With 3 C2 classics on the menu, this was an important month for the one-day specialists - most of all for the cobblers with two more races for them. Two additional classics and two stage races - all of them evenly distributed between C1 and HC - were the higher category races. Let's find out how it went:
The C2 Berlin ProRace came first, a race for the sprinters in most editions so far (even though we have George Bennett on the winner list - from a breakaway, though). And we also had four former winners on the startlist (Riabushenko, Dzamastagic, Itami, Van der Sande).
And the most recent of them made it back-to-back wins, with Riabushenko launching very late, but still timing his sprint to perfection! 50 points for him, with Arashiro even adding two more with 20th place - 52 points for Babymetal, increasing their overall score by almost 50% with this result.
35 points are awarded for 2nd place - and these were (rather a tad surprisingly) taken by Hofstetter. Wackermann also added a point for 21st place, so your math skills should get you to 36 points for Euskotren.
29 points are on the table for 3rd place, which went to Scott - but that wasn't enough for Spark to be the 3rd best scoring team. Instead, Ethiopian Airlines had Gibbons in 4th and English in 12th place, making it 33 points for the African outfit.
A new race on the calendar was next - the C1 USA Pro Cycling Challenge. Yes, new race, because everything is different from last year despite the name being the same. 3 hilly stages instead of 3 flat ones and an epilogue, removing what potentially was the most important race all year long for CT prologue specialists. Additionally, it was moved from C2 to C1.
And so, it wasn't a good race for the 4 CT teams present. 7 points was the maximum any of them could get - at least there were two of them. Raileanu finished 18th in GC, getting these 7 points for Babymetal. Newton Foundation had Lopez finishing 24th for 4 points, and Abreu taking 5th in KoM for 3 - making it 7 in total as well.
One single point went to Simba Cement. In previous editions, Schomber would have scored far more than 1 point from this race; maybe him getting his one point from the final KoM standings (8th place) can be seen as a protest to the organizers. He'll hopefully be aware that the prologue specialists instead got Uppsala Classic, though, which is even better for them with a prologue instead of an epilogue.
Four teams then decided to participate in the HC Tour de Pologne (with 2 spots being left open). And all of them managed to score.
For the Turtles, a look at the GC isn't great, with the best rider in 120th place. And they were dead last in the team standings. Still, they were the highest scorers - why? It's all about stage results! Hamza and Oka took 3rd and 5th in the prologue (with the former obviously being 3rd in GC and points after day 1), and Keough ended up 2nd on stage 3. And that's 33 points in total!
Spark surely had big hopes, bringing former winner Beltran to this race - but the legend is definitely far past his prime. He did get some GC points indeed, but 32nd place is far off his former level. Svab finished 10 spots further down, Welsford got a 7th stage place on day 4, and hopeful talent Rodriguez ended up 7th in U25 - 18 points for the Kiwis all things considered.
It's one point less for Ethiopian Airlines, who got 13 points for leading the KoM during 3 days (and being 3rd after another day). Plus 3 final KoM standing points for Khederi, plus one point for Frison's 8th place in the opening stage - that's 17 in total.
Euskotren as the final participating team got 5 points for Armirail's 47th place in GC.
The GP Wallonie got much more accessible for CT teams after its demotion to the C1 category, with 7 teams attending. 4 of them scored, and for 2 it was a really good race.
First and foremost for Ethiopian Airlines, whose lead puncheur Bystrom spent a great day in Belgium to claim 5th place! And that wasn't even all, as Vendrame also scored some points with 20th place - 39 points in total for the Africans!
Nikiema was a well-suited rider for this route as well, and he delivered - 9th place and 20 points for Simba Cement!
Two points each went to Cervelo and Duvel - pretty disappointing for the former, but 22nd actually is Moscon's best result in this race... Hermans on the other hand shouldn't be overly unhappy with 23rd place.
We then had another C2 race, so another one to score big for the CT teams! But wait - it was a cobbled race, and in those, PCT riders love to play the party poopers. And they did so again in Lincoln GP, even getting a 1-2.
And so, Hvideberg's 3rd place was the top result for a CT rider. Gjensidige also had Van Moer reaching a rather surprising 11th place, making it 37 points and a good day for the Norwegians.
Moulingui's 5th place might be slightly disappointment for Trans, but with Centrone in 9th they had another good scorer - and Peng in 22nd even added another point, making it 36 for the Slovenians.
