Aaaand Festina did it Congrats to them for the Tasmania/Lombardia double salvo, awesome finish! A shame for Moser though, hopefully they can mount the same kind of challenge again
Very sad to see Strava go down though
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Big congrats to SotD, his team again proved how great manager he is. We were quite close, but as we were not able to secure needed results in the final part of the season, it was always a long fight for us. For some time it looked really good for my team, but in the end it wasn't really even that close. We will need to improve a lot for the next year...
In any case this season was really successful, surely the best season ever for my team. The highest overall place, Bewley once again dominated cobbles and this time also Sagan had an almost perfect year, unbelievable stuff from both of them. Was quite a lot lucky with Velits' result in Giro due to poor startlist, but it was a great reward for him in his final season before first decline. I can surely blame some poor luck, some crashes etc. But clearly the biggest mistake from me happened in the off-season. Selling Vakoc instead of Howard and training Howard instead of Vesely would likely result into better overall results and maybe it could be a lot closer between my team and Festina. In this way I finally have a Czech PT quality leaders, but not the title. You can't have everything.
Also nice to see Evonik doing this well, it is going to be really hard to keep them behind the next year with their talented manager. Vesuvio once again around there, and this time roturn's team explodes way higher than before in the standings. Congrats guys.
On the other end I am a lot surprised to see such a low points score for beagle's team. Hopefully you can bounce quickly back the next year as I am sure you will be much more happy without mountains and especially Tenorio. All other relegating teams are last year's promoting teams proving that it is not easy to estabilish your team in PT. It will only get better next time - Aegon or Puma proves that. (not counting jph's tactics to automatically relegate for the first time )
Oh and Sam Bewley taking the individual title. Too bad that this is not F1 where driver's championships is way more prestigious trophy to win.
Congratulations SotD. Sensational last dash to take the final triumph. I believe Roman who'd have been a deserving champion here as well, but October really wasn't Moser's month.
I don't have enough words to describe how happy I'm feeling after this miraculous save. A word of commiseration to my fellow managers in the scrap against relegation. It's a tough place to be in, but you definitely are in the pole position to jump right back into the PT. Good luck to you all!
And last but definitely not least a titanic word of appreciation to all the people behind the scenes who worked to provide us, beautiful, snappy and incredibly-paced reports throughout the whole season. You guys are the MVPs. If 2018 gets to be half as good as 2017 was in terms of reports and pace, I'd be perfectly grateful.
Congratulations to Porto and Tinkoff, well deserved and two great teams staying up. Make the best of it
Too bad it didn't work out for us. However. I wasn't enjoying the MG enough in comparison to ICL lately and I would have only continued if I stayed in the PT. We didn't manage that.After 3 season (re-)builds, I genuinely don't have any motivation to do a 4th one. I knew that since the season began. Also, it will only get more complicated from here on out, too (new job, moving etc). It's why I call it quits for Strava.
Thanks a lot to SN, roturn and all the reporters for the time and effort you put into the MG. It's an unique and fun experience that I have greatly enjoyed, and that adds so much value to anyone one this board. Of course my thanks also go to all the short- and long-term supporters of my team who have cheered in the last weeks and years for us. I'm very humbled to have received such great support and also to have gained 3 MG awards during Strava's existence. I will follow from the sidelines now and then. Don't be too afraid of Isostar, Croatia is human too.
Edited by Shonak on 28-04-2018 03:23
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Sad to see you go Shonak but I see why. Thanks for being an awesome part of the game and the epic squads you put together
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
In the end, the more experienced PT teams survived. I'm really sad to see Ayubowan! go down. I was definately cheering for them. But to pick a team to take their spot is also difficult. Job well done, and deservedly another season for Tinkoff and Porto!
Congrats to those doing what they expected or better, and thanks for the battle Roman. For some reason it felt even better than the 2015 battle with Vesuvio. Next season will be yours if you handle things well. We are in a rebuild, and I suppose a few others in the top will also be.
Sad to see Strava manager leave, but if the motivation is gone, it is definately better. I will be interested in seeing if anyone else leaves or is kicked as 6-9 in the PCT are very interesting for the PT also.
