Once upon a time, a little yellow single-celled organism was searching around for some food for his friends, the other little yellow single-celled organisms. He found a tree full of bananas, and it became the most holy food for them; only apples (or babbles, as they would pronounce them) came close afterwards, but the bananas stayed on top forever. They could continue to eat bananas without anyone noticing, until capitalism.
A bunch of Americans found out about the bananas, and decided to eat them as well. The organisms weren't too happy about that, but the Americans only wanted to sell bananas to them for ridiciously high prices. The organisms agreed on the deal, because they just couldn't live without bananas. The Americans founded a company called United Fruit Company, which would later be known as Chiquita Brands International.
After the deal, the little yellow single-celled organisms were living in peace again, even during both World Wars and the Cold War, but their rest was disturbed again in the 21st century when an American/French film crew decided to use them for a movie. The company, who named theirself Illumination Entertainment, had a big plan with them, and they even gave them a name that will always be recognized, the Minions!
Illumination Entertainment became a subsidiary of Universal Studios, a rich and famous American company. The film, called Despicable Me and released in 2010, became a hugh success, and the Minions became rich. A sequel would follow 3 years later, and that made them even richer. In 2015, the Minions will finally get their own movie, suprisingly called Minions, where they will finally be main characters. Despicable Me 3 is scheduled for 2017.
One of the Minions was a big fan of cycling, and decided to found a cycling team with the money he earned from the movies and the bananas. He, however, did not have enough money to it, neither did all the Minions together. They first asked Universal Studios to sponsor them. They decided to help, but they didn't offer enough money to fund the entire team. Then Chiquita came to rescue, and offered an amazing amount of money for the team, accompanied by a giant raise in the price of the bananas. Team Chiquita-Universal was born!
The Minions began strong, designing jerseys, making goals and selecting races. Riders were signed, but they made one critical mistake. Instead of human currency, the riders were paid in bananas. This did not only effect their health, but it also resulted in some angry Minions who had to either go to rehab or switch to babbles. And things didn't get better when a film crew showed up to make a new movie about them, which is to premiere soon.
This slight controversy resulted in a big mess. Minions weren't motivated to watch races or write about it, riders weren't performing due to the lack of support from the Minions and organizers threatened to take our license away. Our season marked just four highlights, though that's more than none. The victory of Chad Haga in a TT in Algarve resulted in a mass celebration in our lab and a daily pilgrimage to Portugal. Carter Jones won the mountain jersey in the Tour de Beauce, but those 2 wins were all there would be last season. There were some minor celebrations when Jakob Rathe achieved our goal in a for Minions impronouncable race (Cigar City Brewing Twilight GP) and some decent performances in our home tour: the Tour of America.
It didn't look good for the Minions though. 24th out of 26 was definately a big bummer, though higher than most critics expected. It was a nail-biting offseason, but their but-jokes, banana-bribery and cute smiles managed to secure a new license for this season. We managed to keep both our main sponsors and secondary sponsors aboard (Chiquita, Universal, Illumination Entertainment and Gameloft). To keep the Minions happy, we decided to change our name to Chiquita - Universal powered by Minions, after we were already informally called Team Minions last season. We were given a new appearance as well, with a new jersey designed by renowned artist Bikex. Last season was trial-and-error, this season will be trial-and-succeeding!
The Minions aren't dead. The Minions are alive. The Minions are more fond of cycling than ever and extremely driven to perform this season, and of course gain more bananas. Or babbles. Or both.
Now, the Minions cycling team is in their third consecutive season in the lowest level of cycling. The Minions are losing hope, but is there a Minion who can stand up and lead them to promotion, finally?
Where did it go wrong last season? The start was promising, with our license renewed and Minions being added to the official team name. However, there was some controversy regarding the not very child-friendly abbreviation. We would like to maintain a good relationship with children, and therefore we rectified our error immediately. We also found out that Piamonte didn't like bananas. He was thrown out of the HQ immediately.
Transfers went better as the year before. The PR-Minion didn't mess up the validation process and got it right in one go. Some star riders were signed, such as Martinez and Kinney. Yet, there were also failures. Jones was loaned out to a even worse team where he couldn't progress. 500,000 bananas were invested in sprinter Tolleson, but his stack of top 10's were limited, if there were any. The old and decreasing Duggan was signed to provide experience, but can he be useful for another season? And in the closing stages we signed the overpriced Italian fighter Santambrogio. Our 200,000 bananas donation to Festina might have been the key to their ProTour victory.
Resultwise the season also went better. Our first season resulted in 1 stage victory, the second season that increased to 3! Kinney won a stage in Pologne, Haga the TT in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge and Montenegro won from a breakaway in our favourite race, the Tour of America. He and Haga also fought for the mountains competition, but where a few places away from victory. The race has given us some great memories, and we will certainly return this year. Martinez had some great stage race results, including a sixth place in the prestigious Vuelta a Tachira.
On the other hand, Tolleson couldn't impress in the sprints. At one point, Santambrogio managed to outdo him on a regular basis. The lack of points in sprinters races is the reason we couldn't compete for promotion positions. It will now be a Mexican standoff between Carlsberg, Lierse and us to decide who will be the last team to promote from the 2014 entrants.
We lost 16th place in the standings on the final race, yet 17th out of 26 is much better as our 24th place. If we can improve by the same margin this year, promotion will be within reach!
For the Minions themselves, 2015 was quite successful. The eponymous film was a box office hit, and grossed billions worldwide. The Minions now have some time of before they start working on their new movie, Despicable Me 3. Kevin the Minion was knighted by the Queen of England, and is now known as Sir Kevin. He will replace Dave as general manager, who has decided to move on and seek new challenges in the world of the yellow single-celled organisms.
In 2016, the team will revert to its 2014 name, but without the Team prefix. Due to new restrictions by the MGUCI, a character lenght was introduced, which made our team name too long for their administration. The team will officially be known as Chiquita - Universal, but as always the media will always associate us with the Minions, who will not leave the world of cycling in the near future! The team is now officially based in Guatemala, because the Minions want to be in a banana republic. This will mean an increased focus on Central America, but we will not forget the most important market on the earth, the United States of America!
However, we must be realistic. Some Minions are getting depressed. Promotion has to be achieved, otherwise who knows what will happen. Complete Minion breakdown? The apocalypse? It is up to Sir Kevin, team manager Stuart and the directeurs sportifs, including Bob, to find the most despicable master to... ehh sorry, that's the plot of the movie.
To get the team to the top of the world of cycling, that's it!
They say third time's the charm. Well, it certainly was the case for us. We are now allowed to add a P in front of our opening abbreviation because we promoted to the Pro Continental Tour in the MGUCI system. But it's a miracle we got to this place at all. Here's a quick reconstruction:
On the bike things went pretty well. We managed to sign two great sprinters in Drapac and Manarelli, and three cobblestones specialists in De Haes, Marcos and Matthews. This meant that we were able to participate on all terrains for once. Yes, there were also some less successful acquisitions this season but far less so than the previous years. Haga and Selander were send on loan to a ProTour squad, and would come back to us having gained valuable experience.
