It's time for the biggest show of the year. The three top favourites are Quintana, Froome and Kwiatkowski. Quintana is the only rider in the world with MON 85, Froome only has 1 stat point less, but everything so far tells us even that makes a huge difference. Quintana had carved out a lead of 5 minutes against Froome before crashing out of last season's Tour and he recently won the Dauphine by over 4 minutes ahead of Dan Martin and Froome. Considering that Kwiatek shouldn't stand a chance with his MON 81, but he has several advantages against the Colombian, +5 HIL, +9 FLA, +3 TTR. And the route suits him, we face several hilly stages before we hit the mountains and there are only two MTFs this year on stages 12 and 18, but there are also two long flat ITTs.
Aviva will of course only be hunting for stages and trying to clinch the polkadot jersey with either Golem or Kirchmair.
Mirroring real life (by pure chance), the grand depart this year was in Belgium and we'll also visit La Planche Des Belles Filles. The Tour started with a 10 km prologue which went to Dumoulin ahead of Boom and Oskar Svendsen. Stage 2 from Liege to Seraing was hilly, I did not record if we had a rider in the breakaway, but I must have played the stage in 3D mode because all our riders lost at least 11 minutes, Skjerping even lost 23 minutes, he was the last rider to make it across the line, possibly only just beating the broom wagon. 36-year old Cancellara won the stage, together with Gilbert, Betancur and Peter Sagan he finished 15 seconds ahead of the peloton and slipped into the yellow jersey.
Stage 3 to Tournai was the first showdown of the fast men, Sagan beat Degenkolb and Kittel. He donned the green jersey and wouldn't give it up again for the rest of the race. Pomoshnikov, freshly decorated with the Russian NC jersey, was Aviva's escape artist the following day. He shook off all breakaway companions but was overtaken in the end by four riders, Sagan won the stage ahead of Betancur, Kreuziger and Porte.
Degenkolb took stage 5, before Sagan notched up two more TdF stages for his ever-growing palmares. Degenkolb and Kristoff were 2nd and 3rd both days. Stage 8 finished at the ski station La Planche Des Belles Filles. PCM believes it to be a hilltop finish. Our best puncheur, Hoem, was part of the breakaway, but he hit the deck. He was able to continue but he was visibly injured so he jumped into the team car. The plan had been to keep him in the Tour a little longer, so he'd have some rhythm for San Sebastian. The Tour de Wallonie would be the perfect preparation but PCM stubbornly refuses to allow Aviva into the race every year, this year none of the races ahead of San Sebastian wanted to see us. We have our other punchers racing in Austria, it was the only available option.
Kwiatkowski drew first blood. He won the La Planche stage 8 seconds ahead of Betancur and 54 seconds ahead of the other GC favourites. He's now wearing the yellow jersey and Quintana will have to work hard to do something about it. Instead, Kwiatek won the next day, too. The stage was hilly, but with a flat finale, 35 riders arrived together in a reduced peloton.
Stage 10 was a flat ITT, 38 km long. Dumoulin was victorious again, ahead of Cancellara and Rohan Dennis. Kwiatkowski was 4th, 48'' faster than Quintana. Froome, who has Kwiatek's TTR skill, had a bad day and finished 23'' further back. Then we finally hit the mountains, but with a finish down in a valley, in Bellegarde-sur-Valserine. The breakaway with Köszegi was caught before it even made it to the top of the penultimate climb. The stage went to Betancur, Kwiatkowski was 2nd, just ahead of Quintana and Froome. Giro winner Porte and everybody else lost at least 90 seconds.
Stage 12, the second mountain stage in a row, offered a survival chance for the breakaway and we unleashed Kirchmair. 144 km to Sybelles, leading across two HC climbs, then a cat. 2 and then an uneven climb to the finish. It seemed like the perfect opportunity for Kirchmair, bar one big handicap: Fabio Aru (MON 79) had snuck into the breakaway. Bardet, Elissonde, Edet, Gorka Izagirre, Capecchi and De Gendt were also part of the group, Kirchmair can climb better than any of them. His other stats are pretty bad, but it's the first of two MTFs this year so he should be ok.