Huge thanks to the people behind the scene, but even more to the every day heroes - the reporters! You have done an amazing job. This season have worked almost perfect imo. There was a bit of a dead period for us towards the end, which is a calender thing, Where only the PT teams with the right PTHC bands were often riding. That costed a bit of activity for me, which might be something to look into, to avoid others to lose interest. But it was a very good addition to the race i think!
Thanks for all the congrats. Time to make my talents take the final step towards being PT leaders. This means rebuild! Oh boy am I looking forward to that!
Congraats SotD for this brilliant "last month lead to victory" title.
With that finish, it`s surely a well deserved one.
Moser successfully added the "missing" piece to Bewley with the training of Sagan. But it wasn`t enough just yet.
Shows that Festina`s depth was even better in the end.
Evonik in 3rd is impressive. And Vesuvio in 4th is one of the biggest consistencies over years in the MG.
To be honest, 5th is awesome for my team. Surely overperformed here and there (Dekker in Dauphine) but also had lots of races, where my riders didn`t do nothing. (De Bie in Lombardia, Swift in Moscow, ...) So somehow seems to be a fair spot for the team.
Still hurts to miss out on 4th by 5 points when the last race was basically a 0-pointer with a top10 favourite. Gastauer though didn`t much better neither.
In the bottom end, some surprises. Trofimov saves Tinkoff is a nice MG story.
Strava losing out with Bakelants a debacle for them. His one bad Lombardia broke their neck.
Ayubowan was hold up by Yates so many times. Dropping that much into relegation on the last day must hurt even though it might have been expected before the season.
Porto to remain up there is nice. Borges really deserves a higher paycheck now.
Nemiroff or Team Pluchkin was expected to go down unfortunately. Not always working with a 1-man-show. In especially not if the opponents are equally strong and win the GTs.
Iberia is the biggest shock. Just like Lo Cicero in the PCT, Degenkolb in the PT also couldn`t repeat the huge 2017 season. Very sad to see that in both cases the teams relegate due to their main rider scoring that much less.
With Iberia even more shocking as the combo with Tenorio alone should have scored enough and like 1500 points more at least...hope you find a way to "rebuild" and come back stronger.
Last but not least thanks to SN for those quick ranking updates here on the final day and also on the last couple month, where I really struggled with time.
And also to all reporters and managers that worked behind the background. The season was in general very fast. A lot of credit goes to some of the new managers, which proved to be incredible additions, that made the fast pace possible with all the reports just like all those long-time reporters as well obviously.
Thank you to all reporters, roturn, SN and everyone who has been working with behind the scenes-stuff. The season has been kind of sensationally fast, after all we started the racing in November. Thank you!
A pity to see Strava go down on the very last day, in a race that should have suited Bakelants perfect, as he has proven previous seasons. Though, great performance by Porto - Prio, stepping up when it really was needed. That fight to avoid relegation has been incredibly close the last couple of races, and I feel sorry for the teams forced to take a step down.
At the very top, Festina with some monster performances in the final races, taking the momentum and running away with the title. Congratulations, SotD! Winning with 500 points looks convincing, but like others have already said, this was close to a perfect season from Moser, fading in the very last races.
Dropping all the way down to 12th in Lombardia is unfortunate for my team, especially the way it happened. We've had our high points during the season, mostly through Trentin, but there has been a lot of lows as well, especially with Beltran on the hills. We really need to do something there if we want to be a serious team again on the hills, but I must admit I struggle to see what that should be, seeing how bad we've been this season.
Must say it has been another great season to be part of the game, and also, the transfer season for the next one can't really come quick enough
ember wrote:We've had our high points during the season, mostly through Trentin, but there has been a lot of lows as well, especially with Beltran on the hills. We really need to do something there if we want to be a serious team again on the hills, but I must admit I struggle to see what that should be, seeing how bad we've been this season.
