Yup, Robert paved himself on the first position in GC by that win. Now, we're just hoping for at least one podium by Boy van Poppel!

What can i say? Flat stage without any hills in it. Most likely going to finish in mass sprint, but the gaps in GC are big so breakaway has its chances here aswell.




The breakaway was launched early and few strong guys are in it. Besides other, there are Vaugrenard and our youngster Eugenio Alafaci. This looks like great group!



The group reached 8 minutes of advantage at one point and it's becoming really interesting race now. We'll just skip to 3 kilometers to go, where the guys from BOTD were still in front. Alafaci is still there.



Meanwhile, only one train was created in peloton and it was once again Cannondale's one. Marcato looking great today, again. However, Van Poppel has bad placing this time, as he's way behind. It's going to be hard way for him to get on top now.



The group caught Alafaci and now there's only one guy from previous break at the front. It's Vaugrenard, who was clearly the strongest one from BOTD and he's still in 50 meters advantage. Guys passed under the 1km banner and they're now about 300-400 meters away from finish. Can French keep this advantage and get solo victory?



Sprint started and guys behind literally ate that advantage and neutralised it in few seconds. It's now clear that the stage winner will be someone from mass sprint. Van Poppel got good position, but road is narrow and he's blocked. Not looking good for us...



Very close sprint at the end. Boeckemans, Marcato and 2 Europcar guys - Yannick Martinez and Yohann Gene are there, fighting for win. It's really , really close sprint. Photofinish system will have to work again,i guess.



But at the end, the king of late sprints , Marco Marcato gets the win. It's his 2nd in the row here and he secures the blue jersey, points one!



Van Poppel finishes behind, probably somewhere on 7th-8th position. GC is of course, still the same.

1	Marco Marcato	Cannondale	3h09'38
2	Yannick Martinez	Team Europcar	s.t.
3	Kris Boeckmans	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
4	Yohann Gène	Team Europcar	s.t.
5	Kenny Van Hummel	Androni Giocattoli	s.t.
6	Brett Lancaster	Orica GreenEdge	s.t.
7	Geoffrey Soupe	FDJ.fr	s.t.
8	Boy Van Poppel	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
9	Manuel Belletti	Androni Giocattoli	s.t.
10	Daniel Biedermann	RC Gourmetfein Wels	s.t.

As the guy who has 59 MO, van Poppel really struggled on these 2 mountain stages, but he's now slightly recovering and should be able to score some more points for Trek!

Thanks Shonak, means alot. I am really giving my best atm to keep this alive and looks good + i have some motivation i never had before = my longest and best story in future, hopefully.

The rumours around the team brings us some pretty interesting topic that was active last few days and it's about Busche's wage. Rumours says that Busche isn't happy with his current wages and role he's got and he certainly mentioned that he's guy for big stuff and not for helping someone else.



Although he got the win on 5th stage of Tour Down Under and the s eason literally just started, there are few rumours that Busche might be leaving if he doesn't find the common ground with Team Manages about his next -years role and his wages. Still alot to come, so this doesn't have to mean anything.


This is surely thing that shocked world of cycling and it's something pretty new. Carlos Alberto Betancur, a Colombian climber who currently rides for WT team AG2R La Mondiale clearly expressed his dissatisfaction with schedule Team Managers selected for him and he indirectly said that he's probably going to leave the team at the end of current season.



The problem arose when it got announced that Betancur won't lead the team in the Tour this year, since the team has to meet sponsor goals and set a French as a leader. That infuriated Betancur, who said this in an open interview: " I am really disappointed with current situation. All i'll say is that i am probably going to leave the team if the things don't dramaticly changed in next few weeks."

As the teams that lacks real leader, Trek Factory Racing, as well as Giant Shimano and Cannondale are interested in getting this rider. We'll surely update you about this situation, as this might be the chance for our team to rise up again!

Betancur is surely one of our main targets this season, as the team lacks real climbing and stage-racing leader. We won't let him go to some other team that easy.

One in many Belgian 1.1 classics. This time, a bit more cobbles than in KBK, but nothing serious once again. Endurance riders and riders with cobblestone as their main ability should try something, but this should be finished in mass sprint.




The profile is mainly flat in first part, but when riders enter the 2nd part of the race, precisely last 100 kilometers, the "problems" for non-climbers starts. Circuit race starts there and there's one climb in that circuit, that shouldn't drop all the guys, but can make problems to few of them.

Surprsingly, startlist isn't that strong today. Actually, "Big 3" (Boonen, Cancellara and Vanmarcke) all decided not to race this one. But that doesn't mean we won't have some fun watching this, as there are alot of other guys that are excellent on cobbles aswell. Some of them are Stannard, Phinney, Rast, Wynants, Van Keisbruck, Hayman...



Our team isn't so strong here either, but we have our 2nd best cobbler here, with rest of our Spring - Classic squad also participating. The race can be finished in mass-sprint aswell, so Danny van Poppel is our first pick for that case. All in all, one pretty good squad for us here.



That's pretty much it for this preview, see ya on the field.

DS of Trek FR, admirschleck

Hmm, read the report below to check if we met your expectations.

