T3 (Pa-Ni/Tir-Ad, Flanders + Ardennes, TdSuisse, Pologne, Fall Classics)
Pozzato
Chainel
Keukeleire
Richeze
Søndergård
Cardillo
Visser
Iraola
* for Pa-Nice & Tir-Ad I split T1 and T3 up so I have a good GC-contender in both.
T4 (Tir-Ad + All big one-day races)
Sagan
T5 (All GTs)
Boasson Hagen
So this means for the tours mentioned I only have cobble riders. I guess a quick fix would be to put Kelderman or Krusjewijk in the cobble group, but that would mean a weaker GT-team.
Hehe, he would be wasting a lot of race days riding those cobbles and I guess it would not be very, what's that word... "re-al-is-tic"?
To cheer you up he just managed 2nd overall in Catalunya!
Cobbles with Sagan so far is looking achievable. In E3 Iglinsky attacked 70-80km before finish. The main group of strong riders caught up with the break, but Iglinsky kept them at 2 min distance until 15km, when I ran out of patience. I set Pozzato to dot and left Sagan in the group. Pozzo caught up with Iglinsky well before the sprint which caused him to just give up. The main group was chasing mad though and I let Pozzo take a breather as they caught up to him just before the sprint the. He had plenty of energy left to set up Sagan with an easy sprint win.
In Gent-Wevelgem the break was caught early at around 40km. A few guys attacked without gaining ground. At around 25km Boonen attacked and the group seemed unable to chase him. I had Chainel there and tried to chase with him, but Boonen kept increasing the gap. At around 12km I set Pozzo to dot at a high tempo with Sagan on his wheels. They quickly dropped the main group but Boonen would not quit. He kept the gap at around 35-40 seconds. I thought I would lose it as I approached the sprint, but as a last ditch effort I sprinted at 3km, with Pozzo only having a few bars left. At 2.5km I sent of Sagan. What a speed!!! Boonen must have been completely empty because he waited until 1km to sprint as Sagan was coming up on his side. He was empty aswell but I think his momentum took him past Boonen as he finished a few bike lengths ahead of him.
Now to do the same in Ronde Vlaanderen
Cancellara was riding Cataluyna btw, but I guess he'll there for the big races.
Edited by eple on 02-06-2013 14:01
Just finished Giro with Saxo-Tinkoff Bank. It was an amazing GT for our team and our leader Kreuziger. 3rd GC overall + 11th stage and top3 on 7th, 8th and 18th stages.
Bennati rode well too with two stage wins: 1st and 5th and a top 13 on 12th stage. Majka helped Kreuziger and still, finished in 3rd on young jersey.
Oh, and i think i'll have a new main sponsor for the next year. UniCredit offered me about 3.000.000€ (less than SaxoBank already offer) but the country is important for me. Denmark hasn't that much talented riders as Italia, and so i may change the sponsor, letting some old riders go.
btw, just a quick review of my best results, so far:
Recently started a career with Blanco, already won TDU, Tirreno, a stage in Paris Nice and Catalunya and the E3. Just had Gent-Wevelgem. Quite weird race there. On the first Kemmelberg, split the peloton to 70 riders. On the next it became 20. It became a sprint with an exhausted Boonen, Sagan out of shape, Degenkolb and Vanmarcke. Degenkolb won, but we should be terrified about no2. It was bloody Sinkeldam! How, I dont know, all I thought was WTF. Vanmarcke came 4th, Boonen was 3rd. Currently up for the last stage in Catalunya
After getting 2015 year with Movistar,i totally lost motivation.
Won Vuelta and TDF in these 2 years,made Quintana one of best climbers,won WC with Valverde,got Degenkolb,who developed next year in real beast and there i stopped.
I thought to start career with Lotto or Argos this time,or maybe NetApp , any suggestions (i would really like to get some )?
So, i started this team some months ago, and now i reached at the half of my first season. Until now, everything is going supergood. Here are some of my important results:
4 stages Giro di Italia: Degenkolb (3) + Martin
7th Overall Ranking Giro: Kloden
1st Ronde Van Vlandereen: Burghardt (dont ask how... im still shocked )
2nd Milano - SanRemo: Degenkolb
1st Overall, Points, Mountains rangkings Tour of Luxemburg: Degenkolb, Nerz + 4/5 stages won
Mountains ranking: Bayern - Rundfarth, Tour of California: Nerz
+ I almost won the Giro points ranking, but Deg cracked on the last mountain stage, and got DQ, for delaying (
+ lots of top 10s in other 2.HC / 1.HC races
In the second part of the season my main objectives are obv, a good classification in Vuelta: Kloden will be mah meen, and ofc Deg and Tony to snatch victories, Thus there will be The tour of Pologne im invited, and ill try my best in Late season classics.
Despite the good results, im a bit sceptic about the future. I mean Deg is hell of a rider, and Martin covers my TT and stage victory needs, but my only GC rider is Kloden, who is basically a dinosaur ) Im thinking of signing a GC rider, who is the nationality of mystill unkwnown co-sponsor
admirschleck wrote:
I thought to start career with Lotto or Argos this time,or maybe NetApp , any suggestions (i would really like to get some )?
I've been playing with Argos for a while now (I'm @ Le Tour now) and it's mostly quite fun. Degenkolb is a total beast, but I'm not too happy with Kittel. His bad resistance and stamina stats stood in the way of really great results so far (only Top 5s in the first Tour stages). As for stage races and hilly classics, you really need to have some patience. I brought in Linus Gerdemann, that helped a lot. Otherwise, your best climber is someone like Peterson (or in my case Barguil, who's developed to 77 MO by now), so you have to go for breakaways rather than GC. If you're fine with that, Argos might be the team for you.
I thought Barguil had at least 74mo/hil.
I am the guy that prefer mountain stages,so i would probably try with Lotto this time,having great riders in every field.
I love realism in PCM: Henao wearing the pink jersey in the Giro, but still working for Wiggins (5 minutes behind in GC). Also, Nibali taking over the jersey in the first time trial, just like what happened in the real Giro. So I'm happy so far, Astana and Nibali are on schedule for victory!
3rd season of Lampre career is going well. Sagan has been fantastic, he will be my first rider to score 1000pts in the UCI tour. He has won basically everything he's partaken in... except for L-B-L! Gilbert was too strong. There's still a few classics left, and if he manages to win Il Lombo he will have managed the Mini Slam in one season. He couldn't have done it without Pozzo though. Next season he will be gone, but I've secured Lars Boom as his right hand man.
Boasson Hagen manged 2 stage wins in both the Giro and the Tour, in addition to the green jersey in the latter. I'm about to start the Vuelta with him in good form, so I think I have a great chance of getting the stage hunter exploit.
I still haven't been able to win Tour de France. This season I rode my team to the brink of collapse trying to protect the jersey and win seconds for Henao. I was dreading the 20th stage, which was a completely flat 60km + TT. Closest rivals were Froome, Contador and Nibali, but he had a few minutes lead. They all crushed him though. Froome beat him with 3:30 and Henao dropped to 4th place with only a minute from 1st to 4th
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