I think it's quite easy for you to build on. You did a massive change this season to go from a EBH team to a more well rounded one. Trentin is almost where he needs to be - mayby your team around him is a bit too strong to actually maximizing points. 7 riders with 77+ COB is obviously great to have for depth, but cobblers won't save the season and I would personally let 2 of those go.
I guess Fabian Cancellara and Damien Gaudin would be the ones to leave for me. Then maybe add a 50-60K pot 77-78COB talent to the pool instead. You already have riders like Bugge, Oss and Gjølberg who are easily good enough for early cobbled domestiques, imo.
And then the big one. Training Beltran. It might take more than one season worth of training, but he could be the new Ricco. We have seen that those secondary stats are not as important as they have been in the past, so maybe they are sufficient. But he will never win the longest hilly races with 73END and 72RES - and will probably also struggle to win GT's. But less can be very interesting also!
Personally I would have made Guldhammer into 81/81 seasons ago, as he would be a 1500+ point scorer every season. Finally I would probably consider whether or not I wanted to have all of Nesset, Laengen, Hoelgaard, Teuns and Dyrnes. They take a total of 650K in wages and ended up scoring 1000 points. It might seem very good, but imo they end up taking points from eachother. I would think that selling one would save you 100+K and would end up with almost the same points from those.
combining with Cancellara that leaves 200-250K free for another signing. That is the wage of riders like Bryan Coquard, Tom David and almost Clement Koretzky.
That would be any easy way to join the top 10 and probably also the top 5 IMO
But then there's the roleplay aspect and keeping things norwegian and all
It is always sad to see teams relegate especially those who are active very much now when it went down to Strava to say goodbye. It has been fun with you around Shonak very interesting to follow you rebuilds and how well it went atleast last season and it was close to help you out of relegation this year aswell. Also sad to see beagle our mate from the 2011 newbiesquad go down.
Very nice for me to see Porto - Prio stay up always liked you and your team, humble gustavo!
It was a nice battle over the season for the title but in the end is went clear, congrats SotD, I think I somewhere read they you where about to change a lot in your team infront of next season, will be fun to see.
We are very happy with our first ever PT season managed to stay out from relegation with a margine of +400pts, despite have our best scoring rider at 38th and no that was not Ahlstrand.
Thanks all guys for making another great MG season!
ember wrote:We've had our high points during the season, mostly through Trentin, but there has been a lot of lows as well, especially with Beltran on the hills. We really need to do something there if we want to be a serious team again on the hills, but I must admit I struggle to see what that should be, seeing how bad we've been this season.
combining with Cancellara that leaves 200-250K free for another signing. That is the wage of riders like Bryan Coquard, Tom David and almost Clement Koretzky.
Yeah but not actually for Tom David... right?
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
ember wrote:We've had our high points during the season, mostly through Trentin, but there has been a lot of lows as well, especially with Beltran on the hills. We really need to do something there if we want to be a serious team again on the hills, but I must admit I struggle to see what that should be, seeing how bad we've been this season.
combining with Cancellara that leaves 200-250K free for another signing. That is the wage of riders like Bryan Coquard, Tom David and almost Clement Koretzky.
Yeah but not actually for Tom David... right?
No one knows what will happen to Tom - Depending on the offer, he could leave or stay. Maybe 80COB Tom David would be an option for a team who never performed well in the cobbles
2nd goal of the season achieved, top 10 in PT!
That feels pretty good, but the most important thing is still to stay up!
congratz to all lucky survivors in the end, and im interested to see the rebuilds of those who barely missed out!
Big thanks to all who made this season happen! Been enjoying this race for quite some time now and i really hope that it will last a good while longer.
Sad to see strava go, but when the motivation was gone theres not much reason to continue. probs for staying active throughout the season and then calling it quits now!
Congrats to SotD on defending the title, although it was very much in the balance until 2 races to go. Moser pushed hard and would also have been deserving champions.
Congrats also to those who escaped relegation, with Tinkoff in particular performing the 'Great Escape' as been in the relegation zone for a while, right? Commiserations to those who missed out, but that just means you get the brilliant prize of PCT racing next season, so not so bad in reality! Sad to see the announcement of the disbanding loss of Strava, been great to follow your journey Shonak, Strava will be missed from the 2018 peloton.
