@ welker: this time I can hardly agree, it sounds so close....
@ sutty: exactly, and he will end it great as well
Objectives
For Gerdemann's last race this season we have to be ambitious once more for this cat 1 race:
- Overall victory,
- 1 stage,
- KoM or points.
Key Stages
Stage 3 – Hilly
First two stages have made no difference in GC. Time to create some gap.
Alberio and Butler have worked hard but then fail to stick with the very bests. That is when Gerdemann attacks Modolo and Cardoso counter and keep the gap around 1’.
Change of color for the Individual Continental Leader: white will turn yellow again.
Stage 4 – Hilly ITT – 21 km Konovalvas is the stage favourite but with such an early start he is not up to the 2nd favourite and current GC leader. He finishes 35’’ behind Gerdemann.
Classifications
Stage 1
Peter Erdin
Atlas Personal
Stage 2
Martin Elmiger
Ag2r La Mondiale
Stage 3
Linus Gerdemann
Dual Temp
Stage 4
Linus Gerdemann
Dual Temp
Stage 5
Manuel Antonio Cardoso Leal
Caja Rural
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Linus Gerdemann
Dual Temp
17h35'58
2
Manuel Antonio Cardoso Leal
Caja Rural
+ 2'27
3
Sacha Modolo
Colnago - Domina Vacanze
+ 2'53
4
Nicolas Schnyder
Price Your Bike
+ 3'39
5
Martin Elmiger
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 3'43
6
John Gadret
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 3'47
7
Olegs Melehs
Manisaspor Cycling Team
+ 3'53
8
Branislau Samoilau
Movistar Team
+ 4'14
9
Rui Alberto Costa Faria
Movistar Team
+ 4'40
10
Jan Tratnik
Adria Mobil
+ 4'57
Points - Linus Gerdemann Mountain - Alessandro De Marchi
Wrap up 3/3
- Overall victory,
- 1 stage,
- KoM or points
Linus did all the job. Butler was too short for GC and Alberio not yet in good form.
With this new great race, WT promotion is pretty much in the bag. So let's start to talk about next season and let me introduce our new banner:
If ok with you I'll use it for the next 2 seasons
Here is the next year team:
Spoiler
What is clear to me is that Smuklis is our man for the Flandriennes.
And now is time for questions: Who should ride the TdF?
Who should ride the Giro?
Who should ride the Vuelta?
Who should be our leader(s) for the Ardennaises?
Who should be our leader(s) for the early season races?
Who for the late season?
Any other advise?
TDF Leader --- No out right leader Van Garderen...stage hunters. Giro Leader ---- Gerdemann Vuelta Leader --- Poels in top shape..... Might be the best chance for a great GC Ardennes -- Van Garderen --- Alberio Early Season ---- Castroveijo--- Ovechkin-- Roelandts Late Season ---- Stetina/ Roelandts/ Butler
Tour: Stage hunting with Gerderman and Roelandts, possibly take Gatis to help position Roelandts for the flat stages.
Giro: TVG, possibly aiming for a top 10 but mainly stage hunting
Vuelta: Poels as leader for GC, TVG as a super domestique in prep for world's ITT, possibly take Castovejo for KOM jersey as home bonus would help him
Ardennes: Poels (possibly target catalunya and Basque) TVG (then let his form take a small dip through Romandie whilst he prepares for Giro)
Early Season/Late Season: Nerz and Stetina could be leaders of these, not sure which way round, it would depend on which GT you want them to help at.
Other Advice: TVG to attempt to take the World's TT Jersey. Ovechkin, Albeiro and Butler could be used as helpers across the season but could also be used to target races taking place during the GT's.
Edited by sammyt93 on 28-11-2013 12:31
@ all Thanks for your advise. Especially as you are more or less consistent in your advises. I'll present the complete planning in the next post as I got a lot of work to finalise it. Main points are:
Poels for Vuelta as everyone agreed
Then I had to decide between TVG vs Gerdemann for TdF vs Giro. I take Gerdemann for Tour
and TVG for Giro, the reason is that I do love the idea of getting a shot for TVG in the WC ITT as sammyt93 suggested.
Because of this (TVG riding the vuelta could not do 2 tours + Ardennaises it would be too much) I go with Poels for Ardennaises and also because of the big gap in the Stamina note between TVG and Poels )
Smukulis for Flandriennesas we have no choice here.
I also got The Rider's point that I should offer Alberio, Nerz, Castroviejo, Ovechkin, Stetina and Roelandts some leader roles in early/late season or in alternative races during GT. I am working on that as well
But first things first as we still have a season to complete
Welcome back to Roelandts who is preparing for the Circuit Franco-Belge.