Over the first two season we scored a total of four victories. However, we knew very quickly that this season would be much better, as we had already won three stages when we came to March. Barton and Sarmiento, two new riders as well, both won a stage in the Tour of the Middle East, and De Haes won us our first classic: the prestigious Geraardsbergen - Bosberg. But the big fish came from New Zealand, the Tour of Southland, where Martinez won the fourth stage and consequently the general classification. You could imagine the celebrations, fireworks and Minions who drank slightly too much at the headquarters.
And it didn't stop there, as our sprinters delivered on their promises as well. Drapac won a stage in Circulo de Juarez and came close to the overall victory. He also won the opening stage in the Tour of Denmark, taking the leader's jersey before losing it on stage three to our very own Kinney, who won that stage as well. Unfortunately he also couldn't win the overall classification. Manarelli managed to rack up four victories over the season, one in the Tour de Pologne, one in the Herald Sun Tour and two consecutive stages in Ruta America del Sur. Martinez also won a time trial in the USAPCC, the exact same one Haga won the year before.
This did us well in the rankings. We were within reach of automatic promotion all season, and although we couldn't challenge for the title which went to Ferrero, we still finished in fourth place, one place ahead of our rivals Carlsberg, after Lierse chickened out of a battle of the last team of the 2014 generation to promote. Fourth place means we could finally kiss goodbye to the bottom depths of the CT, and start mixing us in the midfield of the PCT.
However, off the bike things went a little bit less well, understatement of the year. First there was a bit of a miscommunication with Esmaeli regarding his future, and he left the team midway through the season after only participating in two races. Then, our sponsors started to withdraw, all for the silliest of reasons. Universal withdrew because they though we favoured Chiquita, and that wasn't true, and they knew it, but they wanted a way out for something else. Because our operations were moved to the glorious banana republic of Guatemala for tax reasons, our team became, let's say a lot less liked by some organisations. The people of Guatemala noticed their bananas became extremely expensive due to some of our employee's habits, and soon we had some major riots outside our building.
We knew we had to bail when even Chiquita, our most beloved sponsor (sorry Universal, you had this coming), left us and joined the side of the protestors. We took our stuff and got the hell out of the country, before they burned our HQ to the ground. Back in the US of A we couldn't find a place to stay, we couldn't find a sponsor to work with and we couldn't eat bananas because we didn't have them anymore.
Then, as an angel descended down from heaven, Tareq Esmaeli came back with money from his dad, who apparently is a super rich oil Sheikh from Qatar. He bought the license and saved the Minions from bankruptcy and most likely prison. This means we're once again on the move, towards Qatar, with our new sugar daddy paying for everything we need (including apparently a mountain made of oil for a new race). We have no sponsors who could direct where we go and what we do, it's just the Minions from now on. And Tareq the banana lover is back with the team, and we will never ever threat him the way we did last season.
Long story short: we're on the most wanted list of the CIA, FBI and Interpol, we have both Chiquita and Universal suing us, the governments of the United States and Guatemala want to see us extradited, and for some reason the Walt Disney Company has send mercenaries to kill us. But that won't stop us. We're going to continue were we left off: to conquer the world of cycling, whether you like it or not!
Let's start with the good news (pun intented): we survived our first season in PCT! How? Well, read below.
We realised our squad was in need of a major make-over, since our CT leaders would not be good enough to lead PCT. Our two major signings were Úran for the mountains/stage races, and Betancourt for the hills. Albert was brought on to lead at the cobbles, and Drapac remained sprint leader though we knew he would struggle more. A leader in every discipline, what could go wrong?
A lot, actually. We spent over a million bananas on helping Betancourt lose weight so he would be in top shape going in this season, but his performances were not what we expected. We wanted constant scoring while he only delivered a few good result contrary to many bad results. Albert didn't have the best of seasons either but at least he tried. And our support riders didn't really get themselves inside the break or in a low points-scoring position for them to be of any help for the rankings.
We made mistakes, we'll admit. We left over 150k in our wage cap to afford Betancourt's training, money we could have used to sign better riders. And the riders we did sign weren't scouted that great either. We signed Goodnews Clifford purely because of his first name and the laughs we would have, not because of his skill. Jeandesbosz had previously been signed by us but never raced, so we brought him back to close the chapter, but his age had already caught him and he wasn't as good as he used to be. Albourdainy was signed because he's friends with the Sheikh's son and while he wasn't too bad, we could've signed someone with more pedigree.
That still doesn't answer our earlier question though. How did we survive? Well, a large part of it is down to one man: Úran. He scored well in every race he participated in, but in August he delivered big-time when he won Deutschland Tour in the PTHC category, against ProTour opposition, and single-handedly pushed us out of the relegation zone we'd been spending in since January. A statue for him has already been erected outside the HQ.
Other two silver linings were Drapac, who caused an upset when he won Nahakon Rahamanakon Classic in Thailand (that's not how it's spelled but we've never done it correctly and you probably never noticed), and De Haes, who won three stages in three different races from the breakaway. Those fringe points proved to be just enough to stay above the five bottom places.
In the end it's twentieth place, two places and just 237 points ahead of relegation. This year we have to do better, this year we have to sign riders better, this year we have to plan races better, this year we have to race races better, this year we have to be better!
And so we made it to our sixth season. Can you believe it, six years already. We started on this adventure knowing absolutely nothing, which showed in our first seasons, but now we're at a spot where we know what's going on and how to improve.
Take our fifth season. We barely avoided relegation in our debut in PCT, and improvements were necessary to improve on our ranking position. We knew we had some additional cap space held behind by Betancourt, but selling him for a record fee opened up some real possibilities. In response we bought Zepuntke for a record fee and assembled a strong cobblestone squad. Additionally, we focussed on time trials to avoid the painful moments whenever they took place.
The season indeed went a lot better than before. Not only relying on Úran to score points, but he was still our top scorer. Despite not winning a stage race this season he was a lot more consistent and finished second and third almost every stage or race. This brought him to eighth place in the individual rankings. The cobblestone squad also took a lot of points, including Zepuntke and Albert as second- and third-best scorers respectively.
But it were the little guys who made it into a great season. Loanee Moulingui finished third in Omloop het Nieuwsblad. Third for an unmaxed, 23 year old in the highest category possible is a wonderful performance, and meant he finished sixth on our end-of-season rankings. Drapac also picked his race where he overperformed, winning a stage and finishing third in the GC at Baltic Chain Tour.
Not everything was bright though. We made our GT debut in the Vuelta, but largely remained anonymous except Úran taking seventh place in the GC. Betancourt's replacement, Quevedo, was not up to standards and scored even less. This means we have to look for a new lead puncheur for the third year in a row. But you know what they say, third time's a charm.
Put everything together and we have a solid midtable finish of thirteenth. Way ahead of the relegation spots but also behind the (disband) promotion spots. For a while we looked to battle for the promotion spots, placing sixth or seventh midway through the season, but with less racedays in the latter months we dropped back a bit. That's not a shame, it shows we have a great base and with a little tweaking, we can promote to PT this season.
And here we are in season seven, still with the unwanted C in our division prefix. Our triple three-years plan ([CT] learning - building a base - promotion - [PCT] survival - building a base - promotion - [PT] survival - building a base - champions) is now officially one year behind schedule. Whereas we managed to get through the Continental division in three years as planned, the ProContinental arc of our team history will have at least four chapters.
