In contrast Tirreno – Adriatico proved to be a lot tougher, all early breakaways were caught and even Romeu and Smetannikov stood no chance against the best riders. Not a single top 5 result – with one notable exception. The race started with a 16 km TTT and we had brought our TT specialists along just for this stage. And it paid off:
This victory fulfilled a tough 5-star objective. Smetannikov also claimed the white jersey, he comfortably beat Orica's TT specialist Simmel and FDJ's climber Mohoric. Overall victory went to Porte, just ahead of Daniel Martin. Despite a seemingly simple course and an ITT the top 10 is made up of climbers who are equally good on hills.
Amore & Vita is now 11th in the WT team rankings with 52 points. We certainly feel we have a more competitive squad this season and are looking forward to the next races.
While negotiating the sponsor objectives I lowered some but to balance it I upped Milan - San Remo from a top 10 to a top 5. We had three plans for this race: Plan A is to attack with World Champion Smetannikov on top of the Cipressa, plan B to score with Romeu (HIL 78 SPR 74), plan C to get our best sprinter Hita (HIL 69 SPR 78) into position.
The AI is known to be conservative in La Classicissima, unwilling to chase a late attack with full power lest the sprinters lose some of their energy. With the protection of Carter, Smetannikov set a high speed up the Cipressa and attacked at the top. He's a great descender (DHI 78), he's good on the flat, uphill and in the sprint (all 75). He quickly gained 30 seconds while the other teams were organising themselves, Romeu stayed near the front willing to counter any further attacks while Hita was a little further back protected by Hermanski.
Smeta's advantage even grew a little between Cipressa and Poggio and a solo victory in a monument became a real possibility. The gap remained in the final kilometres, Smetannikov had a full red bar going into the last 3 km and started an undisputed sprint with 1.8 km to go - and won Milano-Sanremo!
Romeu was in third position downhill, he was outsprinted by the faster men and ended 7th, Hita didn't quite make the top 10 as 11th. Hofland won the sprint from the peloton ahead of Goss and Demare. With the 100 points from Smeta and 30 from Romeu Amore & Vita already has 180 WT points, currently 6th in the team rankings.
Thanks, mate! Smetannikov proved that his win at the World Champs was no fluke, it's hugely satisfying to have a rider wear the Rainbow Jersey and now he also wins this monument.
The Tour of Catalonia featured two tough mountain stages, a GC result was out of the question for our team, Romeu ended 47th. No stage win, either. Beltran escaped on stage 3 but was caught early on the final climb and going at full speed he ended 17th, 4:21 behind Quintana. A day later Barton had to settle for 3rd out of 4, 29 seconds behind Simmel and Mercato.
Stage 6 to Monserrat was short and fairly easy, one cat. 2, three cat. 3 hills. Our best rider, Romeu, was part of the breakaway, he collected 30 mountain points which was enough to take home the jersey from this race. But he was only 5th of 6 escapees across the finish line, it was no shame to lose to Talansky, but he should have really beaten Chernertckii, Pardilla and Chalapud. On the final flat stage Hita managed a good sprint and was 3rd.
Overall victory goes to Uran ahead of his team mate Herklotz and Quintana. The German wins the points jersey and is the best U25 rider.
In the meantime the cobblestone season started with the GP Harelbeke and Gent – Wevelgem. With Wheeler and De Troch we have two young specialists for these races but our eyes are also on the man in the rainbow jersey, Smetannikov has maxed out his COB at 70, turning all his stats green. Those three riders would be protected by their team mates.
The GP E3 proved too hilly for De Troch and Wheeler, they lost contact to the top group and crossed the finish line 6:44 back. But Smeta was able to hang on, just barely, to a top group featuring Cancellara, Van Avermaet, Vanmarcke, Degenkolb, Sagan, Boom, Senechal, Stybar and young Sustronck.
However, he only ended 10th out of 10, Degenkolb won the race ahead of Sagan and Stybar.
But Gent – Wevelgem proved to be more to our liking, with only the cobbled Kemmelberg and a long flat run to the finish. Smetannikov was part of the top group of 4 riders before running out of steam, Degenkolb once more won the race while Stybar and Sagan swapped places on the podium. Cancellara's late attack wasn't enough to take 4th place from Smeta while De Troch arrived with the next group and ended 7th.
