I did a CT prediction anyway when participating in Ezee's survey - so I thought, why not share it? There are no hard numbers, just some gut feeling and comments - it usually was pretty wrong (so it was actually good I didn't share those previously ), but yeah, why not give everyone something to laugh about?
Continental Tour
Rank
Team
1
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
No cobbles, no problem. Will dominate ITTs and hills. And likely the division.
2
Podium Ambition
Great TT depth, I like it. Lagane is great, O'Connor & Canty can make them promote.
3
Tafjord Kraft
High main stats everywhere, but mostly somewhat shaky leaders. Should finally promote.
4
Team Würth MODYF
Not top-notch in any domain, but rock solid in stage races and sprints. Benefit from weak TT competition - it might be enough to promote.
5
Ekoi - Le Creuset
APP is my favorite rider in the division, and he could Top 10 the individual standings. Great depth in uphill races - will have to cope with the rest.
6
Crabbe-CC Chevigny
Chiarello is not helpless, but completely helper-less. Transition year with lots of young riders - Chiarello could still pull them up.
7
Caja Rural Cycling Team
Great depth when the road goes up, but close to nothing otherwise. Might require some genius planning to still go up.
Same for PCT, because why not? Was surprised how far down some teams suddenly got, but it just looks like a pretty stacked division. And I could see an escape path even for the lowest ranked teams, looking forward to a thrilling season!
Pro Continental Tour
Rank
Team
Comment
1
Los Pollos Hermanos
TT dominators, this will bring lots of points. Partly shaky leader on other terrains, but they should easily bounce back.
2
Fastned
Olivier and Groenewegen are better than Aular and Manninen, but they'll lose quite some points to LPH in (T)TT-heavy events. Still looks like easy promotion.
3
Sony - Force India
Benoot and Choi are among the strongest of their kind. If Vesely is consistent, he'll add lots of points. Ringheim and the Kuroedas are cool on cobbles, TT is solid - time to go up!
4
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
Oomen among the best stage racers now, backed up by Novak for non-TT races. De Plus is a cool hybrid, Gamper is great anyway (want him back!). Bonifazio could decide on going up or staying.
5
Team UBS - Tissot
Buchmann and Müller should do well in the hills, Schelling still more or less solid in the mountains. Deep cobbles department with shaky leader Spengler. Great TT core, should yield some good points. Van Asbroeck could be decisive for continuing the elevator journey.
6
Assa Abloy
Dainese is great, and I really like Gesbert's training. Paillot is the most versatile TTer not called Dunbar, Gonzalez will also net some points. Faglum still rock solid - and the rouleurs could make the difference. They could very well go up this year.
7
Indosat Ooredoo
Dunbar will score a ridiculous amount of points, being basically left without competition. Also leads a very solid TTT lineup. Yates will do well, and although I don't like Abdul Halil's statline, the sprinters will contribute as well. But it's definitely Dunbar who could bring them close to promotion.
8
Kraftwerk Man Machine
Ranaweera slightly stronger, Zabel & Haller maybe PCT's best sprint duo. Lots of puncheurs gone, still incredible depth. TT core strengthened, but cobbles could be shaky. Classic Kraftwerk ranking incoming?
More top-heavy than ever. Areruya could win the division, Bennett still has a great year ahead. Fouche looks tasty, Houle is still looking forward to TDU or Euskal. Pidcock is the big unknown and could make the difference between 15th, 10th, or even 5th.
11
Bralirwa - Stevens
Ouch, we're already out of the Top 10? Expected Bralirwa to be in there, but apparently there are too many good teams. And they are, too. Stallaert will dominate cobbles again, and Meintjes is one of PCT's best hybrid climbers. Silvestre should do fine - but otherwise it's hoping for breakaways, some TT results - and Izagirre, who could lead the team quite a bit higher up.
12
Jura GIANTS
I want a mid-table finish; this looks possible. Others can comment on my team.
13
Lampre - Pinarello
Turgis is a great addition, but might take some of Meurisse's scoring potential away. Monsalve and Coutinho are solid riders, too - but Rowe's decline might cost them quite some points. Daniel got some more competition this year, but will do a great job again nonetheless. 13th place doesn't look right, but I guess the lack of TTers pushed them down - yes, I do like TTers.
14
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
Padun as the next gen climbing leader just lacks some TT to lead his team (far) higher up. He'll be good, for sure, as will EAB. The sprinters are solid with Aniolkowski and Lutsyshyn, but there are many other solid ones as well. As with other teams, TT and cobbles are lacking depth (or even a solid leader), so despite the uphill depth they don't look as scary anymore as they previously did.
