Our two home classics are on the schedule. First up is Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt. The sprinter classic finishs on a city circuit and we can only recommend to you to watch the spectacle live on the course. Our very own Geschke tops the start list. He will get the strong leadout duo Boivin - Hansen again that delivered him perfectly to the line in Croatia. Also part of the line up are powerhouse Stoltz, Extra Leadout Dupont, allrounder Bissinger and talented Mager.

Exactly one week later we participate in the Criterium Hainleite. The unpredictable race can end in so many scenarios that you have to be prepared for everything. If the cobbles prove to be deciding then we have Saramotins and Dupont while Geschke is our man if the hills are more deciding than the cobbles. With Bissinger, Hansen, Grand and Stoltz we have a strong group of domestiques that could start an attack at some point, too.

Both races are very important due to more than one reasons:

- As a German team we want to deliver in German races.
- Both are C2HC races so many important points for the rankings are on offer.
- They are both sponsor goals of our sponsors as they want a top 10 from both.


Also in May are the Lincoln GP with Saramotins and Dupont as our leaders and the Bucks County Classic with Geschke as leader.

@Margh Norway: Thanks. And i agree with you. Geschke has a close to perfect season so far so we can only hope that he continues on this level!

Christian Mager gets caught after a brave attempt. The rest of the team is also very active: Bauhaus was in one break and Andris Vosekalns was named the most active rider after being in 4 breakaways.

I think the route should fit Saramotins quite well. Evonik before the race

Saramotins looks too strong after the 80km-effort Race commentator

I cannot believe this. He ruined the entire plan of my team! Goddammit. Bob (15)

Gratz to Evonik Team Vontobel

You can definitely be stolz of that win Yannik (26) - Evonik fan

Fuck you! Wes (9) - Cedric Lebris - fan

Fuck. A. Duck. That's amazing! Alexei Saramotins

The end of the season comes close and to the surprise of many other team managers and most so called experts we are still in contention for the promotion wildcards.
It is expected that there are around 5 of them and we currently sit in exactly that 5th promotion wildcard spot but the rankings are damn close. Seventeen points - that's all that seperates the places 9 (Sauber), 10 (Evonik) and 11 (TomTom). The boys of BoI are not to far away either.

			Team	Total
1	2		ONCE-Eroski Cycling Team	1565
2	1		Grupo Nutresa	1528
3	4		Bonsucro	1482
4	9		Euskaltel - Bavaria	1347
5	3		Team Vontobel	1322
6	5		Risa - Ergon	1276
7	6		Azteca-NBCSN	1182
8	14		Siam Cement - Lenovo	1146
9	11		Sauber Petronas	1138
10	8		Evonik - Signal Iduna	1131
11	7		Team TomTom	1121
12	10		Bank of Ireland - Irish Cycling	1058
13	12		Team Nordeus	1001
14	13		Fletcher-Garneau	965
15	15		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo Cycling Team	859

(We chosed to post the top 15 because that is what our ranking goal demands from us)

We are here because we picked up some high scoring breakaway scorings from our talented climber Vosekalns (40RP) or our loanies Edmondson (66) and Boivin (72).
Our two time triallist Joeaar (80) and Lasse Norman Hansen (89) have scored very well throughout the season but without our cobblers we would not be where we are. Even the experts of "The Cobbler" did not noticed that we even had a cobbled squad but our idea of having decent cobblers with a good sprint finish would have paid extraordinary well. Dupont (109) scored well and Saramotins (172) could be the best scoring cobbler of the whole continental division.
And last but not least: Our superstar Geschke (411). No update was released without his name was released by us and the ranking proves us true. Without him we would be 19th instead of 10th in the team ranking. And he has the chance to further improve his 4th place in the individual ranking even more. Noticable also that his arch-rival Grega Bole is way behind him.

