
136
90
578
17
34.00
19
Team Puma - SAP
200
45
150
30
50
40
45
560
17
32.94
20
Polar
100
55
136
0
40
85
104
520
15
34.67
21
ZARA - Irizar
78
56
118
0
64
52
73
441
15
29.40
22
Moser - Sygic
81
45
65
0
40
40
45
316
15
21.07
Full Ranking
It was very, very close - but the March win was just enough to have Grieg move from 11th place right to the top! The Danes are totalling 2,768 points already (having had 1,943 a year ago - but without Franceville, to be fair), so they should feel much more comfortable this year than in 2023. The season is still long, but we can say that their top riders have delivered so far!
Fastned stay in 2nd place - missing out on the leader position by just 10 points! 2,758 points so far, with one RD less spent than Grieg - which results in the division's highest PpRD of 48.39. A great (re-)start in PT for the Dutchmen - and Wellens hasn't even raced so far! Where could their journey end? Vansevenant's Ardennes triple will surely give us a hint...
They were the surprising leaders post February, and Xero still hold onto their podium spot after this cobbles-heavy month! They're just 69 points behind Grieg (with 2 additional RDs spent, though), and with the 5th best PpRD they certainly are in a great position so far!
Promoted teams are all over the place - even PT newbies Jura have now joined the Top 5! 4th place for the Swiss, just 59 points behind Xero - without a world-class rider, their depth strategy is working pretty well so far. Just like Grieg and Xero, though, they don't really have a top GT contender - which should start hurting these three teams in the next couple of months. Fastned clearly are in a better situation right now in this respect.
There's already quite a gap behind the Top 4, 267 points to be precise. But beware of King Power, they have the 3rd best PpRD average of the division - after a cobbles heavy month without a top-level cobbler on board nota bene. They were among the title favourites pre-season, and they surely live up to this reputation for now.
Only 17 points behind King Power are Tinkoff, having gained 9 spots. It's then another 100+ points jump to Aker, Rabobank and Vesuvio, all pretty close to each other. Vesuvio are only the 2nd team so far not having done Portugal, so we'll see if they can make good use of their RD advantage later on.
The final team in the Top 10 are Oxxo, with 2,177 points, pretty closely followed by Gazelle. Cedevita in 12th place are the final team having reached 2,000 points so far. Despite the 120 poitns gap, let's count Carlsberg to this group as well, as the gap behind is even bigger.
And starting with 14th place, we get to the teams that have to worry at least a little bit about the danger zone. In cycleYorkshire's case, this definitely is mainly due to Cullaigh's complete failure to perform so far - what a waste of money so far. At least they have an RD advantage over the next teams, but such a situation is really unlucky.
The Brits are still almost 80 points ahead of the next squads, where the struggles really begin. MOL in 15th place are just 60 points clear of the relegation spots, with Puma having less than 50 points of margin. But we'll likely never talk about "Puma" and "danger zone" again after the Giro, if Herklotz indeed tries to capitalize on what looks like a perfect profile for him except for the final day).
Evonik have moved up quite a bit, from 21st to 17th, now being the final safe team. But yeah, without Colombia being postponed, we wouldn't be talking about them now, either, and the Ardennes are right around the corner as well. Probably no serious worries for them, either.
Polar and Lidl then are the first two teams on the relegation spots, trailing the safety zone by 29 and 49 points respectively. Both having race less than the teams in 15th through 17th, though, and having a better PpRD.
Assa and ZARA then are anotehr 200 points down, and in particular the former were surely hoping for a better result after this intense cobbles month. But the season is still long, and Dainese has already won Green once...
Moser are our new red lantern, totalling 1,250 points so far - not even half of the Top 4 scores. Gaviria has been amazing in Qatar - but MSR being their only other race above 100 points clearly shows the issues of an extremely top-heavy team. Waiting for Kudus to help!
As expected, there has been a lot of movement with all the cobblers starting to score. Howerver, there's no change at all at the top: Tom Pidcock still leads the standings and has even extended his lead by 19 points, having raced more than his closest rival.
Said rival still is Mauri Vansevenant, holding onto 2nd thanks to a great Ronde van Nederland. He has raced less than Pidcock so far, and could use the Ardennes triple to move past the Brit. On the other hand, we'll also have a Giro winner who could overtake both - we'll see that in a month.
For now, we have Ronde winner Mads Pedersen in 3rd place, totalling 860 points. Which is 87 less than Vansevenant - but Roubaix is waiting right around the corner. The 2nd Grieg rider (and the 2nd Mads) is just next, with Würtz moving from 7th to 4th after his Praha win.
Then we get the next cobbler with David Per rounding off the Top 5. With 772 points, he trails Würtz by 11 points, which he'll easily get in Roubaix. And who knows, with another win in the Vélodrome, he could even be the division's top cobbler by the end of April.
