Looking at the teams here, we have heard that neither Alarcon or Rujano are riding. It opens things up a bit, with possibly young Ryan Eastman(CalGiant), Caruso (Ferrari), Kiserlowski (Hollister) and Marzano( VolksWagen) being the climbers here. If any one of them make the startlist I think they will be amongst the favourites.

I cannot see too many teams sending a crack climbing squad here so John really will be targetting at least a podium here and I hope to crack the top twenty perhaps. The course is unpredictable, though the last two stages have very hard finales.

Thr first will be a leg warmer for the cobbled specialists and we may see a surprise winner. We are hoping to be alert to that possibility and we are racing at the Strade Bianchi a bit earlier to get ourselves on form. By Dwars I think the big cobbled teams will take over and dominate, we will see what we can do in a race like that.

After stage one's predictable procession of Cav brat, we got stuck into the particularly hilly terrain of stages 2 through to 5. This was something we targetted with the squad we had brought here, though having seen the parcours for stage 2 we felt it wasn't super tough. I think Blaise Sonnery was surprised by the speed of Ferrari's Dall Antonio and I admit it was this team that impressed me so much on the first five days.

Stage three was a true masterclass in team tactics I felt, with Moinard getting in a breakaway and piling the pressure on the teams of the other favourites. I think we made the race on this day and to finish with three riders in the front group of nine was a real coup. The problem we had though was two superb Italian climbers in Caruso and Marzano who became Gadrets rivals on this day.

Ferrari really controlled the Cameron stage, so much so that there was really nothing anyone could do but follow. Again we finished with three men in the front group with Kin-San Wu going away in the breaks. I think all the riders were a little cagey with Genting the following day and I think the organisors could have split the mountains stages a bit.

Genting was always going to be the decisive day but this year we had got major shake-ups before today and Ferrari you felt had the bit between their teeth. But at the top of the climb Marzano was so strong, John Gadret positioned himself well unlike Caruso but could only manage third. Danny Moreno was gutsy, these super high climbs are not his cup of tea but he knows the improtance of two high GC placed men as was sson to reveal itself. A word here too for Kin-San Wu, who showed his Genting experience by finishing 19th on the day.

We didn't get a lot of joy out of the next couple of stages with Gadret slipping down the GC as the result of a crash. We were not as unfortunate as some teams such as Ferrari who really lost a lot. It was a bit of a battle for morale but Roman Kilun provided the spark who after getting in the victorious stage 7 break, was on the attack again on stage 9. Roman was pretty tired and his victory charge was only just good enough, but victory it proved to be.

You know we had noticed in the rain the day before that some riders were looking a but leggy. Castano the then second place had never looked on top form since the beginning of the race, whilst Danny Moreno still had plenty left. We decided to test the water a bit on the last day and for a moment I thought we may pull off a real coup by actually winning the race. Nether-the-less moving up to second was great if losing more time with Gadret was a shame. A second stage win was well celebrated too!

Jerome Giaux got an excellent runner-up spot on day one and after a difficult few days we managed to fight hard for the team prize on the last day. I would have hoped for more espicially when it looked for much of day 2 like Eduard Vorganov was going to do something special

On stage 3 I am guessing the organisors got their own back for us keeping South African champion Daryl Impey out of the squad. I thought we were close to pulling it back together and they deemed to give us a 22 second split which moved a lot of our riders out of contention.

On the last day, I was impressed by how hard the team worked. But the roads were not friendly to us. Mori clung on to the lead group, whereas Calzati, Gerrans and Cherel fought like dogs all day. The guys were shattered at the finish, but a gave them all a hearty congratulatiosn they gave everything which is all a team boss can ever ask!

I guess we are simply not used to being in a position to boss a race and made a dogs dinner of controlling things on stage nine (where Karsnoperov got away). It felt in the latter stages like no-one had any energy to chase and things really went with the attacking Emu export team. Still it was a good all round performance by the team.

