GP Yekaterinburg

10th of january

First ever monthly preview obviously also means first ever squad appearance. For this hilly Russian terrain we foresee racers who should all be able to easily handle the repeated steep flanks. The question that remains is whether or not they'll form a synergie and, while doing so, ensure that Zordan has enough punch left to reach the places of honor.

Vuelta al Tachira

22nd - 31th of january

January also brings the first big stage race. Eyob is our main man, but the competition will be fierce so expectations are moderate. We'll be happy when we see the squad performing as a team, helping each other out when possible. Top 20 in the final ranking for Eyob or a individual race top 10 in general will make us happy. First racedays for Groves as well. He'll better be prepared from day one!

Gisborne GP

31th of january

GP Gisborne brings out the full puncheur-squad plus James. Can he guide Zordan to the podium in his heimat?

Great Ocean Road Classic

31th of january

Only one Tasmansea away from the GP Gisborne on the 31th of january, the full sprint-squad will appear for the first AND only time this season. Taubel joins the troops in Australia. What will this unique full force composition be able to produce?

The GP Yekaterinburg was the first ever Guave’s Sunlight Cycling race in our short history, but it wasn’t a debut to remember. Top 25 and one measly point would have made us happy, but our guys rode a very anonymous race.

The first bad signs came when Zordan got caught behind in the last lap after Sotto il sole di Riccione decided to put some fire in the race. Zordan eventually got back to the group of favourites in time before the last ascend of the final hill, but he never made it to the front of that group, nor even in sight of any camera.

That meant, unfortunately, that we didn’t even get a decent chance to have a closer look – not even a glimps – at our jersey and bike-setup in race conditions. From that moment on our newest priority became: getting some time in the spotlight in the near future, whatever the end result.

In the end, a group of 44 crossed the finish and was appointed the same time as expected GP winner Kelderman, in which Le Gac (33th) eventually ended before Zordan (41th):



It was not the debut we hoped for, but that’s not a shame. Another day will bring another chance and hopefully better legs. Maybe nerves got the better of our squad, as they had to carry the pressure of being the pioneer Sunlight-squad of our ManGam journey.

The squad took this experience back to Belgium and will have gotten stronger in order to perform better on the next opportunity, being the end of the month’s GP Gisborne - .

1	Wilco Kelderman	Philips	5h53'53
33	Olivier Le Gac	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	s.t.
41	Andrea Zordan	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	s.t.
51	Farzad Khodayari	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	+ 1'44
55	Mihran Avetisyan	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	+ 2'08
59	Irakli Bablidze	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	s.t.
61	Mektel Eyob	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	+ 2'28
77	Nandra Eko Wahyudi	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	+ 4'27
123	William Maesen	Guave's Sunlight Cycling	+ 5'16

The expectations for the Vuelta Al Tachira were low, as we didn’t send an experienced sprinter to compete on the first flat stages ànd the climber-opponents would most probably prove themselves on another level.

We hoped just to survive these first stages without losing any time and having bad luck. Our only “ambition� for these first stages was to try and gain some camera-time so that we could have a closer look at our jersey and bike-setup. Groves took care of that and did even more!

Not having meddled in the intermediate sprints, it all looked to end like the expected anonymous race. Groves decided otherwise. With 1.5 kilometers to go a small group of sprinters made a small gap and low and behold, Groves was one of them:

Starting out as 8th of the bunch in the last kilometre, Groves rode a fast first 500 meters to gain some positions, having him in 5th at best. He couldn’t keep the speed up however and eventually ended up finishing 9th behind winner Dakteris.

This meant this stage didn’t bring us our first ever ManGame points but Groves delivered our first ever, and very unexpected at this point, top 10 listing.
This can be considered as a marvellous performances from our youngster and bennelong-mitchelton loanee. It was a perfect debut and made us all looking forward on him confirming his abilities.

Groves had the time of his life in the Vuelta al Tachira being our only and, being so, main sprinter. As unexpected his first performance during the first stage was, equally unexpected was the way he managed to confirm his incredible talent.

No Sunlight in sight before or during intermediate sprints, the question remained whether or not this was going to be the anonymous race we were always expecting.

It started looking that way, as – much like during the first stage – 10 sprinters succeeded in forcing a gap with the peloton and Groves - unlike during the first stage – wasn’t part of them. Six racers managed to stay competitive until the end, but nobody could hold Manarelli, riding for our beloved Nemolito’s team Los Pollos Hermanos, from winning his first ever in the orange-yellow colours.

Groves clearly divided his powers in a smarter way and managed to overtake Nordica-Enel’s Battistella – who was part of the first 10 sprinters to jump away from the peloton – to secure another top 10 listing: 10th.

This meant we still didn’t earn our first ever ManGam points but Groves’ performances nevertheless made us feel very happy!

