Dylan Page was an invaluable member of our squad last season, managing to consistently punch above his weight and score in excess of 100 points. He looked to hold us ransom and ask for a considerable wage increase during the renewals process and as such was promptly told that he could terminate his contract with us and negotiate with other teams. He found out very quickly that with so many sprinters on the open market that he was ultimately too small a fish and with tail between his legs decided to return to Indonesia for another season for an even smaller wage than he was previously on. We're of course excited to have him back as we love his skill set and are excited to work on his new race schedule with him that should ensure he has even more chances for himself for this coming season.

Mohamad Izzat Hilmi Abdul Halil

With Leigh Howard's first decline this season, and this being the last season he'll potentially still be able to lead a team, we set out to find his successor. We quickly identified Mohamad as the perfect solution - he was available on the FA, and wouldn't be fully equipped to lead the team until next season when Howard will inevitably step down - it was a perfect match. What made it even more perfect was that we signed him for the bare minimum - $50,000. Overjoyed is an understatement at the thought of such a bargain! He has been sent out to our friends at Los Pollos Hermanos in the PT to finish his development for this season and we are already eagerly awaiting his return.

Eddie Dunbar

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Eddie has been riding around the roads in Bukit Campuhan, Indonesia, during the off season and has managed to significantly improve his ability against the clock. A number of training camps were considered such as the mountains outside Jakarta, but were ultimately quashed when whispers of the impending stage racer/climber take over of PCT were heard.

He hopes to continue this development path leading into next season, but may also decide to continue to develop his climbing skills yet.

With this training, Dunbar is potentially in the top-3 time trialists in the division due to the mass exodus of TTers in PCT due to the promotion of teams like Polar, Duolingo, Los Pollos and UBS. With this, it opens up many interesting race planning conundrums of which we will try to maximise Dunbar's strength. His calendar is set and features a number of interesting races not considered before his training. With the likes of strong, non-one dimensional TT riders like Dennis, Cattaneo and Kung joining the division competition will be very close and will still remain very high.

Ahmad Firdaus

Our #1 priority going into this transfer season was to snare the signature of the promising Indonesian youngster, Ahmad Firdaus. He comes to us from the free agency after riding for the Indonesian u23 team at unlisted events in the South East Asian area where he achieved great results in races like the Tour of Singarak and Tour of Manila. His signature was not a sure thing however as his profile had Firdaus attract interest from a number of teams abroad. Due to the bidding contest, a few riders were lost to funnel $$$ into Firdaus' coffers to help uh, 'convince' him to go pro with the local team. 185,000 was the final total offered to Firdaus that he accepted, and he now slots into the growing climbing/GC development department within the squad of which he will ride this season.

We are absolutely elated to have signed Firdaus and hope to develop him for many seasons to follow. He is viewed as the eventual 'successor' to Dunbar (potentially similar stats and all) and through future training we hope for him to be the first world-class rider to come out of Indonesia to go with our eventual core of Setiawa, Nur Hasan, Abdurrahman, Wibisono, Yudha, Rohendi and Arifin

As season 22’ ends and preparations for 23’ are well underway, we will spend a little bit of time reflecting on the events that transpired in season 2022.

We finished the season barely ~250 points above the drop zone after spending near an eternity floundering around at the bottom of the rankings. For the fourth straight season we were threatened by relegation and managed to stay up by the skin of our teeth, as well as the brilliance of one single rider.

The season started off horribly, with a large portion of our races in the first 1/4 of the season being marred with all kinds of issues and a couple of underperformances which immediately put the team on the back foot (and the bottom of the rankings). Eventually stability was found with Dunbar beginning to put in a few good performances here and there which helped to take the pain away from Leigh Howard’s poor riding for most of the season. Bruno Borges was up against it with his limited opportunities (we did not plan to have a puncheur this season) and after being shafted in the TDU the worst was feared. Nevertheless, the turning point of the season was ultimately his performance in the Tour of South Africa where he dominated, taking home the GC and 2 stage wins (as well as a TTT victory).

This led to a run of good performances from the team, namely by main man Dunbar who stepped up and didn’t falter once and got the team (barely) over the line at the end of the season.

The big takeaway from our perspective here is obviously how good of a season Dunbar had. So, why not go into a little bit more depth?

Eddie Dunbar - Season 2022

Dunbar had an outstanding season, finishing 3rd in the PCT individual standings. He was the eternal second place and was unfortunately never able to convert 2nd into a GC win once during the season, and always by a frustratingly small margin. Despite the lack of overall TT depth in PCT last season, rivalries were still able to be formed with the likes of Rohan Dennis (or just Minions in general) and other riders like Lennard Kamna, Nicola Conci, Tom Wirtgen, Stefan Kung and Matteo Cattaneo. He ultimately finished 2nd in 4 seperate races by a combined margin of less that 40 seconds which has to be some kind of record

Nonetheless, consistency was key this season and he was able to back up the plethora of 2nd places with a 4th, 5th and 6th in the three flat races we gambled on with his planning and seemingly never set a foot wrong (we don’t talk about Chile) to amass 884 points and to save our asses once again after his Bayern heroics from season 2021.

We went into the season once again heavily backed for relegation and due to (finally) some adequate planning and a serviceable dose of luck, we fight on for another season in PCT. Dunbar was incredible and was the Yin to ageing Howard’s yang, who had a forgettable season and by all accounts may be looking for another team. Borges was brought in hastily last-minute and with a calendar not suitable for a puncheur, managed to do very well with his few decent opportunities and was a solid contributor to the team. We go into next season with 4 riders returning from loan that’ll provide some much needed depth to the roster and hopefully a smaller wage bill (stay tuned for our renewals aftermath) and a question mark over the future of the team - 4 years of relegation troubles does wonders to the heart (and by all accounts the team are seeking out a sponsor to manufacture Indosat branded pacemakers for the team directeurs and managers), a number of different approaches are being floated for the pre-season to bring stability to the team, but at what cost?