Ulrich
Yeah, if I had a maxed McNulty coming back from loan, my goals would've looked quite different. But without a PCT-level leader already on board (you even had two of them pre-transfers, with Boswell and McNulty), well, I though I'd need some additional cash. It didn't work out as I hoped it would, so I expect those goals to backfire next year. But as long as we do well enough overall to at least stay up, goals are secondary tbh.
McNulty will obviously beat Stüssi in Switzerland, and I'd be happy to even just get a GC Top 10, but yeah, I've always focused quite a lot on regionality with goals - at least with the win goal. I agree the goals are not optimized for my squad, but that's my way of playing the game I guess.

Nemo
I agree 3/4 are possible, with TdS clearly out of reach. 2/3 of the others will require some luck, but ToSA should really be possible. It would've been unrealistic as a win goal, but with a stronger than ever TT lineup and an almost as strong puncheur as before, I really hope we'll get that one.
I know the guy who did the calendar, and he actually doesn't really need to get credit. He's just happy to help others by sharing some of the work he'd have done anyway.
A TT-heavy calendar was a given even before transfers - although I obviously regret by now not having gone for Arenberg (which would've included Franceville). But I hope Lithuania will be a good one for us instead, with the clashing Vuelta TTT hopefully attracting some strong TTers as well.

red
No need to crush us, but yeah, you should definitely beat us in all of them. In hindsight, I should've been 100% committed to getting Eastman and Lammertink, which would have clearly increased our chances in all three PTHC goal races. But I'm not sure overall scoring would've been that much better than by getting Theuns, Kung and Bol instead (plus keeping Mäder/Darbellay, who'd have been sold otherwise). So yeah, goals don't look great, but alas...

Here and now, you would probably expect to find our leaders' schedule. Well, not yet. Why?

The reason is that we first have to define who our leaders actually are, because it's not quite as simple as with other teams where you'd basically take every 77.5+ rider or so. We only have 2 above 77.0 OVL - but having only 2 leaders kind of sucks.

So with this post we'd like to show why we're pretty confident to score lots of points despite having not a single top-level PCT leader. Let's go!



This is the rank of ouf highest OVL rider among all PCT riders this year. Which means that 28 riders are - on paper - stronger than Edward Theuns. Just to compare - two years ago, Nairo Quintana was #20 - and this wasn't enough to stay up.

On the other hand, there are only three cobbles specialists in PCT having a higher OVL than Theuns (counting in Benoot as well, besides Stallaert and Debesay), which means that despite the pretty slim calendar we still expect him to score well.



The average age of our team. This does include loan-ins, so the actual value would be a bit higher - but: we're the 6th youngest team in PCT. Which on one hand means that we don't need to worry about the short-term future too much - but that doesn't necessarily impact our current scoring.

On the other hand, it also means we have plenty of U25 eligible riders. And we expect especially three of them - Mauro Schmid, Stefan Bissegger and Alexys Brunel to contribute some U25 points, which might be decisive in the end!



This is the number of 75+ OVL riders on our team. We've seen that we have no top-end riders - but we definitely have some depth. But not only - for example, you can have 78 TTers with an OVL below 73. Which could also be called depth.

But what brings a lot of our riders' OVL up is their versatility! 10 of these 11 riders actually have "green digits" in more than one main "domain" (counting Mo/Hi as one domain) - be it Mo/Hi + TT, Cob + Hi + Spr, Hi + Spr, TT + Spr, or TT + Hi + Cob. And it's this versatility that brings their potential score up!

As an example, you'd never expect 400+ points from a 77 TTer. Stefan Küng did just this last year, shining in several tougher TT-heavy races. Many of our riders can be planned in races featuring several decisive terrains - we believe it's a big plus. It definitely is compared to our first PCT season back in 2021, when we only had 6 75+ riders...

And just to say - no other PCT team reaches 10+ 75 OVL riders, with Lampre getting closest having 9 such riders. And we're still #7 even when counting in PT teams...



The average OVL of our Top 10 riders. Let's elaborate a bit more on this, and on what it means.

If we take just the top rider per team, we're in 17th place. The 16 teams above us obviously are those having the 28 "better than Theuns" riders under contract. Not too promising.

The Top 3 riders per team, a similar picture. We're now up to 14th, leaving 10 teams behind. The Top 8 teams have a Top 3 rider average that's higher than Theuns' OVL. Still not very promising.

If we take the Top 5 riders, we move up to the Top 10, taking 10th position. Our Top 5 riders average OVL is less than 1 points lower than our top rider's OVL - something not many other teams can affirm.

Moving on to the Top 10 riders, the picture changes completely. We're actually on top now! Not completely surprising, given that all of our Top 10 riders are 75+, but still - overtaking all those teams means they must be a tad weaker in the bottom 5 positions of their Top 10 riders.

Sure, it's all playing around with numbers, and you can always find some that look nice - but it still confirms the depth and versatility we noticed under the previous point. Up to the riders to translate that depth to points. By the way, in 2021 we had an average of 75.54, which nowadays would be 8th from the bottom. We did even worse back then, as we relegated...



The number we are proudest of - our maximum possible TTT lineup average. Of the TT skill, obviously. Let's just mention that several other teams don't even have a 77+ TTer, so a 76.5 average should be something. Definitely more than the 73.88 we had back in 2021...

Once again, we don't have a top-end rider against the clock. Szymon Rekita is among the division's Top 10 according to TT skill only. We then have two riders among the 12 78 TTers - Stefan Bissegger and Alexys Brunel. That's 3 out of 22. And two more among the 18 77 TTers - Stefan Küng and Szymon Rekita. That's 5 out of 40, or every 8th rider. Not too bad.

