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Vuelta a Pais Vasco - Discussion
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 22-11-2023 21:09
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World Champion
Posts: 11392
Joined: 17-12-2014
PCM$: 1020.00
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Please PCM I'm begging you please don't make van Niekerk our GC leader 
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 22-11-2023 22:22
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Sprinter
Posts: 1907
Joined: 07-02-2009
PCM$: 200.00
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Okay Buchmann! Its a bummer he lost so much time in the time trials but I think this win makes me content with how we've performed in this race. Hopefully he can find a good result in the last stage, though I don't know if it will be decisive enough to create any major splits.
Thanks Ulrich!
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 22-11-2023 22:35
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 18187
Joined: 12-05-2012
PCM$: 0.00
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Canty making a push to sneak a GC Top10. Can't wait to watch that vanish on the final day.
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 22-11-2023 23:00
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4667
Joined: 29-09-2018
PCM$: 185.00
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Congrats to UBS on a great win by Buchmann! Guess this was the perfect stage for his skillset - and I wouldn't be surprised if he made it back-to-back wins tomorrow, being the most well-rounded puncheur present.
Rather satisfied with how my team did. First of all, definitely relieved that last year's disaster didn't repeat - where everyone lost 5+ minutes on this stage. Masnada is definitely lacking some sprinter skills to fight for the win on those stages, so 4th is a good result - although missing out on 3rd by a couple of inches definitely hurts. But I considered Oomen to be the race favourite after the TT, so I'm fine with him getting yellow - and not losing more than those 8 bonus seconds today.
Rather disappointed with Errazkin's performance, though - I think he should easily have made the first group, but I guess his positioning wasn't good enough. One last chance to do better tomorrow.
Darbellay on the other hand just doesn't like hills - although I still think he should've done better, even as a pure climber. On the other hand, Küng did a good job again, finishing alongside some far stronger puncheurs.
Now, what to expect from the final day? I'm definitely hoping for Masnada to finish in the front group again - although I wouldn't be surprised if Oomen was one level above the rest tomorrow. The two finished on par last year, but Oomen wasn't the race leader back then... And for the rest of the team, hoping they'll just try to hold on as long as they can once more, to not throw any depth result out of the window.
Thanks for the report!
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 23-11-2023 08:50
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Team Manager
Posts: 6508
Joined: 14-09-2008
PCM$: 1090.00
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Sorry for only commenting now, busy couple of days. Wild race for us so far. Seeing Izagirre in yellow after stage 4 was great, then the fall to 10th was a bit tougher than I would have hoped for. Not unfair, given the riders ahead of him, to be sure, and his time loss is actually reasonable, but still. But then I go and check the results and Janvier Hadi is just sitting there in 6th overall? That's an incredible performance! Uwizeyimana is 13th, too, and if we could keep 3 riders in the Top 15, that would be a very nice haul. It's more likely that at least one or two of them drop a bit further, but still, a really cool team performance and such a marked improvement from last year already in terms of production from the second row riders.
Very reasonable podium so far, would like to see it stay that way. On the other hand, I would also love to see Emu go even further. And look at Pidcock, what a rider  Thanks for the great reports, too!
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 21-11-2024 18:18
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Bot Agent
Posts: Countless
Joined: 23.11.09
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| IP: None |
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 23-11-2023 09:24
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World Champion
Posts: 14562
Joined: 08-08-2011
PCM$: 9100.00
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Message to the team: "Don't do anything stupid"
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| Caspi |
Posted on 23-11-2023 09:50
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Neo-Pro
Posts: 369
Joined: 22-09-2022
PCM$: 10300.00
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Can we get a team photo from the 5th stage with all our riders (except Kritsky) finishing together on 125th place?
Didn't expect anything from this race, and it doesn't look like there will be any nice surprises, as we aren't present at all.
Looking forward to an exciting GC battle tomorrow.
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 23-11-2023 11:38
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2907
Joined: 15-07-2007
PCM$: 300.00
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Wow, that was a bummer. We should probably have made the team more puncheureusqe, rather than leaning towards TT. We won't get much points from this race unfortunately.
Thank you Ulrich! |
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 23-11-2023 11:39
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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So happy to see Dunbar get up in the TT, it’s a really big result and race changing performance from him.
Great to see him back it up on the following stage, a shame there was no real selection with the favourites again but that’s something to get used to. It would have been the perfect situation had the team not shit the bed in the TTT, so it’s amazing that he’s still in with a shot of a Gc win (however extremely unlikely). Oomen has raced perfectly and everything has fallen into place for him and Lierse, and he has capitalised in it - I don’t think he can be beaten. I’ll be happy if Dunbar can keep his podium spot.
Thanks for the reports Ulrich, much appreciated 
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| cio93 |
Posted on 24-11-2023 16:32
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World Champion
Posts: 10845
Joined: 29-10-2007
PCM$: 500.00
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Janvier Hadi!
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| Imladrik |
Posted on 24-11-2023 17:10
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 807
Joined: 05-10-2021
PCM$: 600.00
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Bitter last stage for us, after the hopes that Pacher gave us yesterday. In any case, thanks to him, it's not a zero pointer, but it's still not much, in the end. I can't quite understand the team's strategy here, but, well, we were lucky enough in our other races.
Let's hope we'll be more agressive in Guadeloupe and Middle East.
Congrats to Lierse, thanks for the reports Ulrich!
“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably."
A. Roy
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 24-11-2023 17:50
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 18187
Joined: 12-05-2012
PCM$: 0.00
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TheManxMissile wrote:
Canty making a push to sneak a GC Top10. Can't wait to watch that vanish on the final day.
