We have a lot of ground to cover, let's look at July to begin. Aker - MOT crushed that month, scoring almost 100 points more than any other team thanks to a very successful Tour of Lithuania and consistent scoring throughout. UBS, Binance and Duolingo did really well, too.
Towards the bottom, Indosat Ooredoo and Carrefour - ESPN have had a really tough time, scoring in only 3 of the 8 races, and not much either. But the likes of Podium Ambition, Bralirwa, Project: Africa, Carlsberg and Eurosport x GCN did not do terribly well either.
TorGP
Celt
Vine
Phil
Keny
Lith
Beton
Ando
Total
1
Aker - MOT
32
49
126
0
41
312
5
0
565
2
Team UBS
0
44
209
0
47
80
0
96
476
3
Binance Cycling
83
0
115
181
15
65
0
11
470
4
Duolingo
0
56
212
22
0
140
0
0
430
5
Polar
0
72
153
43
80
0
0
37
385
6
Red Bull Zalgiris
0
5
284
0
0
63
0
33
385
7
cycleYorkshire
30
85
184
32
2
0
0
11
344
8
Voyagin - Bird
0
0
0
0
28
266
0
41
335
9
Kraftwerk Man Machine
0
4
102
40
42
85
0
50
323
10
Tryg - Ritter Sport
0
0
12
0
56
31
0
213
312
11
Cedevita
7
0
50
0
0
158
7
84
306
12
Jura - Fiat
0
0
82
0
32
109
1
73
297
13
Assa Abloy
50
0
15
0
17
139
0
72
293
14
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
46
0
86
0
10
5
0
137
284
15
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
0
76
10
0
161
0
0
247
16
Los Pollos Hermanos
46
88
19
30
26
28
0
0
237
17
Philips - Force India
28
0
87
0
20
49
0
52
236
18
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
0
19
13
6
82
0
108
228
19
Minions
56
0
87
80
0
0
0
0
223
20
Podium Ambition
0
16
53
120
0
5
2
0
196
21
Bralirwa - Stevens
11
24
92
37
0
0
0
0
164
22
Project: Africa
0
11
0
72
0
60
0
0
143
23
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
0
0
74
0
20
27
0
21
142
24
Eurosport x GCN
0
0
5
50
12
32
0
32
131
25
Indosat Ooredoo
0
0
50
0
0
16
13
0
79
26
Carrefour - ESPN
8
0
32
0
0
37
0
0
77
Period Ranking Part II: August
Look at this monster month from Los Pollos Hermanos! With Manninen and Zmorka firing on all cylinders, they crack the 1000 points mark and no other team is even close. cycleYorkshire, Polar and Duolingo, who were all also in the Top 7 in July, follow their good performances up here again, while Bralirwa remedies a poor July with a strong August.
Neither Carrefour nor Indosat could do that, but they weren't at the very bottom here. Instead, Philips - Force India and Tryg - Ritter Sport stay below 100 points, with Philips only scoring in a single race all month. Carlsberg is also again in the bottom six.
Slo
Bnlx
Deu
Sak
SanS
Dan
SAA
Brit
Total
1
Los Pollos Hermanos
164
0
478
0
0
87
188
112
1029
2
cycleYorkshire
181
53
241
12
0
155
0
136
778
3
Polar
66
215
189
0
43
77
0
167
757
4
Duolingo
235
0
142
0
2
0
0
315
694
5
Bralirwa - Stevens
86
167
177
0
15
132
0
62
639
6
Kraftwerk Man Machine
47
172
75
0
50
31
38
128
541
7
Project: Africa
56
91
0
0
0
109
11
240
507
8
Aker - MOT
0
160
0
0
62
127
66
0
415
9
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
26
190
74
0
0
0
32
75
397
10
Minions
27
95
40
0
0
0
122
91
375
11
Binance Cycling
27
0
27
0
0
13
112
177
356
12
Podium Ambition
77
116
24
0
0
32
89
0
338
13
Sauber Petronas Racing
112
32
27
0
0
0
36
31
238
14
Team UBS
0
0
0
0
172
0
0
56
228
15
Red Bull Zalgiris
0
15
0
0
0
70
125
0
210
16
Jura - Fiat
0
0
0
57
9
0
84
56
206
17
Voyagin - Bird
0
6
0
0
0
0
198
0
204
18
Team Popo4Ever p/b Nemiroff
0
80
0
0
0
44
77
0
201
19
Eurosport x GCN
13
13
15
0
0
0
0
136
177
20
Cedevita
0
64
0
9
94
0
0
0
167
21
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
0
117
0
0
0
44
0
0
161
22
Indosat Ooredoo
0
0
0
5
0
0
0
155
160
23
Assa Abloy
0
120
0
0
8
13
0
0
141
24
Carrefour - ESPN
0
60
0
0
4
0
45
0
109
25
Philips - Force India
0
71
0
0
0
0
0
0
71
26
Tryg - Ritter Sport
0
0
0
0
0
7
27
28
62
Full Rankings
As the best team of the past two months, Los Pollos Hermanos climbs all the way up to 3rd, Polar does really well to move up to 5th. But it's Aker - MOT who are now in first place by over 200 points, and with lots of race days left, they can start planning for ProTour next year! Behind them though, the promotion race is incredibly close.