No top-end rider means we can't keep up with the strongest team's Top 3 average - Los Pollos have an 80.0 there. We still get 78.33, which is tied for 2nd with UBS.

If we take the Top 5 TTers, we're on top, however. Remember, all of our Top 5 are 77+, and we end up with 77.8 as an average value. Which is 0.6 higher than UBS and Los Pollos - with Glanbia moving up to 4th, 1.0 behind.

Taking the Top 8 - and hence a full TTT team - has us at 76.5, as mentioned in the paragraph title. Glanbia actually have great depth, as they get as close as 0.5, which means 76 on average. The other teams somewhat lose contact on the last three positions, with UBS and Los Pollos both at 75.125 - more than one point off. Our TTT lineup would even be pretty PT-worthy, given that there are only 5 PT teams who could theoretically have a stronger squad.

Given in how much detail we elaborate this number, you can see that we really are proud of our TTT setup. Unfortunately, our 8 top riders will never be racing together, with our strongest outfit averaging at 76.375 - which wil definitely still be the highest value of any team in that one given TTT.

So this clearly is another expected source of points - not only TTT stages, but also the GC for which they will be relevant.



To round off this post, maybe a rather special number: Our Top 16 riders all have a "green value" in all of their energy stats. Which is a feat only matched by Gazelle in the whole MG world. So we don't only value versatility, we also value energy. If that really brings us any additional points, we don't know - but it definitely shouldn't hurt.

By the way, we obviously don't have the most "all-green" energy stats overall (EA Vesuvio have 20!), but as said before, you always have to find some numbers that look good for you



So, what do we want to say by all of these numbers? It's clear, we're not a top-heavy team by any means. We do heavily rely on versatility and depth - and this means that many of our riders actually have to be considered leaders! We identified 12 of them - and we'll therefore present their schedules in the next couple of days! Stay tuned!

Fabianski wrote:
[quote]Ulrich

McNulty will obviously beat Stüssi in Switzerland, and I'd be happy to even just get a GC Top 10, but yeah, I've always focused quite a lot on regionality with goals - at least with the win goal. I agree the goals are not optimized for my squad, but that's my way of playing the game I guess.

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
72	67	74	65	76	73	74	80	77	76	64	67	70

Start	End	Race	Category
13-Jan	18-Jan	Tour Down Under	C1
04-Feb		Omloop Het Nieuwsblad	HC
10-Feb		Le Samyn	HC
26-Feb		Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne	C1
18-Mar		Strade Bianche	HC
20-Mar		Strada Appia Antica	PT
23-Mar		Macskako Kerekparverseny	PT
25-Mar		Ronde van Vlaanderen	PTM
30-Mar		Lillestrom GP	C1
23-Apr		Roma Maxima	PTHC
25-Apr		GP Wallonie	HC
19-May		1 Jour de Dunkerque	C1
18-Jun		Frankfurt Eschborn	C1
20-Aug		GP Kigali	C1
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1
26-Sep		Rheden GP	PTHC
28-Sep		GP Lugano	C1
09-Oct		Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec	PTHC
12-Oct	15-Oct	Euskal Bizikleta	C1

Besides the obvious schedule including all our cobbled races - except for Viana do Castelo - we had to find some other races for Eddie. Ronde van Vlaanderen will likely be his final monument of the career - or at least the final one where he could shine. Another chance to fight against the world's top cobblers in Appia Antica and Macskako.

Then some hilly races, where he'll support Xuban, plus Frankfurt and Lugano where we expect him to lead us. Finally, he can got stage hunting in Tour Down Under, Britain, and Euskal. We're glad to finally have a hilly sprinter in our team - and of course a top cobbler!

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
76	64	70	67	75	77	81	68	79	77	68	67	69

Start	End	Race	Category
13-Jan	18-Jan	Tour Down Under	C1
30-Jan		Great Ocean Road Classic	PTHC
13-Feb	20-Feb	Paris - Nice	PT
22-Feb	26-Feb	Circulo de Juarez	HC
20-Mar		Strada Appia Antica	PT
23-Mar		Macskako Kerekparverseny	PT
25-Mar		Ronde van Vlaanderen	PTM
03-Apr	23-Apr	Giro d'Italia	PTM
28-Apr		Lisbon Classic	HC
03-May	08-May	Tour de Romandie	C1
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
27-May	31-May	Tour of Norway	HC
09-Jun	13-Jun	La Tropicale Amissa Bongo	C1
18-Jun		Frankfurt Eschborn	C1
01-Aug	05-Aug	Tour de Vineyards	C1
11-Aug	15-Aug	Post Danmark Rundt	HC
28-Sep		GP Lugano	C1

Cees isn't among PCT's top sprinters, and so we mostly avoided purely flat races in his schedule. We still send him to some flat classics we just have to race, because you never know. Lisbon should suit him better than GORC, though, and in Frankfurt we're hoping either him or Eddie can be competitive. Juarez surely is the biggest gamble - if we're lucky and the new PCM version really values energy stats, he could be great - but he could very well end up with 0 points as well.

Besides the wildcard races - Giro, Paris - Nice and even some cobbles due to clashing races - he'll just do plenty of stage races. Wherever there's a TTT and we decided to send a sprinter, we clearly favored him over Dylan Page, and we did rather select races with slightly hilly stages for Cees. We're looking forward to see him in action!

