So, it's time for us that we should set some goals for the upcoming season, but first, you have to know which races you should ride.
A team of experienced Minions have been mapping out which races we would like to ride, and which races we won't. After a lot of thinking, bananas (BANANA!), jokes about someone's but (hahaha, BUT!), some more thinking, more bananas, a fight resulting in an explosion, even more thinking and eventually a provisional schedule. We had for 'groups' of races, but we were only allowed to race in 3. We have selected 1, 2 and 4.
Our general manager, Dave, has decided to set up a Twitter account, to give followers the latest news. He is responsible for everything which happens there, except when he isn't.
The tranfers market is open! Yes, it started almost 24 hours ago, but still. We haven't really participated in it so far. Actually, we only made our first 2 offers within the last hour.
There are 2 reasons why we didn't participate in the first hours:
1. We were eating some bananas and didn't want to throw them all away.
2. We had to look for a new PM-Minion, after Steve was fired from his job yesterday evening. Dave told media via Twitter:
Our PR-Minion, Steve, has been fired. He needed 4 attempts to validate he had read the rules of the transfers. #fail#byesteve
Finally, we mangaged to convince 2 riders to join our team. 2 Americans, 2 good riders. Let's present them to public:
Nathan Wilson
Nathan Wilson is a young (23) time-trialist from the States. It was first rumoured that he would go to In-n-Out, but we offered him a better salary, rumored to be around 65000 bananas.
Rahsaan Bahati
Rahsaan Bahati is a 31 year old sprinter, who we managed to convince directly. His salary is 50000 bananas, not much if you'd ask me.
We are still trying to sign more Americans, and riders from other nations. We hope to announce more riders soon!
We signed 4 more riders, brining the total to 13 riders now:
Mark Griffith
Mark Griffith is a 27 year old American time-trialist. He's pretty unknown, so he will only get paid 55000 bananas
Fabio Montenegro
Our first foreign rider is Fabio Montenegro. No, he's not from Montenegro, he's from Colombia. He is the best climber in our squad and will get 65000 bananas.
John Murphy
John Murphy is another American. He's 27, sprinter, and worth 55000 bananas.
Tareq Esmaeli
Tareq Esmaeli is a Qatari cyclist. He was initially signed by Metinvest, but he loves bananas so much, he asked his manager if he could join our team. He was! He gets 50000 bananas, and free bananas during the race.
Nathan Brown and Jakob Rathe are angry that they have been paid 10,000 bananas less and 5,000 bananas less respectively than they agreed to.
Spoiler
Check the official transfer list
baseballlover312, 06-03-14 : "Nuke Moscow...Don't worry Russia, we've got plenty of love to go around your cities"
Sarah Palin, 08-03-14 (CPAC, on Russian aggression) : "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke"
Big thanks to jdog for making this AMAZING userbar!
The transfer market has closed today, but we still managed to contract 6 cyclists over the past few days:
Gert Rajala
Gert Rajala is a 25 year old climber from Estonia. 55000 bananas for him.
Mike Friedman
Possibly the strangest story of our team belongs to the 31 year old sprinter from the States Mike Friedman. He initially joined Eddie Stobart for 100000 euros, after they offered a higher price than us. However, the team got caught in some money issues, which led to the sacking of Mike. We were the first to contact him again, and he's willing to ride for us for just 50000 bananas.
Wim Stroetinga
Wim Stroetinga is another sprinter. He's Dutch, 28 years old and worth 50000 bananas.
Fredy Piamonte
Fredy Piamonte, Colombian, climber, 31 years old, 50000 bananas.
We should realise, Minions work hard, but only when they want to dominate the world, when a movie is made about them, or if they get a banana. However, we are not planning on world domination, this is not a mvoie and we are low on bananas thanks to the salaary of our cyclists. Which of course means that the Minions will do anything to avoid our work, and instead make jokes about their buts and hang out with some movie producers
Even when Chad Haga won the final stage in Algarve, the Minions didn't really care. They congratulated him because they're nice, but then they went on to protect their bananas from a possible raise for Chad. Everybody decided to hide their bananas, but Stuart was a really smart (*cough*) and decided to eat one. This is what happened...
Anyway, we have decided to give the Minions a day off today because the GM is celebrating his birthday. Well, the only thing not normal about today is the party, since the Minions have never worked since the start of the season.
At the party, we tried to make some Minions promise that they will work, we'll see if it works...
No, we are a cycling team, not a jelly factory you idiots! Minions never learn... No wait, they have learned something, sort of. They know how to fix a bike!
But you can't have a milion mechanics at the team. So, we decided to recruit some new Minions. This is what happened at their orientation day...
All we have learned the last couple of months, Minions can't run a cycling team... but luckily the Minions will stay connected with us, forever. Because Minions never die...
baseballlover312, 06-03-14 : "Nuke Moscow...Don't worry Russia, we've got plenty of love to go around your cities"
Sarah Palin, 08-03-14 (CPAC, on Russian aggression) : "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke"
Big thanks to jdog for making this AMAZING userbar!
We haven't heard anything about the Minions for a while. Not when Jakob Rathe finished third in a race which name's too long to be pronounced by the Minions. Chad Haga, Bjorn Selander and all the others did a great job so far! However, Minions weren't seen celebrating along the route, and they weren't invading a super market for bananas as well. No, they're busy making a movie. Here's the trailer:
Anyway, the most important race for us this season is coming up for us, and it's our home race: the Tour of America. Of course we have 'forced' the Minions to go watch and celebrate and throw bananas at the other riders. We even made a special stand for them:
So, watch out for a yellow finish line, with a yellow winner hopefully!
