@abhi: Thanks for the nice words. Although I expect no wonders of Kelderman, hopefully he does perform a bit more like his stats suggest than he did at you. I do like Munoz, but also don't expect too many amazing things from him either. He'll hopefully have his fun in GT, and winning just one stage would already be a big success for the team.

@Fab: Except for the triple clash I'm all set Needed to level up many talents who on their turn had many racedays, so except for a bit of a headache it went quite easily. Even a top-10 GT finish should be very hard I reckon, but with the right breakaway(s) Munoz might get close somewhere. With Manninen, Sütterlin and Kelderman (together with second sprinter Abdul Halil) also going to GT's I hope we can still score some points and perhaps win several stages there. Depth at the moment is indeed terrible, but should indeed be getting better as of next years when the 50k domestique talents start maxing Relegation is likely, and removing Keizer from the team gets us the same team around 2,5 million wage.

@C14: I agree some attackers like a Bernas or Pidcock wouldn't have hurt, but on the other hand I do hope we can score with the guys mentioned above in GT's as well. Problem is it won't be easy for our team to control a breakaway for guys like Kelderman or Manninen, so we'd need other teams helping us.

@SotD: Thanks for the nice words. Hope you are right about relegation not being an option, but we'd really need all of our leaders to perform then. Zepuntke is a very special rider, and although he has had some terrible performances last season on pcm 2020, we hope races like Paris - Roubaix are actually more his thing. It's nice to have so many youngsters on the squad, although of course three are not 'ours' and four of them very likely won't be renewed as stags. Fun to be able to level up two stags through Avenir though, could be interesting for other teams to pick them up next season instead of being forgotten in the MG DB for ever.

@MacC: Hehe, thanks. Also didn't expect anything to happen after closing the Zepuntke deal, but when life gives you lemons...

@red: Well, you have never relegated. So I'll take it as a compliment

@jaxika: That was indeed the plan. Thanks for the nice words.

@lief: I hope you're right about the staying up part, but indeed even if I don't I'm liking the look of next season in PCT already. Zepuntke won't be scoring many points in hilly cobbled races, true, but since I don't have any cobbled racedays except for the mandatory ones and his salary being so low I'm fine with that. Kelderman won't be attending hilly stage races with time trials anyway by the way, as I am considering those more of a Keizer-terrain. TTT with four strong guys and then level 2/3's is also not usual, I know. But hopefully they can more or less make it work

Ladies and gentlemen, apples and pears. We have found the budget for some massive training. Most people would have opted for a +1 mountain for Zmorka, but we decided we should listen to our heart instead of our brain. We would hereby like to congratulate Ruben Zepuntke on a succesful off-season mountain training. Apart from winning Paris - Roubaix he immediately becomes a top contender in Ronde van Vlaanderen as well.

Well, when we ended our renewals we had four national champions, and that did not change throughout the whole transfer period. Still, we would like to present hillis' great work and give a little shout-out to our nc's as well. So here we go.

The most important one. Our first Mexican title came from our beloved first talent ever, Ulloa. He'll be able to wear it on the legendary cobbles of Paris - Roubaix and Ronde Van Vlaanderen this season, as he is on his way to maxing out. Hopefully the jersey gives him wings, as he is Zepuntke's only domestique.

The most impressive one. The time trial itself wasn't the hardest obviously, but Zmorka annihilated like 20 Popo4Ever riders in the Ukrainian road race all by himself. Hopefully he can deliver us several top 3's in it.

The most repetitive one. For the second year in a row Ruiz had a rather easy job 'winning' the Peruvian title. Won't be as easy this year with Quispe and Gonzales at Colombini. We hope Ruiz can improve his lead-out qualities even more this year, as he will also be maxing out. Wherever Manninen is, you'll find Robinson as well.

The most lazy one. Luis Enrique didn't need to do anything to win two titles in his first year as a pro, simply because he is the only rider from Honduras. With the right planning we should get him enough experience this year for him to max out easily next year in PCT as well. He is the second best mountain domestique we have, so most of the time he should be around Munoz and Keizer.