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
75	57	66	60	72	72	75	66	78	79	62	55	59

Start	End	Race	Category
22-Feb	26-Feb	Circulo de Juarez	HC
23-Mar		Macskako Kerekparverseny	PT
25-Mar		Ronde van Vlaanderen	PTM
12-Apr	18-Apr	Tour de Pologne	HC
28-Apr		Veenendaal - Veenendaal	PTHC
08-Jun	14-Jun	Tour de Suisse	PTHC
18-Jun		Frankfurt Eschborn	C1
22-Jun	28-Jun	Tour of California	HC
03-Jul	06-Jul	Arab Tour	HC
02-Aug	06-Aug	Deutschland Tour	PTHC
08-Sep	13-Sep	Balkans International	PTHC
01-Oct	06-Oct	Tour of Japan	HC
12-Oct	15-Oct	Euskal Bizikleta	C1

Dylan will basically ride all stage races where Cees doesn't participate, with their only shared races being Juarez and Frankfurt (besides some cobbled PT wildcards). We only have two races with a flat (rated) stages where we don't send a sprinter all year long - Slovenia and Britain. However, Britain S1 isn't really, really flat, and we do have Eddie there, so we consider that to be covered as well.

We don't have huge expectations for Dylan, especially given that he's mainly in HC/PTHC races - but if even Stepniak could do well at that level last year, we're confident that Dylan will get a couple of strong results as well.

With all of these three riders being new signings, we thought it'd be a good moment to look at the nationalities represented in our team history so far. Plenty of interesting stuff - at least for us who love numbers and statistics!

- Edward Theuns is our first Belgian rider on a full contract. Aaron Van Poucke and Brent Van Moer both spent the 2020 season on loan with us.
- Cees Bol is our first Dutch rider on a full contract. Pascal Eenkhoorn spent his neo-pro season on loan with us in 2019.
- Giorgi Tediashvili is our first Georgian rider on a full contract, after having spent his neo-pro season on loan with us in 2020.
- Xuban Errazkin is our first Spanish rider on a full contract. Pedro Merino Criado spent the 2020 with us having been picked in the CT draft.
- Gergely Szarka is our first Hungarian rider on a full contract actually riding for us. He was on a stagiaire contract in 2020, and was loaned out both in 2021 and 2022.
- Nejc Kosic is the first ever Slovenian rider having any kind of contract with us, and so is obviously the first one on a full contract as well.
- Cedric Bakke Christophersen (loaned in) is the first ever Norwegian having any kind of contract with us.
- Gustas Raugalas (loaned in) is the first ever Lithuanian having any kind of contract with us.
- Scott Davies (loaned in) is the second Brit riding for us - but no Brit ever had a full contract with us, as Erick Rowsell was a draft pick in 2022.
- We have a new record for Swiss riders this year with 10, one of them being loaned out. The previous record was 8, reached from 2020 through 2022. Therefore the lowest number was in 2019, with 7 Swiss riders.
- It's the contrary for Italian riders, where there's only Fausto Masnada left after Moscon's and Basso's departure. The previous lowest number was reached last year with 3, then 5 in 2020/21 - and as many Italians as Swiss back in 2019 (7). Fiat leaving has taken its toll...
- Riders from 24 countries had any kind of contract with us so far:

20	9	5	4	3	3
2	2	2	2	2	1
1	1	1	1	1	1
1	1	1	1	1	1

Ulrich
Yeah, with the pre-transfer strategy they made sense - unfortunately the riders I targetted went 100-200k too high... I'd have loved to pick some more realistic/modest goals, but maybe I'll leave that for next year. And I obviously agree that this Top 5 Team Standings goal is too agressive

Kaiser
It looks like everyone wants to come to Switzerland - no clue what you guys all want to do here. Don't you know that we're not overly hospitable? Well, I guess you all come here because the Queen Stage ends in Austria

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
71	79	73	75	77	73	78	55	63	66	65	69	69

Start	End	Race	Category
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
13-Feb	20-Feb	Paris - Nice	PT
22-Feb	24-Feb	Tour of Ukraine	PTHC
03-Mar		Isle of Man TTT	C1
03-Apr	23-Apr	Giro d'Italia	PTM
03-May	08-May	Tour de Romandie	C1
27-May	31-May	Tour of Norway	HC
04-Jun		Pro Hallstatt Classic	HC
08-Jun	14-Jun	Tour de Suisse	PTHC
22-Jun	28-Jun	Tour of California	HC
01-Aug	05-Aug	Tour de Vineyards	C1
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1
01-Oct	06-Oct	Tour of Japan	HC

This schedule clearly confirms that Colin is a Stage Racer - not a Climber. And all of his stage races contain at least some TT elements - be it alone or with the team. Which is also the case for 2/3 of his classics, where Hallstatt actually is the odd one - surprisingly for a 79 Mo rider, less surprisingly knowing last year's disaster.

We also went some rather unconventional ways with his planning, sending him to Ukraine, Norway or Britain, given that we didn't pick many pure climber's races. The important part of his season really starts in May with Romandie, so the Giro should be a perfect warm-up race for him - we're looking forward to see what he can do as our leader at the highest level!

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
71	77	76	73	76	75	73	60	63	73	69	71	70

Start	End	Race	Category
25-Jan	27-Jan	Hong Kong Challenge	C1
13-Feb	20-Feb	Paris - Nice	PT
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
22-Mar	27-Mar	Tour of South Africa	HC
12-Apr	18-Apr	Tour de Pologne	HC
27-May	31-May	Tour of Norway	HC
04-Jun		Pro Hallstatt Classic	HC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
01-Aug	05-Aug	Tour de Vineyards	C1
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1
08-Sep	13-Sep	Balkans International	PTHC

As can be seen from Fausto's schedule, he clearly is a hybrid rider. He has hilly races like Hong Kong or South Africa, mountainous ones like Vineyards or Hallstatt - and plenty of hybrid races, most including some TT elements.

