Okay, i give you the final decision there. My main goal for this year is the white jersey in France (or being runner-up behind Quintana). So i give the season planning to you as it is propably the one thing you know better. Just make sure that i will be in top shape then.
Our very own Petre Lixandru rode very bravely in his first "De Ronde". Petre attacked shortly after the first cobbled section, and rode his up to the breakaway.
Petre was one of three to make over the first passage Oude Kwaremont at the fore of the race.
However, the break was doomed and Petre eventually finished way down in 33rd place. We will look for a different tactic next week in Paris-Roubaix.
It's been nearly two months since I last spoke to you all but there's a simple reason for that, I didn't take part in any races throughout April, so I had nothing to tell you! Last week I took part in the Bayern Rundfahrt, my first chance to lead the team. The race was always going to be decided by the long time trial, so it was definitely a race that suited me.
The team did a great job looking after me on the road stages and I was always up around 20th position in the sprints, with my German friend Schwabe doing a particularly great job in his home race. On the day of the time trial, I was far too excited and went out a bit too quickly but calmed myself down to pick up a 4th place finish!! I was delighted, even after I saw the time gaps - I was over a minute behind the winner, Kim - but I did lose one place on the GC to Kristoff's consistent time bonuses.
Still, fifth place overall is pretty pleasing for me, as well as second in the young riders' competition and I helped Cofidis to second in the team rankings. The only negative was the fact that there wasn't even a single photo of me despite being right up there on all five stages. I'm obviously not a media darling!
Eight stages in and around the Alps, this race is always hard but extremely popular and prestigious. The race started with a few hilly stages (no prologue ). Dani Navarro was very aggressive on the opening stage and got a top five finish, while I started my week-long task of looking after our French leader Pierre De La Montagne. The second stage saw Hardy make the break of the day but not much happened after that and Romain was caught in the final kilometre.
The third stage was poor for us as we had nobody up the road all day but we all finished safely in the bunch. This meant that I went into the long TT in joint 11th and I knew this was my chance to show my ability. I set out fast, a bit too fast as it proved, setting the fastest time at the intermediate timecheck, but ran out of gas with a kilometre or so to go, finishing 28 seconds behind another really talented youngster, Pennarossa.
After everyone had finished I was in sixth, just under a minute down on Froome. If it hadn't been for Amador having the yellow jersey and getting the extra legs that gives, a top five would have been mine. Frustrating but at least I didn't underperform. De La Montagne also got a top 10 to give his GC chances a boost, which helped me to motivate myself for the rest of the race.
Into the mountains we went and on stage five, I did my job in taking Pierre to the front at the foot of the final climb, where he managed a 16th place, moving him up to sixth overall, replacing me. Stage six saw another attack by our free element Navarro, but it didn't work and we settled for another day of not losing any time as the early break took the stage.
Stage seven was a killer with the Alpe d'Huez early on. This was easily my worst day in the saddle. As Taaramae got into the breakaway, I did all I could for Pierre and then called it a day on the penultimate climb. Ninth and tenth the result with Navarro having a good day as well.
The final stage saw another attack by Taaramae, which sadly came to nothing. Funnily enough, I had a better day but as the attacks came earlier, I had nothing to do so cruised in to the finish in a large group seven minutes behind the winner Froome. Navarro had another good day in fifth place, but Pierre's fourth place in the GC was what we celebrated that night. Great ride by the Frenchman and it makes the whole week worth it, knowing that the pain I suffered helped my teammate. Nice job Pierre.
If you're interested, I finished 56th, 20:31 down on the winner, which isn't too bad at all. And with that, it's on to the Tour. Hoping for similar success there but of course, it is at least one more level up. The TTT is my first goal and I think we have a good chance of a great result.
Sky ruined the Road Race with strange tactics but I put in an attack and finished sixth. over a minute ahead of the next rider, with only Froome beating me from the peloton.
So, Tour de France, let's find out what all the fuss is about...
Allez Cofidis
Jordan Birtles
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
Hi team. Its me Pierre. After the hard trainings and site seeing tours in Alps and Pyrennees, im ready to go to the Tour. After that i dont know, maybe my legs can do some more races. I wish to go to Clasica San Sebastian, Danmark Rundt, GP Plouay, GP de Fourmies, GP Wallonie, Tour de Vendee,Paris-Tours and Chrono des Nations. As i count its 33 race days for me. Cheers.
Sorry about Britain, but most active CT already claimed the spots, and it wouldn't be fair if I allowed 1 team in while I couldn't do the same for others.
All in all, I think this is a realistic Cofidis schedule
I thought I'd keep you up to date with what it's like to ride for a team with no manager. Our boss recently ran off to the Caribbean to evade the tax authorities and didn't think about giving the job to someone else. Operation Headless Chicken has begun...
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So, I arrived to my first, and last, Grand Tour with Cofidis and stepped off the plane in Ajaccio to stupid heat. Great. Even better, when I arrived at the team hotel, our leader Pierre wasn't there, as due to colossal admin errors, he hadn't been entered for the race and neither had Navarro, Taaramae, Lixandru or Schwabe. Merde.
As we sat round the table with our incredibly confused and worried DS (some 21 year old Frenchman with some PCM experience who we'd found on the plane), we tried to work out what the hell we were going to do in this race with a team that basically contained an average climber, average sprinter and some British TT'er that nobody knows how to communicate with, as well as some domestic level French guys. The conclusion was that we would sit tight for the first few days then embark upon Operation Headless Chicken when we hit the mainland, attacking uphill, downhill, through and under hills. We even considered sending Hardy up the road in the TTT.
