The next race for me was the Giro del Trentino. Having not much experience with the Italian mountains, the team and myself though it would be good for me to get some before starting in the Giro. After Ion won stage 1, we rode a pretty good Team Time-Trial. On stage 3 there was a lack of communication, which led to me working for Ion, while I should have gone for myself. I still managed to finish inside the top 20, but lost a lot of time. On stage 5 I had the team working for me, but the competition was too strong at this moment. In the end I think it was a good week for the team and I got some good experience. I finished 14th in the GC and 2nd in the Youth Classification behind Bardet.
The next race was the Giro d'Italia, which is one of my main objectives this season. More about that in the next update.
The commentators called this a transfer stage. We call it a chance for a breakaway!
Gorka Izagirre became our man in the break and he made sure to conserve a lot of energy for the finale where he took a very fine 3rd place in teh sprint after coming from far behind just a few 100 m before the line.
A while since I've raced, so it's a matter of building form again. I'm riding the Tour of Luxembourg as a preparation for the Belgian National Championships. It won't be easy, as I have no teammates, but the course should suit me well, so I aim for a top 5, since Accent Jobs, Crelan and Topsport are boycvtting the race. There might be chances.
But first Luxembourg. It opened with a short prologue, and the manager told me to take it easy. A bit too easy perhaps, as I finished last. I was embarrassed and the team mates had a good laugh, but well, I wasn't going to win it anyway. My form wasn't that good yet and I hate time trialing, so the next day it was forgotten already.
The second day we would go for Lobato, our top sprinter. Unfortunately there was a big crash in the sprint preparation and I was held up. Without his leadout, JJ just missed the win. Very unfortunate of course, with a bit more help from me he could've won. I decided to give the sprint another go, but so was Paul Martens and he beat me. I'm really starting to dislike Belkin. They won't give me anything this season.
On stage 3 we decided to spice things up a bit. Together with Igor and Ion, I attacked on the hills, and we caused some huge splits in the peloton.
But Fuglsang was too far out by then, the other teams didn't really want to help chase him down. We would be sprinting for second.
No! Not second again! This stage could've been mine, as I won the sprint so easily. I feel my first win is very close, but I just need to get lucky one day. Well, two more days to try something here, but at least I feel reassured for the Belgian National Championship. The road race of course, there's no way I'm doing another time trial. Right, Mr. Etxeberdea?
I have actually signed you up for the Belgian ITT as well as I want us to be represented in as many races as possible and I believe that it will help you become the darling of the Flemish if they see you around more.
And after all you would need to take a ride to keep the legs warm before the RR anyway so I figured it might as well be with an audience?
Consider it an ordinary training ride as you would have taken anyway - I have absolutely no expectations when it comes to results.
Also training your TT wouldn't hurt your chances in small hilly/cobbles stage races which often has a prologue...
It is about time I tell you about my time in Italy. Before the start of the Giro d'Italia, I was quite nervous as I never been in a race that lasted 3 weeks. However, it was a great experience for me.
The first week did not go as planned. While I am not bad on hills, I hoped to limit my time loss after seeing all those hills in the early stages. I was not meant to be and I was already around 30 minutes behind after week 1.
Week 2 started not great, still recovering from the disappointment of week 1. Being close to an hour behind, I decided to try my luck in the breakaway on stage 13. With around 25 kilometers to go until we reach the finish in Cherasco, my rear wheel slipped away on a small downhill section and gone was my chance at the victory. I would finish 6th, which was not bad, but I was left wondering what could have been if I had not crashed.
Stage 14 was to be my best day in this Giro. With a MTF on the Jafferau, this was my kind of profile. The cold weather and snow did not bother me at all and I was able to climb with the best riders of this race. Although some were better than me, I still managed to hold on and grab a 4th place. Surely this is my best result so far in my career.
