Throughout our team history, we often loaned in quite a few riders to improve our team depth on certain terrain. A while ago, we started to share the planning for those riders with their home teams. This is a tradition, we want to carry on - this year publicly. Massive thanks to Fabianski for providing a calendar in a format that's perfectly suited to posting them in our HQ.

Two Grand Tours, three monuments: Mantas will ride a schedule that is without a doubt very prestigious for a rider in his first ProTour season. He is riding most of the biggest races focussed on the hills as well as a few more mountainous ones and we are confident that he can contribute wherever he is racing.

Two Grand Tours, three Monuments: Samuele rides a very similar schedule to Mantas with a lot of the biggest races on the calendar. A lot of hills, some mountains and one cobbled race on italian home turf. A total of five home races are his highlight of the season.

Ulysbayev was loaned in to be a reliable domestique and in that role he is supporting Lecuisinier in a majority of his races and he is also part of a few hilly races for the support of Miguel Angel Lopez. Outside of that, he will participate in a few TT heavy races and features as part of our cobbles team.

Unlike his team mate Dinmukhammed, Louis is very rarely joining Miguel Angel Lopez and Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier, but is more often riding in races without them where we hope to see his fighting spirit in action. He is also a part-time member of our cobbled squad replacing Ulysbayev in some of the tougher and more prestigious classics.

Possibly the most obvious goal in the history of goals - it's back! Lecuisinier is of course our leader. The setup around him is similar to ones that were succesful in last year's Giro victory and Taaramäes Vuelta victory in 2021: Six support climbers with Eenkhoorn and Koch replacing Vosekalns and Blums as the key domestiques and Kurianov taking the rouleur spot that previously belonged to Dzamastagic or Havik.

This was our OR goal and it was a really tough decision to make post-transfers. 2021 winner and 2022 winner Miguel Angel Lopez is headlining the startlist as the standout favourite and he is trying to go for the threepeat. Our two latvian puncheurs Blums and Kanepejs as well as several climbers are there to support him.

This race was a desaster last year with Lopez failing our to ten goal surprisingly and decisively by finishing 16th. We are back for redemption and are aiming for the same goal again. And truth be told, we are actually hoping for the win after having podiumed this race three times in the past.

We finished in the top of the Giro di Lombardia six times in the last six years - why not aim to continue that streak? 2020 winner and 2022 podium finisher Miguel Angel Lopez (of course) leads us again. The rest of the lineup looks almost identical to the LBL lineup with Koch replacing Van der Haar as the only change.

We hope that we can improve on last year's fairly poor season by our standards and are looking to finish in the top 10 again. It won't be easy to achieve but we believe in our squad to have enough quality to be in that fight.

The season opener marks the Evonik debut for a bunch of our new signings as Foss, Plapp, Kanepejs and our loanees Januskevicius and Ulysbayev have never raced in Evonik colors before.

This race is far from a team favourite, having only finished in the top 20 twice in the last seven years - twice as 6th with Taaramäe and Lecuisinier in each of the last two years. This year, Lopez is leading us as he is racing here for the second time in his career. But he will want to forget his debut, having finished only as 123rd in the 2020 version. Foss will be his co-leader of sorts, having almost a completely opposite skillset for this race - fully recognizing he only finished 49th last year.

Qatar is possibly the race all year with the fewest expectations for our team. Theoretically, our group of rouleurs could do quite well here but recent history has not been too good for rouleurs, there isnt even a KoM classification to chase, we failed to sign a sprinter and we don't have anyone particularly good for the final prologue either.

The exact same group is heading to Australia together for a flat classic and there we have slightly more hopes of a good result. Rouleurs have strongly shaped the race the last two editions so we have hopes for our rouleur trio to make things happen in the final.

Three races of which only one looks solid for us so we expect to be a fair bit behind the top teams after the first month.

Yes, we actually tried this year. We had never finished inside the top 20 since promoting to PT in 2016 until now so it was time to break the streak...

First of the triple header races and we are relying on Eenkhoorn for this one. His toughness on the climbs and his prologue skills should put him right into the top 20 fight. Gavars, Januskevicius and Battistella are the guys we hope to see in breaks.

The weakest triple header lineup for us as we once again focus on the hilly classic in Luxembourg. Maybe Kanepejs can use the rare opportunity to lead? Or Plapp can give a first glance at his potential for the future? We are happy for anything we can get out of this!

One of the constants in Evonik planning over the last few years: Once again, Lopez rides in Luxembourg and has a very strong support group with him as Blums, Polanc and notably Foss are all here to assist him.

Another opportunity to the "unequal leader duo" of Lopez and Foss. It looked kinda promising in Tasmania but the lack of gaps resulted in a disappointing race for us. Now we hope for a better result in Ukraine.

The times where we had a big pre-race favourite are over - and it was a tough decision who would be leading us here. In the end, we decided to focus on our rouleurs group. So Kurianov and Van der Haar are leading our efforts here.

February should be better for us already than the January start. Still not an ideal month for us but we have the first shot at a race victory in Luxembourg as well as hopes for some sort of results in some of the other races.

redordead wrote:
Except for MAL in the Big Shower looks like you're keeping your powder dry for other races.

Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier wins the 2023 Tour de France. A long anticipated clash between him and Taylor Phinney promised an exciting fight for yellow.

After a calm first week for the sprinters, the eigth stage was were the favourites properly started the race. The mountain stage over the Tourmalet to Luz-Ardiden was the first opportunity to gain some time. Lecuisinier won the stage with a tiny gap to Phinney. This was enough to take over the maillot jaune from Simon Yates with a micro gap of just a single second ahead of Phinney.

Day 10 was the final day in the Pyrenées as a short but brutal stage to the Plateau de Beille proved to be one of the most decisive stages in the race. Lecuisinier claimed his second stage win with a nice gap of 69 seconds over his closest rivals which was crucial to defend his jersey in the time trial on stage 12.

Pierre-Henri added small time gains on most mountain stages after that and added his stage wins three and four in the final week. Entering the final deciding stage, a time trial of 52 kilometres, Lecuisinier had a lead of 2'21 over Phinney to defend. And after losing just 54 seconds he ended up claiming his second Tour de France victory and Evonik's first succesful Tour de France win goal.