In most of these races, we don't have really high expectations for him, as we rather consider him to be a helper or a very handy wildcard rider. In quite some races, we expect him to share the team leader role, though, like in Hong Kong, Pais Vasco, South Africa, Pologne or Balkans - but at least in the latter two we're expecting breakaways rather than GC results anyway. We'll see what Fausto can do...

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
69	77	71	75	73	75	77	64	67	64	70	67	76

Start	End	Race	Category
25-Jan	27-Jan	Hong Kong Challenge	C1
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
03-Mar		Isle of Man TTT	C1
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
03-Apr	23-Apr	Giro d'Italia	PTM
03-May	08-May	Tour de Romandie	C1
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
04-Jun		Pro Hallstatt Classic	HC
08-Jun	14-Jun	Tour de Suisse	PTHC
22-Jun	28-Jun	Tour of California	HC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
01-Aug	05-Aug	Tour de Vineyards	C1
28-Sep		Milano - Torino	C1
01-Oct	06-Oct	Tour of Japan	HC

We agree that Valentin will mainly be in a domestique role - but notably in races like Hong Kong, Pais Vasco, California or Slovenia he could well be a candidate for a strong GC finish as well!

He'll be part of our TTT lineup in 7/8 races, only missing out in South Africa, so it's pretty clear what we expect from him - full speed! By the way, due to his lack of love for hills, we don't send him to Britain, Norway, or Denmark - his strong climbing abilities can be better used elsewhere!

red
I must admit that I'm not great at doing planning (yet), so you're certainly right. My thoughts were that Bol is too weak for the hills -> no GC option, so someone else was needed. Our best puncheur will actually be Schmid, and Theuns is more some kind of domestique, who could go for a stage result if there's an opportunity to do so. But PCM probably can't handle my thoughts, so yeah

Nemo
Hello, Mr. Understatement You will rock the PCT TTs without any doubt, and I'm afraid you'll be hard to beat in TTTs as well if PCM plays it smart. Which means we might have a chance, actually
Yeah, I had two Gjensidige Belgians on loan in the same year - unfortunately he wouldn't definitely give up on Van Moer during transfers
Mexicans, why not? But I'm not convinced you't let go of Galvan Ramirez

Fabianski wrote:
Our best puncheur will actually be Schmid, and Theuns is more some kind of domestique, who could go for a stage result if there's an opportunity to do so.

Fabianski wrote:
Hello, Mr. Understatement You will rock the PCT TTs without any doubt, and I'm afraid you'll be hard to beat in TTTs as well if PCM plays it smart. Which means we might have a chance, actually
Yeah, I had two Gjensidige Belgians on loan in the same year - unfortunately he wouldn't definitely give up on Van Moer during transfers
Mexicans, why not? But I'm not convinced you't let go of Galvan Ramirez

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
72	74	77	68	71	77	72	69	70	77	76	74	66

Start	End	Race	Category
13-Jan	18-Jan	Tour Down Under	C1
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
04-Feb		Viana do Castelo	C1
13-Feb	20-Feb	Paris - Nice	PT
18-Mar		Strade Bianche	HC
20-Mar		Strada Appia Antica	PT
23-Mar		Macskako Kerekparverseny	PT
25-Mar		Ronde van Vlaanderen	PTM
03-Apr	23-Apr	Giro d'Italia	PTM
25-Apr		GP Wallonie	HC
08-Jun	14-Jun	Tour de Suisse	PTHC
08-Aug		Clasica San Sebastian	PTHC
17-Aug		Chrono des Herbiers	PT
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1
08-Sep	13-Sep	Balkans International	PTHC
28-Sep		GP Lugano	C1
01-Oct	06-Oct	Tour of Japan	HC
12-Oct	15-Oct	Euskal Bizikleta	C1

Despite Mauro still being a developing rider, the MGUCI statisticians think he should be our 2nd best riders - and cut down his race day allowance to only 44. However, with 39 RDs of PT wildcards - whereof he does every single one, be it suited to his skillset or not - we can almost double his schedule and let him gain enough experience to reach the next level.

He will do Tour de Suisse and Balkans, where he'll hopefully go stage - or KoM - hunting. The same holds for Japan and Britain - hopefully with some better chances. And in Tour Down Under and Euskal, he might even have an outside chance for a decent GC position.

He'll also co-lead us in several hilly classics - Strade Bianche, Wallonie, San Sebastian - and be our leader in Lugano. And then there's the weird one - Viana do Castelo. But remember that a certain Xandro Meurisse has already won this race twice - and Mauro, who stat-wise is almost a Meurisse clone, is U23 vice World Champion on the cobbles... A risky race to pick for him, but it could be a fun one!