And it's 33 points for Duvel, with Van Lerberghe finishing just off the podium, and Roosen adding a nice 12th place.
Only 2 teams then made the trip to the HC Lisbon Classic (5 spots were open), a race for the sprinters. But only Simba Cement were able to score, with Zariff finally getting a decent result (considering his skillset), taking 14th place and 12 points. The Turtles unfortunately failed to score, with Tivani only getting 50th.
The final race of the month was another C2 event - a cobbled one. Dwars door Vlaanderen made its return after having been on a long hiatus since its last edition in 2015. Some hills, some cobbles, mostly flat - a perfect race for Zepuntke to finally succeed?
Well, obviously not, given that C2 cobbles are dominated by PCT teams this year. The first two spots were "stolen" again - and behind them, it was Van Lerberghe who claimed the final podium spot! With Dewulf sneaking into the Top 25 as well with his 23rd place, that's 30 points for Duvel.
Ringheim is by no means as competitive as last year, but his 4th place is still respectable, and it brings Euskadi some much needed points - 26 to be precise.
Which is the exact same score as Glanbia got, with David claiming the final Top 5 spot and Curley contributing the other 3 points with 17th place.
So, let's try to get an overview. Overall, we have to conclude that it was a very low-scoring month, with no team reaching even 100 points!
It was a close duel for the win, which could be achieved for the incredibly low amount of 89 points this month. And the winner is...
Ethiopian Airlines! Berlin and Wallonie were good races and would've been enough for 2nd place already, but the points from Poland net them the win. With 89 points out of 11 RDs, that's a PpRD of just above 8, which is the 5th best this month.
Missing out by just 2 points are Duvel, scoring 87 points. Having spent three days less, their PpRD is slightly above 10, and #4 this month. It's a slightly different story for Babymetal, whose 62 points - thereof 52 from Berlin - were enough for 3rd place. But having spent 9 RDs, they aren't in the Top 5 PpRD-wise.
Even worse for the Turtles, who must be rather happy about taking 4th place - but scoring 59 points in 15 days of racing isn't great and probably won't help them much in terms of moving up.
The most efficient team of the month, with a 13.5 PpRD average, are Gjensidige. They only spent 4 RDs, and scored 54 points, mainly thanks to their Lincoln performance. Trans and Glanbia also did two races each, scoring 50 and 49 points respectively - and getting the 2nd and 3rd best PpRD.
Würth are just another point down, having done 3 races - whereas Simba and Spark, both totalling 47 points, spent 9 and 13 RDs respectively. Euskotren in 11th place cannot be overly happy about their 43 points in 11 RDs, either.
14 points between 11th and 12th actually is a pretty big gap given the overall scores - it's more than between 5th and 11th where we have 11 points. And in this 12th place, we find Air New Zealand with 29 points, closely followed by Euskadi with 27.
And that's what this month's scores look like - a total of 753 points for all CT teams combined, which is just barely more than ISA scored in PCT... To be fair, the calendar clearly didn't help, without a single C2 stage race!
Pos
Team
Ber
USA
Pol
Wal
Lin
Lis
DdV
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Ethiopian Airlines
33
0
17
39
0
0
0
89
11
8.09
2
Duvel-Tsingtao
22
0
0
2
33
0
30
87
8
10.88
3
Babymetal
52
7
0
0
3
0
0
62
9
6.89
4
SEE Turtles
3
0
33
0
23
0
0
59
15
3.93
5
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
0
0
0
0
37
0
17
54
4
13.50
6
Trans Looney Tunes
0
0
0
0
36
0
14
50
4
12.50
7
Glanbia
23
0
0
0
0
0
26
49
4
12.25
8
Team Würth MODYF
8
0
0
0
21
0
19
48
6
8.00
9
Simba Cement - Tanga Fresh
14
1
0
20
0
12
0
47
9
5.22
10
Spark Team NZ
29
0
18
0
0
0
0
47
13
3.62
11
Euskotren - Pays Basque
36
0
5
0
0
0
2
43
11
3.91
12
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
2
0
0
0
4
0
23
29
8
3.63
13
Euskadi-Murias
0
0
0
0
1
0
26
27
6
4.50
14
Zain-Omantel
19
0
0
0
0
0
0
19
9
2.11
15
Newton Foundation p/b Zwift
10
7
0
0
0
0
0
17
7
2.43
16
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
0
0
0
0
5
0
8
13
4
3.25
17
Cervelo Test Team
5
0
0
2
0
0
0
7
4
1.75
18
Hilcona Racing Team
3
0
0
0
2
0
1
6
6
1.00
Full Ranking
With only few points scored overall, there obviously weren't any big jumps this month.