For the third year in a row Uran was our highest scorer, elevating his status as team legend even further. A few stage wins here and there, and a lot of GC top fives, but his big win came in the Corsica International, a race he had won before for a different team but always fell just short of in our colors. He once again finished in the top ten of the individual standings, in exactly tenth place with a total of points similar to the previous season.
We brought in Claeys to tackle our persistent puncheurs problem, an unlike his maligned predecessors, he actually got some results. Two wins in GP Wallonie and Tour of Southland early in the season were his highlights, but after those two he thought he did enough and couldn't achieve the same results for the rest of the season, only occasionally making the top ten.
The cobbles squad, though slightly dismantled compared to the previous season, also did a good job, with Zepuntke and Albert being our third- and fourth-best point scorers with some decent results, though no stand-out Moulingui-like performance. Janse van Rensburg also surprisingly had some decent results where we did not expect him to perform well. In all honesty, there were multiple riders which scored more points than anticipated. Marcos and Ivanov scored more than 100 points, Martinez had a top 25 in a PTHC stage race. Even Esmaeli picked up six points during the season!
Yet we only finished in fourteenth place in the final rankings, a place lower than the previous season despite scoring an additional 156 points. We wanted promotion but ended up far, far away. As scapegoat we labeled the sprinting department as biggest failures. Drapac did not have a win this season but did finish second once, whereas Vantomme, whom we signed with the explicit goal of participating and scoring high in sprints, did not participate or score high in sprints. At least the performance in the other departments was good enough to avoid relegation.
So, we are a year behind schedule. Does this mean a major revamp? Doing this differently from now on? A fresh breath in management and the squad? Behind the scenes we have been negotiating contracts, planning the schedule, infiltrating rival teams and blackmailing the MGUCI to make sure this year we will get what we deserve, a top five finish and promotion to the highest echelon of cycling!
People following our progress ever since our baby steps will have seen our lack of updates for the 2020 season. No race previews or reviews were posted during the season, there were no answers to press question or fan mail, yet the manager was spotted all over the world doing everything but writing for his own team. Only after the season there was a Minion (read: a Minion who was forced to do so, otherwise he wouldn't get a banana) who provided minimal statement on the races of the season.
The season itself wasn't one we had hoped for either. We had hoped to get rid of the C in our division title, but in fact we have not gotten any closer. We finished in fourteenth position again, and thus will be heading into our fifth season in the ProContinental division. It could be worse, as relegation is also avoided with some wiggle room, but the progress has stagnated drastically.
Uran went into the season as undisputed leader again and got out as our top scorer, but not to the levels he had shown in previous years. This can be attributed to this age. The Colombian is in the autumn of his career, with the next generation to take over the reins. An important acquisition turned out to be Vesely, who would score very close to Uran's tally and proved to be our first ever consistent sprinter. Haga also rode some good races with his dangerous combination of climbing and riding against the clock.
There were some major disappointments as well. Zepuntke did not really get to fight for podium positions but still scored points in the races where he participated. Claeys on the other hand was clearly not giving everything he had and would often be one of the first "favorites" to get dropped. The biggest disappointment occurred before the season however, with the teams minutes away of signing legendary time trialist Coppel before being snatched away by a rival outfit.
So what's in store for the upcoming season? Uran and other subleaders are only getting older, and the talents such as Bjerg and Hodeg are not ready to take over yet. The transfer season will be an important one to take in fresh blood which will push us further up the rankings, as we are sick and tired of this time loop where we are stuck in the boring mid-tables.
We want to conquer the world of cycling, remember?
The 2021 season was the season where the Minions should finally have achieved promotion to the ProTour. Things didn't quite turn out that way though.
The star signing was Hagen, earning a record fee of close to a million bananas. We were delighted to have a superstar sign for us with multiple monuments and a World Championship on his CV. He would be the one to break the puncheurs curse. Even though he ended up as our highest scoring rider his performances were somewhat disappointed, especially in the early part of the season. So the puncheurs curse continues.
Other riders also failed to impress. Vesely continuously started his sprint 500 meters too early. Uran's best days are far behind him and we really started noticing the effects this season. Haga could not pull some miracle performances like he was able to in the past. Zepuntke received expensive training which did not lead to noticeable better results.
The positives are hard to find. An obvious one is Hodeg, who sprinted to two stage wins in his home race. Kalaba also looked like a more consistent sprinter. Future time trial star Bjerg won a time trial in the Tour de l'Avenir. Haga scored a WC-bronze medal, but given it was in the team time trial it will hardly be remembered.
Despite the negative tone we were never in real relegation danger. Seventeenth place and three-hundred points above the line is not enough for angry door smashing, but it is our worst result since our first season in PCT. We keep on saying we want to achieve promotion but we seem to be on a more downward trajectory, which needs to be reversed to avoid going back down to CT.
Oh, and most important of all, almost our entire organization was arrested at the end of the season, casting doubt over the future of the team. While we maintain our complete innocence, the evidence fabricated by the intelligence agencies seems enough to be locked up for life. We cannot run a cycling team from prison, where there are no bananas.
The C is gone from the division abbreviation. This is not a mistake. This is not a drill. This is real, we made it to the ProTour!
In our sixth attempt to get out of the PCT midfield the team were joined by celestial superstars Subwoolfer, who aside from wanting to dominate cycling finished tenth in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, representing Norway with "Give that wolf a banana". Our headquarters were based on a remote tropical island in Bermuda, with every facility available to get our riders in tip top shape.
A notable omission this season was our legend Uran, who could no longer be entrusted with leadership duties. Hagen's failure of the past season saw him kicked out of the door with a lot less emotions. Fan favorite Zepuntke's departure did make a lot of us cry, but we knew he was going to a good home at Los Pollos Hermanos. Replacing them as leaders were Cattaneo and Dennis, two riders with PT experience to boast their big paycheck, but also not the youngest anymore.
The sprinters core remained consistent with Vesely, Kalaba and Hodeg. While the trio did not achieve any victory in terms of classics and general classifications, they did win nine sprints between them. Kalaba became the king of the hilly sprints and sprints in stage races, winning five in total. Vesely finished in the top thirty of the individual PCT rankings with two stage wins, while Hodeg continued to be underestimated with two stage wins as well.
We finally gave up on getting a star puncheur, as we'd rather be absent than disappointed each race. That did not mean we closed the book on hilly races entirely, on the contrary in fact. Dennis and lost son Brown were brought in for the common combo of hills with time trials, where they could challenge for the GC by being decent at both. The Australian had a stellar season, winning the Tours of Norway and Britain and was the fourteenth-best rider of the PCT.
But that's not all. It's hard to fill Uran's shoes but Cattaneo did everything we could dream and more. Fourth in the Tour of East Java and second in the Criterium du Dauphine, as PTHC races, were already great achievements, but taking home the yellow jersey in the Tour de Vineyards and Bayern Rundfahrt were icings on the cake! Ahlstrand, Areruya and Dunbar were the only three riders to score more points that season. Even Uran never finished this high.
Before the season most pundits predicted another boring mid-table finish for us, perhaps even putting us towards the relegation fight, but we once again proved those pundits have no clue what they're talking about. We finished on the podium of the 2022 ProContinental Tour. Third place behind runaway favorite Amaysim Cervelo and fellow surprise package Zara - Irizar. And you know what third place means, right? Promotion to the ProTour!
