Firstly, i would like to thank you all for alot of comments. Story reached 3 pages really fast and i am totally enjoying it at the moment.

Now, that's what i call a compliment, cunego59! Thanks alot, i really hope i can keep this up. I love the team, I am huge fan of Schlecks & Cancellara so i think that there's nothing that can keep me away from making at least solid story.

Silvestre was our first pick for sprint for only one reason - Felline had awful daily form and we had no choice. It's getting much better at the report down there. Check it out!

Thanks lordenbenji33 for stopping by and leaving a comment, means alot. Hope you're going to continue following this one.

And for the end, Cossack i edited it now, hope it's fine. Thanks for pointing that out. Let's bring on the report now!

After quite bad start yesterday, we have to do something way better today. We will might try with some early attack, but as this profile suits Felline perfectly, we hope he can achieve a good result in sprint. We'll see!




Wackermann, Vorobyev and Chainel made a move, few kilometers after the race started. We somehow missed that, since our guys were at the bottom of the peloton.



These 3 guys was really strong today. They got over 7 mintues of advantage, which made peloton start chasing at one point. OPQS were aiming for the win, so they were pretty active!



As on the most flat stages, at this one breakaway got caught at 15 kilometers before finish line. It's now all about sprint and sprint trains. 3 of them created today and we managed to get our one there.



It's Voigt - Silvestre - Felline trio for us. After Jensie did a great job and brought our 2 youngsters to top of the peloton, the show began.



It's now OPQS vs Trek. Silvestre did a perfect leadout job for Felline and it was only routine after that!



Fabio Felline won the 2nd stage of Tour de San Luis 2014! That makes 3/6 for us, this season!



And, to make things better, Silvestre finished as 2nd, since he had an absolutely perfect sprint after Felline got out of his wheel.



And that made this day an absolutely perfect day for Trek. We really hope we can continue this way!

1	Fabio Felline	Trek Factory Racing	3h55'42
2	Matteo Trentin	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
3	Fabio Silvestre	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
4	Iljo Keisse	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
5	José Joaquín Rojas	Movistar Team	s.t.
6	Manuel Belletti	Androni Giocattoli	s.t.
7	Salvatore Puccio	Team Sky	s.t.
8	Lloyd Mondory	AG2R La Mondiale	s.t.
9	Luke Rowe	Team Sky	s.t.
10	Michal Golas	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.

Thanks guys. It was really impressive stage from our guys. We'll try to keep that form until the end of the race!

And, here we are, right before first UCI World Tour race of the season, Santos Tour Down Under. 6 days long stage-race. At least one stage win is expected from us, so we'll see...




5 of 6 stages are flat, but there are alot of hills over these stages, so it should bring us alot of fun.

Some of well-known names such as Hushovd, Ulissi, Kelderman, Trofimov, Gatto, Meersman, Gallopin, Dennis etc... These names are very promising and it should be very fun!



As for our team, our leader will be Danny Van Poppel here and he should bring us few stage wins. However, for hills/mountains we have Jungels and Busche.



Not very strong team here, but at least we can try to get some good Top 10 place in final GC. That was pretty much it for this race preview, we're going to be on field very soon.

See ya until the next report, DS of Trek FR

Thanks man. Guys should be ready for TDU!

The first stage of this years TDU is flat one, but with pretty serious climb at around 20kms to go. Still, Van Poppel should probably pass it without a problem, so he is our leader for today.




Wurf and Lutsenko, after multiple unsucessful tries, made a breakaway of the day. They are looking really fresh and that they can do something today.



Once again, nothing interesting happens before the first and last climb today. Lutsenko made a move there and Wurf couldn't follow that. It's now peloton versus young Astana's rider. 2 kilometers to go and Lutsenko is still in slight advantage. This is going to be close!



Last corner and Lutsenko is still at front! Is he new Vinokourov? Meanwhile in peloton, trains are created. Van Poppel is following Jungels while Navardauskas already started sprint.



