Massive changes indeed. Wiszniowski is no Zepuntke but together with other superstars like Mohoric and even Preidler you should manage to stay in PT easily. I really like Konychev as well for that 'unexpected' big performance in a flat classic, and your TTT setup seems nice as well. Congratulations on a nice (and fun to follow) transfer window
@Eden95 and bbl: Yeah, I've got big expectations for Kragh, hopefully he'll be able to do similar to what he did for Grieg-Maersk. At least he'll get the same opportunities, taking on flat classics and races without a sprinter present.
@Abhishek and Nemolito: Konychev could indeed be fun to watch in flat races, after all he showed last season already in the PCT that he can pull off something special. I'm excited for TTTs this season, but also nervous. The FA market didn't go quite as I hoped for, as I hoped to bring in slightly more allround TT types, but in the end we ended up using a lot of spots for pure time trialists. Not sure how it'll play out, but at least we get to see it Fingers crossed you're right we'll be able to stay up! Think we need Preidler and/or Amezawa to be kind of lucky in Grand Tour and stage races, being allowed to chase stages and be aggressive, similar to what Preidler did last season.
With the transfer season done, we are happy to present our goals for the 2022 season.
Goals for 2022
Win
Tour de France
Win
Chrono d'Arenberg
Top 3
Ronde van Vlaanderen
Top 10
Paris-Roubaix
Top 10
Team Standings
Win Tour de France
Win the most prestigous race there is. It won't happen this year, we'll be the first to admit just that. If we're honest, the one extra goal cost this win goal gives over the other Grand Tours made this one an obvious one for us, as we went into the transfer season without any targetted stage racer. In the end, we signed Preidler, and even kept Amezawa. Who knows, race planning could see them both line up at the Tour, but if so, it will be with top 10 GC and a stage win as our goals.
Win Chrono d'Arenberg
This one is important for us. It's a tailor made race for Hampus Anderberg, who we've developed from the very start of his career. He won the race last season, and we hope he can repeat his brilliant performance. If not, we have a plan B up our sleeve who is named Lukasz. Fingers crossed this is a goal we can succeed!
Top 3 Ronde van Vlaanderen
Out of the race goals except for our Tour de France, this one could be tricky. It was between this and to win the time trial showdown in the Czech Republic, and when we managed to land Lukasz Wisniowski, it was obvious we had to pick De Rone as our goal race. We'll be all in for Wisniowski, hoping he has a great day and podiums the race.
Top 10 Paris-Roubaix
This one feels very doable. Admittedly we picked it as an ambitious goal for Anderberg, but seeing how transfer season went, we'll show up for this one full of confidence. Wisniowski won it back in 2019, and we'll definitely try to win it this year. His win in 2019 was the only edition since 2015 that a group of 5 or less riders fought for the win on the velodrome. Other than that, the clear development goes towards a sprint on the velodrome, which doesn't suit neither Wisniowski nor Anderberg. Though, that won't stop us from trying, and a top 10 will be our minimum target on the day.
Top 10 Team Standings
This one will be difficult as a promoted team. We hope to fight for a top 10 in the standings, but it will take a lot of great performances, both from our obvious leaders like Wisniowski and Mohoric, but also from riders like Preidler, Amezawa and Kragh. We hope to get results through aggressive racing, trying our luck up the road in races were we don't have a clear, recognized leader, which will be for a lot of races, both Grand Tours, stage races and flat classics.
Transfer season is officially done, and we've been able to have 25 riders on contract for 2022. Six of them are loanees.
Massive changes have happened. Wisniowski is our new world class leader, and we're counting on him to make ourselves known on the cobbles in the Pro Tour. Admittedly we hoped to give him slightly more support on the cobbles, but our wage budget had to be spent elsewhere.
We're also very much depending on a good season from Mohoric, though, admittedly he has got very few race days that suits him well. He'll race another year on a sub-optimal calendar, as we didn't really pick PTHC bands with him in our minds. Hopefully he can find way to score points! Preidler is our third new leader. He had a brilliant 2021 with MOL, and we're hoping he can do similar stuff for us, being aggressive and taking his chances in a Grand Tour.