Now we're here, but we're not done yet. Step one: remain in the ProTour division. Step two: move towards the top of the ProTour division. Step three: win the ProTour division. If it takes another six seasons, so be it, but stay tuned for a heck of a ride!
After nine seasons we made it. Season ten would be the crown jewel on our work: the ProTour. But we don't wanna stop here, we're here to stay, we're here to win. Subwoolfer was thanked for their services since they turned out to be actual humans in wolf costumes instead of super rich space aliens, so it was back to just the Minios. But if there was one way we want to go on this adventure, it is this way.
Our only goal this year was to survive. Our main transfer target was an American with the same initials as toilet paper, but his wage demands were outrageous. Instead we signed PCT champion of the previous season Ahlstrand for a record fee, and broke our wage record to sign Liege - Bastogne - Liege winner Kinoshita. Keep Cattaneo from last year, add in a talented Bjerg, and a bunch of competent riders, and we should be good to keep our head above the water.
Things would not quite go our way though. We were thirteenth in the January ranking update, but for the rest of the year we would not be found outside of the bottom two positions. It wouldn't be until May we had shaken Binance off for the laterne rouge, but by then the teams above us were already too far away to even dream about staying above the cut line. The realization of relegation came quite early, so we could just enjoy the final months and tick off bucket list items.
This will be the only paragraph dedicated to the failures before we go into a more positive vibe again. Kinoshita underperformed, not coming close to a monument win and not scoring the amount of points expected from his stature and wage bill. Ahlstrand also disappointed quite often, especially compared to Vesely, whom we sold during the transfer, rocking in the PCT division. Our depth was lacking, we had no talents of our own and we had a cobblestone quartet with absolutely no chances of anything even if they did a race in relay.
Now that's off our chest, some positive notes. We rode three Grand Tours, all with a level of success. Ahlstrand won the final stage in the Giro, which also made him win the points classification. Kalaba won the opening stage of the Tour, which gave us an iconic shot of a Minion on the podium in the yellow jersey. Cattaneo finished in a decent eighth place, and so close to seventh. Vosekalns was often spotted in breakaways and challenging for mountain classifications.
Elsewhere, Kinoshita contributed with a win in the Grand Prix Cyclistes. Bjerg had a breakthrough year, winning the young rider classification in the Tour of Tasmania, finished third in the Tour time trial and won the time trial in the Tour de Suisse. Kalaba once again had a stellar season in the secondary sprinter role, as did Hodeg in the tertiary. The four loanees from (Pro) Continental teams all held their own in this tough division as well.
This year we are back in the Pro Continental Tour, with leaders who are getting older and little young talent to take over the reigns immediately. We have shown we can get to the ProTour, so we can get there again. How and when is to be seen, but we have confidence. We still believe.
We'll be back.
Spoiler
This story is completely fictional. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious as well. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, but I hope the little yellow single-celled organisms are real
Feel like you're going to be one of the most exciting teams to watch in transfers. Don't see many relegating teams that come in with great cap space and seem to be wanting to get another million free through sales judging by the availability notices in the old HQ. Kinoshita + Ahlstrand should be good money for you, both of them definitely still got it even after declines.
Cattaneo + 1.5m of new riders seems like a scary thought, curious who those might be and how you retool to get rid of the Minions retirement home moniker once again
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
@jandal7 - I'm selling old guys just so I can buy old guys
RENEWALS
Of the twenty-one riders at the end of the 2023 season, eleven remain heading into the 2024 season:
Rider
2023 wage
2024 wage
+/-
Jonas Ahlstrand
500,000
300,000
-200,000
Mikkel Bjerg
110,000
125,000
15,000
Nathan Brown
110,000
75,000
-35,000
Mattia Cattaneo
500,000
300,000
-200,000
Mathias De Witte
50,000
50,000
0
Alvaro Hodeg
100,000
90,000
-10,000
Dusan Kalaba
185,000
175,000
-10,000
Tomohiro Kinoshita
1,000,000
700,000
-300,000
Dayer Quintana
50,000
60,000
10,000
Laurens Sweeck
60,000
60,000
0
Andris Vosekalns
110,000
125,000
15,000
We're glad the three biggest earners took significant wage cuts to help fit within PCT budget limits. The others kept the exact or around the same wage. Bjerg, Quintana and Vosekalns are the only three riders with a minor wage increase, and all deserved.
Twenty-one minus eleven equals ten, which is the number of riders no longer with the team:
Released
End of loan
Rudy Barbier
Nathan Alexander
Isaac Bolivar
Cristian Perez
Janis Dakteris
Einer Augusto Rubio
Rohan Dennis
Yannis Voisard
Leandro Marcos
Tom Jelte Slagter
The four loanees return to their parent squads while six riders did not see their contract renewed and are free agents as of right now.
As stated before, two riders are explicitly transfer listed. Kinoshita and Ahlstrand are very likely to be sold for cash or in a swap deal involving a PCT-capable leader in the stage race or on the cobbles. We're looking forward to talks during the transfer season. All other riders can still leave under the right circumstances for the right reward, but some are even more unlikely than others.
Finally a message of general benefit. Due to the relegation we had to make further budget cuts, and we had to leave our tropical HQ in Bermuda. Luckily we found an location of equal beauty and prestige, the backroom of the Minions Shop & Tea Room in Minions, Cornwall. As such, our official registration has been transfered to the United Kingdom. Not that it influenes any potential signings, we will seek the best and most despicable riders from all around the world as always.
The Minions are ready for the 2024 season with twelve new riders. We'll present the first six in the first post, the second wave will come at a later date and we'll also discuss the riders which have left the team. The first wave of riders entering solidify our nickname of retirement home, as all but one of them are 30 or above. We tried to make the squad younger and signed some talents, but we also need riders who can help us right now.
Jhonatan Casillas
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
67
65
65
73
68
70
67
54
61
73
66
72
73
3.76
29
50k
71
67
67
77
71
74
70
54
61
73
69
72
77
4.100
31
*
Let's start with the youngest of this bunch, 29 year old Mexican time trialist Jhonatan Casillas. Despite being part of the older group, we believe he still has potential to grow and become an asset in the team time trials, even as soon as next year and replace some of the older riders signed. Picked up from free agency for minimum wage after not being renewed by Lidl.
* = presumptive stats
Daniele Dall'Oste
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
69
75
75
66
69
72
73
55
57
69
72
70
66
4.100
33
50k
Signing a rider who hasn't raced much last season is a risk, but we believe Daniele Dall'Oste can still be a valuable rider even after his stint at the ill-fated Mercatone Uno - Weba. The 33 year old Italian has a lot of pedigree in the climbing, and even at this age we believe he can help his countryman Cattaneo or be present in breakaways. At a 50k salary, it's worth a punt.
Zhihui Jiang
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
72
61
66
65
69
73
72
62
75
75
65
73
79
4.100
30
50k
Even if it meant giving up on one of our favorite riders ever on the team, the money and the rider we received from Ekoi in return lessened the pain. Zhihui Jiang is is a 30 year old rider from China, who specializes in races less than five kilometer. Outside of aiming for the top spot in prologues, he can help out in the sprint train for races exceeding that distance. Our first ever rider from China earns 50,000 bananas.