Sorry. Cancellara, now 37 years old, still earns 152k/month. And I'm afraid Trek's salary budget has decreased steadily from 580k in 2014 to 412k. While Ag2r's rose from 634k to 898k. On the other hand, "Trekkies" have every reason to be pleased with their current top earner Stybar (80k).
In the Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco we sent a rider into the early breakaway every day but were only able to record a 3rd place by Birtz on the first stage. Richie Porte (MON 84 HIL 84 TTR 77) dominated the Basque Tour, winning 4 stages, the points jersey and the overall standings.
Our focus was more on the two big cobblestone races. The Tour of Flanders was similar to Harelbeke, the steep hills too tough for our northern classics specialists, while Smetannikov was just able to hang onto a 10th place. This time he lost contact to the top 9 (the same riders again, only Boasson Hagen replaced Vanmarcke) well before the finish line and arrived alone 5:28 behind the winner Cancellara, who was able to beat Van Avermaet and Stybar.
Paris - Roubaix wasn't to Smeta's liking, too flat, too many cobblestone sections. Our best bet was Adrien De Troch (COB 76 FLA 72 STA 69). What kept him in the running for a top 10 finish was a drop in speed of what remained of the peloton after five riders (Cancellara, Sagan, Vanmarcke, Senechal and Stybar) took off with 50 km to go.
They created a huge time advantage, reached the velodrome together and Trek's Stybar was the strongest in the sprint, he beat Senechal, Vanmarcke, Cancellara and Sagan.
Stybar was on the podium in all four WT cobblestone races, he crowned his performance this season with his biggest career win.
Further back, with 40 km to go, De Troch decided to risk an attack even though he hardly had any energy left. If the others aren't prepared to work, maybe he can solo his way to a great 6th place. However, as he reached the velodrome he was caught by three other riders, Demare, Sustronck and Turgot. 9th would still be great... but surprisingly, none of the riders who joined him had any energy left and he won the sprint for 6th place.
Top 10 results in the Ronde and Paris - Roubaix were sponsor objectives we didn't think we could fulfil. But only a few northern classics specialists are left, which opened the door for these good results.
Last season we managed 217 WT points, after Paris - Roubaix we already have 275 points this year, while the two newly promoted teams Europcar and Caja Rural have collected just 1 point between them. Amore & Vita is currently 10th in the WT rankings.
As expected, the Ardennes classics were a bit too tough for our team. The Amstel Gold Race was won by Kwiatkowski ahead of Dan Martin and Spilak from a group sprint of ten riders. Our best performer was Romeu as 14th, he arrived with the second group, 2:12 behind Kwiatek.
The Fleche Wallonne produced an identical gap, 2:12, for Carter in 17th place. The race was won by Astana's Porte ahead of the two Tinkoff riders Quintana and Mollema. A strong season so far for Porte, who also won Tirreno – Adriatico and the Basque Tour and is comfortably leading the WT individual rankings.
Dwayne De Vos was our best rider in Liege – Bastogne – Liege, as 44th, only 1:10 behind. The pace and headwind in the finale were high, discouraging late attacks. 46 riders were still within one minute of each other as we entered the final 10 km. Valverde seemed the certain winner until out of nowhere came Degenkolb and surged past the Spaniard. De Gendt was 3rd.
Thanks, Flanders was hard work, Roubaix was helped by the AI. The top 5 favourites were ahead and won by 8 minutes and everybody else slowed down and nobody cared when De Troch attacked... I'm not complaining.
The Giro del Trentino was taking place during the Ardennes Week and our sponsor asked for a top 5 GC finish. We missed the goal by a few seconds, Olivier, Smetannikov and Birtz were 6th, 7th and 8th. Smeta won a stage and BMC beat us by just 8 seconds in the team rankings.
The Tour de Romandie netted no results for Amore & Vita. Birtz and Olivier were in the breakaways on the two mountain stages but were caught and dropped long before the finish line. Birtz's 14th place in the final ITT was the best we could manage.
