Yes, really good tactics from the team in E3 and a bit unlucky, but still absolutely great result for the team in Gent. Once again, Nizzolo is on '3' form, while I am pretty sure Roelandts is on '1' in this part of season, so yep...

In bunch of these Western-European, flat, cobblestones and BeNeLux classics, Volta Limburg found its place. Being just one day before Ronde van Vlaanderen it's not so popular, but it can be great race to follow, as these narrow Dutch roads can surely produce us great fun in mix with some solid WT/PCT/CT riders.




The race starts in the city of Eijsden and finishes in the same place. It's circuit race, as you can see and it has few pretty steep hills in it, but as they're far from the finish line, they shouldn't make a big problem to top sprinters, who are most probably going to sprint for the win here. The fact is that Selig won this last year and he really isn't the best known climber out there.

As the race is on 30th March, only one day before biggest monument in Belgium and one of the biggest classics in WT calendar, it's not so popular. Despite that fact, alot of sprinters've choosen this race and are here. Breschel, Van Poppel, Navardauskas, Veelers, Boeckemans, Coquard, Eisel are just some of them.



As you can see, it's pretty clear that van Poppel is our leader here today. He's not in great form either, but he should be able to score some CQ points here. Besides him, we decided to send some young riders here, with Voigt being the total team leader, in case of some early, sneaky attacks on the hills part of the race.



Most of the riders that are here, including Felline, Silvestre, Alafaci, Vandewalle, Beppu, Irizar are out of the form also, but we still hope we can get some good result here with great tactics, once again. See ya on the race, as this is the end of preview.

DS of Trek FR - admirschleck

Yeah, shame he ran out of the energy in attack, it could've been great win for the team.

The race starts soon and there's alot to be told about it anyways. We hope for a Top 3 result here and we're going all in for van Poppel today. He should do very well at the end.




Breakaway group. How surprising. No big names in it, except maybe Wout Poels who seems to be preparing himself here for Ardennes Classics and AGR this year.



60 kilometers to go and half of the race skipped, as usual. Keisse and Oss are now trying to make a move and spend the rest of the race in break.



After 20 kilometers of chasing, they caught up with E1 group and the pace is now a bit slower and calmer. But not for long, as Poels decides to attack. This is the current situation:

E1	E2	P
Poels	Break	All the favourites

We're still safe, as the advantage of the guys in front isn't really big and it all looks like this is going to finish in mass sprint.



10 kilometers to go and all the attacks were neutralised. Poels and Oss are the last ones to get caught and this is now definitely going to be finished in mass sprint. All of our guys are there.



Few kilometers after, 4 kms to go precisely, trains are created. We were passing over that bridge as first and here's now the situation with the trains:

Tinkoff	Trek
Kroon	Vandewalle
Kump	Felline
Breschel	van Poppel

Rest of the sprinters are on their wheels, but these 2 guys (Breschel and Danny) has great positioning.



Only few minutes after, sprint was underway. Felline leaded van Poppel out and young Dutchie is now the first one to start the sprint. Silvestre and Voigt are there for us, as well.



Great sprint from van Poppel, as he kept the lead until the last 20 kilometers. Just as usual, someone appeared from nowhere and got the win. This time it was Ramunas Navardauskas from Garmin Sharp. The guy is in absolutely great form for 4 months.



It would've been much better if Danny managed to get the win on his home terrain, but we won't compalin about this 2nd, neither.

1	Ramunas Navardauskas	Garmin Sharp	4h39'50
2	Danny Van Poppel	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
3	Lloyd Mondory	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
4	Matti Breschel	Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
5	Daniel Schorn	Team NetApp - Endura	s.t.
6	Gianni Meersman	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
7	Julien Simon	Cofidis, Solutions Crédits	s.t.
8	Yohan Offredo	FDJ.fr	s.t.
9	Bernhard Eisel	Team Sky	s.t.
10	Tom Veelers	Team Giant - Shimano	s.t.

Aaand, that was all for the report of Volta Limburg Classic. We're moving to Belgium tomorrow, as our guys are racing Ronde van Vlaanderen or Tour of Flanders, most popular Belgian classic. See ya!

Thanks for support, Sutty. Means alot!

