baseballlover312 wrote:

Kind of a tough break for Pellizzari with the stat gains changes. Have a similar issue with a couple of my talents (although not anyone that would have been as strong as him). Still should be a fun rider though, among many for you!

Laurens147 wrote:

I’m jealous of all these talents Future is looking bright!

Caspi wrote:

A shame with Tour de l'Avenir, but very cool crop of talents!

kandesbunzler26 wrote:

It's unlucky you missed Avenir, but it's great to have you back! There's so much talent here (and Girmay is still young too) it's hard to see you not going up in one of the next season. And there's at least one interesting rider who maybe needs a PT loan next season

SotD wrote:

A LOT of riders developping, and a mixed box aswell, but some very interesting riders among them! Pellizzari, Vervenne, Willems and van Eetvelt are all very cool riders.

Following two campaigns - 2022 and 2023 - in which we were involved in promotion races and came up short, and with the pillars of those teams starting to age, we made the decision to pivot, stack up on talent, and build around younger riders to eventually make another push for promotion with at least partly home grown riders.

Two seasons followed in which the goal was simple: Develop the new leaders, invest in the future, but remain competitive enough to secure our place in PCT. Luckily, we managed to do just that fairly comfortably both in 2024 and now in 2025, too. And despite a modest finish in the standings, there were quite a few highlights to look back on.

Looking at the final PCT rankings, we honestly couldn't have wished for a much better season. We set the goal for a Top 15 finish with the expectation that it might be a tough fight to get there. Even the relegation battle was not out of the question, as previews had us anywhere between 10th and 21st. Landing very close to the top end of that range is terrific.

Two years solidly mid-table is what we planned with - and hoped for, given our soft rebuild. Now, we want to turn our eyes back towards the top end of the rankings. We already scored exactly 200 points more than last year, and with our new core of leaders more and more coming into their own, we will attempt to get back into the promotion race as soon as next year. But those are offseason thoughts. For now, let's stay in 2025:

With eight wins and five classifications, this is our most successful season in terms of wins since 2021. Takeaki Amezawa scored three of them, Biniam Girmay the first two of what will hopefully be many in the future. Our leaders delivered very well.

But we also got some nice contributions from the rest of the squad. Natnael Tesfatsion continued his love affair with the Tour of Britain, where he won his third stage in two years. New signing Max Stedman scored a pleasantly surprising stage win in the Basque Country. And arguably the highest-profile win - at least of the year, maybe even in team history - was scored by youngster Jean Eric Habimana, who won from a breakaway at the Giro d'Italia.

The team also won the most classification jerseys we ever did in one season, most notably by Lenny Van Eetvelt cleaning up a few U25 classifications, with additional contributions from Biniam Girmay.

Bini's first season with us is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, I would've categorized him as a Top 4 cobbles rider in the division, and in seven HC and C1 races, he only lived up to that twice. He often looked strong, but suffered from a type of poor tactical decision that befell Joeri Stallaert regularly, too: attacking from far out despite having that quick finish that would allow him to score from small bunch sprints, too.

On the other hand, he celebrated his first win in a Bralirwa jersey, and his overall consistency meant that he actually did finish as the top cobbles rider on a pure points scored basis. He ended up 16th overall in the individual PCT Rankings, and his points total was just around 50 points shy of what Stallaert did in his first two seasons with us, too. He also did well enough in our goal races (see further below), which means we can ultimately call this a successful season. To reach peak Stallaert's level from 2023, he will need some training - but that was always both expected and intended anyway.

For our second main leader, new signing Takeaki Amezawa, this really was a tale of two halves of the season. We knew that some stage races on his calendar would not suit him very well, but even in those that he was among the favorites for, such as in Eritrea and Poland, he was very disappointing, failing to even reach the Top 10 in his first five (non-PT) races.

The turnaround came after a strong 4th place in San Sebastian. He repeated that same result in Andorra and on home turf at the Japan Cup, and added stellar wins at Milano - Torino and the Tour du Maroc, with a stage win at the latter, before rounding out the season with a 6th place at the Giro dell'Emilia.

That stretch of results propelled him to 10th in the individual PCT rankings. He also outscored Louis Meintjes' season from last year by more than 150 points - a worthy replacement to say the least. In fact, his points total is the third highest in a single season in team history, behind only 2023 Joeri Stallaert and 2021 Fabio Silvestre. To think what could've been with more suitable planning and/or better performances in the first handful of races … well, it makes you optimistic for next year, I'd say.

We've had a few nice contributions from other riders in the squad, too. Valens Ndayisenga scored a strong GC result from a breakaway in Eritrea as did Jean Eric Habimana at the Lillestrom GP. Max Stedman proved his versatility in the Benelux Tour while Natnael Tesfatsion, as mentioned before, simply gets to another level in Great Britain. Overall, the latter's season has been a bit of a disappointment, but his and Amezawa's paths crossed a bit too often, and the two rarely worked well together in a race.

And lastly, Matthew Teggart did what he has done for three years now: Doing really well in C2 cobbles races. Unfortunately, that'll be the last time, at least in our jersey, given recent rule changes.

In previous years, we relied almost always on Joeri Stallaert on cobbles to achieve our goals. Biniam Girmay has now taken over in that exact role - and he did pretty well. Two of four goals achieved spot on, two more where he was just one place off, which is both a bit unfortunate and still solid enough for budget calculation purposes. And given that we achieved our rankings goal, too, this was a very good season for us.

As mentioned before, both Amezawa and Bini did very well and guided our team to safety. Despite not quite reaching last year's heights, Matthew Teggart is still a cheatcode on C2 cobbles. Unfortunately, the MGUCI has noticed, which is not ideal for next year, but we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Max Stedman has been a terrific addition on a 50k wage, he has one of the best points per salary ratios we've ever had. Lenny Van Eetvelt and Jean Eric Habimana both stepped up as their development progresses, and we look forward to what they can do next year as maxed riders. Valens Ndayisenga also bounced back a bit from his down year in 2024.

On the disappointing side, two names stand out: Natnael Tesfatsion's loss of around 40% of his points from last year can be explained fairly easily, though. One, he had to share leadership with Takeaki Amezawa in a few races in which he was previously our main guy. And two, he scored a decent amount of U25 points last year, for which he is too old now. With more intentional planning around his specific skillset, I'm confident he can be back stronger.

The second main disappointment is Alvaro Hodeg, who scored just around half the points he did for Ekoi - Le Creuset last year despite being our main sprinter and having plenty of opportunities. He never once cracked the Top 10 in a one day race and came away with just two podium places in stages. Intended as a significant upgrade to Kevin Feiereisen from last year, he added just 3 points more than the Luxembourger who had joined us for 50k late in the transfer window.

Overall though, the hope before the year started was a worry-free season, and that's what we got. We thank every rider who contributed to that, and we expect the vast majority to remain with us through contract renewals.

kandesbunzler26 wrote:

Good to see you finishing the season in a spot you're content with - and I'm happy to not have to face Girmay next season. Btw Hodeg was with me last season, but this season we just had an incredibly strong field of sprinters in the division (Rajovic hasn't scored much better too). Best of luck with fighting for promotion next season!

kandesbunzler26 wrote:

Good to see you finishing the season in a spot you're content with - and I'm happy to not have to face Girmay next season. Btw Hodeg was with me last season, but this season we just had an incredibly strong field of sprinters in the division (Rajovic hasn't scored much better too). Best of luck with fighting for promotion next season!