Froome won ahead of Quintana and Kreuziger, Olivier was 46th. Froome and Quintana split the two mountain stages between them, Quintana also won stage 2, but the prologue and ITT favoured the Brit.
So the Ardennes classics and the Romandie were slightly disappointing. But next we'll be travelling to the Giro and are hoping to repeat or even top the success of last year, when we won 2 stages and the blue mountain jersey.
Daan Olivier will be slipping into the role Kudus held last year and Olivier is a slightly stronger rider. His goal is to win the blue jersey in this Giro d'Italia and hopefully a stage, too.
We couldn't have wished for a better start and won the opening TTT, 19 seconds ahead of Astana and Orica.
Romeu got to wear pink on stages 2 and 3. But the third stage to Cosenza was already a pretty tough mountain stage won by Ian Boswell. Romeu made no attempt to fight for the jersey, lost over 12 minutes, hoping to attack another day.
In fact, another day was tomorrow, Romeu attacked together with Dumolin (HIL 77), Navardauskas (76), Possoni (73) and Waeyens (74). It was looking good for the Chilean, two late hills, he dropped all his breakaway companions... but was caught on the final climb and only ended 14th. His team mates had an easy ride and lost a lot of time against the best riders.
Romeu's final chance to win a Giro stage was on stage 6, he'd withdraw a day later because we need him for the one-day races later this season. Only one real obstacle on the course, a cat. 2 hill long before the finish line. The escape group managed to hold off the peloton by 90 seconds, but Cort Nielsen managed to outsprint Romeu, Schaer was 3rd.
Two days later we faced the second mountain stage, mostly flat but with a long final climb up to Blockhaus. Olivier (MON 76) attacked together with Gesink (76), Preidler (76), Soerensen (75) and Degand (74). A tough group, Olivier tried to work as little as possible, he led the group uphill to the two smaller climbs and collected 32 mountain points in all, but he didn't always relay in the flat sections. His steady pace in the final 23 uphill km paid off, the others exhausted themselves with attacks, and Olivier won the stage 1:12 ahead of Gesink, 1:38 ahead of Preidler.
Our other riders had less luck with their breakaways, Pucchio tried twice and was caught both times, Gautier was also unsuccessful. Stage 12 featured a trident of mountains, cat. 1, 2, 1, in the second half and this time Birtz was given a chance in the breakaway because he's strong downhill (MON 74 DHI 75). He was up against Serry (76, 71), Rosa (78, 66), Preidler (76, 71), Morton (76, 65) and Lutsenko (71, 65). Birtz didn't fight for the mountain points, saved up his energy for the attack over the final climb into the downhill run to the finish line and was rewarded with the stage win, 19 seconds ahead of Serry.
Rosa joined Olivier on stage 15 and proved too strong, Rosa won the stage, Olivier was 3rd. 2nd on the day was Sky's Uran who slipped into the pink jersey and would go on to win the Giro. Birtz got his next chance on stage 18 up to Cortina d'Ampezzo but couldn't keep up with Pozzovivo and then both were overtaken by the favourites, Uran won the stage and cemented his lead.
A day later Olivier joined the escape group of 6 riders but could only beat 4 of them, Serry took the stage by 21 seconds, but Olivier took the lead in the mountain classification. However, Serry attacked again on the final mountain stage and we only had Beltran (MON 74) up against him, Beltran had to fight hard so that Serry would not claim top points on every pass and then he faded and was dropped by his three breakaway companions. Wyss won the stage ahead of Serry, but Serry collected 73 points and now had 168 against Olivier's 106.
Thankfully, the final stage offered Olivier a last chance. It wasn't a typical flat stage, but a 5-lap circuit with a cat. 4 and a cat. 2 hill. Olivier was first across all of them, collected 80 points and overtook Serry at the last possible moment to win the mountain jersey. Not only that, his performance was crowned with the stage win, holding off Pozzovivo and the peloton by just 22 seconds.
Two stages and the blue jersey for Olivier, topping Kudus, who won one stage last year. Plus a stage for Birtz and a prestigious TTT and several more top 5 finishes added 60 more WT points to our total.
