Crit Internationial was a weird race for my team. Atapuma back to his old self after his amazing Tachira, I was worried there for a second. He didn't even need the mountain stage to loose two minutes
Thankfully Ospina and espescially Parra were able to step up and save that race. I'm really digging how the team is on fire every time the road goes up.
Meanwhile even more cobbled classics and I'm still waiting for a sign that my team takes part.
AI seems to be a lot better than last season.
Rankings are looking very promising at the moment, better off than last season at the same time and Nairo hasn't even had a single race day yet. A part of those extra points are due to early CT races we didn't took part in last season though.
Allianz and Fiskars are not slowing down, really impressive so far.
Looking forward to late April when all this nonsense on bumpy road ends and the Ardennes come up. Just realized we have a lot of second places to defend there, so let's get rolling.
Also Shonak going overkill on Colombian Team GP, that's like asking for Nairo to ride Vuelta next season
Aaaand we can say goodbye to the WT top 10!
We're still well outside of the relegation zone, but Illes and Saeco are going to overtake us anyway. We just need to keep Antarte and Wales behind us and we will have done it. Still a long season in front of us.
A strong showing from Boonen at GW, ironically our worst result so far in the cobbles though. Which makes me think, Bikex: for the regens do you think it would be better for rouleurs to have a better max flat stat than the sprinters? Currently two pure sprinters have the best flat stat in the game: which could limit the top rouleurs from being aggressive.
Up one place in the rankings with April up: not the cruellest month I hope! Well over a month without a win for us now: it is Gilbert's time to fly in the Ardennes. He can do the flat, he is super on the hills & his stamina is unequalled. No more crashes, please, Belgian champ, eh?
I'll post the full results in just a moment together with the RVV Espoirs and the Grand Depart of the Tour of South Africa in Mauritius.
Edit: Now all posted.
Spoiler
About the third stage of SA: Again a 1-2 for one team at a stage like this, but this time if it wasn't for Janse van Rensburg in second Impey would have gotten 30-40 seconds on the peloton. JvR came in 19 seconds after the winner the cutoff for a time gap on flat stages is 20 seconds.
Fuglsang kicked of his season, now it´s time to deliver. Great start in Crit. International missing out the GC by only 2 seconds, now it´s all about winning the first CT GT. Kruijswijk, Novikov and Gaspa should make a great supporting cast.
Oh well, nothing else to add or I would look redundant with all those complaints.
Allianz is just absurd though. Bitter for mv to see Degenkolb 2nd once again on his biggest chance left to win a classic but I'm pretty sure he'll happily take it. And so will TR with Gilbert in 3rd probably!
5th isn't terrible, but it really isn't great, Terpstra should really be attacking more, even here he got on the front and split the group but he needs to be alone, hopefully he can do better in Paris-Roubaix, it's his last big chance.
Nice ride from Roinas though in RVV Espoirs, 4th is much better than I expected
Not even going to rage at that ridiculous result. Just happy (and confused) that Phinney picked up another top ten. 9th, 10th, 10th and 9th in the WT classics so far.
Thomas took the day off by the looks of it.
If this game wasn't so addictive and so brilliantly run, I would have thrown in the towel at that race though.
South Africa was always just for Whitehead to race on home soil, though I don't understand why we're doing so shit. Scott Davies needs to get in a breakaway and 'do a Dombro' or I will not be happy.
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Hey, TR, guess what: Gilbert had a fantastic RVV and finished 3rd.
My response .......
Yesssss. Yess. Yes
But: there is a catch. Allianz won the race through a breakaway.
My response ......
Spoiler
That was just wrong. knockout - Still think they aren't title contenders? Uber luck there. They must be on 10 wins -.
Of course we are thrilled with that result and performance from the Belgian champ: maybe we should have put him in more cobbled races! Bodes well for the Ardennes: though if RVV goes to the break then Amstel could aswell.
Great video Bikex, nonetheless. Thank you for all this.
39km to go: It seems as if all my 7 riders are in the 26 rider elite group (peleton). How awesome is that!
Also good to see the weaker of my riders setting a steady pace.
35km to go: 14 guys get a small gap and whilst i have 4 guys in that group it is also the first shock for me: Sagan is missing. That dude has to work on his field position.
33km to go: Luckily he gets back Unfortunately, several other strong riders come back as well and we lost the first two domestiques in Hushovd and Benoot who did not make the cut of 24 riders.
28km : Italo and CarbonSports dominate the view in the first rows. Always good to be attentive on cobbled uphill sections.
25km : Very interesting to see Van Keirsbulck, Boonen and Terpstra taking a few turns at the front themselves. I certainly appreciate it.
16km: Argh. That positioning is horrible! We must never miss that split with all riders but Sagan. Sagan dropping back to help his leaders is also a small masterpiece
14km: Those narrow roads :/
Can we get narrow road free monuments next seaons?
11km: And again a split forced partly by the narrow roads. GVA, Kristoff and Senechal missed it and Sagan dropped back to help his leader. Brilliant.
7km: Fuck it.
5km: Fuck it.
3km: Fuck it.
1km: And now Allianz will win the PT for real
0km: Chances are that CSC will be more successful in the mountains. Over and out.
Horrible. I was going to write a big race by race preview for my team's next month but cant find the motivation after the catastrophe called RvV. Just gonna say thanks to Bikex for that then.
Wow, Van Keirsbulck. You actually give the impression you can get a good result in this goal race for me, then you just fade away to the BMC 11th in the last 5K. I should have given you to Shonak.
seems like Brajkovic is the man to beat, now it´s time to start working on him...nothing but the victory matters, we need to eat in the disadvantage in the Rankings
Criterium International: Damn, we could have been 2nd when König didn't lose time in the first flat stage... Then again, it's only CT.
E3 Prijs: When Pibernik is your best finisher because he's been in the break, you know, the classics team isn't working. (Vandenbergh start to do something! )
Gent-Wevelgem: Vandenbergh has 78 COB - and finishes 81st...
RvV: Yep, Iglinskiy in 41st as best rider. That's how it's done here.
P-R U23: Strong performance by Biermans, he seems to be a good shot for future racing.
RvV U23: Second again, thanks Pedersen.
To sum it up: My cobbles team sucks. Maybe my dev team would do better in those classics. Sigh... I'll never ever again employ anybody for the cobbles.
Rankings: Dropped down to 6th. Still not too bad considering our performance in the classics.