He only fought half-heartedly for the KOM points, Aru was the clear winner of the day with 75 points. The breakaway had quite the advantage, reaching a maximum of 20 minutes, so we needn't worry about the favourites catching the group. Going into the final climb Kirchmair was looking strong. Aru attacked but with a steady speed Kirchmair closed the gap. When Aru attacked again, Kirchmair decided to follow. The was a bit of a headwind and dropping the others would be a big success. And it worked, the gap grew larger and larger. Kirchmair just stayed behind Aru, which was especially nice on the small plateau in the middle of the climb. But of course Aru attacked again and Kirchmair had to conserve his energy now. The gap never grew beyond a minute, but it wouldn't close again, either. Aru won the stage by 58 seconds ahead of Kirchmair, the others arrived over 4 minutes behind.
Quintana also went on the attack, again and again. But while he got rid of everybody else, he just couldn't shake off Kwiatkowski. The duo arrived together about 30 seconds ahead of Porte and Kreuziger. Froome had another bad day, losing nearly 3 minutes to Quintana. Even the podium is in doubt now for the defending champion. Porte looked like he can handle the Giro-Tour-double, though we'll have to see if that holds up in the final week. Kreuziger and Betancur aren't looking bad, either, though Betancur especially will have to worry about the even longer flat ITT on stage 20.
We hoped the sprinters would be tired a day later on a flat stage which featured a couple of larger climbs in the early part of the day and a slightly tricky finale, too. So we gave Bruno Silva a shot, being a climber he made his breakaway companions suffer over the two climbs, trying to put as much time as possible between the E1 and the peloton. But it was all for naught, the peloton caught the group easily. The final 10 km proved as tricky as advertised, Sagan won yet again, followed by Betancur and the rest of the GC top 10, while Kittel was only 39th.
This being the Tour de France we also had a go on the next stage, flat, featuring a small but steep ramp 30 km out. Gougeard showed himself in front of his home crowd, but again we had no luck. Matthews won ahead of Kittel and Sagan.
With stage 15 we were back in the mountains, though the route from Limoux to Foix made this a warm-up stage, with only two decent sized climbs and a long flat road to the finish line. Golem would have to wait, Angel Figares was finally allowed to represent us, MON 75 but even weaker SPR and ACC than Kirchmair. It would be a day for the breakaway, but nonetheless it seemed rather unlikely that Figares would win the stage: On one hand he faced a MON 80 climber, Rolland, on the other, there was Cancellara with his FLA 85. And not to forget Nerz and Contador, though El Pistolero was definitely past his prime by then.
I think it's easy to predict how the stage went: Rolland picked up the pace on the final climb, dropping the rest of the group, his lead was over 3 minutes at the top. Figares was next, he was soon rejoined by Contador and Nerz. Unsurprisingly, Cancellara eventually caught up to the group and was leading the chase of Rolland. But it was simply too late. Rolland won by 90 seconds. Figares did the smart thing, he bullied himself onto Cancellara's rear wheel and just kept following him all the way to the finish line. 3rd, a fine result for the 22-year old climber.
@Tamijo: Sometimes I'm fed up with PCM and have to quit and usually leave it a day or two before playing again. I may have managed without restarting, let Kirchmair drop back and Foetz attack instead, but I was too frustrated at the time. And now the TdF conclusion, not much joy for Astana, I'm afraid.
July 2017: Tour de France (3/3)
The final rest day was followed by a flat stage. Only simulated this time, Ratto, Boom and Ligthart held off the peloton by a few seconds. Then came stage 17, Golem had to wait this long to get his chance. It's not a mountaintop finish, it's downhill to the line after a cat. 1 climb, and Golem has great descending skill. But he'd have to battle Herrada and Poels, who are both slightly better climbers, though neither is comfortable on fast descents. There were two earlier HC climbs on the menu and Golem made sure to take top points on both. He finished with 70 KOM points, within reach of the top. The polkadot jersey went to Elissonde after this stage, but maybe that would be his last breakaway appearance.
Elissonde was dropped early on the final climb, but Golem was able to keep up with Poels and Herrada, preserving enough energy to attack into the descent. Neither his his opponents had an answer to this. Golem won stage 17, over a minute ahead of Herrada and Poels. Another GT stage for Aviva! Quintana once more couldn't take time off Kwiatkowski, only Porte and Betancur lost a bit of time.
