Hi guys, Admir again. Well, as i previously said in this thread, this story will be continued and i'll be racing with Radenska in new 2014 year. As you may know, i already raced one season, finished transfer season, made presentation of the team, new season, PCT and even started 2014 season, but i suddenly lost motivation. Well, i just feel like i got it once again, and i can't see a reason why not to try it once again. I'm sure some of you will like it!
Well,well,well. Our squad is youngest Pro Continental Tour squad in this year. It may not sound so impressive, but when i tell you that our oldest rider is Alexandr Pliuschin, who's 25 currently.
Team is really young and promising. As you can see, we're based on riders from Slovenia, Italy... Eastern and Central Europe, shortly. Our main sponsor, Radenska gave us enough budget to get 17 riders, which should be enough, with good schedule, to stay in PCT this year. Oh, i forgot, for new guys out here, team promoted from CT last year and will race in CT. There's a link for previous season in top post, so you can always check it.
Anyways, this is how full squad looks alike.
All of these guys are well-known in cycling world and i, as team manager, am very proud that i got them last year. Some new guys in our squad are: Mohoric, Felline, Brandle, Pliuschin... All of them are quite young and has potential to become great. It's just matter of time.
That was the teams presentation shortly, let's bring on leaders presentation and their description.
Very young but still Team Leaders. Sounds interesting right? Well, here they are: Jan Polanc, Luka Pibernik and Fabio Felline. Nothing to wait for, so we can bring on presentation of our stage-race leader, Jan Polanc.
Jan Polanc (6th May 1992)
Jan is one of most perspective young climbers in the world currently. Thanks to our trainers, he developed very good in 2013 season, so he's actually mid-range stage racer right now, with 75MO /73HI /71TT as his primary stats. Future great, without any doubt!
Luka Pibernik (23rd October 1993)
Our best sprinter currently. He prefer pan flat terrains, but he's actually pretty decent at hills. Never had real chance to show himself last year, since Andrej Rajsp (IAM) was in our team. It's finally his chance. He's on 74SP/ 74ACC right now.
Fabio Felline (29th March 1990)
Showed what he has in his legs last year as Androni Giocatolli rider. And , luckily we won battle and got him for 3 years. "Hilly sprinter" would describe him best and he really is that kind of rider. Solid climbing abilities and great sprint gives him huge chances for 1day races. 72HI/ 74SP/ 74ACC are his current stats.
Our goals are simple this year. We are not so ambicious about promoting to WT in our first season as PCT, so we won't even try to achieve it. Here are some of us main goals:
***
Stay in PCT
**
Win at least 1 Stage Race
*
Win at least 3 1-day Classics
Our main goal is of course to stay in PCT. It will be really hard with this amount of riders, but we'll try. Every other win/podium is only plus and can give us extra money and motivation.
Shonak - Thanks alot. Shame you missed first season, but you can always read it (link in first post). It's only 14 pages, anyways.
Some of our followers from last season may remember that we still have contract with CyclingNews which means they're writing about our teams situation, some teams activities and things like that frequently. Since this site changed its look and we got some new site members, it's time to remind of some their (CyclingNews) posts about us. Our 2014 jersey was in main plan at this article.
Spoiler
Note* This article was written almost half year ago and back then my English was waaay worse. So don't be surprised if you see comma after each or every 2nd word or mistakes like that.
Also, just to clear things up, with "since the site change look" i meant we got new thread and some new followers as well. So, i'll try to call this "site" from this point.
Oh and well, full jersey is below. Thanks to aidanvn13 once again, our team designer. ()
Jersey looks incredible and OMV as a sponsor is quite nice. Maybe Radenksa can hire Patrick Konrad sometime along the way. In any case, there's lots of quality (Felline, Polanc) and great talent (Mohoric!) in the squad.
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Shonak - Of course it looks incredible when Aidan done it. Yep, team is very talented and has great future. I just hope some of these riders are going to stay in Radenska. Some of them are going to leave, definitely.
And about Konrad - Yes , he's very talented boy but he was not one of our priorities last season, so we missed the chance to sign him. We'll try to do that this season.
baseballlover312, 06-03-14 : "Nuke Moscow...Don't worry Russia, we've got plenty of love to go around your cities"
Sarah Palin, 08-03-14 (CPAC, on Russian aggression) : "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke"
Big thanks to jdog for making this AMAZING userbar!
