After the disappointment of Jurgen in the Giro, he had the opportunity to redeem himself in the Vuelta, alongside other stage hunter Jan Bakelants. But first up for Jan was the Ardennes triple header, where our hopes were high.
They should have been low.
The triple header started with the Amstel Gold Race, where Jan did everything right by getting in the front group, but then got distanced on the Cauberg and could only take 5th. Decent, but we wanted more.
And more was not what we got, as Jan did even worse by taking 12th. Which meant we needed a big result from him in the finale, Liege - Bastogne - Liege, the race he won last season.
He did everything right, getting in the front group, being aggressive, but sadly could only accomplish third in the sprint, rounding off a disappointing Ardennes campaign with his best result, a solitary podium.
And so to the Vuelta, where the team would be led by our two stage hunters, Jurgen Roelandts and Jan Bakelants, both looking for redemption following their poor Giro/Ardennes results. Heck, I'd even take Jurgen just consistently trying to sprint.
And huzzah! The opening three sprint stages saw Jurgen sprinting, although only to two top 10 places, but it boded well for the rest of the race.
In fact, the team started excellently, finishing in the top 10 in six of the seven opening stages, thanks to a mixture of Jan, Jurgen, and Tony Martin.
The first mountain stage saw Tim Wellens start positively, putting himself into 17th on the GC, one place ahead of Jan, and in 3rd place in the U25 jersey. By stage 15, Tim had moved up a place whilst Jan had held his place, but that stage was far more momentous, as Jan only went and run the ruddy thing!
An exquisite leadout from Jan put Jurgen in a great position, just with Daniel Hoelgaard ahead, but Jurgen went supersonic and overhauled the celebrating Aker - MOT'er, and rounded off a superb return to form for the former points jersey winner!
Buoyed by the success, and the large volumes of alcohol I drank the preceding night, our GC leader Tim Wellens somehow managed to slip himself into the break of the day. It stayed away, Tim came second, and suddenly our on loan rider shot up into 14th in the GC. Hot dang!
He slipped a place on stage 18, but Jan reentered the top 10 on stage 19 (not bad for a rider with 75 Mountain), before Tim rounded off an amazing Vuelta with the final mountain stage and a time trial to parachute himself up (!?!?!) to 12th in the GC, and he took the young riders jersey!
After two consecutive months of Grand Tour racing, the final Grand Tour is proceeded by a month of weeks long stage races. For us, the focus was on Rein to use the Criterium du Dauphine Libere, his first race since Paris - Nice, as his Tour de France prep.
But first, the Tour de Suisse, a race so low on our priorities compared to getting Rein Tour ready, that I'm not entirely sure who our leader was. I suppose Wouter Weylandt was there for the sprints, and perhaps Warren Barguil for the young riders jersey. But then what was Clement Lhotellerie, our classics specialist, doing here?
However, going in with no expectations meant any results we obtained would be a bonus, and a bonus it was as our on loan riders put our permanent riders to shame. Eliot Lietaer took 4th on stage 4, and Marcio Portela finished 8th on stage 7, our two best finishes by some distance.
But now to the focus of the month, the Criterium du Dauphine Libere. We took our entire team, bar one change, due to the Dauphine having a TTT and the Tour not having one. Which meant when the TTT did roll around on stage 3, we didn't suck as we normally do, and came 8th, only losing 55 seconds over the hour long course.
What this meant was that going into the first mountain stage, stage 5, Rein sta 14th in the GC. And on that stage 5, he came 3rd, pushing himself up to 4th in the GC, a minyte down on former Bouygues Telecom rider Jaime Suaza. But this was all he needed to do, as the following days time trial saw him take a stunning victory, and the race leader with it. Which left two stages to hold on.
The first of which was stage 7's ascent of Mont Ventoux. Scary.
But Rein was equal to the task, boldly attacking early. He was caught by Schleck at the end, so only came second on the stage, losing 9 seconds, but that was enough for him to hold onto his lead, but now it was at 19 seconds.
Of course, the final stage was over hills. How could you possibly doubt him?
So for the second year in a row, Rein won the Dauphine, as well as taking the points jersey home. An added bonus was seeing Tim Wellens finish 9th in the GC, taking home the U25 jersey in the process
July featured some tinpot race around France, so we sent Rein here to try and win.
The Tour de France holds a special place in the Bouygues Telecom hearts, given our win in 2007 and us proceeding to do fuck all since, but in Rein we now had a reasonably serious challenger for the yellow jumper. However, we then saw Pluchkin on the startlist, so we were shit out of luck there.
We started off in surprising fashion with a fairly miraculous opening prologue victory from Rein, putting him into the yellow jersey for the first time since Moreau's win in 2007. Porbably. I'm too lazy to check, and the alcoholism has taken away all memory.
We managed to hold onto this jersey for precisely one additional stage, where Ben Swift's bonus seconds put him into the lead. The next few stages continued, with Swift battling Bewley, before stage 6 gave us the first mountains, with Rein 3rd but leading the GC riders going into the stage.
What happened next was a disgrace to the sport, and threatens cycling as we know it. Pluchkin used his superior ability to climb up the mountains faster than Rein. I'll repeat that, because it needs to be repeated. Pluchkin stabbed Taaramae. Wait...
Bleeding heavily, Rein managed to descend like a stone, predominantly because of the rocks I attached to his bike at the summit, limiting his loss to 30 seconds, putting him second overall.