We had just one more day in the mountains, then it'd be flat the rest of the way to Paris. Of course, Golem set off once more. This time, the competition was much tougher. First and foremost there was Majka (MON 81), but also Aru, Nibali and once again Wout Poels. No Elissonde, though, which was excellent news. But Aru had been the previous owner of the KOM jersey and had more points than Golem, which meant Golem would have to outscore him on this stage by at least 5 points.
Thankfully, Aviva's brilliant manager has plenty of experience battling for mountain points, there are a few tricks for a weaker rider to outscore his opponents. Depending on the gradient it can be wise to attack 3 or 4 km out, when worrying about one opponent in a large group it's often smart to take the lead when the opponent has just taken his turn and is riding at the back of the conga line. Golem outscored Aru by 10 KOM points and won the climbers classification of the Tour 2017 by 5 points. He had no energy left to battle for the stage, but Majka proved too strong anyway, he won well ahead of Nibali and Aru, Golem finished 4th.
The GC was all but decided after the stage. Quintana wasn't able to drop Kwiatkowski, it was the other way round. Kwiatkowski was 6th, over a minute ahead of Porte and Betancur. Quintana, Froome and Kreuziger lost an additional 40 seconds. That seems a bit off, I was sure Quintana would finally leave Kwiatkowski behind on this tough day, probably slip into yellow – and probably lose the jersey after the time trial. But no, the gap's already 3'43''. Just as well from Kwiatkowski's perspective, because I was wrong about my last prediction, Quintana and Kwiatkowski finished the ITT within a second of each other.
Before that, Lucas Mezgec was able to beat the top sprinters on stage 19. Sagan was 2nd, solidifying his green jersey lead just about every day. Next was the third and final stage against the clock, and once more the winner was Dumoulin. 10 km, 38 km, now 52 km, undoubtably he's the best time trialist in the world this year. Marcel Kittel salvaged his Tour de France by winning on the Champs Elysees, ahead of Sagan and Matthews.
Peter Sagan finishes with 499 points, I'm not sure I've ever seen somebody collect more. 5 stage wins, 4 more podiums. 13 times in the top 5, 14 times in the top 6, whichever you find more impressive. Golem is Aviva's King of the Mountains, just 5 points ahead of Aru. Not many high-scoring mountain stages, so once again two breakaway appearances late in the race was all that was needed.
Kwiatkowski has done the impossible, winning the Tour de France with MON 81 against Quintana's 85 and Froome's and Porte's 84. And winning it comfortably, by 3'43''. Porte wasn't far behind Quintana in the end, less than a minute. Defending champion Froome didn't make the podium. He would have been 5th behind Betancur had it not been for the last time trial, Betancur dropped behind Froome and Kreuziger to 6th. Behind him was a gap of over 10 minutes to the rest of the top 10: Pinot, Rui Costa, Uran and Velits. Astana can't be happy with their captain Van Garderen, MON 81, TTR 78, he should have made the top 5, instead he's only 14th, 35 minutes behind Kwiatkowski – and less than a minute ahead of Sagan.
Race squad: Tim de Jong, De Vreese, Fiedler, Hoem, M. Lammertink, Puccio, Rafael Silva, Wojtasik
A much shorter report today, racing in San Sebastian is pretty uniform, especially on the older route with the flat finale. We brought all our specialists, a competent bunch considering our budget restrictions. Five of them made it into a top group of about 20, after another round of attacks Hoem, Silva and Lammertink just about made it into the top group of exactly 10 riders. But their sprint energy was gone and didn't recover in the final few kilometres so they finished at the back of the group. Not quite as good as last year when Silva was 5th, but hardly disappointing.
Top 10: Rui Costa, Slagter, Porte, Jelle Vanendert, Gilbert, Betancur, Dan Martin, Hoem, R. Silva, Lammertink
Race squad: De Vreese, Hoem, Lammertink, R. Silva, Valgren, Wojtasik
With just six riders per team in Poland our Aviva riders looks pretty impressive: HIL 79, 78, 77, 77, 76 and 72. A top 10 result or two could be realistic on this hilly variant – if it didn't finish with a flat ITT of 25 km. Valgren is the weakest uphill, but the only rider who's of any use against the clock (TTR 70, Hoem has 64, the rest 59 to 61).