547984 - Well, it's about what i like, not you. Kidding, glad you like it. I know you would like to see some more Bauers, but you'll have to stick with Radenska, for now.
All - Finished all editings last night, added Radenska in DailyDB, made some transfers&sponsor changes from last year and i guess we can start today. Oh almost forgot, updated calendar for first 1/4 of the year with some custom-made flags.
sutty68 - Yep, thanks! And i hope to convert all of those 2nd places (from 2013 season) to wins now.
Adamb - Thanks!
The first race for our team this year is race opened in 1996, opening Italian classic of the season, GP Costa degli Etruschi.
The terrain is like perfectly made for some kind of hilly sprinters, just as Felline. However, everything depends on last hill where someone can make a move and win the race.
Not many strong names in this race, but some of the favourites are: Meersmann (OPQS), Marcato (Cannondale) and T. Gallopin (Lotto).
As i previously said, our leader on this race is our newcomer, team leader, Fabio Felline. We have Brandle and Mohoric aswell, so i think we can possible attacks on last hill.
We'll might even try to get in the breakaway, who knows. Pliuschin might be best guy for something like that, but our decision will be made on-field. No pre-race plans, however, but our goal is to get at least Top 10 here.
That's pretty much it for preview of our first race of the season, see ya on-terrain.
Shonak - It really is great race. Won it in my first career with PCMdaily 2014 DB so i know how it looks alike. Should be alot of fun.
And it really is true. Huge amount of Italian races in this DB and that's why i love it. They're teams main priority for schedule. As you can see, almost half of races in calendar are Italian.
Adamb - That would be great, but competition is really strong and his peak is not at the start of the season. Not saying that it is impossible, tho.
sutty68 - Indeed! Sky brought pretty strong squad here,as well as OPQS. It's going to be hard.
As i previously said, our todays plan is to set perfect sprint train for our team-leader in this race, Fabio Felline. This plan might be distracted by some possible attacks on that last hill, but we have our guys for that as well.
From an early start of the race, Paktushov, Losada and Cattaneo made move with obvious idea to created BTOD.
And that first attempt was successful, since OPQS and Sky thought that they were not dangerous for race-win, so they let them go.
Pretty much nothing happened until the 2nd hill of the day, when one of the best youngsters in the world, our new rider from thi season, Mohoric attacked!
That was just not serious attack. He tried, but top teams were ready for some chasing and they caught him at another side of the hill, on the downhill.
10 kilometers without anything happening in it, except chasing of peloton and really brave fight of the guys at front. At the bottom of the last hill, they still had more than 30 seconds of advantage!
Decisive race moment is in front of us. Last hill - last chance for puncheurs, hard terrain for sprinters and "i-dont-give-a-shit-about-it" for rest of the peloton. However, we did great preparation part before that hill, so Felline was at top of the peloton right before percentages started to increase.
Surprisingly, peloton passed that hills without any problems. Seems like everyone was focused on getting that group at the front. They were really,really strong today!
In the middle of the downhill, peloton was able to see them finally. However, Losada & Cattaneo made some advantage over the Paktushov. To be honest, that was expected earlier.
Sky, with a bit of our help, managed to catch them right before last corner. This was situation in that moment. We was at the front and it looked really good for us!
Last corner, decisive part of the race definitely! Sky slightly turning ON their turbo powers and we're still there. Andriato came from nowhere and got the wheel of our leader. He can be serious competitor in this sprint!
Sprint started! For some reason, Felline decided to start sprint a bit earlier than others. That could be even smart decision just if he didn't get blocked by OPQS riders. Andriato coming out of nowhere and getting the win. That was reaaaally close!
You can see how close it was on the picture below. If the only Felline found way near the OPQS guys, it would be much better. But 6th position isn't that bad at all!
The Hobbit - It really is nice way to open our season, but it could be better. Just look at all of these OPQS riders around Fabio. Real shame that he got blocked on race where profile suited him perfectly. But, at the end of the day, both Italy and our schedule are full of these races, so he'll definitely have chance to prove himself again.
sutty68 - Well, it was really close race and there was just no space for anyone to go at front, as you can see from last photo. Shame that we missed chance to stay at the front and fight for win.
And thanks, i really do pay attention on screenshots and i like them as well.
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