Less than 300 points are between Popo4Ever in 2nd place and Duolingo in 8th. But there's an elephant in the room, or rather, an elephant has yet to make its mark: the Tour of America. Last year, Kraftwerk scored some 900 point there in a dominating performance, but two more teams scored above 500. This leaves the door open for the likes of Cedevita and even Carlsberg to still enter the promotion race, with teams such as Los Pollos Hermanos, cycleYorkshire and Binance having only very few race days left.
Looking at the relegation race, it's no less close. Voyagin - Bird have given themselves a chance at survival again over the past two months, and while there's a 170 point gap between them and Podium Ambition, who're currently on the last safe spot, all of Voyagin, Tryg - Ritter Sport, Indosat Ooredoo and Carrefour - ESPN have some 10-14 race days less than the teams still fighting for safety above them, which arguably include Philips - Force India, Jura - Fiat and Sauber Petronas Racing.
Kraftwerk meanwhile have made a huge jump from 24 to 17 and both enough points and enough race days left that they can feel fairly confident - perhaps more so than Minions, the only other team perhaps still in slight danger. On the other end, Eurosport x GCN will not have a happy ending to their team story, as they seem beyond saving at this point.
Pluchkin still reigns surpreme, but Manninen becomes the second rider to break the 1000 points barrier. Beltran jumps onto the podium as Stallaert drops off, but the biggest riser is of course Zmorka, who almost makes the Top 10. Kennaugh, Bobridge, Keizer, Halvorsen, Gesink, Schelling and Fraile are other noteworthy riders climbing the ranks.
Quite thankful for Eurosport, as their struggles mean we should avoid a last place finish. But like the last update, the upcoming ToA is going to decimate our already poor PPrD. Will not be hard for those below us to make-up that 200 point gap, especially based on recent rides.
We are just relying now on a totally random result from one of our youngsters for any hope at safety. However we already had that in the TdU from Mayer.
Ewan struggling to crack the Top25 Indi ranking, he's having a worse year than last. Don't see him dropping enough wage to be CT viable, but he will be a lot closer than was expected at one stage, but his market value has tanked to all hell - still going to demand lots for him. Would rather see him sit out the year than sell him too cheaply.
AC putting up a fight as our second best scorer, not as good as last season but solid enough. Bit more wage cut & potential training he's looking like a possible CT surprise leader.
Altur... just lucky to be in the Top100... what an utter failure again. Continues to cement his position in MG History as the worst ever training spend.
Aberasturi has finally taken over from Mayer as our 4th scorer. I should have dumped him and Altur in transfers and gone full talent stacking.
Very negative, and yet we could still come very close to most of our Goals. And i'm enjoying the positive signs from our youngsters. In two-three years we'll be a solid team coming back to the PCT.
Our inevitable slide continues and Silvestre's poor Paris Tours may have just put a nail in the coffin in our lofty promotion dreams, especially with potentially big ToA scoring from some of the teams below us. But it was fun while it lasted and hey, who knows what the last few races have in store ... At the very least, hitting almost all of our goals sets us up nicely for next year in any scenario.
I'm very curious which teams come to America with what kinds of teams. I anticipated a very strong startlist after Kraftwerk showed what was possible last year and therefore chose to avoid it, but it will be crucial to the rankings for sure.