We started with four flat stages, all decided in mass sprints. The winners were Kump, 23-year old Hughes Vangronsveld, Iglinsky and Juodvalkis, the latter took the GC lead after stage 4. We thus had a good feeling about the breakaway on the first of the two hilly stages. Juodvalkis and his Cannondale team would probably not try to control the breakaway. Wojtasik got his chance in his home race, wearing the national jersey, in a group of 4 men he was the clear favourite. And the gap grew very large, over 12 minutes in a terrain Wojtasik likes. However, the top teams really started pushing, the peloton shrank as quickly as the gap. But Wojtasik persevered and arrived 2'32'' ahead of Pinot, who was closely followed by the (other) top Polish riders Majka and Kwiatkowski.
We now had the leader's jersey to defend, a tough proposition, I like Wojtasik for breakaways, but the other hilly stage, around Bukovina, was difficult and we better not think about the ITT on the final day. Our way to defend the jersey was to send a team mate into the breakaway, Hoem and Rafael Silva seemed too strong, so our pick was Maurits Lammertink. The gap was never as large as the previous day and the top teams really flew up the hills the closer we got to the finish line.
The breakaway was caught and then 7 riders broke free, with Wojtasik unable to react. Hoem and Silva had unusual protection duties to perform, normally they would have left Wojtasik behind, but with the ITT ahead our best chance of a GC result was to help Wojtasik. The trio arrived in 8th, 9th and 10th, 2'17'' behind TdF champ Kwiatkowski. Pinot was 11 seconds behind, Talansky, König and Majka lost 47 seconds, Valverde a minute, Nieve 1'43''.
So Wojtasik was still in the lead after the stage and Hoem and Silva were 9th and 10th in the GC. But sadly, there was still the time trial ahead. Hoem was 42nd, losing 1'14'', Silva 58th, 20 seconds slower. The stage was won by Castroviejo ahead of Machado and those two riders snuck past our duo which dropped to 11th and 12th in the final GC. Wojtasik was 77th, 2'02'' slower than Castroviejo – enough to finish the Tour de Pologna in 4th, only 5 seconds behind the podium. A great result, a good call to extend his contract even though he cannot improve further.
Race squad: Tim de Jong, Gougeard, Hansen, Thys, Valgren, Wojtasik
The race was decided against Aviva's favour when I simulated stage 2. I had not seen the single tiny cobblestone sector and it caused our riders to lose 3 to 5 minutes. I should have double-checked.
There was at least one upside: Valgren had lost enough time to be allowed into the breakaway on the only hilly stage, 214 km from Venlo to Valkenburg. It was an easy hilly stage, with only a handful of short ramps, so FLA played a bigger role. And that's what separated Valgren from his breakaway companions Petilli and Craddock. He left them behind with 20 km to go, but then had to worry about the peloton and specifically, three strong riders who'd attacked, Matthews, GVA and Rui Costa. But Valgren had the power to win the stage, 58'' ahead of that trio and 1'36'' ahead of a small peloton.
Valgren moved up to 10th in the GC with that stage, but sadly he couldn't hold onto his position in the ITT a day later. He was only 93rd on the day, losing 2'29'', and finished the Eneco Tour as 12th. Just the one stage for Aviva then.
Race squad: Tim de Jong, De Vreese, Gougeard, Hoem, M. Lammertink, R. Silva, Valgren, Wojtasik
Well, today's race was a cross section of all the typical problems of PCM and the Cyclassics. We wanted to place a rider in the breakaway, because there is a real chance of winning the race with that move. Probably every one of our riders tried to escape and maybe we would have had to give up if not BMC captain Sascha Modolo had crashed (and taken Hoem and Lammertink down with him), that made the peloton slow down and Wojtasik used the opportunity to attack and join the breakaway of 5 riders.
On the final Waseberg climb, 25 km out, Wojtasik attacked and was alone up the road. Then Gallopin atttacked from the peloton, which made the peloton speed up while the Frenchman caught the other escapees and came within 30 seconds of Wojtasik, with the peloton only 30 more seconds behind. We told Hoem to attack briefly to reel in Gallopin and it looked like the right move, he caught Gallopin and then the peloton caught both of them. Which meant Wojtasik had a minute advantage with 8 km to go and the peloton seemed to be preparing for a sprint for 2nd place.