The first day was a waste of time. Whilst our sworn enemies Europcar got a man in the break, we did as told: nothing. Petit sprinted to a solid 70th place and the rest of us sat right at the back like NetApp during one-day races. The second stage was hilly and Le Mevel directly ignored the order and attacked at the start. However, he was swiftly punished for his insolence and spent the rest of the day at the back of the peloton, playing charades with Edet, Bagot and Poulhies, while I discussed the finer points of cricket with a couple of Americans. Everyone lost that day and Coppel led us home in a simply stunning 120th place.
After the previous day's disgraceful ride by Le Mevel, the third stage saw us return to normal: Playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who would go and get the bottles. Bagot lost. We briefly came to life over the hills to ensure Coppel and Le Mevel finished in the main group, which they did, along with Edet and Levarlet. I, meanwhile, finished in the next group, four minutes down, with so many Basques alongside me, I thought I'd taken the wrong turn and ended up in the Pyrenees. While, further back, Petit, Poulhies and Bagot stuck steadfastly to their plan of being completely useless for the first three days, finishing with Alex Rasmussen and Theo Bos on a hilly stage.
So, we waved goodbye to Corsica, a beautiful place that I never want to go to again. Incredibly, we are in 7th place in the teams' standings by some miracle, ahead of fantastic teams like BMC, but that will all change soon. Next up is the TTT, where without some of our better time triallists like De La Montagne, Taaramae and Schwabe, we're up shit creek without a paddle. I think me and Coppel are going to have to ride on the front for the whole thing. Merde again. Then it's time to go crazy.
Allez le poulet sans tete!!
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
The German talent Thomas Schwabe who thinks of himself as "the better Jan Ullrich" is on the market. Due to personal differences towards the team officials he does not want to stay any longer in France.
He already got the first interest but nothing is close to an agreement yet!
German stage racing talent Thomas Schwabe got a lot of interested teams to mark him as a transfer target. He seems to be the most wanted rider on the market as teams from all over the world were interested in him. Asked about all the interest he replied: "Of course, most of the teams go to the best riders first to ask for a contract while some other riders have to wait for offers. Just look at the NBA: Everyone wanted LeBron and only after he signed a deal, all others could find their places, too. I saw the same concept in this transfer period. Director Sportifs hope to get my signature on their contract and they wait for me to decide if they are gonna get their top target or if they have to go for option B." However, he already seemed to know which managers have to go for 'option B' .
Le Tour de France sans Directeur
Part 2 - South Coast
I thought I'd keep you up to date with what it's like to ride for a team with no manager. Our boss recently ran off to the Caribbean to evade the tax authorities and didn't think about giving the job to someone else. Operation Headless Chicken has begun...
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After a short flight over the Med, we arrived in Nice the night before the TTT. Our new DS stopped playing PCM for long enough to sort out the plan for the next day's ride. "But I'm two stages away from winning the Tour with Evans!", He kept saying. Of course we all knew this meant he was playing on easy so weren't entirely convinced of his use as a DS in the real world. After a twenty minute argument in French, he just looked at me and said "you do everything, yes?" To which I replied "What?"! in complete shock and we all went off to bed. Except for me, as I rang my agent and my Mum, in that order, begging for help.
We started as one of the last teams due to our frankly ludicrous high placing in the Teams' Classification and so we knew what to aim for. Beating Euskaltel. Incredibly, even though me and Jerome did indeed "do everything, yes", we still beat six other teams, putting fifty seconds into Euskaltel, who must have gone the wrong way or something. Unfortunately, we were beaten by our rivals Europcar, who finished 14 seconds ahead of us despite having Bernaudeau in their team. Now, it's time to attack!
Stage five was a long one, over 200 kilometres to Marseille, with a couple of tough climbs near the end as well. Due to this daunting prospect, none of us could be bothered to attack and we sat in the peloton discussing whether, in all seriousness, there was any point working for Jerome considering the fact he's a bit shit.
In the last few kilometres we decided to pair up and see which pair would be the fastest when tied together. Petit and Coppel won, finishing an impressive 142nd and 143rd. Me and my partner Poulhies were 161st and 162nd because he's useless. But not as bad as Levarlet and Edet, who lost over five minutes. Good god. Even Hardy beat them on his own as Laurel wasn't there to help him.
Next up was a completely flat stage to Montpellier and even we couldn't fuck this up. No, we did. Once again Operation Headless Chicken failed as we weren't seen on camera all day and spent most of our time comparing our Fantasy TDF teams. It turned out not even Jerome Coppel had Jerome Coppel in his team. We really improved from yesterday, getting two riders inside the top 120, with Poulhies incredibly beating our super sprinter Petit. We all managed to finish in the peloton this time but I was so far back I was beaten by Bernaudeau and Rasch. In my defence, I was still one of the best Cofidis riders.
Next up we hit the Pyrenees. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...
Oh and here's a picture of us doing our thing in the TTT. I'm surprised the photographer was quick enough to catch us without any motion blur, really. This is actually the one occasion Jerome and I went to the back to recover for a Kilometre. I'm #203 and Coppel is, of course #201 due to his insane GC abilities.
Allez le poulet sans tete!!
Manager of Bunzl - Centrica
ICL's World Tour Champions and Talented Bottlers
). Dani Navarro was very aggressive on the opening stage and got a top five finish, while I started my week-long task of looking after our French leader Pierre De La Montagne. The second stage saw Hardy make the break of the day but not much happened after that and Romain was caught in the final kilometre.
makes me wish for more managerless teams