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
71	74	78	70	76	75	76	64	63	73	69	67	70

Start	End	Race	Category
25-Jan	27-Jan	Hong Kong Challenge	C1
13-Feb	20-Feb	Paris - Nice	PT
22-Feb	24-Feb	Tour of Ukraine	PTHC
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
18-Mar		Strade Bianche	HC
22-Mar	27-Mar	Tour of South Africa	HC
12-Apr	18-Apr	Tour de Pologne	HC
25-Apr		GP Wallonie	HC
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
08-Aug		Clasica San Sebastian	PTHC
28-Sep		Milano - Torino	C1
09-Oct		Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec	PTHC
12-Oct	15-Oct	Euskal Bizikleta	C1

As our lead puncheur, Xuban obviously does all the hilly classics - except for Lugano, as it clashes with Milano - Torino. In terms of stage racing, we're trying to capitalize on the fact that he's one of the better time trialists among the puncheurs, with races such as Hong Kong or Ukraine. Poland and Euskal are without (significant) TT kilometers, but we think he could still do well.

And then there are Pais Vasco, South Africa, Lithuania and Slovenia - all races including a TTT and hills. The latter unfortunately has a super long ITT as well, with Pais Vasco a little bit more kind - but Lithuania and especially South Africa are races where we really want (and need) him to shine!

red
I (partly) like it even more after having seen the schedules of Eastman or McNulty Looks like our biggest rivals in certain races should be Powless, Choi and especially Dunbar - probably not many wins for us, but some potential Top 5s here or there.

Nemo
I guess it all depends on how PCM handles unbalanced teams. If your team always has to accelerate and slow down depending on whether it's Zmorka or e.g. Higuita leading, I could imagine that this wouldn't be overly efficient compared to a team with all 70+ TTers, indeed. But you definitely have some good powerhouses to speed up your TTT
Leveling up a useless Mexican doesn't sound too appealing for a Swiss team I'm afraid. We do have a humanitary tradition, but I'm not sure useless development projects should be our primary target

I sure hope Stüssi can outscore Aular in Norway, but we'll see. Hallstatt likely isn't the perfect race for either, Higuita might have been a better fit for you. Speaking of Higuita, he should definitely do better in Japan, with just a short prologue. The MTT shouldn't be an issue for Sergio. Pologne is a pretty clear case for Higuita as well, whereas I hope that Errazkin can do well in South Africa. Whether we can beat Higuita might depend on the TTT outcome, guess we'd need to get a decent time gap over the likes of Higuita, Boswell and especially Démare...
I'm doing the same as you in Hong Kong - stage racers, puncheurs, TTers, just no sprinters or cobblers Beating Sütterlin in Slovenia might indeed work
Looking forward to these duels - although I don't consider you to be one of my main rivals for the Top 10 team standings spots, you should be a level above

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
72	58	63	79	70	73	73	62	69	70	63	73	78

Start	End	Race	Category
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
03-Mar		Isle of Man TTT	C1
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
22-Mar	27-Mar	Tour of South Africa	HC
03-May	08-May	Tour de Romandie	C1
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
27-May	31-May	Tour of Norway	HC
09-Jun	13-Jun	La Tropicale Amissa Bongo	C1
22-Jun	28-Jun	Tour of California	HC
03-Jul	06-Jul	Arab Tour	HC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
02-Aug	06-Aug	Deutschland Tour	PTHC
11-Aug	15-Aug	Post Danmark Rundt	HC/b]
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1

TTT is the main theme of the first half of Szymon's season planning - as his first six races all include one, with two of them even being TTT classics. Norway then is the first race with "just" an ITT, but he doesn't have any GC ambitions there.

This is quite different in La Tropicale - maybe his most important individual race of the year - and Arab Tour. California in between has another ITT whre he could shine. Slovenia then marks his 7th TTT of the year - and the final one, as he misses out on Vineyards. Instead, he's got the difficult job of getting a Top 10 in Germany. Danmark could be a race with a decent GC position for him as well, whereas he'll just be in Britain for the ITT stage in his final race of the year.

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
74	68	69	78	73	77	72	60	72	73	64	71	77

Start	End	Race	Category
25-Jan	27-Jan	Hong Kong Challenge	C1
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
22-Feb	24-Feb	Tour of Ukraine	PTHC
03-Mar		Isle of Man TTT	C1
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
22-Mar	27-Mar	Tour of South Africa	HC
03-Apr	23-Apr	Giro d'Italia	PTM
03-May	08-May	Tour de Romandie	C1
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
09-Jun	13-Jun	La Tropicale Amissa Bongo	C1
03-Jul	06-Jul	Arab Tour	HC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
02-Aug	06-Aug	Deutschland Tour	PTHC
11-Aug	15-Aug	Post Danmark Rundt	HC
17-Aug		Chrono des Herbiers	PT

Unlike Szymon, Stefan doesn't fear some bumpy roads, and hence he gets to ride some tougher races at the start of the year, such as Hong Kong or Ukraine. He's in the four first TTT events as well (Copenhagen, Isle of Man, Pais Vasco, South Africa), before getting to ride the Giro. He surely won't be part of a winning squad like he was last year in France, but we hope he gets to enjoy this GT nonetheless.

It's then a very similar schedule to Rekita's for him, with the Romandie/Lithuania double, followed by Tropicale and Arab Tour. A 7th TTT for him as well in Slovenia, before trying the same as Szymon in Germany. Danmark and Herbiers round off his season early on - no more races for him after mid-August. Except for the Worlds, hopefully. But with just Britain left including a flat ITT after Herbiers, our TTers' schedules are obviously pretty front-loaded.