Darren Matthews
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
71
60
65
69
68
65
69
74
75
74
73
65
73
4.100
33
50k
A familiar name returns! Darren Matthews made his debut in professional cycling in our colors in 2016, the year we achieved our promotion from the Continental to the Pro Continental Tour. The Barbadian was then sold to Podium Ambition, where he was right in the middle of the development of Caribbean riders and acted as a mentor. Now, at 33 years of age and 50 thousand bananas, he returns, to lead the team in the few cobblestone races we ride.
Zoltan Sipos
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
68
67
69
75
73
71
67
54
60
62
69
66
76
4.100
33
50k
We had our first ever rider from China and now we have our first ever rider from Hungary. Zoltan Sipos was picked up from free agency without a bidding war to act as helper in team time trials. At 33 years of age we acknowledge it will likely be a one year stint for the former DuckDuckGo rider, but as stated already we have replacements in the wings.
Anton Vorobev
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
72
60
62
76
68
66
62
50
55
67
78
53
75
4.100
34
65k
The only rider to earn more than the legal minimum wage, Anton Vorobev joins the team for 65k after being dropped by his compatriot team Tinkoff. A year older than Sipos, he was signed for the same purpose: bridging the gap we have in the team time trial department before the young guard can take over. May his one and only season be a satisfactory one.
The Minions are ready for the 2024 season with twelve new riders. We'll present the second bunch of six in this post, and we'll also discuss the riders which have left the team in part three. This wave considers the revival of the Minions academy, signing four full time riders and a stagiare to develop their trade, as well as a young talent on loan from a ProTour team.
Luca Dressler
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
68
60
67
67
67
67
64
67
60
62
66
63
62
1.0
22
50k
75
60
68
75
74
72
68
74
60
63
68
64
70
4.100
25
*
22 year old German Luca Dressler has the potential to become good in a wide variety of disciplines. He likes cobbles, he likes riding against the clocks, he even likes short hills. His development path is wide open, but for now we are likely to develop him as the spiritual successor of Fabian Cancellara, because we want nothing to do with that other department he is talented in.
* = presumptive stats
Fausto Agustin Gomez
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
63
67
64
69
66
67
69
52
56
65
68
67
62
1.0
22
50k
66
70
65
76
71
74
74
52
56
66
70
67
69
4.100
25
*
From Argentina, Fausto Augustin Gomez is one of those riders signed to become part of our team time trial core for the years to come. At 22 years old he has plenty of years ahead of him to fulfill this role. He also seems to not be bad at going up mountains, so we could skew towards developing him as a helper for those races as well. Don't be surprised to see him in our colors for the next decade.
* = presumptive stats
Cesar David Guavita
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
63
69
50
67
69
60
70
63
50
54
77
64
67
1.0
22
50k
67
76
54
75
76
65
77
63
50
55
79
65
75
4.100
25
*
Similarly talented and aged, Cesar David Guavita might at first glance be a better climber and a slightly worse time trialist than his fellow South American. Nevertheless we foresee a similar role for him in the future, being part of team time trials and assisting whichever stage race leader we have in the future. We received compliments from a not-to-be-name-od ProTour manager for his signing, so we know he was on the radar for other teams as well.
* = presumptive stats
William Junior Lecerf
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
60
68
64
55
64
67
63
53
60
65
70
68
57
1.0
22
10k
61
77
72
56
67
71
70
53
60
72
78
69
58
4.100
26
*
If your parents named you junior, it will be tough to break through in the pro peloton. Thus we only signed William J. Lecerf (as he prefers to be called) as a stagiare, meaning he'll ride with us for a few races throughout the season, mainly at the C2 level. The Belgian needs to convince us in these races to give him a full contract next year, and prove he can be a capable climber for the team.
* = presumptive stats
Enzo Paleni
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
64
53
58
69
64
64
67
54
58
62
65
62
69
1.0
22
65k
71
54
61
78
69
71
74
54
58
62
70
63
78
4.100
25
*
The most talented time trialist from the bunch gets the biggest paycheck, earning 65,000 bananas this year. Enzo Paleni, 22 years old from France, is the golden child of this generation of the Minions TT academy, and might supersede the moniker of just team time trial helper and become a proficient time trialist outright. Seeing the development Bjerg has gone through, he has a path he can follow and be measured against.
* = presumptive stats
Jan Sommer
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
72
60
64
65
70
70
67
70
68
69
70
65
66
3.15
24
50k*
Our only loanee this year comes from Switzerland and the Swiss team of Jura, promoted to the ProTour in our stead this year for the first time in their existence. Jan Sommer still needs some development and joins us for the season at a split wage. At our team he can ride in the races he likes most, cobblestone races, because we have plenty of space and a lack of real leader there. We look forward to what he can do for us.
A pretty quiet window, but kinda expected as all of Kinoshita, Ahlstrand and Cattaneo remained on the team. I like the FA moves. Matthews or Jiang could be good lead outs for Ahlstrand while Sipos and Vorobev rekindle some of the previous TTT focus.
@redordead - A quiet transfer window is not what I had in mind, but if the big earners are not sold and you have 440k to sign nine riders, there isn't much you can do.
DEPARTURES AND TRAININGS
Where riders come, riders go. Two riders who rode for our colors the past years have left and will ride elsewhere. We'll use this opportunity to say goodbye, reflect what they did for us and what their next challenges are. We'll also discuss our top secret training plans, which by revealing are no longer secret.
Alvaro Hodeg
A definitive member of the Hall of Fame in the future, Alvaro Hodeg makes the transfer to Ekoi - Le Creuset in exchange for 370 thousand real world currency and the services of Zhihui Jiang, to become their lead sprinter in the PCT for the first time in his career. Alvaro holds a special place in our heart as he joined us at 22 years old, first spending a year on loan at Delvaux before riding five years in our colors, becoming the first rider to complete his full development and ride for the team (looking at you, Jay Major). With a lot of sprinting talent he never got anywhere above the role of tertiary sprinter or primary leadout, but achieved various wins over the years, including the team's first ever stage win in the Tour d'Avenir, and stage in Colombia, Austria, and Britain. For the few chances he made the most of them, and he'll surely be missed.
Laurens Sweeck
Leaving the team after four years of service, Laurens Sweeck was first signed as main helper to Ruben Zepuntke in 2021, but when the German left he had to assume leadership for what we assumed would be an ad interim position. Three years later and he still was the de facto leader of the cobblestone squad, but simply was not capable of making a mark against the talented riders in the PT or PCT. The hope was to sign a proper leader for these races this year so the Belgian could revert to a better suited assisting role, but when that did not materialize we decide to part ways amicably and give the leadership-ish to De Witte. He was traded to EA Vesuvio in the ProTour, where he will be assisting Lukas Spengler in big races such as the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris - Roubaix. In exchange we received Ziga Rucigaj. Who?
Ziga Rucigaj
Yes, Ziga Rucigaj was briefly part of our team, but he left as quickly as he joined. More on that later, but first let's appreciate the five minutes the 29 year old Slovenian was on our team and the lasting legacy he will leave behind. We received a nice 200k fee from debutants Cervelo, which was exactly the amount we needed to achieve our training goals for the season.