Not much passed until biggest Belgian classic this year, ha? Well, here we are, in front of it, with a clear goal - defend the title of Tour of Flanders champion. We're sure we have the squad for that, Cancellara is ready, team staff is ready. Big pressure is on us, but we're sure we can keep it and justify the name of last years winner.




What can be really sad about this route? All toughest, longest, steepest climbs and cobblestones sections that exists, ever existed and will exists are in the route of this race. Starting from some "easier" ones such as Elkenberg, Wolkenberg and finishing with some most popular climbs in the world of cycling, such as Oude Kwaremont, Paterberg, Koppenberg and rest. The race starts in the city of Brugge and finished in Oudernaade city, in Flemish province (East Belgium). One of the toughest race in WT calendar, definitely!

Do I really need to talk about how strong starlist is? Absolutely all riders that has any chances to win this are here. Starting with last year winner and this years main favourite, swiss machine, Fabian Cancellara, Tom Boonen, Sep Vanmarcke to some all-arounders such as Edvald Boasson Hagen, Leukemans and many others. This preview would get too long if we start naming all the guys who has chance for Top 10 here. All in all, very tough competition, but that was totally expected.



Our team - usual cobblestone squad. Definitely all the strongest guys that are currently in our team and knows how to ride on cobbles terrain are here. Starting from helpers such as Styuven, Popovych, Hondo, Roulston, Vandewalle, through the guys that are in free element - Devolder and Rast and finishing with Fabian Cancellara, our absolute leader here.



Individually, not strongest squad in this race, but as a team, I am sure we can get some great results here. Everything's prepared, Tour of Flanders is about to start. So, that was all for this preview - the race can't wait to start!

DS of Trek FR - admirschleck

Thanks Sutty and Baia. Sorry for the bad coverage of Ronde van Vlaanderen (report below), hope you'll somehow manage to understand what really happened. I definitely dislike this report...

Bad weather today with only 7°C, but luckily without serious rain or strong weather. I really hope we can have a good race here, despite the fact that Fabian isn't really the biggest fan of rain in the peloton. Let's try to avoid troubles, bad crashes and serious injuries firstly.




After 50(!) kilometers of unsuccessful tries to get in breakaway, alot of guys gave up from that idea and were quite disappointed. We used that chance and sent Kristoff Vandewalle into the break, with a hope that someone will join him. Sounds crazy, but no one really decided to join him, so he had to ride alone whole day.



150 kilometers to go and few outsiders for this race made an attack as well. Some really, really good names here such as Offredo, Tossato, Guarnieri, Keukeleire, Burghardt, Muravyev. We also decided to send our guy here and it's Hayden Roulston this time.



As they missed this attack, OPQS are starting to seriously chase. Vanendbergh and Keisse are on top of the peloton for them. All of our guys are on the top of main group, aswell.



80 kilometers to go and race is slowly heating up. One huge group, including few favourites for this race (Terpstra, Hayman, Paolini) dropped from the peloton on Kanarieberg section and it seems like they're not interested in following this. PCM AI.



Really strange, but we don't have enough time to spend on them. We're quickly now back to the peloton, where few guys tries something on first pass through Oude Kwaaremont. It's Gaudin and a Belkin guy behind. Few more guys there, but it's not really clear who they are...



Woah! Vanmarcke, Pozzato, Boonen and Gaudin managed to attack on Kwaaremont and make an advantage over the peloton. Cancellara was blocked so he couldn't respond. Now, the real race starts and this is the current situation:

E1	E2	P
Vandewalle	Boonen	Cancellara
Roulston	Vanmarcke	Devolder
Early break...	...	...

Riders soon arrived to Paterberg and 50 kilometers to go now. Even more riders including Turgot and Nuyens joined E2 group and they're now even stronger. Fabian is struggling behind!



The big group couldn't resist for a long and now only Vanmarcke, Boonen and Gaudin are dropping the rest. In the meantime, Fabian joins group behind and this is now situation:

E1	E2	E3	P
Vandewalle	Boonen	Cancellara	Peloton
Roulston	Vanmarcke	Nuyens	...
Break...	Gaudin	Turgot

Cancellara soon got on the top of that E3 group and with his machine abilities and powers joined Boonen's group. In the meantime, Boonens group overtook the early breakaway of the day group and these four riders below are now in the first group. It looks like one of them is going to win this. There are still 25 kilometers to go.



