Los Pollos Hermanos didn't really conquer a lot of cycling hearts in the last couple of months. A quick overview of some of the results of our self proclaimed leaders immediately answer the question to why that is.

Keizer really had a lot of disappointing results. Whereas a half decent Tour de Suisse saw him finish 17th, the following races were an absolute disaster. The Dutchman finished outside of the top-50 in the Scandinavia Open, and even outside of the top-100 in Lithuania. In Slovenia he did have a great final time trial (finishing second), but as he forgot he was our GC man during the hilly stages, finishing 20th in GC was the best he could do. 35th in Deutschland is also nothing to write home about.

Other Dutchie Kelderman also didn't do much apart from his Giro d'Italia stage victory. He was unable to finish inside the top-10 in any of the Ardenne classics, with a 13th place in La Fleche Wallonne as his best result. After that he ended 16th in the Lithuanian GC, and only just inside of the top-100 of the Scandinavia Open.

You'd think there is one man you can always rely on, good old
Manninen. Nevertheless, outside of the Tour de France he hasn't really performed too well the last couple of months. 8th in Veenendaal and 12th in Köln, but struggling to get into the top-10 in four sprint opportunities in the Tour of Deutschland, with one third place being his only good result.

German cult hero Zepuntke also had some difficulties in the cobbled monuments and was unable to finish inside the top-10. A decent thirteenth place in Roma Maxima followed after that. Other German
Sütterlin was unable to prove his individual worth in the Tour of Deutschland, just like Ukrainian champion Zmorka. They finished 15th and 13th in the individual time trial.

Sterbini doesn't have any special results to talk about, whereas loanee Abdul Halil couldn't get further than some stage top-10's in Suisse. The people/managers at Los Pollos HQ are no idiots (at least not all of them) and know very well that relegation is no longer a possibility, but a certainty. Let's see if we can get some nice results to end the season, and possibly scout some riders to strenghten us in our 2023 PCT season!

Don't need to repeat myself too much I suppose. The gap towards a safe position, definitely after yet another disappointing Kelderman performance in San Sebastian, is simply too big. Lets have a look at how our riders are doing individually.

11	Matti Manninen	FIN		1178
55	Marlen Zmorka	UKR		444
76	Martijn Keizer	NED		380
84	Wilco Kelderman	NED		346
136	Ruben Zepuntke	GER		205
142	Jasha Sütterlin	GER		191
226	Daniel Munoz	COL		113
313	Mohamad Abdul Halil	MAS		82
329	Jose Gerardo Ulloa	MEX		77
330	Luis Enrique Lopez Nolasco	HON		77
353	Joris Nieuwenhuis	NED		73
374	Alejandro Osorio	COL		68
381	Guillermo Andres Beltran	CHL		66
392	Robinson Steven Ruiz	PER		64
396	Veljko Stojnic	SER		63
412	Yesid Albeiro Pira	COL		60
427	Beka Nareklishvili	GEO		58
431	Daan Hoole	NED		57
457	Matthew Walls	GBR		46
465	Luca Sterbini	ITA		43
491	Rachmad Noka Wibisono	INA		24
495	Felix Gross	GER		5
496	Ben Turner	GBR		5

Manninen is once again a Los Pollos superstar. He probably won't be able to finish inside the top-10 of the individual rankings, but with a staggering 1178 points we can't blame him at all. Zmorka, who scored just a bit less than him in 2021 PCT, has been rather inconsistent. A superb KoM-win in Tirreno was followed by a stage and yellow jersey in Praha, but since then even getting top 10's arent his thing anymore.

Keizer was brought into the team for his versatility, but mainly scored his points due to his time trialling ability. As soon as the slope goes uphill in a normal race, he starts dropping out. Strange, as most of the team way weaker climbers are able to hold on. Could say the last sentence about Kelderman as well actually, who is struggling to finish the season inside of the top-100 individually.

Can't blame Zepuntke, who has been scoring okay in most cobbled races without any real domestiques, and that while on a rather low wage. Other German Sütterlin is right below him, but so far has proven to not be the most deciding factor at all in our time trial squad. Munoz the only other rider to just score more than 100 points, not a desired outcome after participating in three Grand Tours.

Second sprinter Abdul Halil is trying to finish the season with 100 points, and below that it's mainly domestiques. Shoutout to level 1's Stojnic and Pira for having an incredibly busy season and finishing a lot of races, but nothing of a shoot-out to Sterbini for scoring 43 points with a 78 time trial stat.

The boys went to France yet again, but this time only three of them took the plane instead of the usual eight. With the Chrono des Herbiers, our time trialists came in action for juan last time in PT.

And we can be happy with the result. Behind an unstoppable Würtz and Phinney, Ukrainian champion Zmorka bulldozed his way onto the podium. Sütterlin did well to finish in eighth position, whereas a strong Keizer finished just outside op the top-10, in eleventh. We'll actually see the Dutchie one more time in Lombardy later, but for Marlen and Jasha the season has officially come to an end.