After that, is was week 3 and along the way to Brescia, there were some great mountains. It was an amazing experience to ride over the Gavia and the Stelvio where I finished 23rd and finish atop Tre Cime di Lavaredo, where I finished 17th.
So all in all it was not bad, but I had hoped for more in my first Grand Tour. I was extremely happy that I was able to bounce back after a bad start. Still I feel a bit sad for letting my team down.
You shouldn't feel bad about the Giro. You did great with the two top 10's and you proved that had you just been spared for accidents you could have ridden a very solid GC. Sometimes that's just how cycling is...
We were very active right from the start of this the first RR stage here with Aberasturi going after the break.
Urtasun tried with a late attack but in spite of a huge crash, which held Rudy and a lot others back it came to something resembling a bunch sprint.
Lobato put in a massive spritn almost taking the win, only to see Roelandts and Calzone pass him right on the line.
Antón and Izagirre lost time to the front group, but gained time on most other pre-race favourites.
It’s been a busy month for us with every single rider in action for the first time.
To start with we had five stages left of Giro d’Italia. The boys continued the style with lots of attacking and we were rewarded with two podiums from Izagirre and Astarloza while the slim chance of a GC top 20 for Verdugo disappeared. Still we were given 4/5 in the post-giro review and without the time losses from the first week a lot of things would have looked very different in the end for us!
After that some of our less well-known riders were racing the first race in the Domestique Racing Series. We entered the race as favourites with Rubén Pérez and with Rubén taking the win and Ricardo García finishing 8th we proved that we are one of the teams with the best depth in spite of our lack of superstars.
We are currently racing Criterium du Dauphiné where we are aiming for a GC top 10 with Nieve and Sánchez in the leading roles. Nieve did great to finish 3rd on stage 1, but from there things have deteriorated and with two stages left we still need to gain a fair amount of time in order to achieve our goal. And that’s even supposed to be an easy one…
Still Gorka Izagirre carried on his good form from the Giro and rewarded us with another podium after some very active and aggressive riding from the entire team so that’s nice to see at least!
Meanwhile in Tour de Suisse we have the same goal. This time with Cristiano getting another chance for proving that our faith in him as a GC rider is not all in vain.
He has shown some good consistency and currently sits at 9th place in spite of only getting one stage top 10 in the first 5 stages.
Finally we are also riding in Skoda-Tour de Luxembourg where we have sent a strong team led by Rudy Verboven, Ion Izagirre and Igor Antón with especially the latter having something to prove.
Ion got us a good 9th on the prologue and the team followed it up with a beautiful podium for Lobato on the first real stage.
Oh and then Ioannis and Tarik travelled home to pick up their NC-jerseys. Tamouridis beat one other rider while Chaoufi was the only one, who showed up for the races.
May Rankings
First Name
Last Name
Days
Points
Gorka
Izagirre
11
70
Mikel
Astarloza
7
40
Mikel
Nieve
6
30
Juan José
Lobato
3
17
Cristiano
de las Campos
10
12
Samuel
Sánchez
6
12
Ion
Izagirre
2
5
Pablo
Urtasun
2
5
Spoiler
Adrián
Sáez de Arregi
10
0
Robert
Vrecer
10
0
Miguel
Mínguez
7
0
Juan José
Oroz
7
0
Pello
Bilbao
6
0
Garikoitz
Bravo
6
0
Ricardo
García
6
0
Egoi
Martínez
6
0
Ricardo
Mestre
6
0
André
Schulze
6
0
Romain
Sicard
6
0
Jorge
Azanza
5
0
Jure
Kocjan
5
0
Mikel
Landa
5
0
Ioannis
Tamouridis
5
0
Gorka
Verdugo
5
0
Jon
Aberasturi
2
0
Igor
Antón
2
0
Rudy
Verboven
2
0
Tarik
Chaoufi
1
0
Rubén
Pérez
1
0
Stefan
Radochla
1
0
Riders not mentioned did not race this month. Full rankings can be found in post #2
Rider of the Month
While we didn’t get any wins this month a lot of our guys tried hard. One tried a bit harder than most and was rewarded with a podium in both the Giro (making it two there) and in an otherwise disappointing Romandie.