It became clear that this was not the race John thought it would be and he is beginning to question his race schedule that we have devised for him. I think John went into it for himself a bit on the last stage and we have had a bit of a discussion between the two of us. I think he though this would be more mountainous and I don't think he enjoyed the Taiwan experience. C'est la Vie

This confirms our feelings that promotion to the Protour could be on the cards at the end of the year. Whilst we have not been able to snare any GC or classic successes we have rarely missed the podium in any of the races. The success of the squad is down to teamwork, which has at times been hard to put into practice.

John thoroughly enjoyed himself without the real pressure of having to lead the team. He feels as if he should be winning every race he competes in at CTour level, but this was a race for fun. I feel this has revitalised John, at least I hope so. For Sven, who as we know is a renowned Cyclocross star, this was something that he described as the pinacle of his career. We'd like to get a top 10 from one of the cobbled classics we compete in and this may give he or Jerome the confidence. The race itself was a wonderful advert for cycling and Tom Boonan is such a legend.

Volkswagen and Rapha Condor have had a couple of underperformances recently. Rapha mind you have just had Stannard pick up the opener in Turkey so willl retake the lead after that. Those two teams are very much our rivals, you cannot overlook the superstrong Bianchi boys also or the Italian squads Vespa, Venchi and Pirelli. I've been surprised by the excellent start to the season by both Aker Solutions and CalBerry if it lasts they may well also be part of the chasing pack. So I guess the challenge is to match ourselves up to them and I think we just may have the edge in terms of strength of depth.

April has not been too bad a month for us so far with a couple of podiums including an industrious performance in the Czech Republic. Today was possibly one race too far, though perhaps we didn't get the tactics quite right.

I made a bad call I said to the DS that I thought Bianchi would pull it back before the last climb, but the break saved energy clearly to hold it off. I think everybody thinks Bianchi are stronger then they actually are. Congrats to Schierlinckx and the Hollister boys they have plenty of fans here too.

We have one more big cobbled classic out there but the results have been stacking up nicely with Mori snatching a podium in the Margelland classic

I felt better in Europe then I do out here, I am not sure we really reconned the route right. We should have got a guy in the break, we could have got a great result. I must admit I conferred with Romian but I though one of us should have gone to the front to help the chase. C'est le vie though you lose some and win some I suppose

Nah we didn't have it today I think me a Mikael are tired and we need a week or so off. We didn't really have a game plan whereas Kirchen had it all worked out on the Czech Republic. That was I suppose a case of waiting till the very end so you can sort of understanbd why we screwed up here.

We are disappointed not have made an impact here of course, I just feel we played it far too defensive today. I am going to go to Holland to have a look at the Drenthe course the cobbled guys have been outclassed and we are under a bit of pressure to try and do something there. We do have a Japan stage race as well coming up, John Gadret is leading the team there they are reconning the course as we speak.

The Criteriums were more chaotic then ever, really the last stage was dangerous which was a shame because the Japanese have really got into their cycling. The time trial is one of the highlights of the year for me and I think John enjoyed it too. I was surprised how tough some of the other stages were and Rapha Condor had a guy on inspired form once again. Still two wins have cheered the boys up I think despite the crashes

With the Giro about to start and a couple of wins in Japan there is a buzz about the offices of the team again. This is a busy time of the year and we really need to move on from some disappointing races last month.

I guess the big races this month with be the two tours of Southland in New Zealand and Luxembourg. We have done so well in the main in these type of events that is forming the base of our points. Both Kim Kirchen and Daryl Impey will be in New Zealand, with Kim also going for it in Luxembourg too. He did well in the Czech Republic so I think he will go well this month too.

Riders like Mori and Giaux will be our road captains in the classics and I really am hoping we can start to look to get in good breakaways there. We don't have a particular great team in Berlin for the big HC flat classic a top ten is probably the target there.

After doing little of note throughout the cobbled season we went about our business quietly in Denmark. Manarellie went up in the break and we sat on the wheels into the finale. Giaux's a good sprinter and has had a couple of top fives this year, so we knew if we could get him up there he would be dangerous. Sven Vanthourenhout put Jerome in a great place and when Breschel's legs failed he came through brilliantly

I am happy to have drafted in Jerome and Sven, but I needed a better specialist to compete. I'll be honest I didn't think that some of the new cobbled riders available would end up in the Ctour, but even so I knew Rapha and Pokerstars were going to be around. Looking ahead, if we were to promote we would have to get another two or three riders for the pave to get anything in the ProTour.

