For Los Pollos Hermanos, the nc's have ended. Let's see what other medals and jerseys we were able to claim.

Surprise! On a mountainous parcours, the talented domestique
Guillermo Andres Beltran definitely wasn't the favourite. He couldn't care less though, as he was the first Chilean rider to cross the mountain top, and he has conquered the jersey of the country that was actually our primary focus region in our first season.

Even bigger Surprise! In the same race, manager's favourite
Jose Gerardo Ulloa was tasked with the job of keeping his jersey for another season. Impossible in theory, but the practice turned out to be different. Jose followed an early attack and managed to stay ahead of the bunch in the end, winning back to back titles. What a way to keep our Mexican sponsor happy!

Speaking about keeping sponsors happy, that's exactly what
Martijn Keizer did in the Netherlands as well. He was stronger than top favourite Lammertink, beating him by half a minute in the time trial and grabbing the national title.

Winning three double championships in a role might be easy if you are the only professional rider in your country, but that is not the case for
Robinson Steven Ruiz. He was able to beat the legendary Quispe for the third year in a row, as he gets to ride in his Peruvian jersey for yet another season.

We signed Ahmet Örken as a stagiaire, helping him to gain experience in the Avenir and possibly scoring some results for us. He did well in France, but we never thought of him possibly winning his national championships. He is a better climber than Carsi though, which means Örken has just won the first race in his career!

He was the big favourite in the Ukrainian time trial, and he delivered. Chouchou Marlen Zmorka with back to back national time trial titles!

In this post we'll review the performance of all riders that raced in our colours in the 2022 season.

Wilco Kelderman

Kelderman did not have an easy year, which was to be expected against a crazy PT puncheur competition. We except him to shine in PCT next season, with hopefully keeping his wage around the same nice number, and him enjoying the new game version a bit more as well. He brought us our first Grand Tour stage win ever, and that's a moment we will cherish for ever.

Favourite moment: Giro d'Italia stage win

Marlen Zmorka

Marlen had some ups and downs in time trials, and ended more or less where people could have expected him in the individual PT rankings, just inside the top-50. His Praha victory over the other big names was crazy though, definitely something to remember for a long time as well. We would love it if he could repeat his 2021 PCT season next year as well.

Favourite moment: winning the Tirreno KoM

Matti Manninen

This guy is just unbelievable. He was the main man of the PCT two seasons in a row, and at a relatively small wage even managed to destroy PT opposition on several occasions this year. Winning stages and the GC in Qatar was already something special, but winning two TdF stages combined with some more podiums was definitely also an amazing feat for the Los Pollos history books. He's looking forward to the rematch against Dainese in PCT by the way, although being European might mean he leaves the team in the transfer window.

Favourite moment: Winning the Tour of Qatar in his first PT race

Ruben Zepuntke

The man, the myth, the legend. Zepuntke was acquired from Minions in our yearly tradition of having at least one of their ex-riders on our team, and we did not regret it. He didn't perform good at all in the monuments, but was mostly a solid top-10 finisher in a lot of other cobbled races. We hope he can improve on his 2021 PCT form in PCT next season, as we would love nothing more than to see him win a race and help in bringing us back to PT.

Favourite moment: Second place in Rheden GP

Daniel Munoz

We tried something, and we failed terribly. Not diversifying Munoz' race days by just sending him to the three GT's turned out to be a horrendous decision, as he failed to do anything decent both stage and GC-wise. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes, and find better fitting races for him next season.

Favourite moment: Munoz accidentally sending spicy pictures to Kelderman

Martijn Keizer

He didn't come cheap as a free agent, but we can't say we have been too disappointed with his performances. His climbing wasn't sublime, but in general he did score pretty well with his time trial capacities. Solid top-100 individually for him in the end, and even after a decline with a skillset that could be very interesting in PCT.

Favourite moment: 2nd place at Tour of Slovenia ITT

Jasha Sütterlin

A time trialist we were able to obtain for a very cheap fee, but that hasn't been too great so far. One might expect a bit more from an 80 tt'ist, but shit happens. He should also be a very interesting PCT asset, both for individual and team time trials.

Favourite moment: 8th place at Chrono des Herbiers

Alejandro Osorio

One of our first three riders ever to go from level 1 to max at our team. As a level 4 he had some solid domestique performances mostly this season, and it should be more of the same in his first maxed season next year, where he'll be a valuable asset in the mountains and during team time trials.

Favourite moment: Break of the day in Lombardia

Jose Gerardo Ulloa

Immediately onto number two of those 1-max guys. We loved Ulloa from the start, after having suggested him ourself and he was a rather active breakaway guy in his first two seasons. Less breakaways this year, but some solid domestique work for leader Zepuntke. He goes into the new season as a 77 cobbler with decent hills as well, and will hopefully be able to help Zepuntke to a classic win.