What can we say? Groves showed that his achievements aren’t dumb beginners luck and that he’s not a one-day-birdie just saying “hi�. He has gotten three chances to sprint – all by himself, without any leadout-present – and took all three of them.

As was the case in the second stage, a small group of sprinters managed to establish a gap with the peloton, with Groves not being a part of them. But we know by now, that doesn’t have to mean anything.

Groves was only riding in 25th position when the gap was made, but by the time the peloton reached the red bow, he managed to find 8th.

At top speed, he rode in 6th position for a short while but unfortunately couldn’t keep up the effort. Nonetheless, he again managed to secure a 9th place, which is absolutely amazing for our youngster-loanee. Tsmoha was looking and obviously liked what he saw.



For the first time, some races were caught out and lost time. For the Sunlight, only Avetisyan had to accept a delay of a couple of minutes. Eyob however had been riding very attentively and so far ended consistently around 40th position, pleasing us a lot.

With the first hilly race of this tour, we expected to see the advantages of the versatility that Eyob possesses: reasonably strong on both hills and mountain. That versatility regrettably wasn’t shown…

Whereas Groves made us happy when we didn’t expect it, the rest of our team disappointed when we counted on them. The Tour-squad was attentive enough throughout the race and Eyob positioned himself right where he was supposed to be when riding under the red bow:



We hoped Eyob would do a good job on this last hill, seeing as most favourites for the rankings would be stronger in the mountains but perhaps less dominant on this hilly scene. The opposite was true. The stronger climbers, Pinot on top, overshadowed those with the stronger punch and worse. What we really didn’t take into account, happened: Eyob even lost a considerable amount of time in the last 1000 meters, finishing only 24th.

A rather unconventional parcours, qualified as flat and something for the sprinters but starting off with two steep climbs, formed the 5th race of this Vuelta.

Unconventional as it may have been, it didn’t cause a lot of trouble for the usual suspect sprinters. The intermediate sprints were – again – taken on by a small group of adventurers, of which – again – no Sunlight rider was part of. At this point, we started to hope someone of the squad would join such ventures, as most racers otherwise were of no meaning at all. It didn’t happen at that point though.

The tricky start of the race unfortunately did have an impact on our youngster Groves. His legs clearly weren’t as fresh as the first couple of races and he didn’t manage to grap another top 10 ending. 13th was his place, which still is remarkable. Whichever way one looks at it, Groves was our best rider in the first half of this Vuelta.



His position in points-ranking (11th) thusfar is one we were proud of. Eyob 's situation worried us, as we kind of hoped to have had an advantage – on basis of his versatility in both hilly and mountainous terrain - knowing only one hilly race had been taken on and the harder mountains were yet to be visited. Instead, he already lost time and could be found on the 35th position… Perhaps some puncheurs would drop in rankings, making it possible for him to move up a bit. Nevertheless, top 20 seemed far away.

Or at least not for our squad. Eddie Stobart’s Lovik felt blessed as he jumped away from the peloton with 17 upwards climbing kilometres ahead. No one in the peloton felt the urge to really do something, giving Lovik enough time to finish solo and walking away with a sublime victory.

We would have liked to see our squad investing more in teamwork and by doing so, keeping chances of own victories alive but it wasn’t happening.

Eyob managed to hang on with the favourites until the last kilometre, where he – once more but this time more expectedly – had to give away some time when finishing 27th. Surprisingly, he managed to limit the loss of time below 30 seconds, meaning he lost less time on the truly mountainous terrain compared to the hilly terrain. Having more mountains than plain hills ahead, that maybe was a good sign.



As was predicted, he managed to gain some positions in the general rankings as some puncheurs probably fell through, placing him 28th but already 27 seconds behind the aspired top 20 and still in the same time as teammate Khodayari.

At this stage, reporter jph (who did a terrific job) didn’t have much eye left for Eyob or any other Sunlight racer, which is totally understandable. That however means, we haven’t got anything to show for regarding the MTT and 7th stage.

The squad did reasonably well however, although the relative positions came as a surprise with Burmann on 17th, Khodayari on 22th and Eyob on 24th. That also meant Khodayari had a better ranking in the general rankings and more surprisingly our four best climbers were all in all still quite close to each other, having as effect that our squad could be found in the upper half of the team ranking.

- team ranking -

During what might have been the hardest race of this Vuelta, our prayers were finally heard. At last a Sunlight races found the guts to join an early flight: Khodayari did the honours.



With 60 kilometres to go, the group fractured but Khodayari remained in front while Petrovski managed to grap the most points on the first cat. 2 climb with Khodayari following close.



Khodayari even managed to reach that same cat. 2 climb first the second time around, with 45 kilometres to go and grabbing some very interesting KoM-points on the go.