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
75	67	71	78	72	78	73	66	61	65	69	66	78

Start	End	Race	Category
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
22-Feb	24-Feb	Tour of Ukraine	PTHC
03-Mar		Isle of Man TTT	C1
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
22-Mar	27-Mar	Tour of South Africa	HC
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
27-May	31-May	Tour of Norway	HC
09-Jun	13-Jun	La Tropicale Amissa Bongo	C1
03-Jul	06-Jul	Arab Tour	HC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
02-Aug	06-Aug	Deutschland Tour	PTHC
11-Aug	15-Aug	Post Danmark Rundt	HC
17-Aug		Chrono des Herbiers	PT
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1

Alexys gets pretty much a C&P schedule from Stefan - Bissegger, to be precise, as we do have two TT Stefans now. Brunel doesn't get to ride the Giro, and will race Norway and Britain instead of Hong Kong and Romandie - one additional RD compared to Bissegger being the reason for that. Which also means he'll only have 6/8 TTTs on his calendar - no other TTer has less than that.

Given his decent skills on the hills (which we might be trying to further improve in the future), we're hoping he can bring home some even stronger GC results than Bissegger in races like Lithuania or Denmark - we just hope either of our "TT twins" will have a good form in each of their races!

FL	MO	HI	TT	ST	RS	RC	CB	SP	AC	FG	DH	PR
73	70	73	77	74	72	73	72	63	71	73	78	78

Start	End	Race	Category
25-Jan	27-Jan	Hong Kong Challenge	C1
02-Feb		Copenhagen - Malmo TTT	PT
22-Feb	24-Feb	Tour of Ukraine	PTHC
03-Mar		Isle of Man TTT	C1
05-Mar	10-Mar	Vuelta al Pais Vasco	C1
20-Mar		Strada Appia Antica	PT
22-Mar	27-Mar	Tour of South Africa	HC
03-Apr	23-Apr	Giro d'Italia	PTM
03-May	08-May	Tour de Romandie	C1
13-May	16-May	Tour of Lithuania	PTHC
27-May	31-May	Tour of Norway	HC
25-Jul	29-Jul	Tour of Slovenia	PTHC
01-Aug	05-Aug	Tour de Vineyards	C1
11-Aug	15-Aug	Post Danmark Rundt	HC
01-Sep	05-Sep	Tour of Britain	C1

You probably know all those flags by now - just mostly combined in another way once again. If we talked about Brunel as a decent puncheur, he's obviously no match for our new - and true - Swiss Army Knife, as Küng somewhat takes Basso's place as our rider for every terrain. And he showed last year that his versatility can be worth lots of points if everything falls into place - especially in some of the hilly TT-heavy races.

So we decided to send him to all of Hong Kong, Ukraine, Lithuania, Norway, Slovenia, Denmark and Britain - he'll pass on Tropicale, Arab Tour and Germany instead. He will do Vineyards though - unlike the three others - and hence is one out of just two riders doing an 8/8 in TTTs! The other one is Marchewka, who we don't consider as a leader this year anymore, though.

Expectations definitely are high after his 450+ points 2022 season - even though he won't be repeating his Benelux win. Plenty of other chances to shine, though!

Abhi
Definitely not the worst news for us if the two don't meet too often But I guess when they meet, we won't really stand a chance against Choi
You're right that we somewhat covered every terrain this year, and yeah, I definitely hope (and expect) Theuns to outscore Ringheim - but you have much greater depth on the cobbles. You also have a (far) better puncheur and a faster sprinter, besides obviously being stronger in the mountains. So where I might be stronger is cobbles and TTing (especially in terms of depth), but your team really looks solid as well. I hope the outcome will be different from last time when we both were in PCT, where you overtook me in the final race of the year to contribute to my relegation - not saying you should relegate this time, but I'd prefer both of us to stay up, or even you to go further up

The first month of racing isn't our most active one, with just two C1 stage races and a flat PTHC classic on our schedule. But we're already having some mixed feelings, knowing we'll face the monster that is Arnaud Démare both in our first and last race of the year - sending such riders to PCT should be forbidden... Well, we'll see what leftovers will be available to picked up in the couple of unfortunate clashes we have with him - and what we can expect from the races we'll face other PCT top-shots.

Here are the details about our January races and lineups:

Just like two years ago, our PCT season kicked off with a race Down Under. Not with the DUC - TDU double, as we skipped the season-opening classic this year, but we still headed over to Australia for the 6-day stage race that just got demoted to the C1 category.
We knew from own experience and from observing other past editions that this often is an unpredictable race, which doesn't necessarly allow to draw conclusions for other races - and so we didn't really know what to expect. We tried to bring someone for any possible scenario - Mauro Schmid in case the puncheurs would be heavily favored, Cees Bol in case this was a race for the sprinters (who don't get dropped over the slightest speedbump), and Edward Theuns for any scenario in-between.

It was obvious that our man for day 1 was our sprinter, who also was seen as a Top 5 contender by the bookmakers. Unfortunately, Cees Bol didn't quite get his positioning right, getting boxed in and failing to make his way through, narrowly missing out on a Top 10 - 11th place.

Day 2 already was the first test for the puncheurs - or the sprinters who had any GC ambitions. None of our riders was considered to be among the favorites on that stage, so we were hoping for some breakaway attempts - but no. And it would have been a good day to try something, given that Varga won the stage from the break.
But we still didn't have any reason to be unhappy, given that Cees Bol easily made the cut, getting his positioning right this time - and only losing out to Démare in the bunch sprint to secure 3rd place on stage 2! Our first podium spot of the year, well done!
Mauro Schmid finished safely inside the first group as well, meaning we still had two GC options - whereas Edward Theuns unfortunately wasn't attentive enough and only won the sprint of the next group.

Cees Bol finishing 3rd on stage 2!

