Oh wow! I was a bit disappointed after stage 5 when Stallaert was unable to make any GC gains because I did not expect that he would be able to gain bonus seconds in the final sprint, but then he did! 2nd in the GC, two 2nd places on stages, 2nd in the points classification and then Teggart in 20th place overall and Okbamariam in 46th make this a fantastic race for us and a much needed boost in the promotion race.
Congrats to Pidcock and jandal, nice to see him succeed like this. Congrats quadsas as well, what a performance by Losch! And to bushwackers for 2nd and 4th overall, too.
Lastly, thanks for the very thorough and very entertaining reports throughout, UU!
Pidcock's first GC victory! At Level 4 as well, you don't see that every day. Really great race for us obviously with GC, Points, U25 and a stage for Pidcock, a stage and a first ever successful yellow jersey defense from Schomber (and carrying yellow through the race as a team), stage placings for Jams and Pidcock and 11th and 17th on GC from Jams and van Zyl. Very little to complain about, this is the level we need to be achieving at more often, but with promotion hopes somewhere between impossibly slim and just plain impossible I should also remember to just enjoy these special races we've been having.
Thanks to UU for the great reports and congrats to everyone who got something they're happy with out of the race - big races also for UBS and Lampre obviously among others. Shame Van Dijke took a tumble in the GC on behalf of the sprinters but still love to see him doing so well, as well as Rowe of course.
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
Nice to see Ulloa in the break again. Hoped it would last until the end, but alas. In general 2 good cobble results from Zepuntke and 2 nice attacking stages from Ulloa, but as we feared the GC AI was all but kind to us. Hopefully the bad luck in this race means good luck in another race
Congratulations to Jandal on the great Pidcock win, and thank you Ulrich for 6 amazing reports!
Oh well, this race should have been the foundation for our back half of the season and its promotion push. That is no longer on the cards, the race all things considered was obviously still good with a teams GC win and some decent stage results and 3 riders in the top 12.
Daniel continues to be a disgrace this season compared to what he's supposed to be outputting, genuinely a massive underperformance and it underlines our worst cobbles campaign in team history since our first PCT season. I think it's safe to say that he won't be getting close to a new deal post decline if he keeps riding like this. He has two races left where he can make a difference in Kigali and Rheden, obviously if he manages to find good results in those then we might have a different talk, but at this point his scoring is so incredibly bad.
Absolutely love to see Pidcock take a huge win for Jandal, this is the type of race that is tailormade for his rider type, since he's essentially Riesebeek on steroids. The only other race that I could imagine being more down his alley is the original Tour of Cyprus that will probably never return
Finally, thank you for an unbelievably entertaining set of reports Ulrich all of them were fantastic reads even if we didn't have the exact amount of success that we desired.
Before the race, would've taken 7th and 13th for sure. Expected Mick to lose couple of spots and he did. Still a great race for him. Shiki dragged himself into a Top 15 spot and we got some depth scoring as well. Can't complain too much.
Congrats to jandal on another dominant race Thanks for the reports Ulrich!