Some returners and new blood coming up from PCT for 2018 season, and a number of top team with aging leaders potentially looking to re-build, so lots to look forward to!
ember wrote:We've had our high points during the season, mostly through Trentin, but there has been a lot of lows as well, especially with Beltran on the hills. We really need to do something there if we want to be a serious team again on the hills, but I must admit I struggle to see what that should be, seeing how bad we've been this season.
I think it's quite easy for you to build on. You did a massive change this season to go from a EBH team to a more well rounded one. Trentin is almost where he needs to be - mayby your team around him is a bit too strong to actually maximizing points. 7 riders with 77+ COB is obviously great to have for depth, but cobblers won't save the season and I would personally let 2 of those go.
I guess Fabian Cancellara and Damien Gaudin would be the ones to leave for me. Then maybe add a 50-60K pot 77-78COB talent to the pool instead. You already have riders like Bugge, Oss and Gjølberg who are easily good enough for early cobbled domestiques, imo.
And then the big one. Training Beltran. It might take more than one season worth of training, but he could be the new Ricco. We have seen that those secondary stats are not as important as they have been in the past, so maybe they are sufficient. But he will never win the longest hilly races with 73END and 72RES - and will probably also struggle to win GT's. But less can be very interesting also!
Personally I would have made Guldhammer into 81/81 seasons ago, as he would be a 1500+ point scorer every season. Finally I would probably consider whether or not I wanted to have all of Nesset, Laengen, Hoelgaard, Teuns and Dyrnes. They take a total of 650K in wages and ended up scoring 1000 points. It might seem very good, but imo they end up taking points from eachother. I would think that selling one would save you 100+K and would end up with almost the same points from those.
combining with Cancellara that leaves 200-250K free for another signing. That is the wage of riders like Bryan Coquard, Tom David and almost Clement Koretzky.
That would be any easy way to join the top 10 and probably also the top 5 IMO
But then there's the roleplay aspect and keeping things norwegian and all
I agree on most parts. Training Beltran was definitely on the cards when I bought him last year, with the upcoming transfer season being the first where he's training eligible. But seeing how 81/82 puncheurs have performed this season, except Sagan of course, I'm not so sure anymore. Though, that will still be plan A, I suspect. The other aspect is money, as our big drop in Lombardia won't help thinking of the incoming money
The role play thing is kind of important indeed. After all, I'd say I had a decent platform to build on in every PT season year, except for the first where we were just promoted. The goal has never been to build a top 3 team, but rather a Norwegian team. Would surely be fun to change that, but it's surely a lot of fun to keep it that way as well
Your point on Dyrnes, Laengen, Teuns, Hoelgaard and Nesset is the one I disagree on, I think. I guess their points will vary a lot from season to season, as much of it comes down to breakaway opportunities. That's also what I try to plan their seasons around, to give them the most opportunities. Admittedly I failed big there this year. Last year though, they (Dyrnes, Laengen, Hoelgaard and Nesset) had a bunch of them, this year they've been on way too much support duties for my liking. And to kind of underline my point of their natural points variation: Last year only those four riders secured us between 1400 and 1500 points. Add another 174 from this year's Teuns, and I think it looks pretty good. Guess their "normal" points should be around 1200-1300 with this season's race days, but it's difficult to say. And of course they're vital for the role play thing
And we survived Really looking forward to this transfer season, I have many half-ideas on how to strenghten and change the team around.
Such a tight end on the relegation battle, 4 teams within 100 points, and really sad to see Ayubowan and Strava go down, hopefully they will manage a bounch back next season. Will be interesting to see
Big congratulations to Sotd on another PT crown, great season with a TDF victory as well! So close for Spilak to conquer the individual rankings, but Bewley is Bewley...
Congrats to them for the Tasmania/Lombardia double salvo, awesome finish! A shame for Moser though, hopefully they can mount the same kind of challenge again 
Vesuvio once again around there, and this time roturn's team explodes way higher than before in the standings. Congrats guys.