Behind this unpronounceable name hides a cat 1 classic with cobbles. Great race for his come back!
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
John Degenkolb
Project 1t4i
4h38'33
2
Jürgen Roelandts
Dual Temp
s.t.
3
Anthony Geslin
FDJ - BigMat
s.t.
4
Tomas Vaitkus
Bretagne - Schuller
s.t.
5
Paul Voss
Endura Racing
s.t.
Modolo was the strongest and sprinted great so we can only be happy about our 2nd place on this flat category 1 classic.
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Sacha Modolo
Colnago - Domina Vacanze
4h25'19
2
Jürgen Roelandts
Dual Temp
s.t.
3
José Alberto Benitez Roman
Andalucia Caja Granada
s.t.
4
Francesco Ginanni
Acqua & Sapone
s.t.
5
Joaquin Sobrino Martinez
Caja Rural
s.t.
Modolo again but he lunched his sprint too far away and we got the win. That’s sound more than a preparation!
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Jürgen Roelandts
Dual Temp
4h10'22
2
Sacha Modolo
Colnago - Domina Vacanze
s.t.
3
Fabio Felline
Androni Giocattoli - Cipi
s.t.
4
Edoardo Girardi
Acqua & Sapone
s.t.
5
Jonathan McEvoy
Adria Mobil
s.t.
Alberio is our leader on this hilly classic and hardly managed a Top 10.
@sutty : yes and not his last one Very good season for him
Here are the races of the season:
Moving to Chrono des Nations preparations with a a couple of hilly stage and Alberio as a leader. And a descent Top 10 to start with.
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Manuele Mori
Acqua & Sapone
5h08'35
2
Giovanni Visconti
Movistar Team
s.t.
3
Andreas Klöden
Sky ProCycling
s.t.
4
Enrico Gasparotto
ProTeam Astana
s.t.
5
Rigoberto Uran
Sky ProCycling
+ 13
6
Egor Silin
ProTeam Astana
s.t.
7
Tomas Alberio
Dual Temp
s.t.
8
Rui Alberto Costa Faria
Movistar Team
s.t.
9
Nicolas Roche
Ag2r La Mondiale
s.t.
10
Sacha Modolo
Colnago - Domina Vacanze
s.t.
So close to the Top 10 on this HC race…
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Giovanni Visconti
Movistar Team
4h37'02
2
Maxime Monfort
Lampre - Isd
s.t.
3
Damiano Cunego
Lampre - Isd
s.t.
4
Blel Kadri
Ag2r La Mondiale
+ 24
5
Michele Scarponi
Lampre - Isd
+ 59
6
Manuele Mori
Acqua & Sapone
s.t.
7
Francesco Masciarelli
Acqua & Sapone
s.t.
8
Rui Alberto Costa Faria
Movistar Team
+ 1'25
9
Nicolas Roche
Ag2r La Mondiale
s.t.
10
Marcos Garcia Fernandez
Caja Rural
s.t.
11
Tomas Alberio
Dual Temp
s.t.
Last race for Roelandts. And last victory!
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Jürgen Roelandts
Dual Temp
3h49'00
2
Matteo Pelucchi
Team Europcar
s.t.
3
Samuel Dumoulin
Cofidis, le crédit en ligne
s.t.
4
Denis Flahaut
Roubaix Lille Metropole
s.t.
5
Sébastien Turgot
Team Europcar
s.t.
Our last race for this season and a big objective for both Ovechkin and Castroviejo.
Ovechkin starts early and simply crushed the competition: he doubles the rider before him and beats every intermediate time to finishes with a 1’45 lead.
He holds it until the last set of riders start. Brandle proves to be the strongest beating Ovechkin’s time for a few secs at the first intermediate. But he is down more than 30’’ at the second…
Then Castroviejo passes and claims the best time for 2’’. Not for long as Bobridge, the race favourite and last to start crushes every one’s time by 15’’ in the first intermediate!
I can even see him reducing the gap with Castroviejo from my car…
The 2nd intermediate let us no hope: Castroviejo is now second to Ovechkin until Bobridge manages a 50’’ lead.
We sure have reduced the gap in the last section but the position won’t change. 2nd and 3rd is a real deception for our last 2012 race. The strongest has won.