Stage 3 then was another flat rated one - although we were hoping to drop some of the sprinters who don't like uphills, given the bumpy nature of the course. It wasn't to be, however - far worse than that! We actually lost Mauro Schmid as our GC hope, given that he inexplicably missed out on the first group, losing a minute on a day where we clearly didn't see that coming. Instead, Edward Theuns was up front this time - clearly inconsistency hurt us...
It definitely was a stage to forget, as Cees Bol was back to stage 1 mode, messing up his sprint preparation, and not really being in the mix. 13th place - disappointing, especially given quite some of the names ahead of him...

On day 4, we had another flat stage - but one with a short final incline, making it a hilly rated one in the end. And just like the first hilly stage, this one went to the breakaway again - and again, we didn't even try to join the break.
It turned out to be a completely anonymous stage for us, as Cees Bol once again was nowhere to be seen in the sprint and finished 20th - which however still meant that he kept his Top 10 GC spot. One hilly stage to survive for him - as our puncheurs really weren't any good in this race. Mauro Schmid was up front again this time, with Edward Theuns losing more time - they just took turns in unnecessary time losses. And it wasn't that hard to finish in the front group, given that even Gergely Szarka managed to do so - making a surprising jump up to 8th in the U25 standings. Schmid was 5th in that ranking, by the way - a bit lower than expected.

Stage 5 was the most challenging one looking at the profile - and as a hilly rated one obviously went to the breakaway again. And obviously, we weren't present there, despite non of our riders bar Bol being in GC contention anymore... Clearly some missed chances.
Anyway, the prime goal was to bring Cees Bol's good GC position home - and he did so by finishing 20th on the day, inside the front group - 3 spots behind Mauro Schmid, whose stupid time loss on day 3 definitely hurt, given that in the end he threw away a potential Top 15 GC finish. At least, he moved up to 3rd in the U25 standings - exactly where we expected him to be, behind Stannard and Vansevenant.
We were slightly disappointed, however, that weaker puncheurs than Bol, such as Haller, Vesely or Varga, made the front group as well - which meant that Bol remained in 6th place.

Moving up to the Top 5 would however be possible on the final day, as a 5th place finish would be enough - clearly not impossible in this sprinter field. And for the first time since day 2, Cees Bol actually got a pretty decent position heading into the sprint - but only decent, not good, unfortunately. Even though he looked to be among the fastest men in the end, he didn't make up enough spots for that Top 5 - as he finished 6th on the day. Which is also his final GC position.

Cees Bol sprints to 6th in a very close race on the final day.

Summary

All in all, we can definitely be happy with a 6th place GC finish by Cees Bol. We'd have preferred finishing ahead of the likes of Haller, Vesely or Varga - but given all those great puncheurs behind him, he definitely did a good job.
Which unfortunately can't really be said of Mauro Schmid. He was completely anonymous throughout the whole race - we clearly expected something else from a rider with his fighting spirit. At least we've seen now that we won't need to send him here next year, given that Bol has everything it takes to get a high GC finish. Schmid ended up 23rd in the GC, and 3rd in the U25 standings. The latter is fine, the former is unsatisfying.
Edward Theuns was our wildcard rider here, but unfortunately couldn't make use of his freedom. Or just didn't find his place. As there weren't any better suited races available for him anyway, it's just a failed experiment - hopefully there won't be too many of those.
Someone who deserves a little mention is Gergely Szarka, who - despite not being a puncheur by any means - finished 50th in the GC, just two spots behind Theuns - and 7th in the U25 standings.

Now we're heading North, to Hong Kong - before getting back to Australia later on to conclude the month. We had a solid start with roughly 60 points - hopefully they'll continue coming in!

The next stage race is already in the books - and it's one of those we had the most hopes for! Not only did we bring last year's runner-up Fausto Masnada, we also had Valentin Darbellay and Xuban Errazkin for the uphill support, and double-Stefan Stefan Küng and Stefan Bissegger for the ITT. So what could go wrong?

On day one, not much. Just like he previously did on this stage, Fausto was attentive and aggressive - however, he unfortunately didn't quite have the legs this time to follow stage winner Higuita and runner-up Teuns; the latter was a bit disappointing to be honest. He also launched his sprint a tad too early and was overtaken by three more rider - but Fausto Masnada's 6th place still was our best result that day.
However, the fact that three more riders made the front group - Valentin Darbellay, Xuban Errazkin and rather surprisingly Stefan Küng made up for the mediocre stage result.

Fausto Masnada, still in 4th place in this picture, eventually finishing 6th on day 1.

Hopes were high as well for day 2, with our three best TTers being 78-77-77 in terms of TT stat - hence all of them Top 10 candidates, or even more.
But well, it was one of those days where pretty much nothing worked as intended. Our highest result on the stage was a measly 10th place by Stefan Bissegger - getting zero points with such a strong TT team was clearly disappointing. Moreover, Fausto Masnada did a really bad TT by his standards, losing more than a minute - and about 20" to some riders with comparable TT skills. Not the greatest situation GC-wise - but with a similar performance to last year (where he finished 3rd on day 3) could still be worth a strong result.
The good news was that Stefan Küng, despite a pretty average TT, moved up to 2nd in the GC - which obviously was temporary, as we knew he didn't quite have the climbing skills to defend this position on day 3.
So our best guess now was Valentin Darbellay - who compared to the others rather overperformed and moved up to 5th in the GC. Being one of the strongest climbers up there, he actually became a serious podium contender now, as we expected him to pass all but McNulty of the riders ahead of him.

Stefan Küng on his way to an overnight 2nd GC place.