On the penultimate ascend of the last mentioned climb, Petrovski decided he wouldn’t let anyone steal one more point from him and left Khodayari behind. Doing so he secured himself the first position in the KoM-rankings and, by hanging on the gap he forced, yet another victory for our orange and yellow friends. Khodayari fortunately never stopped fighting and eventually finished 2nd, 45 seconds down.



Thanks to Khodayari the zero can be wiped away from our scoreboard, which was the logical ambition waiting to be fulfilled. Next up: a first victory!

Eyob yet again fell behind and thereby made it clear he just wasn’t in shape.

- general ranking –

- KoM ranking –

Points acquired – Khodayari: 7

We had to wait until the last race of this Vuelta on real mountainous terrain but in finally happened: squad leader Eyob showed himself. It this point, we stopped expecting anything from him and shifted our focus on Khodayari and his general ranking. That might have lifted some pressure from Eyob’s shoulders and made better legs possible. It probably helped as well that Khodayari first led the way and showed some guts, teaching Eyob how it’s done. Eyob had clearly listened and joined the fourteen-headed daily breakaway.



Eyob clearly wanted to make sure we’d all seen him in action by crossing first on the Alto de Berlin, the cat. 3 climb with 28km to go.



The group started to fall apart and Eyob had difficulties as well. With three kilometres to go, we saw the first signs of that as he was cracking. He managed to get back in front when going under the red bow, but winning the stage at that point seemed far away.



Meanwhile, Pinot and co started their own party and while they were approaching the leading group fast, Jaramillo found some leftover energy to jump away with only 300 meters left. Eyob was eventually overtaken by Pinot and co but still managed to finish 7th, grabbing some points for the team and gaining some places in the general rankings.



We were certainly very proud he managed to still make something out of this Vuelta this way.

Khodayari more surprisingly, although having lost some time, still had a very interesting general ranking to protect in the last race and was already sure of the 3rd position in the KoM ranking. Eyob suddenly could still get that top 20 ranking, which meant that possible two of our riders would succeed in the ambition we had set out for this race.

- general ranking –

Points acquired – Eyob: 1

The last stage was a hilly one and constituted the last possibility for Eyob to display his polyvalency and maybe enter the aimed for top 20. Khodayari on the other had to find those incredible legs he had been having this Venezuelan Vuelta one last time to keep him from losing places in the general ranking.

We actually assumed that Khodayari would probably lose a couple a places in the general ranking because he isn’t the greatest puncheur, but we would be happy if he could hold on to a top 20 ranking. That way he could be the one achieving the goal that was originally set out for Eyob. As for Eyob himself, we figured he just wasn’t in shape although stage 9 showed improvement. We didn’t want that to elevate our expectations too much however.

The reporters believed in Eyob’s chances and his possible better form, making it so that for the first time ever one of our own was presented as stage favourite



This time, Eyob wasn’t impressed by the expectations and clearly didn’t feel any pressure. His audacity in the previous stage - and that of Khodayari the day before – was proven fruitful so he decided to give it another go and partake in the early breakaway:



The breakaway easily held on to a comfortable advantage until 21 kilometres to the finish, when the peloton closed to within a minute. Eyob was clearly feeling strong and went for it:



While Khodayari struggled to stay with the peloton, that was now reduced to less than 40 riders, Eyob was joined by Desigual’s Narvaez and Sotto il sole di Riccione’s Dall’Oste 50 seconds clear of the peloton.



Dall’Oste went for glory with 6 kilometres to go but was caught again when reaching the red bow, with the trio still having 28 seconds of advantage on the peloton, which meant they were free to fight it out amongst themselves.

Although Eyob doesn’t have the stats to be a killer finisher – and he thus far always seemed to fade away in the last couple of meters – the frustration he must have compiled during this Vuelta fuelled him sufficiently to defeat Dall’Oste and by doing see, reeling in the very first Sunlight victory.



His victory, bonus time and collected advantage also had as consequence that he succeeded in the goal we had set forward: top 20!

Eyob surprisingly wasn’t our best stage racer. Khodayari surprised friend and foe and managed to make a little jump in the general ranking to 10th position. This meant we had 2 racers achieve the ambition we had put forward and one of them even surprised us by doing a lot better. Khodayari also went home with the 3rd place in the KoM ranking.

- general ranking –

Points acquired: - Eyob: 16
- Khodayari: 13

The complete sprint squad was present in Palmerston as we hoped they would form a perfect lead-out for Coutinho.

The team was alert and laboured when needed to keep the anticipated breakaway at bay:



With 20 kilometres to go, the early breakaway was caught which triggered a series of attacks. With 7 kilometres to go, all attacks were neutralized. Coutinho was still accompanied by Feiereisen but it was obviously way to early to be in front.

Where the rest of the team, and presumed lead-out, was at that moment will probably remain a mystery.



