Monte Paschi Eroica
I’ve definitely found our weakness. Cobbles are not good for us, we were completely destroyed today. Hamish Haynes was our leader, mainly to placate him for a while. I was here and Will was in Belgium for the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen.
Onto the race itself, and Hamish hung on until 30km to go, when he had to let go of the front group, and ended up finishing in 31st, over 7 minutes down on winner Marcus Ljungqvist. Ouch!
From:
To:
Subject: Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen
Not good boss, sorta like you in Italy. Stage 1 saw Steve Schets make a break to the finish, with Russell Downing ending up 4th on the stage, 1’30 down. 2nd stage, another break makes it. Not looking good here, good to see you join us tomorrow for final stage
Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen
Stage 3
After the success of breaks, it was obvious we should slip some guys into breaks, something I got a bit annoyed with Will for not doing. In fact, we sent both Stepehen Wooldridge and Glen Chadwick away into the break, and it worked! Wim Vansevenant took the stage and the overall, but Stephen continued his good racing by coming second and talking 2nd in the GC, with Glen Chadwick 5th!
Omloop van het Waasland Kemzeke
Another small field, another chance for Kirky to prove himself. With us and Rabo CT controlling the pace, the break was easily reeled in, and it came down to a 4 way sprint between Brad Huff and Kirk, against Coen Vermeltfoort and Evegeny Popov (both Rabo CT). With 1300m left, all 4 riders were level, but Brad pulled away to take a great win, with Kirk easing up in second!
Ronde van Het Groene Hart
With Russell a bit down over not getting a victory so far, he was designated team leader for this 205km flat race, against some tough opposition. Kirky was given free reign, but I told him to hand Russell the win if needs be. Unfortunately, needs not be, and Kirk had to fight hard from a poor position to edge out Kemps and Velo to take the victory, with Russ unable to get past his lead out man (Brad Huff 4th), ending up 5th.
Rund Um Koln
The last race of March, and it had been a good month of racing – a number of wins, and a good team performance were very much positives. We were looking to end March in the same way. We most certainly did not. Our first foray into Germany only gave us one rider in the pack (David George 37th) behind breakaway winner Markus Eichler
April
Well, I’ve just got out of a meeting with the board, and I can’t say I’m particularly happy. They’ve seen how well we are doing, and are now demanding – not wanting, demanding promotion. They even hinted my job would be on the line if we didn’t get this promotion. That means a whole strategy re-think, and will probably upset a few of the riders, who saw this as a development year, not a promotion at all costs season.
From:
To:
Subject: KBC Driedaagse de Panne
Not good stuff over all 4 stages. Nothing really to talk about, we just didn’t get going, got a bit outclassed.
Stage 1 – Kirk O’Bee had a pretty poor sprint in some pretty crappy weather. 12th behind Gavazzi, he is looking sharp, hadn’t ever heard of him before
Stage 2 – This was a shocking stage for us. Best rider was 10 minutes back! Brad Huff finishing 56th, Markus Eichler won to take lead
Stage 3 – Brad felt good today, he was made sprint leader, but could only get 7th. Good to see Jeremy Hunt grab a victory
Stage 4 – Much better on final stage. Nathan O’Neill came in 6th on the time trial, 15 seconds behind Grabovskyy. Marlon Perez Arango won the final GC
So not very good at all.
Hel van het Mergelland
David George was our leader here in a hilly race that should really test him out. A 9man breakaway got clear (no Barclays), the pace set by High Road and Rabobank shredded our riders, and they dropped off one by one. With 11km to go, only Glen Chadwick remained to support David, but he had no chance of doing anything, he was hurting big time. Martens of Rabobank, looking completely fresh attacked, no-one could respond, and he took a victory. Shows you what a strong team can do so easily. Glen Chadwick sprinted his way into a solid top 10 finish, ending up 9th.
GP van Rennes
We brought a strong squad to this flat race – Kirky would lead the team with strong support from Brad Huff and Russell, but it just wasn’t our day. We chased hard after a 7 rider TV break, but with no help from any other team, we just couldn’t quite catch all of them, as Romain Villa of Cofidis took a win. Kirk just squeezed into the top 10 as we caught them on the line
From:
To:
Subject: Profonde van Drenthe
Can’t believe the board demand promotion Andy. But you gotta roll with the punches, even If they demand something so ridiculous.
Anyway, another no show here, not been a great start to the month. Kirky best rider in 24th, nearly 8 minutes down on victor Nico Sijmens.
Klasika Primavera
Now this is an impressive line-up facing us. The Spanish are out in force, and I’m sorry to say we had very little chance from the outset of doing well here. But it’s all good experience, and valuable build-up towards the Tour of Georgia.
We sent 2 riders into the 4 man break – Chadwick and Lewis. The gradient reached up to 11% up the 2nd climb, which was just about when the chase started proper. The pack was shaved down to 28, with only ProTour riders in there, and the lead was cut by nearly 5 minutes in the space of 1 climb!
But credit to our escapees, they kept working hard, and were only caught with 35km to go, as the favourites started the attacks. In the end, Landaluze outsprinted Pereiro for the win, and our best rider David George in 35th, over 5 minutes down. Tough stuff.
GP van Denain
I just don’t know what’s wrong with us at the moment, we haven’t put in a strong performance all month, and our woes continued. Kirk O’Bee punctured, putting paid to his chances, and Brad Huff could only manage 16th. 16th for crying out loud! It was nice to see Jeremy Hunt win, but we’re going to Georgia with some poor results, and some poor morale.
Tour of Georgia Stage 1: A simple TV break, capture, sprint, which Tyler Farrar won, wearing the CT leader jersey. O’Bee had a pretty tough time, he nearly crashed, but recovered somehow to take 5th. Stage 2: With some sharp hills at the end, today’s stage would sort out the sprinters, separating the men from the boys – it turns out we are a bunch of little boys. Matteo Carrara won to put on the leader’s jersey, whilst David Gorge was our best in 8th. Stage 3: More flat, and today our sprinters had tired legs from the hills yesterday. Carrara won again, and Kirk had to push through a lot of hurt for just 6th. Why can’t we sprint at the moment? Stage 4: The time trial was the first opportunity for the GC men to show off, and it was Bert Grabsch who did so by winning ahead of Dominique Cornu and Dmytro Grabovskyy. Nathan O’Neill produced our best result so far in this Tour with 4th spot, just 2 seconds behind the stage winner and now leader.
Stage 5: Things just go from bad to worse. The only mountain stage today, and everyone messed up as Efimkin got clear and soloed in for a monster 170km ride to win the stage and take the GC top spot. Back in the pack, both Huff and Downing gave up early, they’d had enough, and I can’t really blame them. I don’t really want to talk about the rest of the day, it was that bad. David George finished alone in 30th, 11 minutes down! He just completely lost it up the 2nd climb. I left for Holland in disgust, leaving Will in charge here