So, the stage was set, and we felt like we could only win on day three. The plan was to launch an early attack on the final climb with Xuban Errazkin pulling Fausto Masnada clear, and Valentin Darbellay and Stefan Küng just holding on in the pack as good as they can.

But well, the team didn't listen. Not at all. With one exception, fortunately, but more on that later.
To our huge, huge disappointment, both Fausto Masnada - last year's GC runner-up, and Valentin Darbellay - 5th in the GC!!! - simply didn't care about this stage. Not at all. On a stage where they should have been among the strongest - and Masnada even among the top stage win contenders - they lost almost 2 minutes, taking it very easy to the finish line. How on earth could they do such a dumb thing?

Xuban Errazkin can be somewhat excused for not attacking - with Masnada nowhere close to him, the initial strategy couldn't work out anyway. So he simply stayed in the front group, finishing 10th on the day. Behind some clearly weaker puncheurs, that is, which is a bit disappointing as well.
So, what about Stefan Küng? Well, he was the one rider who did what he had to do. He held onto the pack as long as he could - and he did well. He finished in the 3rd group - losing 37 seconds. By the way, Stefan Bissegger finished in the same group as well - a rider who's by far no specialist neither for mountains nor for hills! He was able to keep up - strong climbers Darbellay and Masnada weren't. That looked more like a refusal to work than just a bad day...

Xuban Errazkin finishing 10th, behind quite some non-puncheurs...

So, disaster struck. Well, not really - it was pure stupidity actually.
No blaming Stefan Küng, obviously - he did what he could, and he ended up on a very strong 6th GC place, something we never expected from him in this race! A great first race for him, proving us he was well worth that 600k fee!
It was a solid race by Xuban Errazkin as well. Being no specialist against the clock at all, his 14th place in GC is a good outcome - although we were hoping for some more active racing by him.
On the other hand, it was a very bad last stage by Valentin Darbellay. He's so much stronger uphill than Paillot, who finished 3rd in the GC - but he dropped 17 spots on a day where he should have easily secured his Top 5 GC spot!
But it's obviously even worse for Fausto Masnada. On a stage where he previously was up there with the best, he just didn't give a s**t, and eventually ended up on the final scoring GC spot - 30th place. From 2nd to 30th and - even more dramatically - from 102 to a measly 3 points. We already regret not having sold him, this no-show is completely unacceptable. And we hope he'll understand the message.

So, where do we end up points-wise? Given that we had five scorers in total - Stefan Bissegger took the final scoring position in the U25 standings - we still racked up 68 points. Which doesn't look that bad at first. But given that we sent a far stronger team than last year, but still scored 40 points less - in one of the races we expected the highest return from - makes this a disappointing race for us. This is clearly not the amount of points we needed if we seriously want to compete for a Top 10 in this year's PCT, losing points to several teams instead of gaining.
On the other hand, we hope to learn from our stupid mistakes here, and to be on the lucky end in other races. We'll see, for now we're just disappointed.

red
I'd call it rock solid, great would've been some more consistent sprinting. But yeah, he's definitely on-track for his points goal, and maybe even more.

After two C1 stage races, it was time for our first classic of the year - and our first PTHC appearance after a one-year break!

The race commonly known as GORC is pretty unpredictable, due to its shortness and some bumps in the middle of the course. Sprinters or rouleurs both have had their spotlights. Pre-transfers, we intended to send a strong rouleur to these flat classics - but as we failed to sign one, that option was gone. After some hesitation, we decided to still send our fastest man, Cees Bol. He may not stand a chance in a strong sprinter field on paper - but as sprints are often pretty random, we thought the chance of still getting something out of this race was high enough to spend two of his race days. Manuel Stocker was there in the unlikely case Cees actually got a leadout.

But first, one of our other riders stepped into action - neo-pro Cedric Bakke Christophersen, who joined the breakaway of the day. This year, they didn't stand a chance and were reeled in pretty early - but Cedric still managed to finish inside the Top 50, scoring his first career points!

So, we got a bunch sprint, as expected. And guess what? Bol once again got his positioning wrong... It's pretty incredible that one of the stronger rouleurs among the sprinters - and a physically strong one - just doesn't manage to launch his sprint from a decent position. But at least he did launch, and he did sprint!
Once again, he was one of the fastest finishers, but was obviously too late to fight for the top spots. Afewerki, a very similar sprinter, showed him how it's done, getting a surprise podium for fellow PCT team Colombini.
Well, Cees Bol still managed to enter the Top 10, sprinting to 9th place. Which we would clearly have signed for pre-race, so we're definitely happy with this result!
But seeing how strong he was in the end still makes us wonder what if... Well, plenty of time this year to do even better - so far he's racked up almost 100 points already, being by far our best scorer - if he continues like this, we'll be more than happy to have signed him! Good job, Cees & the whole team!

Unfortunately, despite having finished the month already, we can't give a ranking update yet - as one January race is still in progress, while February already starts... Yeah, that's weird, and only exists in the MGverse ^^

For the first time ever, we're splitting a monthly preview into two parts - simply because there are quite a lot of races, and presenting all of them at once might be too much. There's a total of 9 races - 6 classics, 3 stage races - and the calendar allows us to split them up into the "classic half" and the "stage racing half" of the month, with one exception.

The first 10 days of February are full of classics - so let's start with that half!

















Five classics, thereof four with cobbles and a TTT - if you look at our first-year roster back in 2019, these are exactly the disciplines that were completely missing! The team has made quite a journey since to arrive here - but we're looking forward to join some new races, or to come back to some others with far bigger ambitions than before!