15
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
Not just the team's name was changed, but more than half of the roster as well. Stannard promises some big points, we'll see if he is as good as jandal advertised him. Debesay is an 82 cobbler in disguise, and Arndt is one of the punchiest climbers out there. Inkelaar and Hayakawa are rock solid as well - but they might still lack some big time scorers. Top 15 instead of bouncing back doesn't sound great, but I don't see them much higher.
16
DK Zalgiris
Halvorsen will do Halvorsen magic, one of the most consistent sprinters out there recently. Moscon will be an even better rider - but not a more frequent winner - after his training. Smith and Guldhammer would be perfect for GTs, but have to prove themselves as leaders. Beniusis and Lasinis are cool and will do well, but I'm missing TT depth and cobblers.
17
McCormick Pro Cycling
McNulty is one of those shiny new stage racers, and I'm sure he'll do well. He has got lots of RDs thanks to relatively low Acc, but his TT outweighs that by far. Boswell did well in C1 last year, he should do well again. And building up a fantastic TTT core from almost nothing deserves my respect. And lots of points, obviously. Walscheid will get some sprint points, and all of this should make them stay up rather comfortably.
18
Colombini Cycling
In all honesty, their leaders' statlines deserve more than 18th place. But both Kelderman and Reis had some serious flaws in past years, and especially for Reis with really low Sp/Acc I fear it'll be the same. Afewerki and El Sabbahi are two cool sprinters who should get their results - but otherwise it's mostly depth riders there. If Blythe does better than last year, he could lead the team a bit higher - if he doesn't do well at all, they might be at risk...
19
Sauber Petronas Racing
I guess I just have them in 19th because I wouldn't like to see maxed Hirsch go down to CT... They're heavily relying on depth, especially in the mountains, with six 77+ climbers. Frankiny has proven his worth there; him and Hirschi will have to carry the team with Pomoshnikov and Van Garderen declining. David has declined as well, but still is among the best hilly cobblers. And Einhorn? He has to do well, if Sauber really are to stay up...
20
Zwift Pro Cycling
The final Top 20 spot is the one nobody wants. Could Zwift really be back-to-back relegators? At least there are some well-suited races for Powless and Fraile, with Jorgenson potentially adding some U25 points. But otherwise, it's mainly Ackermann who has to score, plus maybe Welten, who has to overcome his low acceleration. Burke and Lopez could save the team, though, being cool hybrids. Or can Girmay already do some magic this year?
21
Trans Looney Tunes
I already thought last year that they'd go down, and I think the same this year. Their puncheur squad is still really stacked, but they're all one-dimensional. Min is a nice upgrade for the mountains, but might suffer from low TT and Acc, limiting the well-suited races. Having not much TTT support doesn't help. There's no sprinter; relying on Katrasnik could work pretty well, though. But can Moulingui and the other cobblers do well enough to keep them afloat?
22
Glanbia
I'm sorry to rank such a great TT team so low - but that's basically because there's not much to see apart from TTs. Eastman will have a good year again, but is spending more than half of it in one race. Kennett is a decent sprinter, but there are plenty of others at his level. McKenna might get more freedom than in CT - and then there are "just" the TTers left. Very strong TTT lineup, but likely not many scorers in ITTs - I fear that's not enough to stay up.
23
Spark-BNZ Racing
Going down would obviously be horrible news with a 400k talent on board, but it might be inevitable. Sure, Bobridge should still be strong, despite pretty low energy stats. But Madrazo was already bad last year and could be even worse now; he could be the decisive factor for staying up. Howard also was pretty bad last year, but Perera could do a decent job. And then? A good TTT core as well, but no individual stars apart from Erdenebat. And Kopfauf? Well, who knows...
24
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
Penasa is a good signing, no doubt. He will definitely score. There would have been younger alternatives to Sicard, but he could still do a decent job as well. Nikiema and Velasco will be stage hunters - which can or cannot work out. Kiskonen as their main sprinter doesn't look too promising - nor does Fenn as a cobbles leader, as he was already disappointing last year. Their TTT is once again pretty good, but no longer top of the division. Can Seboka save them?
Fabianski wrote:
24 Genii Hyundai N Cycling Penasa is a good signing, no doubt. He will definitely score. There would have been younger alternatives to Sicard, but he could still do a decent job as well. Nikiema and Velasco will be stage hunters - which can or cannot work out. Kiskonen as their main sprinter doesn't look too promising - nor does Fenn as a cobbles leader, as he was already disappointing last year. Their TTT is once again pretty good, but no longer top of the division. Can Seboka save them?