And the Top 3 are even identical to the March update - Gjensidige, Duvel, Newton Foundatino. Duvel got slightly closer, but having spent 13 RDs more than Gjensidige, the latter are still looking comfortable. 676 points is the current leading score, with Duvel totalling 628 in 2nd place.
Newton Foundation didn't have a great month, but with 550 points in 44 RDs they still have the 2nd best PpRD, and alongside the two first teams are the only ones to be above 10 PpRD.
Next, we have a big bunch of promotion contenders. Starting with Würth in 4th with 480 points, then Trans with 469, Genii (460), Euskotren (453), Glanbia (445) and Simba (428). And all of them have spent between 53 and 59 RDs and hence are pretty comparable. Trans have the best PpRD currently - but they might have the same issues as Würth, with most cobbles being already done.
We clearly shouldn't rule out Spark yet, who are the final Top 10 team at 375 points - less than 100 points behind the promotion area. And with some potentially strong Bennett races in stock.
Ethiopian Airlines, Cervelo, Euskadi and Zain are the "lower midfield", scoring between 295 (Zain) and 336 (Ethiopian Airlines) points.
Behind them, it's a 100 points gap down to the Turtles, who are desperately waiting for Olympia's Tour - even though it will be close to impossible to repeat last year's success given the huge influx of strong TTers in CT.
Babymetal and Hilcona are next, with Air New Zealand still 50 points behind them. Olympia's Tour and the Österreich Rundfahrt will definitely shake things up in May - and if any team gets a great result in one of the C1 stage races (which should be easier in Baltic Chain with some sprint luck), the standings could look quite differently in a month's time.
But before talking too much about May, here are the current standings:
7 measly points were definitely below the expectations that Matteo Jorgenson had in Eritrea, but he's by no means in danger of losing the lead. 298 points are his current tally - 101 more than his closest chaser.
Who is still Kristian Haugaard Jensen, who even got just 2 points from Eritrea, making it 197 points for him. Brent van Moer moved up from 4th to 3rd after some points scored in Lincoln GP - expect him to overtake Jensen after Olympia's Tour! Probably not Jorgenson, who should ride in Austria...
Ruben Zepuntke is still one of the major disappointments this year - even though he has now moved up to 4th place, with 176 points. But the German still doesn't have a single win, and apart from Faso which he really, really should win, there's not much left.
Dion Smith has dropped from 3rd to 5th after not racing, but with 173 points is just 7 ponits behind Van Moer. Richard Carapaz on the other hand did ride, in Eritrea - but it wasn't enough to fend off Zepuntke, hence dropping from 5th to 6th.
Thymen Arensman didn't race, either, losing a spot, and almost getting caught by Clenne Morvan Moulingui, who only trails 157 vs. 154 now. But as for Zepuntke - and 9th placed Bert Van Lerberghe - there aren't too many races left for the Trans top scorer.
The final place in the Top 10 is occupied by Bakhtiyar Kozhatayev with 131 points - but with even 20th place being just 30 points behind, expect some movement in here next month!
In particular the TTers and the climbers will be looking forward to some good stage races for them, whereas the cobblers and puncheurs won't find much joy. And the sprinters will have to fight against some strong PCT competition in Baltic Chain - Kamberaj has shown them last year how it can be done!
In the meantime, you may find some time to study the current rankings:
Always appreciate these updates Fab, the effort you put into these is tremendous and I always enjoy reading through these (so much so that I’ve stopped trying to calculate where we stand and just wait for the proper write-up).
Good to see our approach for consistency across terrains is holding up so for, but with the cobbles season winding down, we’ll need our less obvious point scorers to step up, as Van Lerberghe has done his job.
Let’s see how the May portion of the season pans out…
As Fab said, big races coming for our GC guys. Especially Bennett but also Davila. Scott should also have some good opportunities as well to get some more points.
Excited to see how we can go and hopefully move up into that top 5 or closer to at least (not ideal but potentially some extra promotion spots available). Always a great read Fab so thanks for the in depth rankings as usual!