Gorka Izagirre
Coming Up
Mainly we will see the finish of Romandie, Suisse and Luxembourg, which should be very exciting for us all three of them.
Apart from that we are looking forward to the national championships still to be raced.
Verboven could be an outsider to do something in the Belgian championships even though he will have a hard time being the only rider in orange there.
For the Spanish championships we have sent a strong team with several possible winners among. Could this be the year we finally get on top of Spain?
Something Basque
Many have told their story of our enchanting country throughout the years.
This month we bring you groundbreaking movie director Orson Welles' take on the subject:
In advance this looked like either a sprint stage or a breakaway stage.
It turned ou to be the latter.
We took it fairly easy which resulted in a time loss to some of the biggest names but nothing to our closest GC rivals.
Igor and Rusy both tried to get away from the peloton in the late part of the stage after Astarloza had tried earlier.
In the end Fuglsang was too strong, but Rudy won the pelotons sprint with Ion on 5th place.
Another stage designed for Rudy...
The boys worked hard all day, but no one felt like helping us chase the bunch sprint and in the end the break was too strong for us to chase down alone.
Rudy once again won the pelotons sprint getting him another top 10. Not a bad effort, but he could do with a bit of luck soon...
No one felt like challenging Tarik in spite of him having a less than impressive season. Nice for him to get to wear the NC-jersey in both road races and TT's.
The Greek championships were a duel between Ioannis and Ioannis.
Our Ioannis Tamouridis were the strongest in both RR and TT giving us another two jerseys.
The first country where we had more than one rider taking part.
In the TT we had nothing to offer, but Jure did good to win the pelotons sprint in the RR. Just too bad Mezgec had gone solo...
In the TT Rudy only took part to show good will towards the local fans and get his legs warm for the RR. Sometimes taking part is enough...
He did really well to show the jersey in the RR though by being part of teh favouries group/battle for a long time to eventually finish 8th far ahead of established riders like Boonen, Monfort and Vanendert.
Two our great surprise neither Schulze nor Radochla were the worst TT'ers in Germany. Still a´both among the 4 worst though...
They weren't even the worst riders in the RR as they managed to beat Schwarzmann, who was taken down by the wet roads a couple of times. Two against one in the sprint for 37th wer more than they could hande so they finished 38th and 39th out of 40 riders. Not something that brought them closer to getting a new contract...
Ion did great to finish 4th in a vrey hard TT proving his great talent once again.
For the RR we had a lot of doubts about what to do. One one hand we want to show Spain that Euskadi is superioir, one the other hand none of our Basque riders really feels like having to wear the imperial Spanish flag for an entire year. The solution was to make Sánchez and Lobato captains.
JJ went in teh break, no one managed to catch them and with JJ being one of the best Spanish sprinters he didn't have too much trouble taking a glorious win!
After that we only had the French championships left, where we didn't expect much from Romain.
In the TT he lived up to the expectations by finishing last, but in the RR he had other plans!
He went in the early break to show his precense, and to great surprise none of the French teams felt like really going after the jersey and by tactical clever racing Sicard managed to take the win!!
That also secures him a spot in his home Grand Tour, wher he hopefully will show the jersey in several breaks.
The Belgian National Championships didn't go as I hoped. Most of all, I was asked to start in the time trial. I know my results weren't that good, but this was a very cruel punishment. The roadrace was a bit better, but I lacked teammates once again. Gilbert was the favourite and took the jersey again.
Better news from the other countries. JJ took the win in Spain, a very nice victory for a very talented rider. Romain took France, a huge suprise. Finaly, Ioannis and Tarik won their races as well, so I think it wasn't all too bad.
Compared to May June was fairly quiet with three races to finish and some national championships to race.