Galapagos, a Belgian - Dutch biotechnology company, joined us last year when we were looking for extra money after promoting to PCT. Although they definitely loved being in the picture several times with national champions like Maksimov and Manarelli sprinting to victory, they were not completely satisfied.

They felt likt the lack of Belgian and Dutch riders was, well, disappointing. We agreed to a deal where they would pump more money in the team, as long as we signed at least three regional riders for them this year. We are glad to announce we succeeded in doing so. Let's have a look at our Dutch armada of the 2022 season.

Nat.	Name	FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR	Age
	Wilco Kelderman	70	71	82	70	80	75	73	62	67	72	77	71	70	31
	Martijn Keizer	70	79	69	79	72	76	74	57	55	70	70	59	79	34
	Joris Nieuwenhuis	75	64	69	60	69	73	65	70	73	75	62	76	60	26
	Daan Hoole	67	68	66	68	68	72	66	68	68	68	69	69	65	23
	Rick Pluimers	68	60	66	60	70	73	64	64	67	65	69	62	63	22

First of all is of course puncheur Kelderman. He was reeled in for a LPH record fee of € 750,000. We don't expect him to rock PT, but several top 10's in classics/stage races should be a realistic goal. If we go down to PCT, he should be nice points per wage value with his 400k wage. Sources close to the team management suggest he might go to a GT. Keizer can be very good, but can also be very disappointing, definitely when looking at the massive TT training in the division. Sources close to the team management suggest Keizer might also go to a GT.

Nieuwenhuis is a Puma loanee, and there are actually many sources close to team management suggesting he might go to a GT to be able to max out as well. He is actually our third or fourth best cobble rider, so he'll return to Puma with 1/8th of a Paris-Roubaix win in his pockets.
Hoole has been dubbed the mini-version of Van Baarle and is our first Dutch talent ever, so definitely something special. He immediately becomes an important asset in our TTT setup as well as our cobbled team, which says more about us than about him to be fair.
Pluimers is a stagiaire with a chance of actually earning himself a contract next year, as he could max out at 76 flat with 80 resistance.

As written earlier, we have done what we needed to make our Dutch sponsor happy. However, we did feel like we could do more for Mexican cycling as well, with the nation being our first regional focus. In general the team has been doing well since the first transfer season by always getting several Latin American (talents) on the squad, but with only one Mexican on the roster a change was needed. Not just for our sponsor, but for Mexican cycling in general. Let's have a look at the Mexican maxed riders currently in MG.

Indeed. That's it. Only three riders. De Luna for BWT Hyundai, Lemus Davila for Minions - Subwoolfer and Prado for Moser - Sygic. All nice riders, decent climbers and good against the clock. Nevertheless, in addition to our level 4 cobbler Ulloa, it's not a lot. With Prado very close to declining and the other two also having maxed some seasons ago, things did not look very bright for Mexico as a cycling nation.

In our first season we contracted the Mexican cobbler, who will be maxing out this season. In addition to that, we suggested three more Mexicans at the end of last season, and all of them succeeded in getting a contract for the 2023 season. Let's take a look at the Mexicans who are currently developing.

We immediately see that the nation will have several types of riders in three years. As mentioned before, Ulloa will be tha nation's star cobbler. Aguilar Mendez and Galvan Ramirez have both been contracted by Los Pollos Hermanos, with the former being a pure time trialist and the latter being a 'classic Mexican', decent in the mountains and with a nice time trial as well. We are very happy to see De La Cruz Chapulin getting a contract as well at Zara - Irizar, where he could develop into a fun breakaway puncheur with a good kick and nice energy stats. The future started looking a bit brighter for Mexico as a cycling nation, and we hope some more nice domestiques or even CT leaders can come out of the country in the coming years.

Nemolito wrote:
@U.U.: The sponsor understood skipping the Tour of America when not having the right riders for it and knowing it could make the difference between promoting to PT or not, where I could help even more in making Mexican cycling great again Definitely loved the route and loved to report on it, and hope to be able to report it again this season, with McCormick there as well of course.