Riders passed below 1km to go banner and somewhere at 300 meters before finish line, they caught Lutsenko. It's now tight fight between Navardauskas who already has few meters of advantage and our Van Poppel, who is going like a rocket from behind.



At the end, late sprint cost us a win. Navardauskas got the win, while Danny finished as 2nd.

1	Ramunas Navardauskas	Garmin Sharp	3h00'41
2	Danny Van Poppel	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
3	Gianni Meersman	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
4	Bob Jungels	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
5	Oscar Gatto	Cannondale	s.t.
6	Tony Gallopin	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
7	Arthur Vichot	FDJ.fr	s.t.
8	Jan Bakelants	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
9	Francisco José Ventoso	Movistar Team	s.t.
10	Daryl Impey	Orica GreenEdge	s.t.

Thanks everyone for big support. I posted 4-5 updates in this thread yesterday and i never had that tempo. Tells alot about my current motivation.

Guys are doing great in both Australia and Argentina and we can now just hope that this form will continue!

Todays stage is first real challenge for the guys, as it is the first hilly stage from the start of the race. Haimar is definitely ready for it!




Surprisingly, nothing important happened until the first climb. Everyone was focused on saving their leaders for today that no one wanted to make a breakaway group.

However, at the bottom of the first mountain, breakaway was created. Some really strong names here, such as Kolobnev, Elmiger, Rosa...



No one paid attention on the gap and this group gained few minutes and with only 20 kilometers to go, that seemed like big advantage.

We noticed that and we started chasing. At the bottom of last hill, peloton had only 40 guys in it and were 2 minutes behind the breakaway group.



Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle of the last climb, it was real action at the front. Serry & Durasek already dropped and it's now fight between these 4 guys.



Although the gap was widening, breakaway group somehow managed to get to the finish in front of peloton. In the long sprint, Kolobnev shows who's the king of hilly sprints and gets the win in front of Wegmann and Rosa!



Just few seconds after that, race favourites coming to finish. Zubeldia oversprinted Kiriyenka at the end but that's not important now.



But how many seconds are they behind in GC? Let's check out!

1	Alexandr Kolobnev	Team Katusha	3h36'19
2	Diego Rosa	Androni Giocattoli	+ 19
3	Fabian Wegmann	Garmin Sharp	s.t.
4	Martin Elmiger	IAM Cycling	+ 28
5	Haimar Zubeldia	Trek Factory Racing	+ 1'04
6	Vasil Kiryienka	Team Sky	s.t.
7	Miguel Rubiano	Colombia	+ 1'17
8	Philip Deignan	Team Sky	+ 1'36
9	Chris Anker Sørensen	Tinkoff - Saxo	s.t.
10	David Arroyo	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	s.t.

1	Alexandr Kolobnev	Team Katusha	10h53'48
2	Fabian Wegmann	Garmin Sharp	+ 29
3	Martin Elmiger	IAM Cycling	+ 50
4	Vasil Kiryienka	Team Sky	+ 1'26
5	Haimar Zubeldia	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
6	Fabio Felline	Trek Factory Racing	+ 1'38
7	Miguel Rubiano	Colombia	+ 1'39
8	José Herrada	Movistar Team	+ 1'58
9	Paul Voss	Team NetApp - Endura	s.t.
10	Thomas Löfkvist	IAM Cycling	s.t.

Alot of climbs to come and that's exactly what suits Haimar. I am pretty sure he can get some nice results there!

Once again, flat stage with multiple serious hills in it. I will give chance to some hilly sprinters here, but no one knows what can happen during the race. Van Poppel, Busche and Jungels are ready for some action!




Breakaway was created quickly, just as it did yesterday. Now, Ludvigsson, Reynes, Dockx and Tleubyavev in it. They look focused!



Although there were 4 sprint/kom checkpoints, guys never sprinted for the points. They want the stage win today!

