Anyone following our Twitter page will have seen some big signings announced recently. We would have like to present the guys here on the HQ, but an inpromptu trip to the European Championships in France meant that it was a little difficult to report our new signings in the same way as our initial post on the HQ.

I would like to go back and run over the new guys on the team, but it would be a little strange after the Tweet posts... (sorry guys, we love you all equally). Instead, our fans can see the whole team as one!


A total of 18 riders make up the La Poste p/b Mavic team for 2016, with 17 at the start of the season and one stagaire joining in August. We are very happy with the squad on a whole, with many areas for concern from last season being strengthened significantly.

Alex Dowsett will lead the team in the Hills, and is backed up by a strong team, including Mikaël Chérel, Essaid Abelouache and Bassirou Konte just to name a few. On-loan fastman Alexandre Krieger will be our man to lead us to glory in the sprints, and he has Mathieu Drujon as his right-hand man in the lead-outs. Drujon was one of key riders for Fablok - Dunlop (now Arrinera) in their promotion to PCT and we are hoping for much of the same this season.

Nabil Baz will continue to be our best climber in the Mountains, but given the big names in the CT division this year, we are not expecting big results from him. A few days in the break could his best option.

Long Time Trials and Cobbles are one of our weakest areas this season, where Polychronis Tzortzakis and Geoffroy Ngandamba are our strongest riders respectively. Prologues could bring us some success, with again Tzortzakis, Gaëtan Bille and Mohamed Er Rafai being the strongest.

As said above, we are very happy with the look of the team, and early talk amongst the MG chat group has the team one of the promotion favourites (which is a massive improvement on last year!), but we expect to have a clearer picture when the usual preseason predictions are announced to see where we are possibly going to end up come the World and National Championships.

It was mentioned in our Tweets last week, but we welcome two new National Champions to the La Poste squd for this season, and sadly lose one. First the bad news of this update - the lost Champions Jersey. As announced in our Renewals post, Wadji Homrani was demanding too much for our liking at that time in the process, and negotiations came to end with him leaving the team. However, as we like the jersey so much, we have decided to keep it part of our banners!

And now onto the new Champions - both African riders and from our target Nations during the Transfer Period. Let's get the reveal underway!


Signed from Kenya Airways - Dimension Data, Bassirou Konte will be adding more colour to the CT peleton with his NC from the Côte d'Ivoire. As a main helper to Alex Dowsett, expect to see this jersey a good number of times during the year.


You lose Tunisia, but gain Morocco... I'll take that! Following a similar design to what was produced for Homrani, Essaid Abelouache will be sporting a lighter version of what is usual a dark red Champions Jersey. Another hilly rider to aid Dowsett, it will be good to see him wearing it with pride at the front of the peleton.

All jerseys for the 2016 can be found on the first page, which includes the colourful Gabonese NC for Cedric Thaouta, as well as our main jersey for the new season.

A few weeks ago, our Calendar selections were submitted and La Poste p/b Mavic are delighted to announce that our first choice options for the C1/C2 races were accepted. Adding into the C2HC bands, we are happy to revealed the racing schedule for the 2016 season.

