Coolrex: Not really much of a sprinters team and generally the nationality of my riders have come above their speciality so really that depends on the new riders entering the DB. If there's a Finnish sprinting talent I'll sign him
viking: He sure did, and I hope he did some decent work for you along the way.
On the first hilly stage a break was allowod to take the stage - sadly without us in it.
Nevertheless several riders put in a strong finish giving us hope for days to come. Esepcially Taciak winning the pelotons sprint was great but Lehtinen on 13th deserves a mantion as well.
Stage two was bad, but at least Chris only lost time to the absolute top favourites.
Stage three was flat and useless while it did provide Chris with a bit of rest before the following important day.
Chris tried attacking at the right moment but just didn't have the legs as did noone else making this a neutral day in terms of the GC
Stage 5 saw Taciak go in the break only to get pulled back before the crucial part of the stage - by Live Nation among others…
CAS got us a much needed 9th place on the stage, though the effects on the GC were minor.
On the last day we got the first sighting of Dabrowski when he attacked 20 km from the finish preparing a solid effort from CAS, which saw him move into the GC top 10.
You may have struggled a little in the CT standings this season, but easy to see from your talent update that you are near the top in terms of rider development. An interesting project you obviously have going - good luck in 2015, sure some of these riders will take a big leap forward in terms of return on points.
Struggling a little is a very kind way of saying it
When my plan A, B, C, D... failed in terms of top leader last year I decided to just give up and get some good talents instead
When fully developed I will have a sold core of Finnish riders to build the team around. Apart from that I just have to hope that a huge Finnish talent will emerge sometime soon.
It will be an interesting transfer season though as I have quite a few riders that would really benefit from a loan out while also being good enough to be of use on the team. The transfer season has so many varying scenarios that I haven't got the time to plan for all of them yet...
In Tour of Utah we again had Chris as undisputed captain while we hope Westling can get himself to one or two sprints.
The first couple of stages went quetly for Chris, who stayed in the pack and even practiced his sprinting a bit. He could do with a better sprint, so that's good.
Especially since it helped him avoid crashes and gaps and placed him fifth in the GC after two stages.
Stage 3 was a bit of a miscalculation though as a lonely breaker was allowed to gain just over a minute on everyone else. That could cost in terms of final GC.
The following days were just the same. Chris was where he was supposed to be but stayed passive allowing other riders to gain time through late attacks.
At least the mountain top finish saw him climb a few spots in the GC again.
On the final stage he reddemed himself being a part of the desicive move in a stage that would have much greater effect on the GC than expected.
While he could't keep up with the very best on the climb he still got 8th on the stage climbing to 5th in the GC making this a succesful race after all.
knockout: That is the general story of his season - and our season as a team really. I guess that also reflects somewhat in the fact that we only have 2 top 10's in classics the entire season. And one of those was even Windhoek ITT, where concerns about AI behaviour doesn't really matter...
Samuel hada relatively busy last month starting with the Copenhagen-Malmö TTT where the team finished second-last.
For his final race he was sent to Tasmania for a small stage race where he should help Impey and Hagen on the first two stages while being allowed to give it his best on the final TT.
With both finishing on the podium in a RR stage that part was mission accomplished for Samuel, who finished in the main group both days as well.
In the final ITT he finished as second best Aker-Mot rider also getting his by far best GC result all year.
And with his captain taking the overall second he should be happy with his final WT race.
Samuels Results
Copenhagen-Malmö TTT
-
22nd
+ 2'22
Tour of Tasmania
GC
37th
+ 2'58
Tour of Tasmania
St. 1
69th
s.t.
Tour of Tasmania
St. 2
64th
+ 2'14
Tour of Tasmania
St. 3
35th
+ 1'01
Paavo Paajanen, Swedbank – PEAB
Paavo had one final race for Swedbank this month namely Giro dell'Emilia where he worked hard for his team to thank them for giving him all that experience.
His leader was as many times before this season another loaned-in rider namely Skujins, who finished 10th on this occasion.
Paavo's Results
Giro dell'Emelia
-
89th
+ 7'20
Live Nation Rider of the Month
While noone overachieved or surprised one rider escelled with his consistency.
Chris Anker Sørensen
Song of the Month
We tried so hard and got so far.
In the end it doesn't really matter.
We did try hard in the last part of the season, but the rest of the season was so bad that nothing cam of our late efforts in terms of rankings.
Coming Up
Champions. Not something that have been said in connection with our riders, nevertheless we have high hopes for the national championships. At least the Finnish should go to one of our riders as Vastaranta haven't been nominated dut to his manager going a-wall.
We will also have several riders representing us in the World Championships, though we have very limited hopes of getting a resutl there.
Well certainly it wasn't a very good season for Scandinavian continental teams. But there's always next year! And you've had some promising results. Good luck moving forward, and nice HQ!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
We are extremely happy to be ablt to announce that we have finalized the finances for next season.
The Finnish milk-produce company Valio have joined our project in the last moment. Outside Finland they are mainly known for being some of the best at making products for lactose-intollerant. Something that they have excelled in longer than most as well as they weer the first to discover method to remove the lactose while the milk still kept tasting like milk.
They will have a role as a minor sponsor for us next year.
The Danish clothing-company Astral Biking will be our clothes-supplier while our manager have designed the jersey himself. More about that later.
Furthermore we have gone into collaboration with the Finnish online cycling-shop Suomen Urheilupyörä.
First we are very happy to announce that Kiitokori have been able to step up as co-sponsor in spite of previous messages. For some part due to us failing our goals so hard that it's obvious we will have to make do with a somewhat reduced budget next year.
Kiitokori is a Finnish company specialized in Special Vehicles such as library busses, de-icin equipment and vehicles for airports. And then our new team bus, which saw the team get the much needed spirit in the final part of the season.
The main sponsor however are based in Sweden, but active in large parts of the world and have not made any clauses about us chasing after more Swedes. DeLaval is a very old company which mainly produces equipment for milking - an obvious connection to Valio. Something that have had significant influence on our jersey design.
With activities in pretty much the entire world DeLaval want us to somewhat keep our international profile, while maintaining our focus on our home region with special emphasis on Finland.
Without further ado here is the jersey of DeLaval - Kiitokori:
Spoiler
Since blue and white are very common colours in the pro peloton we went with a pattern rarely used to make the jersey easily recognisable in the peloton, while also being closely connected to our sponsors.
Minor changes can still appear before the start of the season.
TMM: That was the general idea. With a Finnish project combined with blue and white apparently being very popular colours for companies with a lof of activity in Finland the colourscheme was kind of locked, so I had to do something with the pattern instead.
Bikex: Thanks. It can hardly bring less luck
roturn: So it does. Didn't have that Milram jersey in mind at all though.
Very unique and easy to spot jersey there! Good to see another team focussing in on a smaller cycling nation, hope you can get Vastaranta in transfers this time around
jph27 wrote:
Very unique and easy to spot jersey there! Good to see another team focussing in on a smaller cycling nation, hope you can get Vastaranta in transfers this time around
Thanks
I really hope so as well
Though it could be seen as somewhat worrying that his team have folded two seasons in a row...
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