Favourite moment: Unexpected win at the mountains Mexican national championship

Robinson Steven Ruiz

Having learned an incredible lot from his fellow countryman and idol Alain Quispe, Ruiz is the future of Peruvian cycling. He has not only won the Peruvian double for the third season in a row, he will also be a fun rider to have in PCT with 79 flat and an allround decent skillset as well as some okay sprinting skills. Be it as a lead-out or in a free role, we hope to see some action from him.

Favourite moment: Sixth place in a Tour de France stage as Manninen lead-out

Matthew Walls

Bit of an overpriced sprinter talent, but with one season left before he is maxed, he should be a fun second sprinter as of the 2024 season. Not very regional though, we'll see if we can do something about that.

Favourite moment: Choosing his stat gains

Luca Sterbini

Bought him in our first season. Solid CT season followed by a stellar PCT season, but a very weak PT season now with less than 50 points scored. Unclear whether it will be enough for Luca to stay on board the Pollos Express, but on the other hand might be quite valuable in PCT with his relatively low wage.

Favourite moment: Eating his delicious pasta carbonara every third Thursday of the month (he even makes a nice veggie version if you ask nicely)

Beka Nareklishvili

Bought him from the legendary Zalgiris for the incredibly low fee of 50k. Still developing into a mini-Gamper, but was a decent part of both our TTT and cobbles set-up this season already, and should be so for the seasons to come. Not regional at all, but his unique skillset might make up for that.

Favourite moment: Beka performing strong at the Copenhagen - Malmö ITT

Guillermo Andres Beltran

As EAB is slowly making his way out of the pro peloton, GAB is coming in. Fun domestique for both mountain and hilly races, as he is one of Kelderman's closest confidents. Surprised friends, enemies and haters by winning the Chilean national championship in the same race where Ulloa won the Mexican title.

Favourite moment: Winning the Chilean title for the first time in Los Pollos' history

Yesid Albeiro Pira

Failed to sign him as a stagiaire this year, just went in with a 50k bid this time around. Only thing he can do now and he will ever be able of is climbing, but his back-ups will be slightly better than Seboka. Seboka won a C2 stage and C1 KoM for us, so you better prepare to see Pira win a PT stage in one of the coming seasons.

Favourite moment: Signing him and making basically every other manager jealous for having the best future rider in our team

Daan Hoole

If you're looking for somebody with an all-round skillset, look no further. Daan is the name, Hoole is also the name. He's young, talented, and was a solid domestique at basically every race he was in this season. Looking forward to develop him further as our first Dutch talent.

Favourite moment: Any picture taken of him with South American teammates, as he's like 50 cm taller (Americans, 50 cm is like 5 feet).

Also a mention to our most important loan ins. Abdul Halil (full name too long) was our second sprinter and will return to Indosat as a maxed rider. He was unable to grab a win, but did succeed in getting podium spots in both Giro and Vuelta stages. Veljko Stojnic from Cedevita turned out to be an incredibly solid domestique with most racedays raced of the whole team, and was even cheeky enough to get into the breakaway in some races. A great second place at the Serbian championship shows there's more glory for him waiting in the future.

Our 4 stags are not worth mentioning, as only used in Avenir. Ahmet Örken did race to some top-10 stages there and even won the Turkish title ahead of Carsi, so he deserves a little shout-out.

Season is over, time to give out some awards!

He won it last year, he wins it again. Fantastic rider that delivers again and again. Winning in Qatar, winning stages in the Tour de France and outperforming kind of all superstars on a points per wage ratio by a large margin. Although his future at the team is unsure, we will always love Matti, and we will for ever be grateful of what he has given this team.

Although he kind of disappears from the earth when a race starts to get over 200 km, which he has just showcased in the WC as well, we also love Ruben. In a more platonic way maybe, but still. Experts all over the world have named him the best possible thing for 500k ever, even more so than investing 500.000 euro in Bitcoin in October 2009. He hasn't won just yet, but with two second places in PT(HC) we are hoping he has an incredible day somewhere in a C1 or HC race next season, improving on this result.

The Peruvian was one of the team's ever first signings and will reach his max level going into the new season. He has been a vital part of Manninen's lead-out for the past two seasons, and might even obtain some freedom as well from now on. With an astonishing sixth place in a Tour de France stage and a threepeat of the Peruvian double he definitely deserves this award.

Winning Praha, podiuming Herbiers and finishing fourtieth in other flat time trials. Incredible ups, but indescribable downs from our favourite Ukrainian, who just finished 27th at the time trial world championship as well. If he can go back to his rather constant 2021 form next season we'd gladly appreciate it. Except if he gets sold to another PCT team.

Everything has been said, (almost) every race has been raced and every person had the chance of laughing at us relegating. The third season of Los Pollos Hermanos ended in a clearly worse way than the two earlier seasons, which definitely made us think even harder about what exactly we want in the future. We'll all see what that turns out to be pretty soon, at our new headquarters. Thank you for following our PT adventure this season, and see you all again in PCT!

Nemolito wrote:

End of the season

Ulrich Ulriksen wrote:
Really pretty much the only joy in my life - laughing at you relegating. So appreciate you pulling that off for me.