@ The Rider, nope, no scout here And For Modena, I should guessed, next time I will make him ride in Azebaidjan
@ welker: I have seen Menchov in La Pomme Marseille in another game so Bobridge in Roubaix
This has been a fantastic season for the team. As it is wrap up time, let’s have a look:
The progression is a long term key success factor and we have had a rather good year:
- Tomas has had the most impressive progresses +6 in RES to reach 70, +4 in MO (67), +3 in HIL (69), +1 in TT (63)
- Or may be it was Dominique? with +3 in HIL (74), +2 in MO (68), +1 in TT (69),
- Linus has a good year too given his already high notes: +3 in MO (75) will certainly make a huge difference, +3 in RES (71), +1 in HIL (73), a bit of improve in TT (stable at 72) would certainly have help though,
- Jonathan+2 in TT (77) and PRL (78) are great and completed with +1 in MO (71) and HIL (66)
- Christopher has done the minimum given his potential: +3 in MO (71), +2 in HIL (65), +2 in RES (69) but stable in TT (62),
- Artem did better than last year poor improvements: +1 in TT (76), +3 in PRL (73), +3 in RES (71) but stable in MO (71),
- Jurgen has been the real disappointment stable in SP (75), TT (68) and PRL (73), +1 in ACC (77) and HIL (65),
- Among other noticeable improvement, Alastair got +3 in HIL (67), Jeremy+3 in TT (67), Hamilton+6 in COB but still only 59 together with +1 in MO (54), HIL (60) and TT (68).
But the most important is of course the WT promotion! With 68 victories including 27 for Linus we simply were the most successful team this season. Among our greatest achievement:
- Our first WT win as Linus took a stage in the Tour of Poland,
- Our first wins in an HC race including 3 General Classification: Linus in Tour du Limousin and US Pro Cycling Challenge and Dominique in Bayern Rundfahrt,
- Our first wins in a 1 day race category 1 classic: Jurgen has won Le Samyn, GP Herning, GP Industria e Commercio di Prato and Nationale Sluitingprijs; Jonathan took the Mumbai Cyclothon,
- Our domination in lower category stage races, we won the overall GC in more than 50% of the races we have participated! Linus took 6 wins, Dominique 4, Jonathan 2 and Jurgen 1.
In the spoiler the details of all our wins.
Spoiler
With such good results it was no surprise to see our domination in the Continental ranking: 3 riders in the Top 5.
We even rank 7th in the Mondial Team ranking, 1200 points over AG2R, the 2nd promoted team and 2300 points over Project 1t4i, the 3rd Continental team in the ranking.
As far as the WT season is concerned the main surprise came from TVG who… won the Vuelta, ahead of… Poels! For the rest Contador won another Tour, Nibali another Giro. Cancellara has had a great year picking WC ITT and dominating Flandriennes with a win in Paris-Roubaix.
@ The Rider: I don't know exactly, except Loutit who has been out because of injuries all have riden more than 60, so I would say on average 65 to 70. But it will be more next year: I plan on average 67 days for the leaders (less for the one who will be leaders in the latest races, more for Sumuklis who will not be leader after the cobble season And I plan 76 days for teammates as we are short of them... We'll have to correct his for next season
@ sutty & welker: TVG has no chance to win the Vuelta but we for sure hope Poels can succeed!
So you get that I have done quite a planning for this season
On top of all WT races, we will participate to most of HC races and some cat 1 for preparation. Such a heavy schedule for 20 riders that I had to plan a trainee recruitment in August.
Poels will be our leader on 15 races and will have high goals. His main one will be to win the Vuelta! But that won’t be his only one: he is expected to claim a Top 3 in one of the Ardennaises, to win and get a Top 5 a 1-week WT race (Paris-Nice, Catalunya or Pais Vasco) and get at least 5 stages victories. Finally he is expected a Top 3 in a HC classic.
TVG will be our leader in only 3 races but he is expected to get great results in all 3: Top 10 in Giro, Top 5 in Dauphine and Top 3 in WC ITT, plus 3 stages victories.
Gerdemann will be our leader in 6 races including le Tour. He is expected a Top 5 in a 1-week race (Tirreno, Suisse, Pologne or Enco) and 3 stage wins.
Nerz will lead our team in 8 races including the Tour de Romandie were he is expected to get a Top 5 and the late 1 day classic were he should too pick a Top 3 (Vattenfall, Plouay, Quebec, Montreal). He is also expected to win one of the 2 HC Tour he will take part in (Limousin or Luxembourg).
Smukulis will be our cobble man leading the team in 9 cobble races, including the Flandriennes were he is expected a Top 3 (Gent-Wevelgen, Vlaaderen or Paris-Roubaix). He is also expected 1 win in the stage HC cobble races (KBC, Dunkerque, van Belgie).