Our cobbling squad went to Great Britain for the infamous East Midlands Cicle Classic. Although rated flat, the race has quite some steep hills, and is harder than it might look on a first glance. The race itself proved to be very hard indeed, when immediately after the start the whole peloton got decimated.

We knew we were in trouble, lacking a real cobbled domestique for
Zepuntke. It is unclear how long exactly Mexican sweetheart
Ulloa was able to help his leader, but the German seemed to be isolated quite quickly. He did what he could, but in the end the continous (non-cobbled) hills seemed to be a bit too much for him. Thirteenth is the final result. Not an absolute disaster, not the best result of the year.

Let's see how we did in our season goals, as they have all been raced by now.

Although the season is not over yet, it is safe to say we will not be winning the Pro Tour this season. A couple of unlucky results made sure we just missed out on the title, but we'll be back.

Munoz made the life of the GC favourites a living nightmare for three weeks, but was a bit unlucky in the end. He missed the right split on the fourt, sixth, seventh, tenth, eleventh, thirteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and twentieth stage and just came short in the ITT and TTT.

We did great here last season, and we could do it again, definitely with home rider Sütterlin. Sadly, we were rather bad. Zmorka was unable to finish even in the top-10.

But the Ukrainian did do great in the Czech Republic! Zmorka was able to beat both Phinney and Würtz, as he won the race!

Zmorka saved the day once again for us, as he finished in third. Thank you, Marlen, as with 2/5 goals accomplished we actually did better than last season.

Quite a lot of youngsters that we own or are riding for us this season went to the infamous tour de l'Avenir, thirteen if I counted correctly. Four of them made an impact on the race, so let's see who they are and how they did.

Victor Alejandro Ocampo has never raced in Los Pollos colours. Because we will need to loan him out next season, we will have to wait until 2024 to actually see the promising time trialist in our beautiful jersey. In Avenir, he was able to snatch a sixth place in the opening prologue in the Indosat jersey, the same team he has raced for this season. Ocampo will max out at 78 TT and prologue. On a very good day, and a bad day for Bernal, this means he could one day become Colombian time trial champion.

Ahmet Örken was signed as a stagiaire with the sole purpose of going for stage top-10's on the flat stages in Avenir, and that's exactly what he did. A fourth place was his best result. It's rather unlikely that anyone will sign him next season, so his MG career might just end here.

For a while it looked like level one rider Oscar Samuel Galvan Ramirez was going to be our best rider. He started the race very well with a tenth place in the prologue, did some good domestique work for the Lierse leaders, and went on the attack in the penultimate stage. The last stage was a bit too much for him, as he dropped outside the top-25 in the GC. Although in Avenir he was riding under Lierse colours, the rest of the season he has been on domestique duties at Philips. We look forward to seeing him in our jersey next year, as he should max in 2025 as a rider with 76 mountain, 72 hill and 75 time trial.

Guillermo Andres Beltran has a last name that carries quite some weight, but unlike the Colombian Cedevita rider he'll never be a real leader. Our Chilean was rather consistent throughout the entire race, and after attacking on the final stage, was our best GC rider with a 25th place. Beltran has always raced for Los Pollos so far, but was racing under the Magnum-Madshus colours in Avenir. A beautiful jersey made by hillis for our ICL team. Beltran should max at 76 mountain/76 hill.

Nemolito wrote:
@jandal: anonymous shitty riders don't get haters, so basically you just admitted your admiration for the powerhouse that is Zepuntke

For this six stage mountainous puncheur race, we decided to send talents instead of leaders. Without a single maxed rider present, our only hope was to get some breakaway action and hope it lasted until the finish line.

In two stages, we managed to join the break. On stage three, Osorio was the only one of us to be in the leading group. He didn't have a great time, and was dropped before the peloton reeled in the last attackers.

The break actually did make it to the finish one stage earlier. We had four riders in that breakaway, Hoole, Wibisono, Beltran and
Lopez Nolasco. Strong domestique work by the other three ensured the man from Honduras to be among the final four survivors, of which he finished fourth in the sprint in a flat finale. Definitely a good result for him and the team.

Last year of the race for Manninen, but he was unable to position himself well enough in the finale. An eighth place was his final PT result for now, let's hope we can get him back here in 2024, where he can have another go at winning the Tour of Qatar. Special mention to loanee
Stojnic for making a name for himself in the break of the day.

Also the last race of the season for loanee Abdul Halil. He managed to finish one of the TONE stages in second place, so that's a nice way to finish his Los Pollos spell. We hope he has a great season at home team Indosat next year. Zepuntke also managed to finish second on the cobbled stage. Good idea from him to join the breakaway on that stage, as he was nowhere in the GC like expected. Manager's favourite Ulloa was 24th in GC before the final stage, but dropped to 49th in the end.