This was for me the best team performance in a classic all season, Impey said he was happy to look after himself in the finale and it gave us free reign to try and get up the road. Adil managed to get away and others like Priamo and Cherel tried to jump also - it really was impressive. Iglinski just had more strength than Adil but 2nd is a fine result.

This classics are hard to get right, we have had our share of disappointments around the world in these races. We are struggling for that consistency but so is everyone else. We have had three good un's this month and a couple of bad ones. We have always been solid in stage races, I felt we were a touch unlucky in Southland not to get better GC results but we still did okay. If you have a bad day in a classic you get nothing.

The sponsors demanded a win here, but when we saw the startlist it looked a tall order with Froome, Claeys and Monfort. The guys were not good enough in the opening couple of stages to get anywhere near to the GC. Impey went close in a couple of the sprints, but with breakaways been given latitude Eddy V showed he has a good eye for these things. I thought he did very well to hold off Rabon in that tough stage and definately allowed the sponsors some celebration.

We have used up nearly 65% of our race days and I couldn't be happier really with the position we are in. Rapha Condor are a touch ahead of us, but everyone else is struggling to jump across. I think Bianchi are coming along well at the moment and I have always said VolksWagen will be thereabouts. Bianchi have a really strong all round squad, whereas VolksWagen are about their stars. But whats hit me is how good some of the newer teams have gone. Puma, Trilux, Bpost, Venchi, Aker Solutions are just to name a few are really mixing it up well.

We have a few quieter months coming up we will see how the others manages to fare, I think it will be hard to rack up a lot of points quickly with the high amount of competition.

We have been active in breakaways pretty much every day we thought it had a chance, today really looked very likely a break would succeed and with Jerome and Amael up there we had great chance. Coming over the Pic de Noire I knew that it was between Moinard, El Fares and Tschopp. Tschopp looked the stringest and played it the best I think in the finale but hats off to Amael it was a great performance.

Well not many of the guys haven't had a go so far for something, it really is fantastic to see everyine really looking to get their name in the lights. Gadret is still in the GC fight, so we will have to see how that goes. So many crashes are making it a bit of a lottery, it is going to be a case though of saving something for the alps. Moinard may be able to start to make a run at the King of the Mountains but just picking another successful break will be key

Yeah Daryl is learning a lot, if we do make the Protour next year I'd like to think that he will be looking for GTour stage wins. It sounds a bit far fetched considering he is not that prolific in the CTour, but Daryl has a touch of the Ventoso's about him in that he could do well on this tougher more selective 'flat' stages. He has been mixing it up, Vesuvio have been excellent in setting up trains so it has been a free-for-all behind them.

Cunego, Madrazo, Pluchkin, Spilak etc. are a different class, it's been some time since John Gadret has mixed it up with these guys and for him to be still in a shout of a top ten is a real achievement. Whilst that is a mini goal, we are really on the hunt for that stage win

A lot of teams got through the Pyrenees stronger than we thought meaning the sprinters are still in the mood. That's not really the case with Daryl Impey who has lost his top edge speed I think. Vesuvio seem to have abandoned their GC aspirations to try and deliver Swift to a stage win, it hasn't happened for him but other sprinters are grabbing their glory. I think Matteo Priamo has done a great job of getting in these breaks - he will likely drop out of the race soon as the climbers get to try and make a break.

Obviously Blaise was disappointed not to be in the Tour team, but I think he understood that he really isn't a GTour man. He produced something out in the Air Force race, but these raids to the US are not really working out that well for us, its similar to the flat stages here just too controlled out there for that one. Congratulations to Bennati and Puma, you feel he could have cleaned up at the tour though!

Cannot complain in the slightest it was a really fine performance from Moinard - excitingly we had representatives from French supermarket chain Auchan with us today.

Jayco have made it pretty clear that the lack of Australians in our tour squad was pretty much the death knoll for their continued sponsorship and whilst I am sure Red Bull would have stepped in - we found a 'simple' solution after all.