In Dauphiné Samuel got a good stage podium, but faield to gain any time in the GC resulting in a very disappointing 11th place in the GC for him.
In the Tour de Suisse we were in for a more defensive race fighting to defend Cristiano’s spot in the GC top 10. There were no big stage highlights but his big heart got him/us the 10th place we so needed. A very good effort by our young Navarran climber.
We had gone to Tour de Luxembourg with big ambitions for Antón, Izagirre and Verboven. Igor failed to show himself properly while Verboven got three stage top 10’s including a podium and Ion managed to defend his spot in the GC top 10 even though he failed to gain the three seconds needed to win the young riders classification. All in all a decent race from the boys, though a win of some sort would have been nice…
In the national championships we had a surprisingly good run winning 6 jerseys from four countries including two “home” wins for us proving that we have the best of both Spain and France.
April Rankings
First Name
Last Name
Days
Points
Cristiano
de las Campos
4
125
Ion
Izagirre
3
45
Samuel
Sánchez
2
30
Rudy
Verboven
3
22
Gorka
Verdugo
9
0
Spoiler
Adrián
Sáez de Arregi
4
0
Mikel
Landa
4
0
Pello
Bilbao
4
0
Ricardo
García
4
0
Jure
Kocjan
4
0
Robert
Vrecer
4
0
André
Schulze
4
0
Juan José
Oroz
3
0
Jon
Aberasturi
3
0
Mikel
Astarloza
3
0
Igor
Antón
3
0
Pablo
Urtasun
3
0
Juan José
Lobato
3
0
Mikel
Nieve
2
0
Egoi
Martínez
2
0
Garikoitz
Bravo
2
0
Miguel
Mínguez
2
0
Gorka
Izagirre
2
0
Ricardo
Mestre
2
0
Romain
Sicard
2
0
Riders not mentioned did not race this month. Full rankings can be found in post #2
Rider of the Month
Having the officially best rider in Spain on our team is a big symbolic thing for both the team and the country. For that reason there can only be one rider of the month:
Juan José Lobato
Coming Up
First we will have to go through some training. Also there will probably soon be another race in the Basque Championship Race Series.
For the “real racing” we have two big races coming up soon with both Tour de France and Clasica San Sebastian around the corner.
In the Tour we will send a team mainly chasing stage wins similar to the Giro-squad while we will be sending the strongest team possible for our home classic around San Sebastian – a race where we really want to do well!
Something Basque
A while back our country was visited by The Guardian, who wanted to see how we manage to preserve our culture in spite of being under pressure from the regime(s) in Madrid.
The Basque cycling fans have some brilliant memories of l’Alpe d’Huez with Laiseka and Mayo’s wins.
Now they will get some more memories as the next race in the Basque Country Championships Series, which will travel from Gap over Alpe d’Huez and back finishing on top of this legendary mountain.
In acknowledgement of the fact that the assigned domestiques have had a hard time understanding their role as pure helpers we have decided to pull them and Orbea will be sponsoring the extra team that comes from that. Should anyone want to get their domestique back in spite of his tendency to attack rather than help feel free to say so. If any two small teams (less than 3 riders) want to merge for these races that will be allowed as well.
Gorka Nieve doesn't mind fighting on his own, especially if it means that without a teammate he'll actaully try something. So I'd prefer no teammate honestly. Edited by Shonak on 11-07-2014 10:39
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Seems like the Basque series are quite a success. I was wondering, since I'm a rider in the team, if I would be allowed to start in one of the upcoming hilly ones? I could be team Flandria or something.
Samuel Sánchez
Chris Froome
Romain Sicard
Ricardo Mestre
Matteo Rabottini
Michał Kwiatkowski
Jure Kocjan
André Schulze
Nairo Quintana
Jakob Fuglsang
Jürgen Roelandts
Naveed Alinejad
Morocco 
.jpg)