When Gjensidige's Katrasnik considered it was his time with 2 kilometres left, nor we nor any other sprinter had a companion left to do the dirty work. This brought about a gap for Katrasnik that wouldn’t be closed in time, resulting in a magnificent victory for Gjensidige.



Coutinho stood his ground and delivered a decent sprint, which was just not enough to achieve a place on the podium.



We had to settle with the 4th place but were happy enough. A decent debut is the least you could call this performance.

Unfortunately having the full sprint squad in Australia didn’t have any advantages, confirming the statement that some of our sprinters would have been better of in Venezuela. Their absence in Venezuela nevertheless wasn’t a freepost to perform rather underwhelmingly in Australia however. Planning wise the management can be blamed for not doing better, but this result is insufficient whichever way one looks at it. Here’s hoping that our other sprinters can find their feet quick. This squad composition was unique, so that’s not an item they’ll be able to hide behind.

As all other squads had made an impression so far – sprinters in Australia, stage racers in Venezuela – we expected a reaction from our puncheurs after the let down in Russia.

The competition was very strong, so we didn’t expect any wonders but nevertheless hoped to see one of ours – Zordan on top – ending within reach of points.

That goal was proven totally overestimated. None of our racers was ever in sight and all disappointed. Bablidze, Wahyudi, Hagen and Le Gac ended 1 minute 34 seconds behind winner Turgis in the fourth group. While Coutinho had what could almost be called a dreamed debut in Australia, Zordan lived a true nightmare and ended 107th… The Oceanic air clearly doesn’t have the same effect on each of our racers.

We hope to see some improvement from this squad soon. As mentioned, the other squads already established themselves. Maybe third time can be a charm for the puncheurs. February will show us.

4th of February

Viana do Castelo seems like a very peculiar race. It’s both a cobbled and a hilly race, so it makes sense sending Taubel over there. The longest cobbled strip is downhill however, making us wonder whether the real cobbleurs are really that advantaged. Maybe this race is better fit for puncheurs, holding into account the steep hill that will have to be conquered six times during the race. Downhill skills could come in handy as well, seeing as the finish lays at the end of the last decent of said hill. We’re very curious to see how this race turns out, but we don’t have any high expectations. Any notifiable result will make us happy.

6th of February

Gent – Wevelgem has a special place in our heart as it is the only race on our calendar in the country of our headquarter. It’s without a doubt also the race on our calendar we’ve seen most editions of. That nevertheless doesn’t mean the team starts here with special ambitions. Taubel will be our leader and to our opinion has more chances here than in Viana do Castelo as the Flemish Ardennes are much more gentle than the hills in Portugal. As the last “hill� and cobble area are still quite far from the finish line, we suspect Page might also play a role. His hill and cobble capacities aren’t the best, but they aren’t the worst either. Those who can’t shake Page in time, might be in trouble.

8th – 10th of February

The Hong Kong Challenge brings two opportunities for our puncheurs to redeem themselves. Oram can in the meantime have his go during the scheduled TT in between. At this point we don’t expect anything regarding general ranking and such. Ending within reach of points now is the first goal for Zordan and co.

9th of February

Another race where Taubel can enjoy himself. Barbier and Page are in fact decent enough cobbleurs on themselves but we suspect the race will be too hard for them to stick around until the end. If they do however, they’ll be forces to reckon with.

15th – 20th of February

As the Volta a Catalunya is a nice mix of hills and mountains, spiced up with a flat TTT, we decided to send an evenly spiced mix of riders. Eyob and Khodayari will try and do an equally good job as they did in Venezuela, but it’s expected that a stronger competition will be present so it’ll probably be hard to do as good as in January. If a good general ranking is quickly swiped off of the table, we should have enough dynamite in the squad to go for a good day-result here or there.

22th – 24th of February

Ras Tailteann should really be something right up the ally for Coutinho. Three days of fun amongst competition in his category, accompanied by two strong lead-out racers and one strong youngster who has already proven his worth. We do expect a lot from this race. If we don’t return home with a decent amount of points from here, where will get them from?

24th – 28th of February

The Tour of Southland offers a chances to two number two’s of our squad to manifest themselves as potential leaders. Page will take on the flat races, assisted by Barbier, while Le Gac takes care of the rest. As for Page, we recognise the stiff competition so there’s no podium ambition, really. But one or two top 10 notifications should be the goal. Le Gac has been performing better than our designated leader Zordan so far, but he hasn’t been very close to a good result. Maybe having his full freedom in New Zealand can change that.

28th of February

The last race of February is that one race too many, as a result of faulty planning. We’ve got some decent allrounders to show our colours but the expectations are low. Having one of them in an early breakaway would already bring a smile on our faces. A free role for all of them. PCM may always surprise us!