Mikkel Bjerg
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
XP
Age
Wage
75
64
68
79
73
77
73
63
68
70
71
67
79
4.100
25
110k
75
64
68
80
73
77
73
63
68
70
71
67
79
4.100
26
125k
Don't panic, he isn't leaving. We say goodbye to 79 TT and hello to 80 TT Mikkel Bjerg. The money gained from selling Hodeg and Rucigaj (and indirectly Sweeck) was enough to buy a wind tunnel and improve his aerodynamic position on the bike. The 26 year old Dane has already shown to be one of the brightest starts against the clock and we expect great things from him the coming season, even though we have credible evidence our opponents have not been sitting around either.
Marcovdw wrote:
We received compliments from a not-to-be-name-od ProTour manager for his signing, so we know he was on the radar for other teams as well.
Now that's a good pun.
Both Agustin Gomez and Guavita were definitely on my radar, so I was happy to see them receive a contract at a time I wasn't sure if I'd be able to contract them. They're both slightly unique riders I think, who should hopefully prove to be valuable domestiques when the time comes.
After renewals I did fear selling Kinoshita might be difficult because of his wage, so I guess he has another chance to shine at your team now. I hope PCT is more his thing, and at least it should help him that guys like Schmid, Higuita, Vansevenant and Areruya among others have left the building. There are still the Hirschi's and Stannards of this world of course, but I think pure puncheurs could at least do better than last year in PCT. Nice Bjerg training as well, sadly he's not the only to have received that training (in PCT) this season. Nevertheless a strong rider, with still great prospects for possible more future training
@Nemolito - Another downside of not planning to keep Kinoshita around is not selecting good PTHC/HC races for him, so it'll be mainly C1 this year. This year will probably be a gap year for the team with the oldies doing enough for a decent finish and the youngsters being able to develop.
2024 SQUAD
As we edge ever closer to the start of the season, let's present the full squad for the upcoming season.
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
Age
Wage
T. Kinoshita
72
71
82
65
79
76
72
58
67
76
72
70
65
33
700k
J. Ahlstrand
72
58
65
58
71
70
74
65
81
79
57
62
70
34
300k
M. Cattaneo
68
80
68
77
73
77
75
52
50
67
60
62
77
34
300k
D. Kalaba
74
65
69
70
70
72
76
57
79
79
58
68
78
28
125k
A. Vosekalns
66
78
75
62
69
73
72
51
67
71
81
68
62
32
175k
M. Bjerg
75
64
68
79
73
77
73
63
68
70
71
67
79
26
125k
D. Dall'Oste
69
75
75
66
69
72
73
55
57
69
72
70
66
33
50k
D. Quintana
69
76
71
70
73
72
76
50
61
63
67
64
70
32
60k
M. De Witte
74
60
68
61
75
72
67
75
71
69
64
65
61
31
50k
N. Brown
67
74
72
75
72
71
70
59
57
69
64
63
76
33
75k
D. Matthews
71
60
65
69
68
65
69
74
75
74
73
65
73
33
50k
Z. Jiang
72
61
66
65
69
73
72
62
75
75
65
73
79
30
50k
Z. Sipos
68
67
69
75
73
71
67
54
60
62
69
66
76
33
50k
A. Vorobev
72
60
62
76
68
66
62
50
55
67
78
53
75
34
65k
J. Sommer
72
60
64
65
70
70
67
70
68
69
70
65
66
24
50k
J. Casillas
67
65
65
73
68
70
67
54
61
73
66
72
73
29
50k
F. A. Gomez
63
67
64
69
66
67
69
52
56
65
68
67
62
22
50k
L. Dressler
68
60
67
67
67
67
64
67
60
62
66
63
62
22
50k
C. D. Guavita
63
69
50
67
69
60
70
63
50
54
77
64
67
22
50k
W. J. Lecerf
60
68
64
55
64
67
63
53
60
65
70
68
57
22
10k
E. Paleni
64
53
58
69
64
64
67
54
58
62
65
62
69
22
65k
Despite the relegation, the leadership has stayed intact despite advertising their sale. The plan was to sell Kinoshita and Ahlstrand, invest the income in training and go to the free agent market to pick up suitable and most importantly younger leaders. That hasn't happened, meaning these two superstars get another year as leader on the team. Not that terrible.
When we were last in the PCT, Cattaneo bossed the stage races and finished fourth in the individual rankings. Two years on that might no longer be possible, but he still has a lot of talent to beat his rival when we go uphill and against the clock. Kalaba has always been a dangerous weapon in PCT as well and despite not being promoted to a full leadership position, still has enough chances to score very good points.
Bjerg received the planned training, though it came at the cost of team favorite Hodeg and a potential nice signing in Rucigaj. A lot of training has gone on against the clock but we believe the young Dane can become an even more important points scorer this year.
The mountains support consists of Vosekalns, new acquisition Dall'Oste, Quintana (Dayer, not Nairo) and Brown. Strong riders who can support Cattaneo in the high mountains and be part of a breakaway to target mountain points or stage results.
A rump cobblestone squad consists of De Witte and the returning Matthews. We're not expecting to score big here but have targeted a few C2 cobblestone races. The Barbadian will also serve in the sprint train together with Jiang, who in his turn has a few opportunities on very short distances against the clock.
Sipos and Vorobev were brought in specifically to assist with team time trials in lieu of the talents signed to take this place in the future. Casillas, Gomez, Dressler, Guavita and Paleni are all here to learn and take over their place in the not too distant future.
Rounding off the team is Sommer, on loan from PT team Jura to develop on the cobblestones, and stagiare Lecerf who joins for the final months of the season as well as selected C2 races. That completest the squad of 21 riders ready to tackle the 2024 PCT season for the Minions!
The break is over, a new year of racing has dawned. Back in the ProContinental Tour, a busy program awaits us in the month of January.
Down Under Classic
The PCT season traditionally opens Down Under with a Classic for the sprinters. We wanted to start on a strong note and placed Casillas in a breakaway attempt on debut, but the race was always going to the sprinters, where we focused on Ahlstrand. The Swede never found himself amongst the front rows and finished in a tenth place. Not bad, but also not really the banging opener we hoped for. All youngsters made their debut and finished the race as well.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Xhuliano Kamberaj
Llapi-Vita
1h39'43
10
Jonas Ahlstrand
Minions
s.t.
50
Jan Sommer
Minions
s.t.
101
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
s.t.
107
Zhihui Jiang
Minions
s.t.
131
Enzo Paleni
Minions
s.t.
135
Luca Dressler
Minions
s.t.
146
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
s.t.
148
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
s.t.
Rating:
Tour Down Under
We stay Down Under for a Tour. Ahlstrand again leads the flat stages, and is joined by Kinoshita for the GC. The Swede scored a ninth place on the opening stage, coming into the wind slightly too early. On the third stage he had better timing and finished in third spot. On the sixth and final stage we tried a train, but we don't really have the people for that resulting in a thirteenth place. Over to the Japanese and the GC battle, a tenth place on the second stage and a fifteenth place behind the breakaway on the fourth saw him in tenth overall heading into the decisive fifth stage. He stuck with the favorites group but made no attempt to attack them, finishing eighth on the stage and seventh in the GC.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Kristian Haugaard Jensen
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
17h47'40
7
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Minions
+ 24
26
Jonas Ahlstrand
Minions
+ 2'35
47
Zhihui Jiang
Minions
+ 4'25
57
Andris Vosekalns
Minions
+ 4'53
80
Daniele Dall'Oste
Minions
+ 5'44
119
Nathan Brown
Minions
+ 8'08
143
Jan Sommer
Minions
+ 10'05
176
Darren Matthews
Minions
+ 14'34
Rating:
Badaling International
Over to China for a race which is somewhere between the mountains and the hills. Given Kinoshita's fifth place at the World Championships on a comparable route, we fancy our chances here. We chased down the breakaway and the Japanese was part of the front group in the sprint to the finish line, but like in Australia seventh place was his. That's not a result we were looking for.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Emanuel Buchmann
Team UBS
5h22'38
7
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Minions
s.t.
