jandal7 wrote:

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, they deserve relegation if they don’t

jandal7 wrote:
And about Kenya I’m the post before, I was so gutted at the end there but no rider I’d rather lose it to more, great win for Sergio!

Three more races to catch up with in this update, including one we've been waiting for the longest time (literally!).


Nothing to write here. Somehow everyone managed to drop seven minutes on the second stage and that was the end of that!


Costa got dropped on the third from last hill, but made his way back to the leading group. He couldn't hang on to the attackers once the attacks started and finished 15th.


A very good 3rd place by Saber on the first stage got us into a good mood at the Festival. Van Zandbeek continued the good run on Stage 2, claiming the KOM jersey. He also picked up bonification seconds and climbed to 14th in the GC. Saber managed 11th to stay in a good GC spot. Stage 3 wasn't good, with both Saber, after a lowly 21st on the stage, and Van Zandbeek dropping in their respective classifications. Saber recovered on the final stage to finish 6th, and ended up 8th in the GC and 8th in the Points classification. Van Zandbeek finished 3rd in the KOM standings and 17th in the GC. Overall, quite a pleasing race for us.

The news we've been dreading for the past few months has finally been delivered. Continental have decided to not continue as our title sponsors, and only remain as an equipment partner. The continued poor representation of German riders in the team, and the poor return from those that are there was the main cause of this decision. The team management are in discussions with possible co-sponsors for the coming season and an announcement is expected soon.

Clasica San Sebastien and Japan Cup were our last races this season, both led co-led by Dieteren and Navardauskas. We go 0 points from those races to round out our season! A detailed report of how our season unfolded will be put up in a later post.

The team management are happy to confirm that the team will henceforth be sponsored solely by Philips, as its title sponsor, and will be called - Philips. Philips as a company has a global appeal and pulling power and the sponsorship deal that we were able to negotiate with them was deemed sufficient to support our plans for the future. Expect more news over the off-season for our plans for 2019. For now, we're looking ahead to the National Championships and the World Championships.

Race	Category	Goal	Result
Volta a Portugal	PTHC	Top 10	31st
Tour de Pologne	HC	Win	9th
Berlin Pro Race	HC	Top 5	5th
Kenya Mountain Classic	HC	Top 5	1st
Team Standings	PCT	Top 10	18th

*Green means Goal Achieved. Red means Goal Failed.

We managed to achieve only two of our sponsor goals for the season, one less than what we achieved last time. Top 10 in Portugal was always going to be an ambitious goal. The win goal in Pologne was also based on the fact that we, like everyone else, had a specific puncher target in transfers. Saber did very well to finish 5th in Berlin, one of our home race. Henao was dominant in Kenya, to not just achieve our Top 5 goal but also to win that race! We fell woefully short of our Top 10 standings, in what can only be called a disappointing season.

Our band selection for the season was a mixed bag. We scored well in one PTHC band but lower in the other. We scored very well in two HC bands, moderately well in three but very poorly in band 6. Where we really fell behind was our C1 and C2 race selection. with an average of just 8.67 points across 73 RDs. This is basically where we fell behind the competition.

Our best month this season was January, but the unfortunate part was that there were only three races that month, and that too three classics! We nearly reached that PpRD mark again in July, which sparked a revival of sorts, before again slumping at the end of the season. We crossed 20 PpRD in only three months of the season, with February and September in single digits!

Aquarius97 wrote:
Always interesting this review because from the raw numbers you can get really a lot of information. Not sure if the bands analysis gets you anywhere, because each band favores some rider types and is impossible to do great at all of them unless you are Generali

Looking at the race by race analysis, it clearly show a big problem on your team. The real lack of points in a lot of stage races. Japan, Balkans, Southland, Olympia, that's 1/6 of total season RD's with less than 1 PpRd. That, and a lot of no scoring one-day races is a huge amount of RD's basically wasted

Aquarius97 wrote:
C1 was a very weak side for you, i've checked and you are in the worst 5 teams in PCT on C1 races. I already told you pre-season that Henao should have done ToA instead of those MON/HIL races

Aquarius97 wrote:
Also, it feels like you had very few high scoring races, 1 +200 race and just 6 +100 races. Might be lack of high scoring depth behind Henao/Costa in their HC stage races, or that you spread out more your quality riders across the calendar

Aquarius97 wrote:
Btw, there's a mistake in PpRd calculations in PTHC Band 1, 306/20 isn't 20, it's 15

With 20th as our best placed rider, and with two riders basically involved for 50% of our points, it is no surprise that we struggled to keep pace. Under-performances from Rui Costa, Navardauskas, Krieger and Dieteren hit us hard and we the others failed to make up for that.

Just two riders in double figures, and the third highest rider getting a PpRD of 7 highlights our problems even more. Six riders not scoring any points, as opposed to everyone contributing last season is a major let-down.

Despite all the abuse he got from the management this season, it is in fact Navardauskas who comes out on top in the Wage/PpRD standings. Perhaps this is a sign that we put too much responsibility on his shoulders, without really looking at whether he was cut out for it. Van Zandbeek was someone who did over-perform. No surprises with Saber being so high. Henao is definitely lower than we would've hoped for but the real hurt came from Dieteren and Krieger, who raked in the moolah but failed to produce the results.

The full list of achievements can be viewed here.

Picked up as a Stagiare in 2017, Hofstede progressed from Level 1 to Level 3 in 2018. He is on his path to becoming a puncher domestique, who can survive the mountains, and is also prone to going into breakaways.

Another rider picked up as a Stagiare in 2017, Allegaert is on track to become a cobbles domestique who should be useful for pace-making purposes this season itself.

Our first targeted talent signing, made this season, is being trained with the target of becoming an all-round classics rider with cobbles being his strength. He too should already be a domestique of our cobbles squad this season.