Well Amael was pretty tired and the only other guy we had who had enough strength to try who was not up on GC was Calzati. But Sylvian was pretty tired from his big Alpine escape on stage 17. It was nice to be in amongst the team cars at the front again but we all sort of knew that Chava was going to try and go away, none of the rest had the strength to chase him.

Yeah sort of slightly better than satisfactory overall in this tour. John (Gadret) suffered in the chrono, his champions jersey was shown but this years tour was simply the highest quality field in living memory so he couldn't make a difference. He is pleased to get round, I don't know if we will see him ride for us next year - we'll see. Impey is disappointed not to get round - it looks like it will be another pretty blank season for the South African - I am prepared to keep trying with him we are learning with leadouts too. But the star of the tour was Moinard for sure - so unlucky to miss a stage win

We started the race quite slowly, the humidity here was just wow. When we adapted we could see everyone was going to struggle so breakaways looked likely to succeed. I was conifident I could beat most of the guys in the sprint, I have to say that I didn't really want to contest the mountain sprints but the team wanted to. Mountain jerseys are not my thing, I think it blunted my sprint at the end.

Daryl's had his knocks but this was a pretty good sprint from him, I hope he can knock off a win from somewhere in the CTour later this year. He will be going to Britain as one of our leaders. As a whole a fairly okay race, I am going to go with a C- but it was another very hot field so it was tough to make an impact. There were some real nice performances John did well in the mountains and Veloso got 4th on the final day time trial which was an excellent performance.

John and Danny had just come off a block of racing in Protour races, they could have gone for their own interests but they chose instead to work for Amael. John and myself are not seeing eye to eye over his contract arrangements for next year but you got to give it to the guy for being professional.

We knew that this race was the perfect oppurtunity to move up in the CTour rankings. The boys have a taste of the high life in the Protour now, but some of the guys will miss Swaziland we have had a great time here. We gave Jose Alarcon a bit of a roughing up, he had to really fight for this one. For Blaise it's a nice reminder of what he can do - shall we keep him for next year, I am pretty certain he will be re-contracted yeah!

There were some tight finishes all week, I feel like I am a pretty good bike handler but when someone comes down in front of you there is nothing you can do. Obviously it was nice for the fans and Jonny Bellis to defend his title but this was not his strongest race of the season. The course was too tight for a large field in places and if Britain wants more credible races they have gotta find better finishes in my opinion.

It would have been nice to have held on there. But it doesn't really tarnish what has been a very decent week - I feel as if a huge step towards promotion and probably a top 3 spot on the team classification has been earned here. Dazza is getting close to his very best performances of his career and it was excellent to see Sylvian take the stage. These last day losses of lead are a bit of a bummer but we'll keep plugging away!

In this type of race in our first season we would not have had a hope, but here it felt like we were everywhere and on a rare off day for Bianchi we managed to capitalise somewhat. Mikael didn't have the legs to attack on Superga, the descent was long enough for speculative attacks to be caught so it was probably the best to wait for a sprint. The Italians dominated that but 3rd was decent, Mikael has been thereabouts in a few classics this year.

We went with experience this year and one drawback is that a lot of our squad will be long in the tooth next year. A lot will depend on how contract renewels go, but I am pretty sure that both John Gadret and Sylvian Calzati will be on the market for new teams despite our new French focus. On the flip side Moinard and Cherel will almost certainly be staying. We will be in the market with a fairly hefty war chest and open to offers for anyone of our riders as ever

I guess a month ago, I was hopeful of challanging for the top position in the CTour, but to be honest the squad was getting a little tired. That and a few of the guys had been told that new contracts were not going to come their way.

With three of our Austalians going it certainly signals our intention of getting ourselves more involved in the European sphere as we must if we are too challange in the protour. Jayco will no longer be sponsoring us - they are replaced by our newest sponsors from the Auchon supermarket group Simply Market.

We will be known as Simply Red Bull which both our lead brands are delighted with the concept. Our fans have yet another distinctive jersey to feast their eyes on.