[/table]
That's...a honest prediction TBF. I've neglected the sprint department due to the unpredictability of the AI and didn't want to grossly overpay for a sprinter. That unpredictability could allow Kiskonen to pull a possible upset every now and then. The cobble department also leave more to be desired - the only noticable difference is Yechkezel replacing Richardson as the cobble trident and Sillankorva is a project for the future. The TTT is no longer the king of the crop, but is pretty decent. Even though relagation is inevetable at this point I'm not really fussed - setting the expectations bar low would mean less pressure
I like your predictions Fabianski! The comments are just long enough that you can understand why a team is predicted where they are. And there isnt much that i disagree with
So far there are three predictions I like and one I don't I do hope to finish inside the promotion spots (counting disbands sth like a top-7 perhaps), but winning the title won't be the case imo. Manninen > Groenewegen though, as we have all seen last season
So far we've mostly been placed in the 6th to 8th places in the predictions with one saying we'll be on the podium. I guess somewhere between 3rd and 8th is what I am also thinking is our realistic finishing position, probably more likely towards 5th to 8th, than upwards. Thanks to everyone who have already posted previews
No big predictions from me this year so here's a quick, lazy prediction with less attention on details - so stuff might be (even) less accurate than in other years. Hopefully enough context to explain my choices.
Tier 1: Should promote
1. Fastned
Good leaders on all four terrains, especially Groenewegen and Olivier should be very reliable scorer but also Vansevenant and Van Hooydonck should be strong leaders. Several decent secondary scorers behind them with especially Cras as a nice PCT option. Not the obvious title favourite Amaysim was last year but promotion should be secured fast.
2. Los Pollos
Los Pollos is the best of the "cover all five disciplines teams". Four strong leaders and also Zepuntke who could punt away some good scoring opportunities. They also won't face Evonik in PTHC so it's basically a promotion lock. They also have a strong case for the division title.
Tier 2: Promotion contenders:
3. Assa Abloy: It feels time that they finally promote and i feel like the time is now. Dainese will be very strong this season, the Gesbert training looks really good and Paillot and Faglum Karlsson are also strong scorers. A strong depth all the way down, they should be fine.
4. Xero: Joseph Areruya is my early individual rankings favourite. A weaker PCT puncheurs division plus mountain training convince me that he will be even stronger than last season even if he wants to try to compete with Miguel Angel Lopez for the Balkans victory. Bennett is the known quality asset next to him for proper mountains and Fouche, Houle, Kipkemboi, Morne are all quality riders next to him. And then there is Pidcock who should really be a valuable asset starting this year. Of course, there is xero reason for his high wage but he can impact every race he does - he needs strong planning to be maximized and I will blame the manager for not getting it right even if i'm not sure about the right planning either.
5. Sony: Benoot will decide the fate of this team, if he can continue like last season or possibly improve further, the rest of the team with Choi, Vesely, Carboni, Kozhatayev and multiple sprinty cobblers is good enough to mount a proper promotion challenge.
6. Lierse: Oomen and Novak is a great climbing duo, Bonifazio is a sprinter, De Plus a nice cheap puncheur, Gamper a nice cobbler and solid depth riders for (almost) every type of race, this team should be in the promotion fight. But on the other hand, this team doesnt look better than most of the past few years and those teams always failed to reach single digit positions for unknown reasons. Only one thing seems sure: If the team fails again, Boni-fuck-u will be blamed for it.
7. Indosat Dunbar, Dunbar, Dunbar. The rest of the squad looks vastly improved too: Yates is a co-star that Indosat hasnt had for a while and Abdul Halil and Nur Hasan is a good sprinter duo. Also a couple of good uphill domestiques and a solid TTT team.
8. UBS: UBS kept the swiss part of the roster together, still headlined by star rider Buchmann who should continue to be a good leader on the hills. Spengler is the big question mark for me. If he rides like a 82-83CB guy, the team is looking very good for promotion but i'm not overly confident in his abilities. Then there is a good TTT team and good depth but no rider that looks particularly great.
Tier 3: Upper Mid
9. Popo4ever: Good but probably not quite good enough to promote so quite similar to 2022. And 2021. And 2020. And 2019. And 2018. Padun and his aging co-star in his decline seasons, a couple of decent depth riders and a couple of aging legends. Aniolkowski is probably the only new development but he is not enough to change up the dynamic of the team.
10. Lampre: The lack of a big leader will hurt them but a really cool group of role riders and "secondary riders". Behind their star Dzamastagic, the team has added Turgis, Monsalve and Coutinho and has now covered every terrain multiple times. No mention of the redacted T-word as that needs to be avoided as much as possible.