But then Matthew Goss attacked, we couldn't let that happen and followed his attack with all our riders, trying to nullify it, to keep him in the peloton. Instead, nobody else reacted and all the sudden we had Wojtasik at the front and Goss followed by 6 of our riders, only Lammertink didn't make the move. So, there was disappointment, Goss caught Wojtasik and easily outsprinted him, robbing us from a victory which seemed certain minutes earlier. On the other hand, we took 2nd to 8th, that's 226 WT points in one day, more than we've collected all season so far. And indeed, in the team rankings we now have 391 points and didn't just overtake IAM but also Astana, who are having a terrible season.
Top 10: Goss, Wojtasik, Valgren, De Vreese, Hoem, R. Silva, Gougeard, de Jong, Modolo, Kittel
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, Fiedler, Hoem, M. Lammertink, R. Silva, Valgren, Wojtasik
I'm sorry, but I've done it again. Ride with effort 80 near/at the front, ride into the last climb, attack at the top and profit. Top 8, easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
Top 10: De Vreese, Hoem, Silva, de Jong, Lammertink, Valgren, Fiedler, Wojtasik, Barbero, Alaphilippe
Now I know some of you hate seeing that and I'm not particularly proud of it, either. No congratulations, please. I promise, as the team improves I'll become more and more passive in these races. But I warn you, there'll be a future race where I do nothing but set my riders on 80 free effort 20 km out, 8 riders only a little stronger than this bunch, they don't attack, they don't sprint... and they still take the top 8 spots. It's really that bad.
Maybe also consider Goss' victory in Hamburg ignoring my riders. It seems a bit too easy that Goss can attack a peloton, which should be in full sprint preparation, 8 km out and beat it by 1'13''. Maybe the last Waseberg hurt, but the peloton had 15 km to reorganise itself before Goss attacked.
Let's get back to some real racing, the Vuelta is up next.
Le Tour
Golem stage win at 17. and securing (again) the Polka’s was our star
Kwiatkowski need a mention crazy race by him, also Sagan (even if expected) with an outstanding race.
San Sebastian: Impressive points haul with 7-8-9
Pologne: 4th in GC and a stage must be a perfect result no matter what
Eneco Tour: Glad to see Michael with a good result
Golem's crowning achievement will be the upcoming Vuelta. Very sad to see him leave for BMC at the end of the season. Yes, great result in Poland, that is going to be the blueprint for our first GC win in a week long race - a successful breakaway on stage 1 and then a fight to keep the jersey until the end.
As for Hamburg and GP Quest... maybe I should just stop reporting on these races. I don't know what the AI is doing.
Important announcement! For the first time in a Grand Tour, the first time in any mountainous WT race, we designated a captain to ride for the GC. Golem won't be joining breakaways, he'd receive as much protection as possible, but not from the equally gifted climber Kirchmair, who would ride for the climbers classification.
We started in Sevilla with a full individual time trial, 26 flat kilometres. Durbridge beat Haga and Kelderman, young Angel Figares had a great ride and finished 7th. Talansky wasn't there to defend his title, the GC would be decided between last year's runner-up Dan Martin, riding for Katusha, and Sky's Barguil (both MON 81).
Stage 2 was called hilly, though it only featured a small steep ramp to the finish line. Dan Martin won 9 seconds ahead of 15 riders, Golem did not make that group and lost over a minute. But Aviva rode a solid TTT on stage 5, finishing 3rd behind Cannondale and Movistar.
Our first real shot at winning a stage came on the 6th day, finishing with a long climb to the ski resort in the Sierra Nevada. Angel Figares was the best rider of the breakaway, but finished 6th after 5 of the top favourites overtook him in, Martin won just ahead of Barguil, Golem was 9th. Similarly, a day later Pomoshnikov ended 6th on a hilly stage, though it was won by Boswell from the breakaway, but the other 4 men in front of the Russian were GC favourites. Golem was 11th, losing about half a minute to the best riders, but he seems on course to a top 10 finish in a less than star-studded competition.
