5 events took place since the last update with the Tour of Northern Europe being the biggest one, 8 days on cobbles and hills PT rated.
Portugal and Balkans International add a a decent amount of points in PTHC stage races while Paris Tours PTHC and East Midland PT add for the classics.
A mainly hill/cobbled/flat month with a lot amount of mountains in Portugal.
Perfect terrain for some of the strong classic teams such as Grieg Maersk, who top the period ranking mainly due to a strong showing in Northern Europe by GC winner Wisniowski, who also showed his qualities already in East Midlands earlier.
Same with Moser and Bewley the other way around. Winning East Midland but then runner up in TONE against a stronger allrounder.
Generali with a strong TONE team performance, Evonik with decent amount of points in all races being topped by Van Stayen`s win in Paris Tour follow next.
Portugal was a good showing for Farfetch`s Monsalve, who for once showed his strenght in the mountains, but is it enough for the relegation fight?
None of the other relgation area teams did that good to be honest.
Team
Por
Mid
PTo
Bal
TONE
Total
Grieg - Maersk
158
187
17
0
510
872
Moser - Sygic
0
262
0
146
339
747
Generali
0
106
0
147
442
695
Evonik - ELKO
88
148
182
106
99
623
Isostar - LimeBike
75
59
37
149
211
531
Gazelle
0
129
0
133
248
510
Indosat Ooredoo - ANZ
206
111
110
0
73
500
Bennelong - Mitchelton
217
15
94
96
63
485
Team Tinkoff
140
130
50
0
113
433
Aegon - Lavazza
0
35
0
42
316
393
Aker - MOT
176
40
9
0
161
386
Farfetch Pro Cycling
269
40
2
0
75
386
EA Vesuvio
171
20
66
0
97
354
Air France - KLM
0
57
0
259
31
347
T-Mobile
35
56
13
150
93
347
Team Puma - SAP
0
45
0
59
181
285
Repsol - Netflix
0
112
0
0
159
271
Festina - OAKA
96
83
0
0
82
261
SPAR - Siam Cement
0
59
0
127
59
245
Podium Ambition
0
129
0
0
111
240
eBuddy
0
82
0
0
122
204
Fablok - Bank BGZ
0
25
0
0
106
131
Full Ranking
Gazelle remains in the top spot and in fact has extended their lead being very close to the PT title actually. Puma being best of the rest but it`s a lot closer down there with Grieg Maersk making a jump from 6th to 3rd, Air France and Generali as remaining top5 teams aren`t far behind neither.
Then a small gap to lots of other teams, who could move into the podium fight as well still. Moser with their recent performances up to 6th while Aker dropped a bit ahead of Isostar and Bennelong while Aegon completes the top10 after a weak period really.
The remaining teams will need a strong finish to make the top10 as Festina or eBuddy already have a bit of a gap.
Vesuvio, Tinkoff, Evonik and Indosat for now look safe as they created a bit more of a gap but mustn`t stop now as things can still change.
SPAR being the team just over the relegation line but they are just 190 points ahead, which can be one single race!
Their main rivals seem to become T-Mobile and Farfetch.
The others, Repsol, Fablok and in especially Podium Ambition would need more than 1 big race to make it over the line really.
PpRd wise T-Mobile actually seems to drop out of that fight as well having raced a bit more than the others which is in favour of Farfetch even.
The races become less and so Herklotz more and more looks like the PT winner in the individual ranking. Madrazo and Taaramae best of the rest with a gap followed by Phinney, while Bewley is up to 5th but running out of suited races.
Spilak, Boasson Hagen and Sicard next while Wisniowski makes a big jump into the top10 followed by Gesink.
Best sprinter being still Groenewegen in 13th with Teunissen being best pure cobbler in 32nd.
Absolutely horrific performances this month. The table suggest something else, but this was meant to be a key month for us and we were underwhelming in every race we raced (Portugal was okay). Really a shame how this season turned out, being so far away of being the expected title contender is just sad.
42 points in Balkans was like 100 points less than hoped, which is difference between 6th and 10th. Therefore TONE with Boom was a bit stronger than expected.
In general still being 10th is fantastic as I feared relegation preseason with my lower tier Stage Racers this season. But depth and an overperforming Groenewegen made it a mid table team even with a hugely underperforming De Bie most of the season.
Relegation seems to become thrilling once again until the end. Heine being in that situation another time, last time he was lucky, this time it doesn`t look very bright.
Jams needs to come back with all he's got in the next month and a half to get back into the top 100, and maybe even then become T3A's 2nd best rider! And obviously do all he can to get them off the bottom
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." [PT] Xero Racing
Wow, a great update for us. Stake Laengen overperformed yet again in Portugal and then Wisniowski carried the team on the cobbles. Would be great if we could finish top 3, but not that many good races left. Hopefully Phinney can deliver in Herbiers and Wisniowski on the cobbles.
Decent period in terms of scoring. Great period in our title race!
None of East Midlands, Baltic and TONE went spectacularly well, but none of them were a failure either. We did ourselves a huge favor by outscoring Puma, Air France and Aker.
Grieg is now the main chaser with Puma in their wheel. They have a small gap to Generali and Air France. Unless we collapse on the final straight, all of them will need to significantly raise their PpRD to beat us to the line.
The gap down to Festina in 11th is good, as that top 10 finish is what we're aiming for as a sponsor goal. After Galta's big Tour performance, it would be nice to get two goals, eventhough our failure for the other three is massive.
Feels like it will be touch and go if we're going to make it or not. Admittedly it will depend a lot on if the AI allows us to be an aggressive team in the races we don't have any proper leader. Judging by the lack of attacks and breakaway attempts in ToNE, I fear we will not.
Grieg with a big month, and that fight for the podium positions behind Gazelle feels wide open, with Air France probably being the favourite having EBH left in a couple of races, I assume.
For the fight to avoid relegation, it's tough to see both Farfetch and T-Mobile fight against the wall. I definitely believe one of them will save themselves, but having both survive looks really, really difficult.
Y'all should be ashamed we're only ~200 points away at the bottom, that gap should be much larger! Continues to support the idea we were only one or two riders from being an actual PT team. And we came very close to them as well, hence the ~300k unused cap space.
Yes Ewan is carrying the team with 1/3rd of our points, but a lot of depth scoring behind... or is it a lot of underachievment from some guys? A bit of both.
400 points to make up to SPAR... While it looks really bad, as there are other 3 teams around that could raise the bar for relegation too, i still have some hope
Kudus has Maroc left, i hope for a podium there. Vanmarcke has Battenkill left. And it's going to be mostly on Zmorka; Deutschland Tour, we really need a win there, and we have some potential depth if it doesn't get dropped on flat stages. The timetrial in Tasmania as likely the final points for the team in the season (Lombardia team is useless). And of course Herbiers that hasn't been posted yet, where i can expect a podium too.
I think we can be in the region of 500-600 points in those final races if everything goes normal, we just need SPAR to not score much.
It's very funny to think that if i hadn't signed Alarcon, we may be better place in the relegation battle, even without using his wage into other riders. Just only with possible points from breakaway in the two GT he did, as he wasn't a podium contender and neither we were joining breakaways
