@Croatia - Absolutely, rides and seasons that will live long in the memory for us!

@ember - Yeah we're very excited for the future of the squad and seeing our home grown guns soar. Will be a big off-season for sure!

@Croatia - Thought you might!

@Eden - Not since "Tom Scully was dead the whole time" in our 2016 season have we had such a turn of events

jandal7 wrote:

Rowe teamed up with fellow flatbeast-sprinter Dzamastagic for a dream team late attack in the Elite Road Race

@knockout - <3

@whitejersey - That's really cool, it would have been a legendary race for both us and Evonik if it worked even a bit more, nevermind if they won, but still an awesome moment

Just three riders left from our original 2016 roster in Novardianto, Schleck and Schomber - with none of them having rode six full seasons (if we go by that metric, Jams is tied with Bennett at five full years). After Bennett comes two Kiwis who started with us in the CT days who have since left - Davison and Schreurs - as well as Rowe, Bazhkou and Areruya who are still around from our inaugural PCT squad.

The effects of a year in the PT show themselves, such as Higuita overtaking fellow South American Jonathan Salinas for the final place in the Top 10 with essentially just this one breakout year to thank for it. Areruya easily takes the record for a single season haul and moves himself into a podium position, though Houle put up a good fight this year notching his biggest ever total as our second-best rider. Bennett further extends his lead over Rowe, but all eyes are on the 800 points he has in hand over Areruya.

Single-Season Record: 985 (Joseph Areruya, 2021)
PCT: 716 (George Bennett, 2020)
CT: 631 (Anthony Roux, 2017)

Bennett stretches his lead to three over Anthony Roux (who did 90% of his total in one year rather than Bennett's five, it must be said), and will take quite some years of catching. No changes in the rankings of the top six, while Schomber and Higuita add themselves to the list with their maiden victories this year.

Single-Season Record: 7 (Anthony Roux, 2017)

If we include wussy ways to count victories we can see Stan the Man vault himself into third thanks to his six National Championships in four years, and we double our number of riders from 14 to 28! Interestingly this loose definition also allows us one victory which happened when a rider was not on our full-time books, back when Morne Van Niekerk rode with us at the 2018 Tour de l'Avenir and won the prologue, a year before he actually signed with us!

Classification wins have never been a forte of ours given our lack of great fighting climbers, young GC men or sprinters, however we've been getting a little better. This year Areruya vaulted into second place with three U25 jersey wins.

"Tour of Japan doesn't exist" Record: Joseph Areruya, 4
"2021 U25 Jerseys also don't exist" Record: Luke Rowe/Hugo Houle, 2

A table which looks pleasingly similar to our points list, sharing 8 riders in the Top 10s - Roux and Bazhkou performing above their station, while Stannard and Pidcock are below theirs, though in due time we are sure they will remedy that. A very tight race between the Top 4 (also the Top 4 scorers), with just €166,000 separating them all. Give them all another renewals and things could well be different. Meanwhile Areruya takes the biggest payday from the team in history - though were Thomas Pidcock's contract paid in full he would have done it.

Single Season Record: €540,000 (Joseph Areruya, 2021)
PCT: €370,000 (Luke Rowe, 2020)
CT: €210,000 (Tom Scully, 2016)

Anthony Roux will be tough to ever overhaul here after his stunning 2017 season on just €85,000 did a lot of the heavy lifting for his Xero career. Joseph Areruya is now knocking on the door of the Top 10 but more years in the PCT might find ever cracking it tough. Bennett slips from €308 to €421 in just a year to fall out of the Top 3.

Single Season Record: €135/point (Anthony Roux, 2017)

Jamalidin Novardianto still reigns supreme at the top of the charts here, while he and Nils Schomber hold a commanding lead of over 100 over any active rider. Nobody with the opportunity to break triple figures in PT this year did so, so Nils Schomber's century in 2019 still holds the record.

Single Season Record: 100 (Nils Schomber, 2019)
CT: 76 (Jamalidin Novardianto, 2016; Rei Onodera and Dylan Kennett, 2017)

For another year Jams staves off the chasing pack, though many behind him had a big year this year, as evidenced by nearly the entire Top 10 (plus 11th, 12th and 13th) being part of our 2021 squad. Higuita was the big mover this season with 8th, as well as adding a breakaway victory and KOM jersey to show for his efforts.

Single-Season Record: 14 (Jamalidin Novardianto, 2016)

Finally it's a ranking of our own making - the winners of the HQ Rider of the Month Awards. Bennett didn't manage any this season and now has Luke Rowe breathing down his neck, after the Welshman added two to his total, as did Higuita who now is tied for fifth. Areruya was the big winner this year as he notched three wins, one in every month he had a stage race, but can't pass Anthony Roux in third just yet.

Single-Season Record: 4 (Anthony Roux, 2017)

@knockout - Absolutely, what a legend. Think I will stick with that nickname Doing the team history stuff and thinking about the narrative of the team so far and moving forward and so emotionally attached to him - so glad that we went through CT to PT with him and he got that stage win for us at Le Tour, very special moment.

@Abhishek - Thanks Yeah I love doing it and reading it from others, the guys like you and SotD who do it regularly are awesome and also love it when the really old teams do it like roturn and SN have done some great ones in previous years.

SotD wrote:
Oh man. When I see a post like that, there's a tiny part of my brain that sparks up yelling "YES! - Read this god damnit!"