Back behind, 3 big groups merged - breakaway of the day group, E3 group and rest of the peloton. This is the situation on the road currently:

E1	E2
Cancellara	Stybar
Boonen	Devolder
Vanmarcke	Sagan
Gaudin	Ladagnous

That the time flies tells us the fact that riders in front were already on Oude Kwaaremont, few minutes after. Cancellara slightly recovered from his chasing, while Boonen and Vanmarcke tried 2 attacks. All of that was neutralised.

Only 3 kilometers after, riders in front arrived to the Paterberg, last climb and last cobblestone section today. The race is going to be decided here and everyone knows that. Cancellara had a great downhill in between these 2 hills and he's now trying to escape from his seat!



Surprisingly, Fabian managed to keep the lead over the Paterberg and 10 kilometers to go he has slight advantage (which is around 20 seconds ) over the group of Boonen. What a great recovery from Fabian, as he managed to catch that group, rest a bit, even attack them and it's now only he versus himself. Can Fabian repeat last years result?



Every moment, every turn of pedal, he looked more superb. 5 kilometers to go, Fabian now has huge advantage and I think it's his race once again. But, let's wait until he really wins this, as everything can happen in last 5 kilometers.

E1	E2	P
Cancellara	Boonen	Stybar
	Vanmarcke	Sagan
	Gaudin	Turgot

No one could really stop the swiss machine in last couple of kilometers, so he grabs the win here once again. What a brave fight, what a great way to win this! We can, once again, celebrate the great race!



1 and a half minute after, E2 group arrives to the finish line. None of them has any energy left for the sprint, so the guys just tried to accelerate from the seat. Vanmarcke was just a little bit better than the rest 2 in that, so he grabbed the 2nd position in front of Tom Boonen. Gaudin is going home with empty hands, this time.



Alot of riders finished the race in their own groups, with small gaps comparing to each other. Rast, Devolder and Roulston were some of them , as they finishes as 19th, 21st and 37th.

1	Fabian Cancellara	Trek Factory Racing	6h19'16
2	Sep Vanmarcke	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 1'29
3	Tom Boonen	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
4	Damien Gaudin	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
5	Peter Sagan	Cannondale	+ 3'46
6	Sebastian Langeveld	Garmin Sharp	+ 3'55
7	Matthieu Ladagnous	FDJ.fr	+ 6'54
8	Lars Boom	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 6'57
9	Jürgen Roelandts	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
10	Björn Leukemans	Wanty - Groupe Gobert	+ 7'00

Another stunning race from Cancellara and Trek. We can't really describe how proud we are at the moment. What a huge win and Fabian could once again find himself on the podium with the beautiful ladies and a trophy in his hand.



Only Paris - Roubaix left from these Spring Classics now. See ya soon, as the fun doesn't stop now - totally opposite actually, it starts!

Thanks everyone, I was really impressed by how fast Cancellara recovered from really hard chasing and even managed to attack and stay in front, compared to others in that first group. Great, just great.

Calendar and Results are updated, so check them out in posts #2 and #3!

We have great news for you! Early this morning, in the office of Trek team, 2 Luxembourigan brothers, very well known, Schleck brothers signed new contracts with this great project! Both of them will continue to have the same wage they used to have this season and both of them said they're very happy with it. Contracts will last until the end of 2016 season.



That didn't impress you enough? Now, say something about Cancellara prolonging his contract to 2016, as well! Yes, Fabian Cancellara signed new contract with the Trek team and he'll ride for us for at least 2 more years. By this, Spartacus became the third most-paid cyclist in the world, just behind Kittel and Froome. You'll have to admit that this was probably the best way to start our day!


That isn't the end of great news, in this article! This one is a bit older, but we still wanted to wait a perfect moment to tell you this. After 3 months of watching for talents in some huge U23 races around the world, our scouts finally found a future star that would perfectly suit in our team! He's a young brit, he's only 20 years old and his name is Jonathan Dibben.



Dibben is surely future beast! Apparently, his best abilities are time-trialing and riding on cobblestones, but he's also great in sprints, by 2 words - all arounder. That's exactly the rider we need this year, as this is surely the year of Trek rebuilding! Many old guys are retiring, some of the mid-age guys are going to some weaker teams and the team needs some fresh blood. Jonathan promised that to us in a short conversation.

We've talked with him about a contract and he said a contract of stagiare would suit him best this year. There is a small problem - Sky is interested in him and they definitely won't let him go just like that. However, we'll definitely give our all to sign this guy, as he's surely the future of cycling.

