sutty68 wrote:
Good Luck Miguel

nils erik wrote:
The team looks really good! Gotta love Henao/Uran power uphill! The only bad thing is kiryienka, he should have been somewhere else.

Team:

Beeing the 1st WT race of the season we would like to start the season with a bang. For that, I would be hoping for a stage win and a nice placement in the GC.

Colombian through and through. While this is too kept as a base are its easy to go further across the Americas to bring in good riders, and even further for those who are special. With several big local talents how many could be secured.


Well they got the two big ones. Uran is of course the headline star of the team. An accomplished climber with some ability to time-trial. He joins up with Henao as the other big name local lad. Together they form a dangerous duo with serious ability to threaten the top spots. They join top rider Pozzovivo to form the best pure climbing trio around. Another major bonus is that they are all relatively young and have a fantastic future ahead. They get good support on a climbing focused team with a large depth of young riders, but with some older mentors dotted in as well.

Away from the mountains things don’t look good. Ventoso and Feillu can finish, and last more hills than other sprinters but both are hardly top class in either field. Added to that a non-existent cobbles team, minus Scheirlinckx, this season could rapidly become a struggle of survival.

This of course makes the weakness the flats. The heavy reliance on climbers may work for other teams, but doubts hang over the main trios winning ability at the top level. On the brighter side it does mean the lesser stars and talents will have shining role in the season.

Key Rider: Uran
If Rigoberto can perform then the season will be that much easier for the team. If he doesn’t get many results then I don’t see CC Café anywhere but bottom.

Strength: Climbing
The strong leading trio of Pozzo, Uran and Henao should garner their fair share of results. A decent range of supporting riders can bring in points and visibility.

Weakness: Anything Flat
Only 3 riders who can do anything half well on flat roads, and even then each of them is hardly a star. With over 50% of races ending in a sprint this is going to cause a lot of problems for the team.

Rating: 6/10
The climbing is good, but nothing stellar, and with no good sprinters or cobblers this is at best an average team. A lot will be put on the domestiques to steal points throughout the season. Being honest it’s going to be near impossible to avoid a relegation battle.

Stage 1

Grabsch was in a break and Feillu put a nice sprint to finish 8th. Greipel took the win with Johan Veenhof beeing 2nd and Matthew Goss rounded up the podium.


Greipel take's the season opener stage

Stage 2

Sérgio Ribeiro (stop saying it's Ribiero TMM) try to get into the break and that's the highest point of this stage. Both Kiriyenka and Hivert disapointed finishing only 29th and 32th, even behing Sérgio Ribeiro.


Philippe Gilbert win's the stage by a big margin

Stage 3

Grabsch tried again to get into the BOTD. Sadly this time it didn't work. In the end, Feillu finished 4th in the stage wich was the highlight of our Tour Down Under.


Greipel win's his second stage with Feillu not that far behind

Stage 4

The photographers we're on strike and there wasn't too much info about this stage. The only thing we know this must have been a bad stage for us.

Stage 5

This time, Ribeiro actually makes to the breakaway. He grabs a lot of points of the intermediate sprints. But, once again, both Kiriyenka and Hivert failed hard, only finishing 16th and 26th.


Voeckler takes a great stage win

Stage 6

Martin Velits tried to go into the BOTD, but failed. Feillu finished 6th, another top 10 from him. Greipel took another dominant win.


Another dominant win by ''The Gorilla''

Final Review:
Probably one of the most combative teams of the race. Feillu did a couple of top 10 finishes and Grabsch grabed a couple of points so did Ribeiro. Kiryienka and Hivert disapointed finishing both 24th and 26th in the GC.

Final General Classification:

1	Philippe Gilbert	Lierse - Pizza Ullo	18h18'34
2	Cadel Evans	Pure Black - Genesys Racing Team	+ 8
3	Simon Gerrans	Team CSC	+ 11
4	Jelle Vanendert	ITV ProCycling	+ 22
5	Michael Albasini	Motorex - Credit Suisse Pro Cycling	+ 27
6	Greg Van Avermaet	Allianz - BMW Cycling Team	+ 59
7	Matti Breschel	Tulip - Guinness	+ 1'10
8	Karl Hammarling	Caterham - Austar	+ 1'18
9	Giovanni Visconti	Team Fastweb	+ 1'19
10	Rudy Verboven	Nintendo - Ambuja Cycling	s.t.

...
24 Vasil Kiryienka CC Cafe Cycling + 1'34
26 Jonathan Hivert CC Cafe Cycling +1'35
40 Sérgio Ribeiro CC Cafe Cycling + 2'21
58 Bert Grabsch CC Cafe Cycling + 10'08
65 Martin Velits CC Cafe Cycling + 13'36
79 Romain Feillu CC Cafe Cycling + 17'21
86 Daan Olivier CC Cafe Cycling + 21'11

Analysis:
The breakaway won. Bad stuff from our team, who decided to take a rest day in the chase. Ventoso finished 2nd in the peloton sprint.




Analysis:
2 stages, 2 breakaway win's. Once again, Ventoso 2nd in the peloton sprint.

Stage 3

Analysis:
Yes, thank god. Sabido went into the break and finished 2nd in the stage. Also, he reaches the KOTM jersey. Yay, good stuff.

Stage 4

Analysis:
4 stage's, 4 breakaways win's. My god. Still, Sabido confirmed his KOTM jersey in this stage, so we're satisfied.

Stage 5

Analysis:
We didn't brough time-trialists and Henao finished in the top-15 of this stage. Good then.