It was Puccio's turn on stage 8, which featured a steep cat. 2 hill 50 km from the finish line, then a plateau and the final stretch was mostly downhill. Rovny, Sörensen, Antomarchi and especially Nordhaug were strong competition for the stage. There were many late attacks and then Puccio decided on an attack which immediately led into the sprint, but he had nearly run out of the red bar already, though the final kilometre was downhill. It was a nailbiting finish, Nordhaug nearly pulled level on the right, Antomarchi on the left, but somehow Puccio did it and won the sprint from the front. A great season for Puccio, winning a stage each in both the Giro and Vuelta.
Stage 12 will go into the Aviva history books as the first stage on WT level won by a rider from the peloton, rather than a breakaway. I would not have thought it possible. Köszegi was sent into the large breakaway which formed on the early cat. 2 climb. The stage was less than 120 km long and ended with an uneven climb of medium difficulty.
The escapees were never given sufficient room, but Tschopp and Mate attacked with 20 km to go, while Köszegi rode an even speed without much conviction. That was reduced even further when the man in red, Barguil, rode off on his own and only some of the best followed him. Golem decided to set off after the E2 group, maybe nobody else is interested in the GC, but Zakarin latched on and Kelderman wasn't far behind.
Both groups had merged when Golem caught up, it now included Köszegi, who still had a decent amount of energy left and could help Golem for a few more kilometres. With 4 km to go Acevedo attacked and only Barguil could follow, but with the protection of his team mate Golem caught up with them again. Top favourite Dan Martin had missed the initial move and also caught up, but looked quite tired. Golem hoped he had the greatest energy reserves and started his sprint under the flamme rouge as the road flattened. Only Acevedo could keep up but not get past our Swiss star rider. Golem was already wearing white and with this stage moved up to 8th in the GC.
Golem wins stage 12
A day later, from Laruns to the Paso Tapia, Kirchmair won his first Vuelta stage and also slipped into the mountain jersey. He was also victorious on stage 18, beating Moser and Rabottini and doubling his mountain points, which just about sealed the jersey, Dan Martin is second in the rankings with less than half Kirchmair's points.
Golem lost time on the hilly stage 15 and the unusual MTT, up and down a smaller climb three times, a day later. On stage 18 he was 7th, only behind the escapees as well as Dan Martin, Acevedo and Barguil, cementing his 8th place in the GC. Maxime Bouet (also MON 77) was in 7th, only 20 seconds ahead, Golem hoped he could pass him on the last mountain stage.
But Golem kept his 8th place - and the white jersey – on stage 19, he arrived in a small group with Bouet, who had been very observant and the final descent to the finish line was too tame for Golem's superior DHI skill. Figares had hoped for his turn in the breakaway, but the stage was only 122 km long, Kirchmair's average freshness wouldn't pose a problem, so he took off once more and won his third Vuelta stage by 37 seconds ahead of the chasing trio Brambilla, Rubiano and Zakarin. Dan Martin distanced Barguil but not by enough, the Frenchman wins the Vuelta 47 seconds ahead of Martin. Barguil's team mate Kiserlovski is 3rd, beating Movistar's Acevedo by 32 seconds. Golem finished a fantastic 8th, 11'43'' behind Barguil.
Top 10: Barguil, Dan Martin, Kiserlovski, Acevedo, Ulissi, Kelderman, Bouet, Golem, Jelle Vanendert, Zoidl
Aviva was 3rd behind Sky and Movistar in the team rankings. Not to forget that we won five stages in this Vuelta, three from Kirchmair and one each from Golem and Puccio. Also, yet another GT KOM jersey and our first ever top 10 (or top anything) result in a Grand Tour. Simply fantastic. Admittedly, we are in the 4th PCM season and already the Vuelta failed to attract much attention, MON 77 (even MON 76 for Vanendert) was enough for a top 10 result.
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, Fiedler, M. Lammertink, R. Silva, Valgren, Waeytens, Wojtasik
Sadly, Hoem, just as he reached HIL 80, broke his shin bone and will be out for the rest of the season. We won't ever see him again in the Aviva jersey. Hoem decided to sign with OFM, a lowly CT team, but increasing his wage from 3.5k to 16k. At least OFM gain promotion at the end of the season to the PCT. He'll be back in the WT by 2020, first riding for Tinkoff, later for Cannondale.