Uran not only wins the Giro but also the red jersey, this was not a race for the sprinters. In fact, only 127 riders finished the Giro, groups of riders missed the time cut on several stages, including 13 riders on the last stage. 2nd in both classifications is Pinot, 3rd overall is Kelderman. Like last year we see some big gaps inside the top 10. 25 year old Schuermans (MON 82) is 9th overall and wins the white jersey by nearly 3 hours.
Tamijo wrote:
Very fine Giro for the team with several stage wins and the KoM
And a tough fight it was for that KoM jersey, usually there isn't much competition, but Pieter Serry and Diego Rosa seemed to be in every other breakaway. The final tally was:
1. Olivier 186, 2. Serry 168, 3. Rosa 152.
At the start of June we are about halfway through the season. Porte still leads the WT rankings but Uran is now just 4 points behind the Australian and Pinot has closed in, too. Quintana (4th) and Mollema (7th) are the main reason Tinkoff is leading the WT team rankings followed by Ag2r and Katusha. Amore & Vita remain in 10th place, Trek, Lotto and Movistar aren't far behind and should overtake us, at the bottom Europcar finally scored points, they now have 4, while Caja Rural remain at just 1 point.
Jean-Claude Birtz was the best U25 rider of the Criterium du Dauphine, just able to beat Mohoric. This was due to good TT performances as well as a 2nd place on the mountainous stage 7. Sadly, he was not only beaten to the stage win by Chernetckii, the Russian also collected 1 mountain point more and wins the polkadot jersey by that single point.
The ITT on stage 4 in Roanne was hilly and allowed our three specialists – Birtz, Boothroyd and Foure – to take 3rd, 4th and 5th behind Durbridge and Jungels. Olivier repeated his success of the Giro by winning the final hilly stage, distancing his 4 breakaway companions by 27 seconds.
Porte continues his great run by winning the Dauphine, just 3 seconds ahead of Rui Costa, who attacked Porte on the last stage and gained 30 seconds, which wasn't quite enough.
On the hilly stage 4 of this year's Tour de Suisse Alex Howes and two other escapees managed to hold off the peloton by 47 seconds, but Howes was unable to beat Tony Martin in the final sprint.
The mountains came on stages 8 and 9. First to join the breakaway was Mannion, he wasn't strong enough to contain Edmondson (MON 78) and then both men were overtaken by the Astana riders Froome and Kwiatkowski.
The queen stage awaited once more on the final day and it was time to unleash Olesen on the breakaway. His MON 79 was unrivalled by the other escapees, he left them behind on the penultimate HC climb and never looked back, winning the stage 6 minutes ahead of Froome. The 56 mountain points Olesen collected that day were also enough to win the blue jersey. We hope to see more performances like that in the TdF and Vuelta.
Overall, it was a 1-2 victory for Astana, Froome wins the Swiss Tour ahead of Kwiatek, Mollema completes the podium, the points jersey goes to Sagan, who won stages 5 and 6.
We were only able to win 3 national titles this year: Foure (France), Olesen (Denmark) and Hermanski (Germany). While we often seem to have a 100% win rate from breakaways, this year we failed more often than we succeeded, can't ever take winning for granted. Silin beat Irgalin in Russia, Chalapud beat Beltran in Columbia, Warbosse beat Mannion in the USA, Gross was only 6th in Switzerland, Dernies 16th in Belgium, Pucchio 32nd in Italy, Mayordomo 45th in Spain, Olivier 49th in Holland.
At the start of July we are ready to unveil our new sponsorship agreement. While Ukrainian based Amore & Vita was interested in renewing our contract, we felt it was time to look for a sponsor with a higher reputation. We were looking for a good mix of wage budget, jersey colour and regions of interest. We soon made our choice, cool dark green jersey (and a funny slogan), an American soft drink looking for a bigger market share in Southern Europe, especially Spain and Italy. From next year on we'll be known as Team 8 Up with a budget of 311k/month - up from 190k this year.
Side note 1: I actually had to edit this extensively. PCM made the sponsor Australian with no interest in any regions. Instead, we'll be an American team, the sponsor will be happy with a mostly international team with just a few Spaniards and Italians as well as one or two US riders. Also, the sponsor was only knowns as 8up, I felt Team 8 Up (abbreviation 8UP) looks better.