38
Dayer Quintana
Minions
+ 1'54
39
Andris Vosekalns
Minions
s.t.
49
Daniele Dall'Oste
Minions
s.t.
146
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
+ 6'28
147
Luca Dressler
Minions
s.t.
188
Enzo Paleni
Minions
s.t.
189
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 15'05
Rating:
Tour of Guadeloupe
The month concludes with four flat stages on the French island, and once again Ahlstrand is our leader in a very busy first month for him. He coasted on Ewan's wheel to sixth on the first stage. On Coquard's wheel the next stage, he did even better and finished third, and at that point only behind the two aforementioned riders in the GC due to bonus seconds. He could not keep the momentum and got blocked in on the third stage, crossing the line in eighth, and down to fifth in the GC. On the final stage the timing was completely off and he went way too early, giving up and placing twenty-second. We can count ourselves lucky this only dropped him down one place in the GC. Looking at face value, sixth in this field is quite good but a better final stage and it could have been a podium.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Caleb Ewan
ISA - Hexacta
12h24'21
6
Jonas Ahlstrand
Minions
+ 25
99
Zhihui Jiang
Minions
+ 52
149
Darren Matthews
Minions
+ 3'04
152
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
s.t.
170
Jan Sommer
Minions
s.t.
174
Luca Dressler
Minions
s.t.
176
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
s.t.
191
Enzo Paleni
Minions
+ 12'20
Rating:
Rankings
The rankings after the first month don't say much yet, because some teams have had bigger programs and certain leaders are still on extended vacation. For what it's worth we are in thirteenth place with only points scored by Ahlstrand and Kinoshita. The trajectory of the team and weather we will focus on promotion or avoiding relegation, or if we have a boring season without much hope or fear.
Some ok races by your two leaders, but nothing special. An average of 2,5 out of five bananas and around midtable, so it's all about being 'ok' so far, with no real outliers positive or negative. I hope the rest of the team can also start scoring as of February, and perhaps we'll see a podium or win by one of the aforementioned leaders somewhere soon
@Nemolito - Your expectation of us winning something was quite wrong
FEBRUARY
Month two of the season take us all over the world, over all disciplines and all divisions. Belgium and Mexico, cobblestones and team time trials, PT and C2. February has everything.
Copenhagen - Malmo TTT
The first wildcard of the season is almost a tradition, the Copenhagen - Malmo TTT event. While we wish to finish as high as possible, it's also an event for our youngsters to gain experience against the clock in a team. We're not too worried about finishing eighteenth because we couldn't score points anyway. A nice shot on the bridge is used as lecture material, always stay together and don't leave huge gaps.
Pos
Team
Time
1
EA Vesuvio
1h02'49
18
Minions
+ 3'45
Rating:
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
The first cobblestone race of the season, a part of the season we just want to get over with as we do not expect any of our riders to achieve greatness. Dressler and Guavita went into the breakaway to at least get some camera time. What went unnoticed from the cameras was De Witte finishing twenty-fifth, which isn't that bad given the expectations. Due to a timing glitch, the times behind the winner are unknown, but we know Paleni returned to the team bus prematurely.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Przemyslaw Kasperkiewicz
Specialized
25
Mathias De Witte
Minions
49
Darren Matthews
Minions
86
Jan Sommer
Minions
96
Luca Dressler
Minions
136
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
170
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
184
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
DNF
Enzo Paleni
Minions
Rating:
Gent - Wevelgem
Our first forced excursion to C2 brings us to a familiar tactic, contradictorily hoping to score some points in a cobblestone classic. De Witte and Matthews actually stand a chance here compared to any of the other cobblestone races this month, so let's make the most of it. Guavita went into the break but for once we were not hoping for it to succeed. De Witte found himself among the front runners in the finale, finishing in the second group and a very exciting fifth place. The Belgians did not have their systems fixed so again no concrete timings apart from the top ten.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Tom David
Glanbia
5h59'35
5
Mathias De Witte
Minions
+ 34
54
Darren Matthews
Minions
58
Luca Dressler
Minions
59
Jan Sommer
Minions
96
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
121
William Junior Lecerf
Minions
122
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
DNF
Enzo Paleni
Minions
Rating:
Isle of Man TTT
Unlike Copenhagen - Malmo, the Isle of Man TTT does award us ranking points, so no development here, the best squad we can bring. Touted as a podium contender and starting as the penultimate, we set the fifth time of all the teams before us at the midway point and only two seconds away from the podium. We jumped over Podium Ambition at the finish line but were jumped ourselves by Gjensidige, so the fifth place was confirmed.
Pos
Team
Time
1
ELCO - ABEA
50'00
26
Minions
+ 14
Rating:
Le Samyn
More cobbles, yay! No one in the morning break this time but De Witte joined a mid-race attack to get up to the front. The bigger favorites attacked later and overtook him, with the Belgian finishing an unremarkable but also not unfavoring twenty-ninth. Kudos to Paleni for finishing a cobblestone race on his third attempt.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Maxime Daniel
Ekoi - Le Creuset
4h34'49
29
Mathias De Witte
Minions
+ 1'12
56
Darren Matthews
Minions
+ 1'45
81
Jan Sommer
Minions
+ 2'43
130
Luca Dressler
Minions
+ 7'50
156
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 9'56
175
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
+ 14'32
182
Enzo Paleni
Minions
s.t.
191
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
+ 20'26
Rating:
Classique du Grand-Duché
The second wildcard race is a puncheurs race in Luxembourg. Kinoshita is a rider of a caliber deserving to be in PT, so he should be properly challenged this race. In a race where no favorite could truly get away, the Japanese finished the uphill sprint in thirteenth place. Like the bridge TTT event, we can't be unhappy with results in a non-points race, but admittedly he should do better than thirteenth. Maybe the easier competition will be good after all.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Silvio Herklotz
Team Puma - SAP
5h37'46
13
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Minions
s.t.
35
Andris Vosekalns
Minions
+ 2'43
99
Dusan Kalaba
Minions
+ 6'03
152
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
+ 12'53
153
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
s.t.