Holy f*ck he did it, he held onto 9th! A turning point in the season?
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 24-11-2023 19:16
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Protected Rider
Posts: 1118
Joined: 07-07-2013
PCM$: 200.00
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I have to second Imladrik here: I've no idea what our riders had planned here. Only one day in the break by Lammertink, apart from that Russo went for the GC (of course, because why not?) and at least finished 22nd. But it seems weird that the stage that our best sprinter was closest to finish with the first group was the most mountainous one. It's puzzling ...
But nonetheless congrats to everyone who did better and thanks to Ulrich for reporting!
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 24-11-2023 20:33
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World Champion
Posts: 14562
Joined: 08-08-2011
PCM$: 9100.00
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They listened! In fact they gave a perfect example of good teamwork! But maybe most importantly, this is a win for the AI as well here.
So yeah, obviously happy with a win here, but it goes withut saying we can't give Oomen that support every race.
Rankingwise, we're getting some good ranking points here. Unfortunately, this kind of good result only makes up for the bad results we had so far. It will take a lot more to make up for the Portugal and Ukraine disasters.
Thanks for another great set of reports, Ulrich! Clearly the confession has done you well 
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 24-11-2023 22:11
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4505
Joined: 05-10-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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Congrats Ollfardh! Terrific win for your boys, Oomen was the man to beat after the first stage and everything went perfectly.
Wouldn’t 100% agree on the AI though, Oomen winning is good along with Lierse providing good support, but nobody else tried to control the race? Masnada + Dunbar were happy to sit a good way back and just twiddle their fingers while their support riders were god knows where. Disappointed the team didn’t at least go to the front towards the end, but am still stoked with the result considering the stage 1 disaster! Two 3rd GC placings now a for Dunbar this season, he had four 2nd places last season so even though so far it’s a ‘step down’ I have to admire the consistency. Not looking forward to the wage demands though already 
Thanks a bunch for the reports Ulrich, always a pleasure to read.
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 24-11-2023 22:30
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4667
Joined: 29-09-2018
PCM$: 185.00
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Big congrats to Oomen and Lierse, winning this one in style! Well-deserved win, especially given the monstrous uphill lineup you brought here, clearly the strongest team.
Really glad to get some kind of reconciliation with this race, which has never been a good one for us in the past. Just to say - Masnada was 23rd last year with the exact same stats - the only difference this year is that we had a strong TTT lineup which prevented the game from ignoring him...
Obviously I'd have loved to see some more aggressive riding on the final day, especially from Masnada and Errazkin, but finishing 2nd in the GC is fantastic anyway! With 4 riders in the Top 20, the entire team did a great job, and every single rider scored some points here (those who didn't via GC did thanks to the TTT or team standings). We definitely scored far beyond our target 20 PpRD, so sending a pretty strong lineup here was definitely worth it.
Stefan Küng deserves a special mention; finishing 15th in a pretty tough race shows why he was one of our top targets, and looks rather promising for races like Denmark, Norway or Britain as well.
Good to see Dunbar getting the best out of the race after Indosat's TTT disaster. Buchmann with a stage win and 5th in GC is pretty good for UBS as well - and it's even better for Xero, taking a rather surprising (imho) 4th place for Xero. And Hadi must be THE surprise rider of the race, no clue how he got to finish that high up
Thanks to Ulrich for the reports, they were a nice read (although I didn't like the pretty narrow road leading to the finish line, but a wider one wouldn't have changed the outcome big time anyway).
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 24-11-2023 23:22
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World Champion
Posts: 11392
Joined: 17-12-2014
PCM$: 1020.00
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Pretty great race for us to kickstart what feels like our season proper after the long break. We threw our 3rd-7th top guys at this race so was quietly hoping for something like this - as Fabianski said perhaps Pidcock's 4th and white jersey is a bit surprising but if you switch him and Fouche and said that pre-race I think it would have made sense, so 4th and 10th is great but not an insane overperformance. Add the stage win and two podiums and it's very solid. Really like seeing Pidcock's all-roundedness and backups clearly "increasing" his main stats as hoped. Still don't think he'll be able to justify his wage and RDs but not going to be an absolute zero. Now just have to hope that Bennett and Areruya can do their jobs, Fouche can perform a bit better once he's alone, and Houle can get some better AI if we are going to make the climb from last to promotion.
Congrats Lierse for the win and the others who performed well - definitely love seeing Janvier Hadi doing well and of course one of my historic favourite non-Xero (not for lack of trying) riders in Calmejane as always just being a great rider no matter the PCM.
Thanks for the always great reports Ulrich - proud of the peloton for holding their ground on the Thanksgiving strike, hope you and all the other Americans of Daily had a great one |
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 25-11-2023 08:02
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9099
Joined: 13-03-2013
PCM$: 2100.00
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Great races as reports, happy for Lierse, Jura and Xero for their perfect races as well as the Lilian show.
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 25-11-2023 10:59
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2907
Joined: 15-07-2007
PCM$: 300.00
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This was a disastrous event for us and a total waste of racedays. We need to step up our game quite a bit to fight for those promotion places.
Congrats to Ollfardh and thank you Ulrich for the great reports!! |
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| Blasing |
Posted on 25-11-2023 16:27
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Neo-Pro
Posts: 278
Joined: 27-06-2011
PCM$: 200.00
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Total waste of racedays for us too. Our puncheurs are not as good as I expected them to be.
Manager of JEWA TIROL Cycling Team
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![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