Side note 2: IRL the slogan was "Make 7 Up Yours":
(The whole campaign with Orlando Jones is pretty funny.)
The Tour de France 2018 would see another duel between Chris Froome (Astana) and Nairo Quintana (Tinkoff), the only MON 85 riders currently around.
Both have strong teams supporting them, Froome can count on Kwiatkowski, Porte and Talansky, Quintana brings along Mollema, Rolland and Fulgsang. Froome in this career has won the last 5 TdFs in a row (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), Quintana was runner-up the last three years. 73 kilometres of flat time trial spread over the prologue and stages 13 and 21 favour the Brit once more, Quintana has to drop his rival in the mountains.
However, until we reached stage 19 the Colombian had been unable to do so, the two riders arrived together on every mountain stage except Mont Ventoux, where Froome was 20 seconds faster. However, despite that the gap was only 7 seconds going into stage 19. Quintana had done well to minimise the gaps in the ITTs and clawed back 59 seconds on stage 14 which ended on the Mur de Huy.
On stage 19 across two big mountain passes 33 year old Froome finally cracked and lost 54 seconds, putting Quintana in yellow. But that probably wouldn't be enough with the final ITT on the last day. But Quintana had one more chance, stage 20 was extremely tough, two HC and on cat. 1 climbs before leading up the Col du Granon with a finish line 2413 metres above sea level. And Quintana delivered, he created another gap of 71 seconds. Froome won the final ITT, but Quintana was only 41 seconds slower and ended Froome's long reign at the top.
Sadly, our team was unable to win a stage. On stage 6 McCarthy fought bravely and dropped his breakaway companions, only to be caught by a peloton of 92 riders at the last possible second, he ended in 6th place. Two days later Kudus was just as close in the mountains, only two riders caught up with him, Quintana and Froome and only the Colombian beat him. On the flat stage 15 we sent Bunce (SPR 77) into the breakaway, the peloton had no intention of catching the group, but Van Avermaet won ahead of Navardauskas and Breschel, Bunce was only 4th.
On stage 18 Olesen finally got his chance but was horrified to see riders sitting just outside the top 10 joining him, Vuillermoz, Barguil, Chavez and Contador! All these riders including Olesen have MON 79, but Olesen has the worst secondary stats and average rating. Well, that's the TdF for you. Vullermoz won the stage 14 seconds ahead of Contador, 26 ahead of Barguil, Olesen was 4th, 2:17 behind. For the winner and runner-up the stage was the foundation for their top 10 GC finishes, Contador ends 7th, Vuillermoz 8th.
A day later it's Mannion's turn, but he was up against none other than Fuglsang (MON 81). Unsurprisingly, the Dane won by 1:16, Mannion managed a respectable 2nd place. On stage 20 Olesen was given another chance, he still had the possibility of becoming the King of the Mountains. But his 92 points weren't quite enough, Froome picked up 16 points, enough to win the jersey with 123 points ahead of Olesen and Quintana, both with 111 points. Olesen was unable to beat Vanendert and Bouet and was 3rd, though by gaining over 14 minutes on riders like Talansky, Mollema, Velits, Betancur and Valverde he jumped to 17th overall with enough of a margin to lose 5 minutes in the ITT and still keep the position.
In the absence of Sagan, Degenkolb convincingly won the green jersey by winning 5 out of 6 mass sprints, only losing to Kittel once. While Olesen failed to win the polkadot jersey, he did win the white jersey quite comfortably, 25 minutes ahead of Herklotz. Amore & Vita ends 14th in the team rankings.
Tamijo wrote:
Not bad getting a rider in top20, the competision is very hard.
The general classification isn't something we are currently concerned with, though I have noticed before how effective it can be to be part of the breakaway on the last mountain stage of a Grand Tour. We should be able to challenge for GC positions next season, because we have have been able to attract some good climbers.
Cancellara, now 37 years old, still earns 152k/month. And I'm afraid Trek's salary budget has decreased steadily from 580k in 2014 to 412k. While Ag2r's rose from 634k to 898k. On the other hand, "Trekkies" have every reason to be pleased with their current top earner Stybar (80k). 