No way i'd continue this story without my 3 favourite riders in the peloton, at the moment, so it was pretty much expected...

Woah. We're already in 4th month, this year is progressing so far, as well as this blog. After a great win yesterday of our cobblestone squad and Spartacus, our climbing squad has to show their abilities in Spain, racing the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco.




The race starts in little touristic town, on North of the Spain, in Basque Country province named Zarautz in circuit race. The race basically starts on very North of the Spain and goes all "down" to the South, to the coast of Mediterranean sea. None of the stages are flat, except final 9km time trial. 2 mountain and 3 hilly stages definitely promises us great fight and fun and maybe some cool results for our team.

The startlist is very strong here. All the best climbers are here including Froome, Quintana, Porte, Costa, Contador, Moreno, Pinot, Mollema, Van den Broeck and some of our guys also, with Schleck brothers and Zubeldia being there from our teams. Really strong competition here, but I am really not sure about how big gaps are going to be on these "short" climbs. That certainly gives us chance!



Our squad is more or less the same one we used to have in Catalunya, but with few changes there. There's no Kiserlovski, Arredondo, van Poppel and Watson this time and instead of them ,there are Jungels, Voigt, Busche and Didier. Although we lost Arredondo and Kiserlovski, I am pretty sure we strenghten our squad in terms of climbing (help to leaders and so) with 4 great domestiques.



Once again, no defined leader for us here, but Frank and Haimar are currently both near their top form, so I guess Andy will just try to help them. At the end, the team result is our priority here. Basically, that was all for this short preview of Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco. See ya on the first stage, hilly one.

DS of Trek FR - admirschleck

Seems like we're always doing good when you're predicting so, Sutty. Hope to see you around even more often, when GTs come (we really need good results there!).

1st stage of Basque Country this year is hilly stage, which can be really tricky because of its profile. It's circuit race around city of Zarautz with 2 hills, and 1 of them being raced only once (the final climb). Everything can happen here and we're secretly hoping for some early attack and maybe even win here.




Our initial plan was to send a guy in a breakaway and after few unsucessful times, we finally managed to do that. Jungels created breakaway alongside with Wegmann, Madrazo and Delage. Pretty strong group of breakaway on this hilly terrain.



Jungels absolutely destroyed the competition in all of these sprint checkpoints, while Wegmann managed to get only 1 point more than Bob and secure the KoM jersey for the next day. 50 kilometers to go and group of few pretty strong riders attacks from the peloton. Gatto, Voeckler, Bakelants and Vanendert are there.



Despite the fact that these guys were going like a rockets, Katusha, with a little help from Team Sky, managed to catch that all before last climb. All of the leaders are here, as well as Schleck brothers and Zubeldia.



The last climb started and everyone now realised why did Katusha and Sky chase so hard. Spilak and Henao are trying to escape!



That was once again neutralised and the riders started final downhill. Only 10 kilometers to go now. As we had 3 really good guys, it was pretty expected to send someone into an attack. It was Andy Schleck this time! Only 3 kilometers to go and he's getting bigger and bigger advantage.



Andy really looked strong. Few guys behind attacked and sprint started. Zubeldia and Frank were back there for us. Amazingly fast sprint from guys behind, who were getting closer and closer to Andy. Andy raises his hands!



But what? What did just happen? Chris Froome took the win, basically on the finish line. To make this worse, Andy didn't even finish as 2nd, but 3rd. This isn't Zabel'd, neither Betancur'd or Groenwengen'd, this is whole new level - Schleck'd.

1	Chris Froome	Team Sky	3h16'43
2	Daniel Moreno	Team Katusha	s.t.
3	Andy Schleck	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
4	Nairo Quintana	Movistar Team	s.t.
5	Fränk Schleck	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
6	Haimar Zubeldia	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
7	Philippe Gilbert	BMC Racing Team	+ 16
8	Michael Albasini	Orica GreenEdge	+ 28
9	Samuel Sánchez	BMC Racing Team	s.t.
10	Rigoberto Urán	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.

Points	Chris Froome [Sky]	25 points
KoM	Fabian Wegmann [Garmin]	8 points
U25	Nairo Quintana [Movistar]	3h16'43
Team	Trek Factory Racing	9h50'09