159
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 15'46
160
Luca Dressler
Minions
+ 16'33
163
Enzo Paleni
Minions
+ 25'14
Rating:
Tour of Ukraine
The Tour of Ukraine contains three stages of which two are against the clock, the other one having an uphill finish. That screams Cattaneo, or at least it did two seasons ago when this kind of race was his to lose. It was Bjerg with the best result on the opening time trial, ninth at seventeen seconds, with the Italian at twenty-three. A group of twenty-six finished the next stage together, including one Minions, but it was Vosekalns instead of Cattaneo, the latter losing thirty-six seconds to rivals. Bjerg finished ninth again on the final time trial, but our leader lost a further minute. Overall it meant only thirteenth place, but taking away the time loss on stage two it would have been only tenth. We have to admit, we're not looking at 2022 Cattaneo.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Tom Wirtgen
EA Vesuvio
4h20'33
13
Mattia Cattaneo
Minions
+ 1'57
48
Andris Vosekalns
Minions
+ 4'54
88
Dayer Quintana
Minions
+ 9'26
95
Nathan Brown
Minions
+ 9'54
97
Daniele Dall'Oste
Minions
+ 10'15
121
Mikkel Bjerg
Minions
+ 12'06
145
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
+ 13'49
154
Jan Sommer
Minions
+ 16'16
Rating:
Circulo de Juarez
Concluding the month in Mexico with five flat stages, a prime opportunity for Ahlstrand. But before that we have to give a shoutout to a few our youngsters. Paleni went into the breakaway on the first two stages and collected fringe mountain points and bonus seconds. Sadly he got dropped by the peloton due to a lack of experience. Dressler went into the breakaway on stage three and four and unlike his teammate remained in contact with the peloton on all stages, and thus took his bonus seconds to twenty-fifth in the GC and fourth in the young rider classification for some nice bonus points. Great intelligence from our youngsters! As for Ahlstrand, his performances went downhill. Finishing fourth on the opening stage, he was down to seventh on the second, then eighth on the third and a dramatic twenty-first on the fourth. He did improve on the final stage to finish... eighteenth. Overall it is an eleventh place, not living up to our expectations for this race.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Bryan Coquard
Manada Coyote
17h46'33
11
Jonas Ahlstrand
Minions
+ 47
25
[b]Luca Dressler
Minions
+ 1'07
91
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 1'09
112
Zhihui Jiang
Minions
s.t.
119
[b]Mathias De Witte
Minions
s.t.
130
Darren Matthews
Minions
s.t.
145
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
s.t.
148
Enzo Paleni
Minions
+ 6'22
Rating:
Rankings
Two months in and we're in sixteenth place, three places down from January. We could say it is still early in the season and too early to draw conclusions, but we hope to end up higher than this, and at bare minimum not be involved in another relegation scrap. Our PPRD looks good so far but with little race days it's also not a meaningful statistic. Individually a lot more riders have scored points, but Ahlstrand and Kinoshita are still the two highest scorers even though not every result has been favorable.
The first quarter of the year is done, but since the world of cycling goes into hibernation for the last two months of the year, we are already at 30 percent of the racing months done. By now tendencies should become clear and in which direction we should look regarding our final position.
Tour of Norway
A bit of an awkward race with hills and time trials. Cattaneo is our leader but he would prefer the climbs to be longer, but if you finish 47th on the defining time trial we have other things to complain about. 25th simply isn't good enough. The other rider in focus this race is Kalaba, with three possibilities of a good stage result. On the first stage all other teams collaborated to block him, but he struck back on the second stage by finishing runner-up. A breakaway on the final stage had major implications on the Serbian's ability to score another good result, and on the GC as a whole, but since we were not a part of it we failed to benefit.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Bonaventure Uwizeyimana
Bralirwa - Cegeka
17h52'19
25
Mattia Cattaneo
Minions
+ 1'55
43
Dusan Kalaba
Minions
+ 2'59
150
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
+ 14'38
153
Jan Sommer
Minions
+ 15'14
157
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
+ 16'44
162
Luca Dressler
Minions
+ 18'58
164
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 19'51
191
Enzo Paleni
Minions
+ 45'08
Rating:
Tour of South Africa
Our foruntes should be up on the other hemisphere, with five hilly stages and a team time trial provide a good opportunity for Kinoshita, as we send him with a strong crew to support him in the one stage not to his liking. His first three days were incredibly consistent, finishing fifth in all of them and occupying the same GC position heading into the time trial. At one point it looked like the other's were about to drop him, but a sacrificial effort by Matthews brought him back to the others to finish in their time as third on the stage. This also gave him the yellow jersey with two stages to go, and what better way to assert your dominance than not finishing fifth the next stage, but winning instead! The last stage was relatively easy without any serious threat to the overall win, as a tenth place was enough to ascend to podium and take the yellow jersey home. There's only one possible rating we can give this: five bananas.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Minions
22h53'49
27
Dayer Quintana
Minions
+ 3'54
32
Nathan Brown
Minions
+ 5'25
75
Zoltan Sipos
Minions
+ 11'11
83
Mikkel Bjerg
Minions
+ 13'25
104
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
+ 18'21
118
Darren Matthews
Minions
+ 20'35
159
Anton Vorobev
Minions
+ 41'32
Rating:
Strade Bianche
Continuing the high we went to the white roads of Italy, where logically Kinoshita was one of the favorites. Unfortunately, Stannard outsmarted the peloton and solo'ed to the win. In the ensuing sprint for second, the Japanese could not make any noticeable impact and crossed the line ninth. Could be worse, but the elation from South Africa has quickly died down.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Robert Stannard
Everesting
4h13'33
9
Tomohiro Kinoshita
Minions
+ 1'05
110
Daniele Dall'Oste
Minions
+ 2'38
129
Jan Sommer
Minions
s.t.
162
Jhonatan Casillas
Minions
+ 5'59
186
Luca Dressler
Minions
+ 8'57
188
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
+ 9'20
190
Enzo Paleni
Minions
+ 9'51
192
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 11'21
Rating:
Geraardsbergen - Bosberg
Closing the month we have our only C2 race this month, which takes place on some legendary Belgian cobblestone roads. As with Gent-Wevelgem previously, it provides a rare opportunity for De Witte to score decent points. We are not the only PCT team with this strategy in mind, as Lotto ended up winning the race with Marzuki. But behind him, it was our very own De Witte in second place, showing those CT teams why they are in the lowest division and we are a level above them. Oh, and Zepuntke only finished fourth. What a loser.
Pos
Rider
Team
Time
1
Nur Amirul Marzuki
Lotto-Caloi
5h02'22
2
Mathias De Witte
Minions
+ 25
34
Darren Matthews
Minions
+ 8'15
55
Jan Sommer
Minions
+ 15'05
70
Luca Dressler
Minions
+ 26'25
77
Cesar David Guavita
Minions
+ 29'57
124
Fausto Agustin Gomez
Minions
+ 1h07'11
127
William Junior Lecerf
Minions
+ 1h14'36
DNF
Enzo Paleni
Minions
Rating:
Rankings
We have our first win in the books, and coupled with some more good results, we are up in twelfth position, our highest position so far this season. We're in quite a bit of a chasse patate with a roughly 80 point gap to Manada Coyote in eleventh and a gap of roughly 60 points to Zalgiris in thirteenth, which are quite large gaps for this part of the season. With Kinoshita's win in South Africa, he overtakes Ahlstrand to become our highest scorer and is knocking on the door of the individual top ten. De Witte as out third highest scorer is deserved with his performances, but keeping it up will be tough with only one C2 outing for him left.
Down Under Classic
Tour of Guadeloupe
Isle of Man TTT
Classique du Grand-Duché
Tour of Ukraine
Tour of Norway
Tour of South Africa
Veenendaal - Veenendaal
Lisbon Classic
Pro Hallstatt Classic
Vuelta al Pais Vasco
Hanko Classic
Torshavn GP
Arab Tour
Tour of Slovenia
Ras Tailteann
La Tropicale Amissa Bongo
Tour of Britain
Nathan Alexander
Cristian Perez