And as that usually goes in cycling, nothing happened until last few kilometers. 10 kilometers to go, Dockx dropped and Ludvigsson are trying to drop rest of BOTD with his TT abilities. He's doing it good, actually!



But Garmin machine easily managed to catch them about 5 kilometers to go. Riders are now heading the last climb. Jungels feeling good and he's trying to attack!



He was in front for about 2-3 kilometers, but peloton somehow managed to catch him. It's now time to sprint. No one has power to create sprint trains, neither we do. Busche is at the front, but van Poppel is way behind. Can he make that acceleration to achieve good Top10 position at the end?



At the end, perfectly timed sprint from Thor Hushovd paid off and he managed to get win.



Van Poppel once again came from back and managed to get 3rd position out of nowhere. If there was additional 50-100 meters, he would surely achieve the win.

1	Thor Hushovd	BMC Racing Team	3h22'21
2	Tony Gallopin	Lotto Belisol	s.t.
3	Danny Van Poppel	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
4	Ramunas Navardauskas	Garmin Sharp	s.t.
5	Daryl Impey	Orica GreenEdge	s.t.
6	Diego Ulissi	Lampre - Merida	s.t.
7	Nikolas Maes	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	s.t.
8	Francisco José Ventoso	Movistar Team	s.t.
9	Matthew Busche	Trek Factory Racing	s.t.
10	Yukiya Arashiro	Team Europcar	s.t.

Indeed man! We'll try to keep that form!

Although this race has some serious mountains, this 19km long tutorial might become most important stage in the race. We'll try not to lose much on Kiriyenka, who'll surely go for win.




Malori, as one of main guys for this stage was one of the first guys to start, since he was way back in GC. Of course, the guy gets first position in provisional rankings with ease.



He kept the lead for long, long time. No one could even come close to Adriano's time, until the super Jensie! Voigt finished 11 seconds behind Malori.



Gretsch was the next one. Absolutely perfect ride for young German! He's now 1 second over Malori. Who could expect that?



It was now time for Zubeldia. He started very good, but at the corner right before 1st checkpoint Haimar had a problem with his bike, so he need to replace it. By that way, he lost some time and at the end he finished about minute and a half behind provisional leaders. Not expected, really.



The guy after Zubeldia was main favourite for taking the win here, Sky's Vasil Kiriyenka. Absolutely great body position indicated that it's going to be great ride for him. And it was like that, Vasil finished few seconds in front of other guys and was in lead at that point.



Seemed like no one could overtake him, but than a boom! Martin Elmiger had an absolutely great ride but he finished 1 second behind Kiriyenka.



Let's bring on the results.

1	Vasil Kiryienka	Team Sky	21'08
2	Martin Elmiger	IAM Cycling	+ 1
3	Patrick Gretsch	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 2
4	Adriano Malori	Movistar Team	+ 3
5	David Millar	Garmin Sharp	s.t.
6	Gustav Erik Larsson	IAM Cycling	+ 4
7	Jan Barta	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 6
8	Nelson Oliveira	Lampre - Merida	+ 12
9	Jens Voigt	Trek Factory Racing	+ 14
10	Philip Deignan	Team Sky	+ 16

1	Martin Elmiger	IAM Cycling	11h15'47
2	Vasil Kiryienka	Team Sky	+ 35
3	Alexandr Kolobnev	Team Katusha	+ 1'19
4	Jens Voigt	Trek Factory Racing	+ 1'21
5	Philip Deignan	Team Sky	+ 1'23
6	Thomas Löfkvist	IAM Cycling	+ 1'27
7	José Herrada	Movistar Team	+ 1'28
8	David Arroyo	Caja Rural - Seguros RGA	+ 1'32
9	Fabian Wegmann	Garmin Sharp	+ 1'35
10	Paul Voss	Team NetApp - Endura	+ 1'47