Except for those three, who are our clear leaders, we count on Anderberg, Amezawa and Foss to score smaller points for us. Especially the latter could provide some U26 points too, and they'll all get chances to score points, not riding for a clear leader. Our final obvious points scoring source, is our team time trial setup. Admittedly, looking at the Pro Tour division, we're nowhere close to the best teams, but hopefully we should still be able to score decent in races like Tour de Slovenie, Deutschland Tour, Praha-Karlovy Vary-Praha, Chrono des Herbiers and Copenhagen-Malmo TTT. We've prioritized TTTs heavily this transfer season, meaning we really need our TTT unit to score points, as it has costed us significant depth in the mountains and for the hills, limiting our scoring potential in Grand Tours and difficult stage races a lot. Fingers crossed the gamble will create some highlights and see us stay away from the relegation zone. If it doesn't we could be in serious trouble.
Nat.
Name
FL
MO
HI
TT
ST
RS
RC
CB
SP
AC
FG
DH
PR
OVR
Age
Wage
Lukasz Wisniowski
80
69
71
74
75
76
71
83
73
76
74
73
77
80,44
31
760k
Matej Mohoric
72
71
83
64
78
72
72
50
67
77
71
79
64
79,03
28
490k
Georg Preidler
68
80
78
58
71
77
76
50
50
69
73
81
58
77,67
32
300k
Takeaki Amezawa
68
77
77
64
76
78
80
60
68
75
72
69
60
77,23
27
250k
Hampus Anderberg
78
64
69
76
77
76
77
78
60
73
70
62
76
76,91
26
220k
Tobias Foss
69
78
72
76
77
79
79
66
60
69
68
66
72
76,62
25
160k
Alberto Dainese
74
62
68
60
73
75
77
63
79
80
64
70
63
76,53
24
82,5k
Steven Lammertink
74
64
69
80
70
76
70
65
63
68
74
68
79
76,3
29
165k
Andreas Vangstad
74
72
70
77
74
75
74
60
65
68
74
74
76
75,07
30
95k
Giorgi Nareklishvili
74
68
69
78
70
74
69
67
66
67
76
58
76
74,69
29
210k
Soren Kragh Andersen
81
62
65
70
77
78
72
65
76
74
72
71
83
74,37
28
125k
Lasse Norman Hansen
77
59
65
77
74
73
70
56
73
80
72
67
79
74,17
30
60k
Alexander Kamp
73
64
74
60
74
75
70
63
71
74
72
71
65
74,08
29
50k
Jaka Primozic
68
74
73
66
77
76
77
61
66
73
72
67
67
74,01
24
22k
Davide Ballerini
73
64
71
57
73
71
72
71
74
80
74
72
57
73,97
28
50k
Edison Bravo
70
70
76
64
74
73
70
55
65
70
71
71
66
73,86
30
50k
Daniel Eaton
75
62
69
77
74
76
74
67
62
68
70
66
77
73,79
29
50k
Yuan Tan Peng
75
59
64
72
74
73
73
75
69
73
63
67
72
73,65
29
50k
Airidas Videika
74
63
65
66
68
67
72
73
74
79
51
65
68
73,63
28
50k
Brent Van Moer
74
61
69
77
74
76
68
69
58
65
67
68
77
73,51
24
50k
Andreas Stokbro
73
62
69
66
73
72
65
74
69
71
69
67
66
73,36
25
39k
Aaron Van Poucke
68
75
73
63
70
72
66
60
67
72
73
69
65
73,3
24
26k
Andreas Hofer
73
58
65
78
74
72
68
55
63
68
75
64
78
73,23
31
50k
Alexander Konychev
80
61
66
60
76
76
65
63
74
73
76
61
71
72,96
24
32,5k
Sandy Dujardin
69
62
67
58
70
74
65
64
69
74
67
73
64
70,5
25
50k
We're super excited for our comeback season in the Pro Tour! We're hoping to have a great time, and hopefully we can bring in enough points to enjoy the PT fun also in the future
Forgot to note the Alexander Kamp signing before! Very cool. MG UCI seemed to rework him a bit and max him this year - he had slightly lower hill and higher sprint last time I checked when he rode for my amateur team. Quite a nice little 50k domestique now.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Congrats on the Wisniowski signing. As a fellow returning PT team with a focus on the cobbles, I'm not looking forward to him kicking our butts all year . You've done a nice job with your TTT line-up as well!
