Once upon a time, a little yellow single-celled organism was searching around for some food for his friends, the other little yellow single-celled organisms. He found a tree full of bananas, and it became the most holy food for them; only apples (or babbles, as they would pronounce them) came close afterwards, but the bananas stayed on top forever. They could continue to eat bananas without anyone noticing, until capitalism.
A bunch of Americans found out about the bananas, and decided to eat them as well. The organisms weren't too happy about that, but the Americans only wanted to sell bananas to them for ridiciously high prices. The organisms agreed on the deal, because they just couldn't live without bananas. The Americans founded a company called United Fruit Company, which would later be known as Chiquita Brands International.
After the deal, the little yellow single-celled organisms were living in peace again, even during both World Wars and the Cold War, but their rest was disturbed again in the 21st century when an American/French film crew decided to use them for a movie. The company, who named theirself Illumination Entertainment, had a big plan with them, and they even gave them a name that will always be recognized, the Minions!
Illumination Entertainment became a subsidiary of Universal Studios, a rich and famous American company. The film, called Despicable Me and released in 2010, became a hugh success, and the Minions became rich. A sequel would follow 3 years later, and that made them even richer. In 2015, the Minions will finally get their own movie, suprisingly called Minions, where they will finally be main characters. Despicable Me 3 is scheduled for 2017.
One of the Minions was a big fan of cycling, and decided to found a cycling team with the money he earned from the movies and the bananas. He, however, did not have enough money to it, neither did all the Minions together. They first asked Universal Studios to sponsor them. They decided to help, but they didn't offer enough money to fund the entire team. Then Chiquita came to rescue, and offered an amazing amount of money for the team, accompanied by a giant raise in the price of the bananas. Team Chiquita-Universal was born!
And this is how the story continues:
The Minions began strong, designing jerseys, making goals and selecting races. Riders were signed, but they made one critical mistake. Instead of human currency, the riders were paid in bananas. This did not only effect their health, but it also resulted in some angry Minions who had to either go to rehab or switch to babbles. And things didn't get better when a film crew showed up to make a new movie about them, which is to premiere soon.
This slight controversy resulted in a big mess. Minions weren't motivated to watch races or write about it, riders weren't performing due to the lack of support from the Minions and organizers threatened to take our license away. Our season marked justfour highlights, though that's more than none. The victory of Chad Haga in a TT in Algarve resulted in a mass celebration in our lab and a daily pilgrimage to Portugal. Carter Jones won the mountain jersey in the Tour de Beauce, but those 2 wins were all there would be last season. There were some minor celebrations when Jakob Rathe achieved our goal in a for Minions impronouncable race (Cigar City Brewing Twilight GP) and some decent performances in our home tour: the Tour of America.
It didn't look good for the Minions though. 24th out of 26 was definately a big bummer, though higher than most critics expected. It was a nail-biting offseason, but their but-jokes, banana-bribery and cute smiles managed to secure a new license for this season. We managed to keep both our main sponsors and secondary sponsors aboard (Chiquita, Universal, Illumination Entertainment and Gameloft). To keep the Minions happy, we decided to change our name to Chiquita - Universal powered by Minions, after we were already informally called Team Minions last season. We were given a new appearance as well, with a new jersey designed by renowned artist Bikex. Last season was trial-and-error, this season will be trial-and-succeeding!
The Minions aren't dead. The Minions are alive. The Minions are more fond of cycling than ever and extremely driven to perform this season, and of course gain more bananas. Or babbles. Or both.
Spoiler
This story is completely fictional. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious as well. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental, but I hope the little yellow single-celled organisms are real
Main sponsors:Chiquita Brands International, Universal Studios Minor sponsors:Illumination Entertainment, Gameloft Powered by:Minions
General manager:Dave the Minion Team manager:Stuart the Minion Directeurs sportifs:Kevin the Minion, Jerry the Minion, Carl the Minion PR manager:Paul the Minion Minions non-grata:Steve the Minion, Phil the Minion Mascots: Infinite Minions (They are really infinite)
As you can see we went for both sprinter goals and mountain goals. We are looking to get a team with depth, not focused on 1 rider or 1 departement. Now to see if we can achieve that.
Edited by Marcovdw on 05-05-2015 12:35
Whilst the transfer window is still far away, we might give you a little update on the situation around the Minion HQ. Progress is good. Very good indeed. All our first calendar picks have been accepted, which means we can ride in (amongst others) the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, Ruta America del Sur and the Tour of Iceland.
Meanwhile, our HQ has been given a little clean-up as well. We changed and added some general information, including a new team anthem and team commercial. And most importantly, Steve and Phil have been banned forever after their transfer mess-up and intoxicated interview respectively. The complete overview can be found here.
The scouting of new riders is going good as well. Some Minions have managed to get into a database containing all the cyclists on earth, together with all their necessary information. Unfortunately, favourite Minion is not one of them. We've put together a long list of names, out of which we hope to sign a few. If they like bananas of course.
Although they had been done a few days ago, we are only to talk about our renewals today. Surely, our new PR-MinionPaul is much better than Steve. 11 riders got a new contract, and we released 8 riders. Who got what, when and where and what did they do when they heard someone stole a banana off them?