	Race	Country	Status
Jan
10	Clasico San Cristobal	Cuba	C2
.
Feb
1-6	Benelux Challenge	Benelux	C2HC
12	GP Kigali	Rwanda	C1
21	Geraardsbergen-Bosberg	Netherlands	C2HC
27	San Marino Hill Classic	San Marino	C2HC
.
Mar
18-22	Tour of Bulgaria	Bulgaria	C2HC
25	Betonexpressz GP	Hungary	C2
.
Apr
1	Busan GP	South Korea	C2HC
11	Tour of Almaty	Kazakhstan	C2
14-19	Tour of South Africa	South Africa	C1
19-28	Tour de Langkawi	Malaysia	C2HC
.
May
1	Barcelona Classic	Spain	C2HC
5	Windhoek ITT	Namibia	C2
15-18	Euskal Bizikleta	Spain	C2
.
Jun
2	Sachsen-Anhalt Classic	Germany	C2HC
4-8	Circulo de Juarez	Mexico	C2
6	Lincoln GP	United Kingdom	C2
17-22	Giro del Capo	South Africa	C2
22	Barbuda Birdmen Classic	Antigua and Barbuda	C2
.
Jul
2-8	Tour de Pologne	Poland	C2HC
8-13	La Tropicale Amissa Bongo	Gabon/ Algeria	C2HC
25-29	Tour de Slovenie	Slovenia	C2
.
Aug
5-11	USA Pro Cycling Challenge	United States	C2HC
19-20	Grands Prix Cyclistes	Canada	C1
31	Tatranska Klasika	Slovakia	C2HC
.
Sep
1-5	Herald Sun Tour	Australia	C2
3	Acropolis Cup	Greece	C2HC
7-14	Tour of Britain	United Kingdom	C1
24	GP Yekaterinburg	Russia	C2HC
26	Grand Prix de la Ville d'Oran	Algeria	C1
.
Oct
4-6	Tour du Faso	Burkina Faso	C2
18	Zuri Metzgete	Switzerland	C2HC

**Italics means Season Goal

In the meantime, our planners have been submitted to the MGUCI for upcoming year, and those have been accepted as well.

It is all hands to the pump making sure that deadlines are met for the different areas that are needed before the start of the season, and there is a really buzz around the HQ, as the first races are just around the corner now.

January saw the welcome return of racing to the world of the MG, with the Continental Championships and the Bay Cycling Crit Classic filling up the pre-season schedule before the official races got underway.


Following the team's expansion into African cycling, a large number of our riders were present to represent their countries in the Doha, Qatar at the Continental Championships.

Geoffroy Ngandamba, Bassirou Konte, Mohamed Er Rafai, Maher Hasnaoui and Polychronis Tzortzakis all took part in the Time Trial, as well as the Road Race, for the respective countries, whilst Nabil Baz, Abdalla Ben Youcef, Clenne Morvan Moulingui, Paul Junior Maroga, Cedric Thaouta, Essaid Abelouache rode in the Road Race.

Ngandamba was our best placed rider in the African TT Championships, finishing + 1'58 down on Richard Laningo Laizer, who took a shock victory. In the European TT, it was a diffcult ride for Tzortzakis, who finished + 3'23 down on Jacob Fiedler.




Strong winds set the tone for the Road Race, and it was like throwing a bomb into the peleton on the route. Echelons, gaps and late attacks made it a difficult race, and it showed on the rider's faces crossing the line. Paul Ariko took the African RR title, with Hasnaoui being one of many La Poste riders coming in with the main peleton + 2'46 behind the winner.

In the European Race, Polychronis rode in support of his brother Georgos Tzortzakis, so a day in the break or his own bid for glory was never on the cards. In the end, our Tzortzakis finished well down the pack, + 6'40 behind the winner Ben Swift.


With no riders making the cut for the Intercontinental Championships, and none eligible for the Bay Cycling Crit Classic in Australia, our pre-season ended in Doha before started the racing for proper.

Just the one race for the La Poste team in January, as we headed to Cuba for the Clasico San Cristobal, with Alex Dowsett leading the line for the first time.




The team's outlook was a stark contrast to last season, and having one of the race favourite's in the ranks meant we had to work on the front all day. Konte and Abelouache did a magnificent job for Dowsett on the day, who had a strong team built around him.

The final selection was made on the last few climbs of the circuit, and it was fantastic to see Alex at the front in contention. In the end, he would have to settle for 6th place on the day, as Gasore Hategeka took the first CT victory of the season for the newly-formed MOL - OMW Petrom team.


In February, we head to Europe and Africa, with the Benelux Challenge, GP Kigali, Geraardsbergen-Bosberg and San Marino Hill Classic all present on the Schedule.

All look like favourable races to the riders who we will be present on the respective startlines, so expectations will be high for some good results.