4°C currently in Belgium and it's raining! This is literally first time we feel the rain this year. We hope it will bring us luck and that we'll get the podium today, at least.




As in every other classic, the breakaway group was created from the moment race started. Big group of guys decided to make a move and try something from the top of the race and they look pretty good so far. Most important name and biggest threat here is Van der Sande from Lotto.



Calm ride from guys before the first cobbles. 70 kilometers to go and Geslin, Boucher and Amorison are trying to escape. These guys are not the top favourites, so peloton lets them go.



5 minutes od advantage was not big problem for them, as they caught the breakaway of the day group soon. This group now looks really good.



Of course, we couldn't just sit and wait, so we decided to do some relays instead. Together with OPQS, Trek team started decreasing that gap.



40 kilometers to go and they're caught. That surely doesn't mean inactive race until the end. It was actually more active from that point. Van Keisbruck, followed by Hayman, Phinney and Breschel makes a move.



We decided to skip the attack and focus on mass-sprint and chasing. Our team did everything to catch them and got close to only 200-300 meters to E1 group, but we couldn't catch them. Our guys were too exhausted.

Phinney, as he saw the rest of E1 group is pretty much tired, decided to make move try racing on his own.



Pretty good show from him, as he gained time quickly. The rest of group got caught by peloton and it's now Phinney vs Peloton - 3 kilometers to go and American has 28 seconds of advantage. His chances are increasing by every meter he passes!



And, of course, he won this. Great solo, literally ITT ride from Phinney and he managed to get the win here. He was so tired at the end, he couldn't even raise his hands!



Group was really close, but at the end, they could only fight for 2nd position. We actually got the best result in that fight, as Danny van Poppel won mass sprint and got the 2nd place!



Pretty solid race from us, few more points in rankings and 2nd position once again.

1	Taylor Phinney	BMC Racing Team	4h43'19
2	Danny Van Poppel	Trek Factory Racing	+ 28
3	Matteo Trentin	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
4	Andriy Grivko	Astana Pro Team	s.t.
5	Nikolas Maes	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
6	Jens Keukeleire	Orica GreenEdge	s.t.
7	Guillaume Van Keirsbulck	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
8	Jens Debusschere	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
9	Iljo Keisse	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
10	Koen De Kort	Team Giant - Shimano	s.t.

I would firstly like to thank you all for support. Never had this big support and i am just not used to it, so i am writing all of these "Thank you all" messages. Hope it's not problem.

Thanks on great words about reports, the_hoyle. Good to see you here, hope you'll continue to follow this one.

Great result for Danny van Poppel there. He's getting some good results, unlike his brother who's searching for his form in Malaysia. Shonak, there are 2 van Poppels, Boy who's in Malaysia and Danny who raced Le Samyn.

As all of last 3 stages in Tour de Langkawi finished in win of breakaway, i decided to post them all in one, with only screenshot of winner and small description. Hope that's okay, since nothing really important happened in these 3 stages.




10 riders group decided to make a move and create breakaway of the day group. Peloton let them go and it was pretty clear that breakaway will win this. We decided to skip todays attack, so we didn't have any rider in that BOTD group. Loh, Malaysian rider from Giant Shimano took the win here, as he was clearly the fastest in the sprint.



De Clerq and Arredondo had a crash there, and they both moved down in gc. Arredondo was 9th then, while De Clerq gone out of Top 10.




Only 2 stages left until the end of the longest 2.HC race in Calendar. Once again, breakaway group made it to the end. Today, we decided to send Didier to attack, so he joined 7 members group at the front.



At the end, Vaugrenard made solo move and captured the win here. Didier finished 4th, in very close sprint for 2nd place. He only needed few centimeters for 2nd position od podium. But it's all cycling...




Last stage and absolutely the same group is in front again, but this time we have 2 riders up there - Laurent Didier and Eugenio Alafaci. Vaugrenard is once again here, trying to win this.



And, at the end, he once again managed to win this as clearly the best rider in the BOTD. But this time, Eugenio Alafaci got 2nd place with some good sprint abilities.

And that was all for this edition of Tour de Langkawi. For final results, look below.

1	Robert Kiserlovski	Trek Factory Racing	33h42'51
2	Damiano Caruso	Cannondale	+ 2'08
3	Fredrik Kessiakoff	Astana Pro Team	+ 3'57
4	Riccardo Zoidl	Trek Factory Racing	+ 6'00
5	Arnold Jeannesson	FDJ.fr	+ 6'14
6	Dries Devenyns	Team Giant - Shimano	+ 6'44
7	Stef Clement	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	s.t.
8	Alexsandr Dyachenko	Astana Pro Team	+ 7'04
9	Julian Arredondo	Trek Factory Racing	+ 8'51
10	David De la Fuente	Torku Seker Spor	+ 10'17

Shonak, there are 2 van Poppels, Boy who's in Malaysia and Danny who raced Le Samyn.

the_hoyle wrote:
Admir... These reports are fantastic! Just caught from my last post (on page 4) and the story is great. Easy to read, fun to follow and some great results