Tom Wirtgen has dropped from 4th to 6th after an inexplicable Praha underperformance. Taylor Phinney even lost 4 spots, but he didn't race. Eduard Grosu did, and as a result he holds onto his 8th place - just 11 points ahead of teammate Floris Gerts. That's funny, twice two teammates with X83 and X72 points in the Top 10...
The final Top 10 rider is yet another cobbler - the 4th one - with Jan Polanc totalling 568 points. 4 less than Gerts, expect the battle between them to continue in a couple of days...
The Top 20 also include 4 cobblers, with Wisniowski being 21st as the next one - we can definitely expect this to change after the first GT which is scheduled for April. Expect quite some more shakeups!
Thank you for the fantastic write-up Fabianski! As always, I should say.
For us, it was a month that started off horribly but ended great. Of course, those first two classics hurt. Those points are lost, and we can't get them back. But Per came back with a vengeance to go Win-Win-Podium in his last three races of the month and really saved his season. He's actually scored more than at this point last year, though his win in Franceville (which wasn't on the March calendar last year) is a huge part of that. Roubaix will be the huge finale to see which direction this classics seasons goes, but he gave us another chance at life.
Looking at where we are at this point compared to last year, it's not catastrophic, but not ideal. At this point in 2023, we were in 8th place overall and with roughly 100 points more than we have now in 2 fewer race days. Granted, PT scoring in general is up this year, so that gap may actually be bigger relatively (I guess this is due to either a calendar change or PCT teams underperforming in PTHC?). Still, that's not a huge difference in overall performance up to this point, despite that fact that Galta won Volta last year and was sitting 300 points above his current total by this time. So we bombed a few performances and still haven't lost a ton of ground, which is good.
Ultimately, GT season is going to determine the direction this year goes. If Galta and Carthy show up better than Galta/Quintana last year, we have a good shot at survival. If they give even an inch, we're going down for sure. All we can do is hope and pray now.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
These end of month updates are just so nice to read, thanks so much!
First solid month for us. Cobbled Cat & Strada Appia were great, the other cobbled ones at least solid even if i had higher hopes for especially Flanders. Nederlands & Praha were also a bit lower than i had hoped but somewhat expected low scores. Still, we have a long way to go and the distance to some of the other teams like e.g. King Power is already on the larger end so we have our work cut out for us.
March was always going to be one of our most important months, but we've definitely outscored my expectations. Phenomenal work from Mads x2 and the team. Truly awesome to see us all the way up at 1st place, especially since we know it won't last.
Number three and four in the individual rankings tell the story of our season quite good, but fairly happy with the amount of depth points as well so far. Hopefully that can continue when we get to the mountains.
Thanks for another great update Fab, and congratulations to Grieg on a very big scoring month and the current lead.
As expected we did bad on the cobbles, but we really should have done better in Nederland. A good thing that Praha delivered a lot of points and kept us in the top-10 for now.
Just like in our 2022 PT campaign we see ourselves sliding down the rankings with the months passing, but this time we should at least have a chance of survival. A lot will also depend on guys like Higuita, Halvorsen and Marin improving on their previous results (except for a great Qatar for Halvorsen ofc), and whether Eastman can actually get on the podium (and ideally the 2nd place) in the Giro as well soon. Time trialists have done well so far, hope they can keep that up in the Giro and other time trials. But a good thing for us that already quite a bit of our cobbled races are over now.
For us, that was a very solid and consistent month. Nothing spectacular, but only one minor miss in Franceville, makes for a solid month, and we are opening a gap down to the fight to avoid relegation. Cool to see several promoted teams be this great. Especially Xero and Jura have been amazing. For the title, no clear favourite as of now, as we are still waiting for any sensational performance giving a massive points haul from any of the candidates pre-season. Looks like we will need to wait for the GTs!
It doesn't really feel like we're having a good season so far, as there has not been any outstanding result yet and we're still awaiting our first victory. So it's pleasant to see that we're in 5th place at the moment only on the back of our scoring depth, mainly from our cobbles and tt squads. In the individual ranking Mano is the best placed in 36th ahead of a few more in the top 100. Gidich has some very important races coming up, so I hope he can show himself there, as he should be the one leading the charge.
Looking forward to the upcoming races! Thanks Fabianski for the nice write-up as always and also to all the reporters keeping the season going.
I felt like we had a good month, but looking at the rankings shows we were just average. We continue to lose ground to the top 10. At least I'm not worried about relegation for the time being.
Cool to see my two homegrown leaders both in the top 30 scorers.
If you look solely at our position, we seem to be in a good spot. But given how tight everything is you can rapidly go from a top 10 team to fighting to avoid the danger zone and vice versa. The relegation battle is going to be as fierce as ever.
