Original idea from Croatia, the place for people who want to predict the PCT but don't have the time or want for real formatting or those nasty words. Feel free to bomb this thread with predictions!Edited by trekbmc on 13-08-2018 11:27
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Yes, my team is at the top of the rankings. Yes, I'm feeling kinda cocky tonight, I just tried to be as objective as possible and it either hasn't worked or it did work too well
All I know is that this year's PCT couldn't be tighter really, there's maybe 5 teams that could easily be at the top, at least 10 others that are in the fight for promotion and no teams (except, well, the bottom two imo) that are guaranteed relegation.
We'll see if me fully embracing depth will work this year. My gut feeling says that we won't actually end up winning it all, but I also don't see any teams that are outright better than mine. Ayubowan are great but a bit overrated I think (won't get all that many points besides their top 3-4 riders at all) and Iberia will mostly depend on how good Izagirre turns out to be, cause they don't have that much depth either (and I'm inclined to think he'll be average to mediocre, which doesn't yield many points).
Then again I don't know how much I'm overestimating Theuns' points haul compared to last season (my hope is that he'll almost double the points him and Teunissen got together last year) or Roglic's, while Ulissi is hopefully going to score the same or slightly more than his average 2017. Also I'm banking on a lot of my new arrivals not to disappoint, think riders like Koren could well flop too, who the hell knows though.
Some teams I really fancy from 3rd to 9th place, lots of sexy rider types and BBL's team is as huge as mine which kind of has me rooting for them, love the look of Repsol, Spar, Meiji etc. that all have a strong case in the promotion battle. It's now or never for Fablok but I think this might be their year despite some riders already declining (and others that will do so soon, like in Indosat's case, a team that will also face a tough offseason no matter what next year).
Around lower top 10 we got the unique Popo4Ever with Pluchkin that guarantees them a place around here but looking at the rest of the team they won't be looking at bouncing back to PT already (imho). Until basically Carrefour these are all teams that in a way or another can finish close to the promotion zone or even inside of it with a bit more luck. Consider that Carrefour is imo only gonna finish in 16th in a mediocre case scenario and there you go, but then again, the teams above them all have some fantastic leaders and/or depth.
From Lierse down to Reddit are the teams that should be in contention for a spot in the same division in 2019. Reddit in my opinion are kind of doomed because Lutsenko is great, but he's not the kind of rider that will carry a lacklustre team to survival, when the second best scorer faces some of the worst (for him) opposition in years. In a decent case scenario Zmorka is gonna score around the 50th place which is not exactly reassuring for them when after these two riders they're basically done points wise. Nordstrom could well get saved but Dowsett will hurt them if PCM decides he's the leader in too many hilly races where he's actually not their best rider.
Kind of rooting for Netia to survive for yet another year but I feel like the rest of the division has improved more than they did, and when they barely even survived last year, making no big changes really isn't the recipe for success tbh.
Xero, Yorkshire, WCC, Lierse and Minions all looking very similar strength wise and personally I think they'll all survive thanks to some great depth, which is ultimately what makes the difference when it comes to a relegation fight, especially in the relegation fight. Most of these teams would have sat comfortably around midtable last year but it looks like the top teams got weaker this year and the lower table teams have become a lot better looking, in a very Robin Hood-ish way or whatever.
Again disregard the points part of the table cause it doesn't really matter, it was just a very indicative way of ranking teams as I was skimming through the Excel db. Whew... turns out I wasn't lazy enough in this prediction, if only I had had just a few more spare nights I would have probably come up with a fancy looking preview with screens and coloured tables and all that fancy crap people enjoy instead of these wall of text looking pharagraphs.
I enjoy your "pharagraphs" matt I haven't taken an in-any-sort-of-depth look yet but I think I agree with many predictions there, maybe not Netia Think they'll finish above me so I guess I'll have to climb above one of Minions/Yorkshire/WCC to survive. Seems people (except Heine) like us to survive, and not to do loads more, which I expect (or to relegate) Lovely write-up!
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Pretty much in agreement there, though there are still some teams I see much higher than I would put them (e.g. Kulczyk, Repsol) but it seems like everybody is doing that so maybe it's just my bad.
In the spoiler is a comment about my team, it's not too relevant
Spoiler
matt17br wrote:
Kind of rooting for Netia to survive for yet another year but I feel like the rest of the division has improved more than they did, and when they barely even survived last year, making no big changes really isn't the recipe for success tbh..
Honestly, we have made big changes, they just aren't obvious, the first is Kwiat, he's exactly the same, but Sicard is gone, with Roglic training and Yates replacing him, which will probably give him a boost in points, also additions like Jelajah and Cyprus will be perfect for Kwiat.
Dyrnes is better than Palini, who averaged 170 points across the last 2 seasons (one on our squad), so we'll say Dyrnes might score 150 at the worst and Hansen at his absolute worst would probably contribute 100 through supporting Vantomme and his own points, though a couple decent classics or prologues and he's looking at much more and I think I've planned him to capitalise on the right prologues. Then also Kaspa could finally score a little of his own this season, 50-100, depending on Chrono d'Arenberg (his perfect race) as well. Then also we have our strongest ever hills squad (Bernas improves and Kono) and our strongest ever flat support (LNH, Bernas improving and Cherkasov replacing Morkov) and generally better and less talents in our squads (though not by much).
So at it's most conservative, that's around about 400 more points, which is honestly not dissimilar to what the leader we could've bought with that money would've scored and based off last season, 350 points would move us up to 15th.
I'm not saying we'll finish 15th, or even that we're safe, bad luck could make things go very South for us and the sprinting field is stronger so maybe Vantomme will score less, but we come back with this squad every time and are always picked to relegate by 90% of previews, this season so far jph is the only one to put us over and then only by 1 place and it seems strange to me, is every team so much better that this maybe 400 point increase from last season will drop us down?
Obviously everybody is entitled to put whatever they want in their preview and I'm not offended by it, but still just wanted to make a case for my team. Also, it's not really directed at you Matt, just in general, but you were the first to actually give a reason that we'd perform worse than in the past rather than just stating that it'll inexplicably happen again.
Awh, that's the first prediction that scares the hell out of me. Can't fight against your arguments though, luck will be needed Thanks for the writeup!
9th is a place i wouldn't mind to be. I think i have the team to fight for a Top10.
Not sure if Generali will win the division, but to me, anything that is not a direct promotion for you it would be a mayor surprise.
Overall i agree a lot with your prediction, especially in the promoting and relegating teams, though there's no way that Carlsberg ends up in 8th place, unless Appollonio and Jull-Jensen have an even better season than last year and they obliterate the cobbles
Also, it's not really directed at you Matt, just in general, but you were the first to actually give a reason that we'd perform worse than in the past rather than just stating that it'll inexplicably happen again. 