11. Jura: I was expecting them to be in the promotion fight but they had a pretty bad transfer season only getting Theuns as a new leader. They benefit from many teams only planning for 5-7 rider TTTs and the already announced schedule of riders like Eastman going out of their way to avoid TTTs which should give them quite a few big scoring opportunities in TTTs. Swapping Moscon for Errazkin looks like that aspect of the roster is getting worse but Errazkin is the better TT rider and with their TTT strength, the worse rider might make up for it with being a slightly better fit.
12. Kraftwerk: We all know the team by now, it barely has changed in the past five years.
13. Bralirwa: Meintjes replaces Madrazo and is only a small downgrade. The rest looks fairly similar. The decline of Silvestre will possibly hurt just as much. Good depth, should end up around midtable.
14. DuckDuckGo: Debesay, Stannard, Arndt, Guerreiro, Inkelaar, Hayakawa,... Lots of good riders - some of them might not be pefectly suited to PCT but with good planning you can get a lot out of that group and especially Debesay has one of my favourite stat sets. Looks solidly midtable but the real question has to be: Why would anybody ever commit to the trolling that is training Elias Abou Rachid?
Tier 4: Lower Half / Relegation Risk?
15. Tryg: Demare should feast. Summerhill is still very solid. Schlegel, Kron, Rodenberg, are nice scorers. Shouldnt relegate but Demare has so few race days that a few questionable race planning or AI issues could trouble the team.
16. Colombini: A lot of negative past has been brought up for both leaders but i think there is little reason to assume that Kelderman will only repeat his 2021 scoring this year. That year, the division was absolutely stacked on the hills with top puncheurs like Skujins also struggling because of that. This year, the situation looks a lot more favorable for him so i believe he will perform better. Reis I'm not so sure but the team also has a few interesting sprinters like especially Afewerki and some wildcards like Raileanu to assist. The numbers of utter trash riders signed for the "micro nations" will hurt but i think they could be one of the better teams in the relegation fight.
17. McCormick: McNulty is great and will dominate U25 comps all season. A good hills section and a decent TTT team should help the team. The announced Tour of America participation is a big risk though since a potential low scoring would lower the opportunities for big scoring.
18. Zalgiris: Halversen and Moscon have to carry the team and they could be strong enough to do so. Smith, Guldhammer and Budenieks are nice riders but i'm not really convinced they will be major factors for the season outcome.
19. Zwift : The big talking point has to be their plans with Powless: Training his mountain stat and likely sending him to the Tour of America might look cool but could hurt them quite a lot. With the startlist looking to shape up very strong - especially with similar types of riders, he might "waste" half of his race days for a fifth GC place or so. Suddenly the team is relying a lot on Ackermann and Fraile to get them out of the relegation fight. Mre should be experienced enough to plan the team well but the risks he took (also investing into even more talents) have the potential to backfire.
20. Trans: Another close season is ahead of them. Their main points have to come from the uphill races without TTing: Min is the best rider in them and the hills team has a good trio of Bystrom, Calmejane and Waeytens. Replacing one of them with a potential scorer on any other terrain would make me think a lot better. This way, it feels like a team that will almost surely finish between 16 and 22 so every point will count.
21. Sauber: Waiting for Hirschi: Next season is supposed to be better with Hirschi starting his prime with a real strong skillset. He's already very useful this year but whether he is good enough to lead a team is questionable. What speaks to them is that their large roster has very few useless riders (hopefully Forcellini has a grand total of 0 RDs!) and a lot of their riders could deliver from breaks or random opportunities. Depending on how the new game behaves and how much random results it allows, the team could be doomed fairly early or strong enough to save itself. Sprinter Einhorn should provide valuable points in any case.
22. Spark: I liked the idea of going after Rodriguez as the main prize out of their transfer season and getting aging FA leaders to potentially keep them up for a year. This puts them into a situation where a relegation doesnt even really hurt the team which is nice to say. I put them this low despite Madrazo and Bobridge having the potential to pull them out of the relegation fight but i have doubts about backup stats for both riders and am unsure about the sprinter group as well.
Tier 5: Possibly doomed?
23. Glanbia: Winning Tour of America and relegating in the same season? Imo, a fairly likely outcome. Without Eastman in other TTTs, their team likely isnt strong enough to beat e.g. Jura in those and they dont have a a puncheur or a 2nd stage racer to get great GC results from their TTT strength. Kennett is the only other highlight in the squad but i struggle to see how they should get enough points to stay up.
24. Genii: Some interesting riders, decent depth on mountains, TTT and cobbles but no leaders outside of Penasa. The team has the core that they could have been competitive if only they would have been able to get another leader. Maybe an aging sprinter star or so could have pushed them up enough. They need a ton of random overperformances to survive.