The Minions called it the tour of the Bananas, but the evil people called it the Tour of America. Our first, and oly Grand Tour this year, in our home country (well, not from the Minions, but for the sponsors, Minions come from everywhere). We asked them to support us and throw bananas to other teams. The latter was quite succesful, since we sccesfully managed to take out Nicácio of Bonsucro in stage 3. But anyway, this is how our riders did:
The first 3 stages were flat stages, and we came here with sprinters-duo Stroetinga and Friedman. The Dtchman finished 12th, 9th and 5th in the first 3 stages, which is certanly great for us!
After a quiet TTT, the fifth stage was the first hilly stage, in which both our leaders (Haga and Montenegro) lost about 2 minutes. Haga made up some time by jumping into the break and finishing 7th. He finished 13th in a reduced bunch sprint the next day.
Stages 8, 9 and 10 were the first mountain stages. In stage 8 we saw Haga riding towards 10th place, jumping to 13th in the GC. Montenegro sneaked into the break the very next day and finished with the favourites (including Haga and super-domestique Piamonte). In stage 10, Montenegro outdid all expectations by finishing third, after sticking with the best of the best for a long time. He moved up to 15th in the GC, where Haga stands at 12th.
After two quiet stages, the race continued with a TT, in which Haga had hoped to shine! And so he did, finishing 7th, and up to 6th in the GC! We were fifth in the teams classification at that time!
Stages 14th and 15th saw a fading Stroetinga, who couldn't repeat his great performance in the first stages. Stage 16 featured an uphill finish, in which Haga lost some time, dropping to 7th. Stroetinga repeated his failure on stage 17, losing 2 minutes in 1 kilometer, but luckily Friedman took his place in 10th. Haga won some time due to a split, moving back to 6th!
The next stage, we send Piamonte in the break with no success, Haga finished 8th and moved up to 5th in the GC, the team moved up to 4th in the teams classification. Stage 19 was the final mountain stage, in which Haga lost a bit, down to 6th, but Montenegro jumped to 14th in the GC due to a decent showing! A 6th place in the final TT for Haga moved him back to 5th.
Stroetinga finished 8th in the final stage, where the celebrations could start. Haga did better than we could've ever imagined, finishing 5th in the GC. Kudos to Montenegro as well, for finishing 14th and some decent showing throughout the race. The team finished 4th in the teams classification, way ahead of some established names in the world of cycling. In a few years, the world and cycling will be dominated by Minions!
We asked them to support us and throw bananas to other teams. The latter was quite succesful, since we sccesfully managed to take out Nicácio of Bonsucro in stage 3
Laughed a bit too hard about this sentence!
Great GC result for you. Didn't expected your team to even compete for a top 5 result but Haga really performed as seen rarely this season.
Only a few races left to secure the 24th position in the rankings, time to begin looking forward for next season. The biggest news: Minions will stay connected to the team. That's probably all you wanted to hear from us, so you can now go back and eat bananas.
For those who are a bit more interested, or just read along, thinking a banana may be hidden underneath this post (that's what I told the Minions so they would read this as well), we will give some more details: Both Chiquita and Universal will stay connected to the team. Minor sponsors Gameloft and Illumination Entertainment have renewed their contract as well. The team name will change however, from Team Chiquita-Universal to...
Spoiler
Team Chiquita - Universal p/b Minions
Another thing that will change is the jersey. Last year, the Minions designed a jersey themselves. Reviews were mixed, but we decided to silence everyone who thought it was awful. This year, we'll do things a bit different. We have put an ad in the local newspaper, searching a jersey-maker to create our new jersey. There are two demands: the jersey must be (partly) yellow and there must be a banana on the back. Interested in the job? Send a PM Dave with details on how you would like to see our jersey. Rewards: A cycling team with your clothes and a banana!
"WE DID IT! WE OUTDID EVERY EXPECTATION OF EVERY <something bad in Minion language> CRITIC EVER AND FINISHED 24TH, 2 PLACES AHEAD OF WHAT YOU LAZY PEOPLE PREDICTED. NOW, WHO THOUGHT MINIONS COULDN'T RUN A CYCLING TEAM AND COULD ONLY EAT A BANANA! SPEAKING OF WHICH, GIVE ME ANOTHER BANANA COCKTAIL!"
--Phil the Minion, obviously intoxicated.
As shown by the last rankings, it's now mathmatically impossible for us to lose the 24th place or gain another position. As promised, we would throw a party if we finished 24th, and all of you are invited!
Anyhow, Dave is not a party animal, and instead insisted on finishing some administration. Our last race, in a state Minions can't pronounce [Utah]. Bjorn finished second on the hilly stage and Fabio scored some great results on the mountain stages even though in the end his GC result was a bit disappointing (see below). We scored enough points to defend our 24th position from Wounded Warrior!
Let's take a look at our goals for this season, which actually weren't as bad as anticipated:
Bucks Country Classic
Win
Em, no. Not by a long shot. Only if Murphy improved by 67 places.
Cigar City Brewing Twilight GP
Top 5
Despite lacking a real cobbler, Rathe finished third, which is in the top 5 even in Minion-language!
CT Team Standings
Top 10
Despite numerous attempts to change international number order, 24th is not in the top 10.
Tour of Utah
Top 5
As said before, Montenegro did a good job, but his 24th place was simply not what we wanted to achieve.
Vuelta a Guatemala
Stage win
Our only stage victory of the season (Haga in a TT) was not in Guatemala but in Algarve. I have to keep telling the Minions it's not the same place. For the record: he finished second in a TT in Guatemala, which is so damn close to victory...
Oh, and we lost a banana to Bikex for making a jersey for us. It's still under consideration which Minion will lose a banana, though it seems likely Phil will have some sort of punishment for his behavior earlier.
Spoiler
Wihtout joking, all credits go to Bikex for this wonderful jersey