That's a great squad to go back into PT with. Think you did an excellent job turning it around in transfers. Think a top half finish or even better should be very realistic
Love how you've taken to PT after your awesome PCT squad which I think I have written enough about how cool it was. Sad to see Aker without Galta but Wisniowski is one hell of a way to get me back on board loving your team And so is keeping Amezawa <3
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
The 2022 season has come to an end, and we must say it has been a great comeback to the Pro Tour for us. Finishing as the 4th best team was above both expectation and hope, which makes our position a pleasant surprise.
For our goal races, it's far from all glory, though:
Tour de France
Win
17th place
Tirreno-Adriatico
Win
16th place
Chrono d'Arenberg
Win
5th place
Paris-Roubaix
Top 10
6th place
Team standings
Top 10
4th place
Team standings
Top 10
4th place
Our top 10 goal in the standings was never threatened after our brilliant Tour de France, where loanee Alberto Dainese got his real breakthrough, even as an unmaxed rider. The Italian wonderkid sprinter gave us two stage wins and also the green jersey, and he did it all by himself, as his support was very limited.
Paris-Roubaix
Top 10
6th place
Our top 10 goal in Paris-Roubaix should also be an easy one seeing our lineup there. We must admit we hoped for much more, but in the end, Wisniowski wasn't on the best of days, and he had to accept 6th place in the end, in a race won by David Per.
Chrono d'Arenberg
Win
5th place
This was a goal made for Hampus Anderberg, seeing how he won the race in dominant fashion in 2021. This year he was up against greater opposition though, and he could only land 5th at the end of the day. Patrick Gamper won the race quite comfortably in the end.
Tirreno-Adriatico
Win
16th place
Tirreno-Adriatico as our win goal was a gamble we did pre transfer season last year. It was either to win Tirreno, or to win Praha-Karlovy Vary-Praha. It's easy to say we went for the wrong race, eventhough our winning chances in the latter would have been even smaller, we could have made a top 10 there with Lammertink. In Tirreno-Adriatico, we must admit we weren't close to anything, as we didn't have riders suited for the tough hilly/mountain stages. Mohoric gave us 16th in the overall at the end, which was one by Gidich.
Tour de France
Win
17th place
Pre transfer season, we had a small hope of bringing in a true GT contender, and thus, we had to make winning the Tour a goal. Seeing how the transfer season went, we knew we could write off this goal immediately. Though, as we've already written, it was a brilliant Tour for us with Dainese putting up a show no one predicted. In the GC and in the mountains, we were very anonymous, having Tobias Foss as our best finisher in 17th place. True MG legend Silvio Herklotz won the Tour after a very dominant performance.
We're looking a lot forward to the next season, eventhough the news of Isostar and Grieg both stopping makes it a sad start to the new season. Though, it will be interesting and also exciting to see which directions all current and new teams decide to go.
What an amazing couple of seasons you've had with that awesome PCT set-up that you then turned into 4th in the PT in your first year back - that's how you do it!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
redordead, jandal and whitejersey: Thank you a lot for your kind words! Seeing the previews and comments pre season, I think it's fair to say we did better than most expected. I definitely didn't expect a top 5.
ivaneurope: We weren't sure pre transfers that we would aim for a solid TTT setup. Seeing our team last season, we had no TTT setup at all, it was quite a turnaround If we decide to continue the TTT focus, it will definitely be strongly considered to have Copenhagen-Malmö as a goal
Two goals is not amazing, but it's always hard to predict how transfer season is going to end up when there are so many ways you can/have to go as a promoting team. Most important is that you stayed in PT, and very easily in the end. Looking forward to see how you'll build on that this season, and where you'll end up.
Sykkel_Freak: Yeah, Dainese was sensational in the Tour, and the main reason we also landed a top 5. Very excited to see him maxed out next season in the PCT, eventhough he might struggle to score as big wins as this season.
Nemolito: Agree! Will be interestint to see what kind of budget this season gives us combined with only 2/5 goals. Whatever it is, work has to be done
Abhi: I’m hoping so! Though, Dainese was kind of a wildcard as a loanee, landing a lot of points we will struggle to directly replace. Thus, I’m looking forward to try to find some kind of solution, eventhough it might not give us the same type of points.
Fingers crossed you're right we'll be able to stay up! Think we need Preidler and/or Amezawa to be kind of lucky in Grand Tour and stage races, being allowed to chase stages and be aggressive, similar to what Preidler did last season.
Win 
Top 3 
Top 10 
. You've done a nice job with your TTT line-up as well!