Bjorn Selander got his wage increased from 95 thousand to 100 thousand bananas, Chad Haga from 90 to 95. Carter Jones stayed at 90, Jakob Rathe stayed at 70 thousand. These riders will be available for a PT (or PCT) loan, in which they can develop further and will become a valuable part of our squad in 2016. Negotiations about buying them are also welcome, we will consider good offers.
Tareq Esmaeli (who will be riding in a Bikex-designed Qatari national jersey next year, which can be seen below), Mike Friedman, Mark Griffith, Alex Howes, Fabio Montenegro, John Murphy and Fredy Piamonte all got their contract renewed as well. They all stayed at 50 thousand bananas or were downgraded to that number, with the exception of Montenegro who wil stay at 65.
Unfortunately, we have to let go of some riders. They were not released because they asked too much, but because we need to create room for new riders and they we're just, well let's call it shit. We wish the following 8 riders the best of luck for their careers, if any team is stupid enough to pick them up: Rahsaan Bahati, Marco Bandiera, Nathan Brown, Sebastien Chavanel, Roman Kilun, Gert Rajala, Wim Stroetinga and Nathan Wilson. This part was written by Evil Minions by the way, who are in charge of escording the riders out of the HQ.
While cleaning up the HQ, a cleaning-Minion (dressed like a girl, so we could all laugh at him) found a big stash of bananas. After a thorough investigation, we concluded that the bananas belong to Fredy Piamonte, our Colombian mountain domestique. In questioning, he told us that he was allergic to bananas, and therefore didn't eat them. After hearing this, an angry mob of Minions chased him out of the HQ with pitchforks, torches and rockets. As a result, Fredy has been fired.
In other news, transfer season has begun. Highlights so far: Paul proved he is a great PR-Minion. He didn't cock up the validation part of the transfer rules, unlike Steve who needed 4 attempt last year.
We have not yet signed a rider, but we're pretty close to some big guns, who will receive big money (or bananas, since Fredy left a bunch of them behind). We have 4 riders available for loan, or even available for transfers. So far, only Carter Jones has gained some interest and is very close to a loan deal.
We are proud to present two new members of the Minions-family. That doesn't mean they're related to them, but well you know what I mean.
Fabrice Jeandesbosz
After the firing (or failure to renew his contract as it would be called officially, but we just threw him out) of Sebastien Chavanel, our French sponsors Gameloft and Illumination Entertainment demanded a new French rider for our squad. We found Fabrice Jeandesbosz, a 31-year old who will become our best cobbles rider ever. He will be the second (after Rathe) not to be afraid of them. 50,000 bananas will be paid to him.
Taylor Tolleson
Taylor Tolleson is a 30-year old sprinter, and one of our 3 main targets this transfer season. We are pleased to announce he signed for us for 50,000 bananas instead of the 150,000 bananas we thought he'd get. Apparently, despite shown interest, no one was after him in the first days of the transfer market except us. Taylor will be our leader in the sprints and we hope he'll become our first real sprinter (after last year's failures, Bahati *cough*)
We had transfer plans last year, but they failed horribly. We posed a wage lmit at 100,000 bananas and planned only to sign Americans until a few days before the end. This year, we had Plan Apple, Plan Banana, Plan Cherry etc. Plan A consisted about getting 3 riders for 150,000 each. Today, we've secured 2 of them for a combined total of 170,000 bananas. Ladies and gentlemen, our main transfer target is amongst us!
Yasmani Martinez
Yes, he's from Cuba, but Minions don't care about politics. Yasmani Martinez rode for the ill-fated Team Nordeus last year, but the team collapsed and therefore went to free agency. At 120,000 bananas, we were the highest bidder and therefore acquired his services. Yasmani is a proven stage racer, and he'll be our team leader, our number 1 Minion. Mountains, hils, time-trials, he can handle it all!
Where some join, some leave, albeit temporrarily. Carter Jones has received a loan offer from Team Fred Whitton, and we decided to accept. The promising stage racer will race for their team for the next season, but they can't develop him. Since no PT- or PCT-team showed interest, we decided to clear him from our payroll to create space for additional riders. If he manages to perform for Fred Whittion this season, we will definately see him back here next season!
Though the majority of our plans were made around free agent-bidding, we also saw an opportunity on the regular market, buying riders off other teams. We have signed 2 riders this way, and certainlt not the worst.
Timothy Duggan
From Team TomTom, we managed to sign Timothy Duggan. He was transfer listed after his former team didn't see any future in the American market. He will earn 120,000 bananas here, and we have paid TomTom 150,000 dollars worth of bananas to get him here. He's not the youngest, but he's still a nice guy who can gather some valuable points. He finished 26th in last year's riders standings.
Sebastian Salas
Sebastian Salas comes over from RBC, in a free transfer. There was no place for him at this former team, but luckily all parties involved were willing to give him a future at a lower level. Seb is a Canadian climber, and will play an important role as possible super-domestique to Martinez. He will receive 50,000 bananas for his work.
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