While I am using protection more in this career than I usually do, I don't always bother. All our riders stayed vigilant near the front of the peloton and as a team we were able to follow the late attacks by Valverde, then Spilak, then Rui Costa, all our 8 riders were in the group of 15 which would decide the race. However, the effort depleted the sprint bars of all our riders – bar one man. For some reason, while everybody else was dead in the water, Laurens De Vreese still had a full red bar.
And so De Vreese decided to put it to use: 2 km out, going into the small ramp which waited just before the final uphill finish, he attacked. He surprised the others, got the smallest of gaps, briefly conserved some sprint energy going into the final 1.5 uphill km. Fuglsang and Spilak were closing in fast after they started their sprint, but De Vreese was able to hold them off and won the GQ Quebec. His team mates were at the tail end of the group, only Silva was able to beat Sagan for 8th, the rest were 10th to 15th.
Top 10: De Vreese, Fuglsang, Spilak, Rui Costa, Betancur, Bardet, Sergio Henao, R. Silva, Sagan, M. Lammertink
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, Fiedler, M. Lammertink, R. Silva, Valgren, Waeytens, Wojtasik
I'm afraid the tougher of the two variants is easier to play, nearly as easy as the GP Quest. Just keep rolling along with 80 effort while everybody around you attacks and then hit the attack button after the last hill, attacking into the downhill sprint finale. With that tactic we contained a late Sagan attack, but Betancur's surge at the foot of the final hill would be the winning move. Several other riders overtook our men up that hill, but we flew past them on the descent to the finish line, Rui Costa, Jungels, Henao, Spilak and even Sagan were overtaken by our whole team bar Waeytens, Lammertink even nearly caught Betancur. Well, even this team is good enough for such unrealistic results.
Top 10: Betancur, M. Lammertink, Valgren, R. Silva, Wojtasik, De Vreese, de Jong, Fiedler, Sagan, Spilak
September 2017: World Championships in Hamilton, Canada
The course in Hamilton is about as flat as it can be. The new time trial champion is Caja Rural's Castroviejo. A little surprising, he was only 7th and 6th in the last two editions. He beat the best man against the clock this year, Dumoulin, who won all three TdF TTs. Tony Martin took the bronze medal.
Having won the road race last year I decided to not do anything with the British team this time round. A mass sprint was predicted but there'd surely be a late attack or two. And indeed there was and it couldn't have been a more dangerous rider. Greg Van Avermaet attacked with 15 km to go and became the new World Champion, 26 seconds ahead of the sprinters. Matthews beat Sagan in the mass sprint of just 45 riders, they were followed by Porsev, Kristoff, Degenkolb, Gilbert, Ponzi, Demare and Boasson Hagen. Top sprinters like Kittel, Bouhanni, Groenewegen and Modolo disappointed and finished a group behind.
Race squad: de Jong, De Vreese, Fiedler, M. Lammertink, Puccio, R. Silva, Waeytens, Wojtasik
Considering our results in the last few WT one-day races we can expect at least 6 riders in the top 10 of Il Lombardia. I'm kidding, of course. Our best performers were Lammertink and Rafael Silva, who finished 15th and 16th.
At least that duo as well as Tim de Jong made it into a group of 28 riders which formed after the penultimate hill. A number of strong riders didn't make the cut, including Bardet, Froome, Moser, Aru and Rolland, to name but a few. But our three men were dropped on the last short but steep hill, San Fermo della Battaglia. The winner of 2015 and 2016 struck again and made it a hattrick: Gilbert left everybody else behind to win the race by 29 seconds. The sprint for 2nd place was won by Dan Martin, who beat Ion Izagirre. Next were Sergio Henao, Ponzi, Jungels, TdF winner Kwiatkowski, Jelle Vanendert, Vuelta winner Barguil and Bakelandts.
Thank you! What a luxury to have the best climber in those breakaways. In hindsight I should have split up Golem and Kirchmair, let one ride the Giro. But the more a rider can still improve, the more likely I am to save him up for the second half of the season.
You hammered them in the classics it's not even fair to dominate with that team Non-Aviva riders are definitely overpaid looking at what the squad does with great management
Non-Aviva riders are definitely overpaid looking at what the squad does with great management 