Stage 10 saw the start of the Pyrenees, a great opportunity for Rein to, er, lose time. By the end of them on stage 13, Rein had fallen to 3rd overall behind Amador, 3 minutes down on Spilak, and 1 minute down on Amador.
Next to the Alps, where Rein continued his downward trend, losing more time on the opening stage 18. However, the time trial on the following stage saw Rein fight back, taking the stage and putting himself a minute down on 2nd placed Amador before the final meaningful stage, stage 20.
Before the stage, I had a pep talk and gave Rein some 'special' water and a pep talk, telling him to believe in himself and fight with every last breath for that second place. He got on the bike with a look of focus and determination, which was a surprise given the fast quantities of acid we'd dropped the previous night.
He took the stage by storm, pushing himself into not only on the second place on the stage, but as the clock wound its way down, into second overall. What a result!
He approached me afterwards, in floods of tears, covered in sweat, and salt, and piss, and shit, and cum.
"Crommy, without that special water I would never have done that. Thank you, this was all down to you!"
"No it wasn't!" I refuted.
"Yes it was!" He insisted.
"Look at me Rein." He looked up.
"It wasn't me, it was all you." He looked confused.
"Rein, it was just you all along. That special water, it was just water"
"Just water?!?!?" He began to understand
"Just water..." I told him.
We embraced.
"...and a fuckton of EPO. Please don't tell anyone"
One small trip getting dizzy around the Champs Elysees, and Rein had done something amazing, coming second, a stunning return for Bouygues Telecom boys to the Tour, and the team's best result since Christophe Moreau stood on the top step of the podium years earlier in 2007
HAHA great writing in the conversation at the end Crommy made me giggle nice to see Rein for a breakout year may need some training for it to continue next year though with the big guns back for the Tour
A quiet August in the ProTour saw the team involved in the Deutschland Tour and the GP Moscow. We also had a team in the Tour de l'Avenir, but that race was in a different sub-forum, and I cannot be bothered to take the extra clicks to get there.
Both races were targeted by our sprint teams, the first by the redemption seeking Jurgen Roelandts, and secondly by the ridiculously handsome Theo Bos, who would be competing in a jersey three times too small to better show off his amazing body.
So, Germany. And despite my highly offensive set of WWII jokes not going down too well, our tour of Germany proved highly lucrative, with Jurgen top 10ing on every sprint stage before rounding the week off with a victory on the final stage.
But over to what's actually important, with sexy, sexy Bos leading the team at the GP Moscow. I would have a screenshot of him, but soooooooommmmmeeeeeeoooooonnnnnnnneeeeee didn't take one (don't worry, I'm not mad. Just disappointed). He was dropped with 100km to go, which obviously occurred due to Maxime La Lavandier defying team orders.
La Lavandier's future is now under serious consideration. This organisation does not tolerate non-conformists.
Theo was sullen and moody for weeks afterwards, but I bought him three metric tons of Toblerone, and he's almost his normal self again.
I must say Crommy, I should read your writing more often. It certainly brings a special type of humour that we all love to see on Daily. The Tour post in particular was a thing of beauty.
September, and the team lined up for three races. Actually, might have been four. I have vague recollections of us racing in an HC race. Then again, I have vague recollections of fighting under Wellington at Waterloo, so I'm not to be trusted.
Those three races started with our chief target of the month, the Vuelta a Colombia, where Rein lined up as leader. The lack of a time trial didn't suit him, and in fact raised questions about why we didn't use him in a more suitable race, but I managed to put down the mutiny rising in the Bouygues camp and keep the total dead below three figures!
The first stage was flat, with the rest of the stages mountainous, and Rein managed to place 4th, 2nd, 4th, 4th and 2nd on them, giving him 3rd overall, 1 minute down on winner Spilak. Annoyingly, he would have won the final stage had Angel Madrazo not sat on his wheel then rounded him at the line. So in retaliation, I slashed his team's tyres. Although at least that's what I thought. I should explain, I was fairly jetlagged. And I'd drunk several litres of rubbing alcohol. So turns out I'd accidentally slashed our bus' tyres.
Then we continued to prove cycling's green credentials by flying back to Europe for the Tour of Northern Europe, chartering a fleet of jumbo jets. Jurgen Roelandts the leader this time, and he was spectacularly mediocre, gaiainga stage high 3rd on the final stage, and some top 10 placings spead out there too.
We went to the GP Liechtenstein. Then we went home. Those were the key highlights for us from that race.
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
Inspired by the heroics of Claudio Ranieri and Leicester City, Bouygues Telecom Director Sportif and Sewerage Expert, Crommy, began his press conference as Ranieri does, by shaking the hand of every member of the assembled media. He then proceeded to kiss each one for at least ten seconds, slipping in some tongue to those he particularly favoured.
His speech started by paying glowing tribute to his great friend Donald Trump, commending him on having the best words, and that he always told him just how great his words were.
Next came the details of the renewals and transfer policy of the team, with a typically robust and flamboyant interpretive dance that mostly involved making graphically sexual and disgusting gestures towards Theo Bos, who of course sat behind Crommy atop the Iron Throne.
Of course, none of this was remotely comprehensible to any human or sane individual, although it did make complete sense to a flower pot called Brian, who sat at the back of the grand palace in which the press conference was held.
Anyway, sources have said that the following may be sold with an exceptional bid:
- Jan Bakelants