This leads us to our expectations for the rest of the season. Exclusively in our HQ we reveil our team's remaining schedule:

[C2] Herald Sun Tour:

Geschke - Joeaar - Hansen - Saramotins - Boivin - Edmondson - Stoltz

[C2HC] Grand Prix de Montreal

Geschke - Joeaar - Bissinger - Saramotins - Boivin - Vosekalns - Mager

[C2HC] Cauberg Classic

Geschke - Joeaar - Bissinger - Saramotins - Boivin - Vosekalns - Mager

[C2] GP Yekaterinburg

Geschke - Joeaar - Bissinger - Vosekalns - Grand - Willwohl - Bauhaus

[C2HC] Tour of Utah

Boivin - Vosekalns - Mager - Grand - Edmondson - Willwohl - Bauhaus

As you can see we have enough chances to shout out Geschke's name in the last races of the season and hopefully, this will be enough to secure our wanted top 10 in the final ranking update!

Please don't forget to cheer for us.

Please don't forget to cheer for us.

Jesleyh: Please. One has to support the cooler teams

Roturn: Thanks. Your loanies have already done more than I hoped with a lot of strong break attempts of which some resulted in a lot of points. And Geschke is of course always strong. Should I get one of those promotion spots then it would not have worked without your former riders.

Tastasol: That's how it works all season here. Considering we spent most of our budget on young talents we could not afford to have more than one real leader. And I won't mind if Geschke finishes second behind one of your riders in some races as long as Evonik has more points at the end of the season than teams like TomTom, BoI, Sauber or Siam.

The Rider: Yep. It was about time for another update and with the ranking update posted I had finally some stuff that I could write about.
You're right when you say that the first month were fantastic but it was obvious that we would lose a bit to the front teams because of the lack of some depth in quality. And you're right when you say that our last race of the season of us will likely not be a too big scorer for us. And even more scarily, Züri-Metzgete takes place after Tour of Utah which could see some big scores for our rivals .

The team management of CT outfit Evonik - Signal Iduna declared that their name sponsor Signal Iduna will step down at the end of the season. While main sponsor Evonik still has a year on its contract the German Insurance company will no longer be part of the team's name.

According to the team this step was long planned. "When we got accepted by the UCI we had to quickly find some sponsors to find the needed funds for this project and we are very happy about their spontaneos engagement."

It is not revealed yet if another sponsor will step up or if Evonik will become solo sponsor.

German cycling team Evonik - Signal Iduna proudly presents ELKO as new title sponsor for the 2015 season. After the announcement that Signal Iduna will step down at the end of the season speculations have been made about a new co-sponsor. The team management ended this by announcing the new name: Evonik - ELKO.

The ELKO Group is a IT wholeseller based in Riga, Latvia. Founded in 1993 they quickly grew to one of the largest Latvian companies which currently have more than 700 employees and a turnover of over 1000 million US dollars which guarantees a stable, leading position in the European IT world of today.

Aside of the Baltic States Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, they also operate in Slovenia, Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan.

ELKO is very happy to have one of the most popular Latvian cyclists in Saramotins in the squad while also having as talented Latvians as Andris Vosekalns or Indulis Bekmanis in the roster. The contracts of Estonian Gert Joeaar & Slovenian gifted Mark Dzamastagic were also very appreciated.

Despite of the reported interest of Puma, Festina and Pokerstars we will try everything to ensure that Dzamastagic will ride in our team colors next season and we believe that we will have every argument to reach this. In case of promotion that is.

roturn wrote:
No longer a German team.
So I take Geschke back.

@cio: Can't wait to talk with you about the transfers. There are a lot of potential targets at Puma and it will be interesting to see who might be allowed to leave. E.g. there's a loanee who could want to stay at his loan home...

@roturn: Sorry to disappoint you but cio is right: The team stays German and the only thing that changed is that the Baltic subfocus can be seen in the co-sponsor now.

@fjhoekie: I don't think that Ansons will meet my minimum requirements for the quality of my riders - especially when also looking at his age. But your lithuanian duo could be very interesting for me if they'll turn available. Puusepp & Greipel would also be more interesting.

@dippster: You've got it. I wanted to legimate my focus there.