Roelandts will be leader in 6 races. He will be our first leader in TDU were he should target a Top 5. He is expected get some HC wins and some more in category 1 races.
Stetina will lead us in 3 HC races (Langkawi, Indurain, Trentino) he should get 1 GC win and win some stages.
Castroviejo (Tour of Hainan) and Butler (California) will led only 1 HC stage race that they are expected to win one of the two.
Alberio will lead us in 2 small race. Ovechkin in none and they will mainly have a role of team mate. We will offer them the opportunity whenever possible. Alberio will off course ride the Giro at home.
Summing up all this gives us very ambitious goals for our first WT season:
- One GT win,
- 2 GT Top 10,
- 3 GT stages,
- One WT (ex. GT) stage race win,
- 6 Top 5 in WT (ex. GT) stage races,
- 10 stages in WT (ex. GT) stage races,
- 3 Top 3 in WT 1-day classic,
- 4 wins in HC stage races,
- And WC ITT Top 3.
Let's hope things go according to plan next year, and TVG and Poels 1-2 at the vuelta this year should be a good omen for the future as they've both proved they can more than just cut it at the highest level.
Jurgen Roelandts, Tomas Alberio, Gatis Smukulis, Ken Hanson, Jeremy Powers, Sean Mazich
The Objectives
Overall Top 5 with Roelandts, KoM with Alberio
Stage 1 – Flat
“Tomas, you go for the only climber, Jurgen you try to win the first two intermediate sprints and you take Cavendish or Farrar’s wheel for the final sprint!”
Alberio does the job and will wear Mountain jersey tomorrow. Roelandts does good too finishing 1st and 2nd in the intermediates. Then the break goes and is cought with few kilometres to go.
Finally it is time to prepare the sprint. With less than 2 kilometres to go Roelandts is side to side with Cavendish in Boassen Hagen’s wheel.
That was way too early as Cavendish only finishes 12th… The other sprinters have plenty of time and strength to come from behind and Farrar picks an easy first win.
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Tyler Farrar
Garmin - Barracuda
3h18'55
2
Peter Sagan
Vacansoleil - Dcm Pro Cycling Team
s.t.
3
Mark Renshaw
Rabobank Cycling Team
s.t.
4
Daniel Oss
Isd - KazMunayGas
s.t.
5
Yoann Offredo
Française des Jeux - Bonjour
s.t.
18
Jürgen Roelandts
AT&T
s.t.
Stage 2 – Flat
“Same tactic as yesterday, Tomas you defend your jersey, Jurgen you pick the early bonuses and prepare for the final sprint.”
After 1st intermediate goes in Roelandts pocket, Alberio makes the break but is oversprinted and will loose the KoM jersey.
Surprisingly the break is resisting thanks to some great fighters. 10 kilometres and 1’. It is going to be close especially as the sprinters team mates are looking tired.
6 kilometres, 35’’. Smukulis is feeling great and attacks and he passes the 6 men break with 2 kilometres to go…
At this point it is looking good for us, we have Smukulis at the front, Alberio who is fresh has taken Dall'antonia’s, the strongest sprinter in the break, wheel and Roelandts is in good shape in Farrar’s wheel in the back.
Smukulis is running out of power though and is a poor sprinter, but he will still finish before the bunch as the break will hold on. Alberio is a poor sprinter too but he manages to keep Dall'antonia’s wheel till the end to get a 3rd place and the time bonus that goes with it.
Rank
Name
Team
Time
1
Tiziano Dall'antonia
Liquigas - Cannondale
3h27'16
2
Benoît Vaugrenard
Saur - Sojasun
s.t.
3
Tomas Alberio
AT&T
s.t.
4
Francisco Jose Pacheco Torres
Movistar Team
s.t.
5
Frédérique Robert
Lotto - Belisol
s.t.
6
Gatis Smukulis
AT&T
s.t.
Stage 3 – Flat
“Jurgen you are fighting for the 1st sprint but Tomas should stick to your wheel as you are now well placed in the GC.”
Despite a furious wind, it all went according the plan as Roelandts passes 1st and Alberio 2nd in the first intermediate. Then we let the break go. With 5 kilometres to go Martin attacks.
We react very quickly but couldn’t close the gap and Martin is still at the front when the final up hill sprint begins. Very hard one and Cavendish overtakes Martin to take the win.
As no one ever ranks good in 2 stages, the GC is terribly undecided. Roelandts is now ranking 2nd at 1’’, Alberio is 5th at 5’’, 45 riders still within 12’’!
