Oh dear, another completely awful performance this year... No clue why.
I played this exact race many times to find out how TTTs work this year, and both Setiawa and Chapulin always ended up up front on S3, the latter often even fighting for the top spots - but now when it really counted they didn't care at all. Not the first time this happens this year, guess my own PCM version just likes my team far more than anyone else's ^^
TTT was fine (I guess we actually were even 4th in the official results, and not 5th as in the export which is often wrong in TTTs), but I guess we'll definitely have to send Schmid the next time - after all, looking at who survived S3, stamina seemed to have zero importance here... bad planning ^^
Congrats to knockout on the win - not that surprising to see you win a hilly race, but the winner's name sure is surprising ^^
Also, weird team tactics by EA, Wirtgen should have been easily in the front group yesterday - but to be fair, I think he didn't win the race one single time in all my test runs, this game is just completely awful in hilly stage races.
Last but not least, great to see Bissegger lead Simba to a rather surprising stage win, hopefully he can do the same for us next year
I had hoped that the combination of the hills and short TTT might work in our favour heading into this race. However in my mind that was based around Errazkin making the front group on the hilly stages and then taking advantage of being one of the few puncheurs not to be dropped in the TTT.
Obviously things didn't go to plan in that sense, but with Peak pulling off an amazing performance to take 2nd and Mansouri adding the top 10 that was our original target as well it makes this a really good race for us. Unfortunately it was also a really good race for Lotto and Zalgiris so didn't help us that much in the promotion race, but should get us to 30 PpRD this month so can't complain
Congrats to knockout and thanks for the reports Abhi!
Wonderful with a stage win! Unexpected but just what we needed after a tough period. Things just haven't gone our way since ToA (and even then, we threw a favorable position).
A shame Bissegger didn't make the cut on S3 - Debesay is excused as he was in the breakaway - as that means we don't get anyone in top 20 in the GC despite our TTT win. Nevertheless, we went to Lithuania without any GC aspiration, which makes this a 9/10 race for us.
Pidcock's mild activity and okay GC position makes Stage 1 even more frustrating, not competing for such a suited stage. Really really annoyed about it knowing what more could have been. Still, between him and Tesfaye Hilgauskas this was an okay showing. A slight down year for Tommy P, and given it seems to be bad/unbothered tactics more than bad luck, a worrying sign but not quite a disaster I guess. Thanks for the reports Abhi!
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." [PT] Xero Racing
As suspected the hilly 200km+ stage proved to be another random 'whoever get's to be well positioned' sprint. Very unselective and ultimately uninteresting imo.
The race didnt treat us badly with a handful ofnour guys inside the top20-30.
Calmejane an interesting winner here. Wouldnt say he was the best suitesd for the job but he certainly took the opportunity when it arose. Congrats KO.