Basically, I'd be shocked if any of the top two teams doesnt promote though they might not necessarily win the division. Then quite a few teams that are on a very similar level in the fight for the remaining promotion spots plus a few midtable teams that could get involved into the fight. At the bottom there is also a fairly large number of teams that is in relegation risk with only Glanbia and Genii looking a step below the others.
I hope you all are right and my team is doing promotional things. Exactly what I expect but with Vansevenant and the secondary leaders a lot of question marks.
Ideally the top3 perform as strong as needed to gain promotion early enough.
cunego59 wrote:
In the spirit of being lazy, I've created a prediction method that only requires you to think about two teams at the same time. For every division, you simply get 20 randomly chosen team matchups and decide which of them will have the better season (i.e. finish higher in the rankings). The more people participate, the more matchups will be decided and the more representative the ultimate result will be, as teams will be ranked by the percentage of matchups they win. You can do each one multiple times to get different matchups, too, if you're bored
That one's still on? Probably there should be another PT prediction, not just the unqualified one from me Plus I'm intrigued to see if someone dares to put McCormick on 16th or 19th place in PCT ...
I'd obviously be thrilled with a 15th-16th place finish. Unofortunately I think that's probably our best case scenario. Hopefully everything goes well to let it happen.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
DubbelDekker wrote:
After the kandesbunzler prediction had us finish dead last I have to admit that this one is a bit more to my liking
Honestly, it is quite a lot interesting to find my team also going from a penultimate place prediction from kandesbunzler to now being a top 3 contender in MacC's predictions. Pretty crazy differences overall.
Here are the results for my/your lazy prediction. As a reminder, participants were shown random pairs of teams and they had to predict which one of them would end up higher on the final team ranking. There were 360 such pairings for PT, 500 for PCT and 400 for CT. The score on which the teams were then ranked was the percentage of "duels" they won.
Here's the PT ranking:
Rank
Team
Score
1.
Team Puma - SAP
93
2.
Evonik - ELCO
90
3.
King Power
85
4.
EA Vesuvio
82
5.
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
66
6.
Polar
61
7.
ELCO - ABEA
57
8.
Moser - Sygic
57
9.
Grieg - Maersk
55
10.
Gazelle
53
11.
Aker - MOT
52
12.
MOL Cycling Team
48
13.
Lidl - Trek
40
14.
cycleYorkshire
39
15.
ISA - Hexacta
39
16.
Rabobank
33
17.
ZARA - Irizar
28
18.
Amaysim Australia.com
26
19.
Cedevita
20
20.
Binance
18
21.
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
18
22.
Minions
17
A very distinct Top 4 and a somewhat distinct Bottom 4-7 with a big midfield in the middle. Some interesting differences between this and MacC's prediction are ELCO - ABEA (7th here vs 17th), cycleYorkshire (14th here vs 2nd) and the flip of ISA and Minions (ISA 15th here, Minions 22nd vs 22nd and 16th). Maybe there's a "name recognition" bias in favor of the more established teams in this method?
PCT:
Rank
Team
Score
1.
Los Pollos Hermanos
92
2.
Xero Racing
88
3.
Fastned
87
4.
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
83
5.
Sony - Force India
74
6.
Indosat Ooredoo
70
7.
Team UBS - Tissot
69
8.
Assa Abloy
60
9.
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
58
10.
Jura GIANTS
58
11.
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
56
12.
Bralirwa - Stevens
54
13.
Kraftwerk Man Machine
53
14.
Sauber Petronas Racing
50
15.
Tryg - Gobik
48
16.
Lampre - Pinarello
36
17.
DK Zalgiris
35
18.
Zwift Pro Cycling
35
19.
Colombini Cycling
32
20.
McCormick Pro Cycling
29
21.
Glanbia
18
22.
Spark-BNZ Racing
12
23.
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
8
24.
Trans Looney Tunes
7
Again (interestingly) a clearcut Top 4 and 4 teams at the bottom with some distance, too. Genii and Trans look especially in trouble. No huge differences compared to the individual predictions, except maybe Xero's very high placing, and DuckDuckGo is viewed more favorably here, compared to McCormick for instance who are a few places lower than in some of the other previews.
Tafjord Kraft won every single pairing, Gjensidige also was favored overwhelmingly, and then it gets muddy really, really fast. Air New Zealand is third but with only 66% of pairings won (compare that to the other two divisions). If this prediction holds, we could see an incredibly tight promotion race. Würth is viewed a bit more scepically here than by Fab and Laurens, as is Caja Rural, while JEWA is the surprise in the Top 5.
), but yeah, why not give everyone something to laugh about? 