Tough to look at the bottom of the table, as some very cool teams with very good managers will have to go down, but hopefully, they'll be back even stronger soon!
Welp, it was a good run for a couple of months there. Horrendous period for us. To be sure, we didn't race that much compared to a lot of teams. But still, I mean, we were bad. Very bad. Trentin, Guldhammer, and AKA all shat the bed multiple times in big spots for us. Andorra, Benelux, Denmark. These were big chances for us to stay hot. Instead we scored over 100 points fewer than I would have liked in several races. You can't do that and stay relevant.
But maybe more importantly, I just never get depth scoring. I feel like my domestiques just completely check out, while other teams mop up places 15-30 with similarly strengthed riders. It's September, and Aranburu has 39 points! Warbasse has 56. You can't succeed when guys like this loses 10 minutes on days they frankly just shouldn't. Might be my planning, but yeah, it hurts.
So now we've fallen dramatically from 4th to 13th. We were thinking about the promotion hunt before. Now I'm just hoping we can fulfill our top 15 goal and not go 0/5 this year. 9th on PPrD looks promising on paper, but a large chunk of those race days will either be in Tour of America, or noncompetitive mandatory PTHC days where Aranburu leads us to 74th place. There's really nowhere for us to make up enough ground to promote even if we tear it up from here, and I'd be shocked if we made the top 10.
Honestly not sure where this puts my team. I was feeling really good about it in the spring. Now it feels like I went a little too deep on the short term last offseason, getting two 32 year old leaders. They impressed early, but a few bad performances can put them behind more consistent guys. While I'll survive relegation obviously, I fear I could easily end up in the PCT relegation fight next year as I won't have much to work with unless I come up with something very fast.
But hey, a good season always relies on good planning. And I'm a bad planner.
Big thanks for the update cunego!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
(The end of) August really saved us here, leaving us out of immediate danger but we cannot be complacent. The sprinters needs to keep up the result, and hopefully Hagen does something eventually.
Starting to climb up the rankings but extremely nervous about the remainder of the season. I think Kinoshita has a number of race days left, but the ToA will probably be a disaster for us, which could make the difference
Surprised to still see us up in 19th - and this time even the PpRD looks pretty good. However, we're not going to ToA, so I guess some of the teams around/behind us could significantly increase their PpRD and score well there.
Also suprised to still see Nairo in the Top20 - which is where he belongs strictly regarding OVL - but he won't stay there, as his season's over.
So we'll be heavily relying on Moscon & Masnada in the final months; both have done well so far, let's see if they can carry the team to survival...
In any case, if the team continues, there's some work to be done in the offeason. I'm not really happy with my sprinters, and Reinhardt's getting old as well. Furthermore, our 7th highest earner is our 2nd worst scorer with just 2 measly points (Lienhard) - no words for that, really.
Congrats to LPH on a crazy month, and good luck to everyone for the rest of the season!
Was expecting to be in the relegation zone already tbh, so there's still hope?
July was mid scoring and it keeps us going for the moment. We were only in two races in August, but the no show in San Sebastien has really hit us hard. Kelderman should not be outside the Top 50 in races like those. Look at Kelderman's points in general and you'll understand why we're in this predicament. He should be at least 200 points better off and that would've pretty much guaranteed our safety already. Can't find too much fault from the other leaders.
We have got only 11 points from 4 RDs in September so far, which means we're deeper in the relegation scrap already. I do not see how we manage the 400 odd points still needed to guarantee safety. Tryg with Skuijns and Voyagin with Kinoshita will definitely outscore Kelderman in the hilly classics. Jura with Moscon, Masnada, Sauber with TVG and Minions with Hagen are also likely to outscore us in those races. That leaves one Penasa race, one David race, one TVA race and two C2 races. If Kelderman somehow does not turn around and score 200-250 points at least from his three remaining classics, we're going down.
Mentally we're already prepared for the drop again. Not sure what kind of team building would have saved us even when this doesn't. Tried with three leaders last time, didn't work. Tried covering four terrains this time, still not working.
10th is about where I thought we'd be given our results. The ppRD still looks great, but that's because we have the most RDs remaining and ToA will take care of that easily.
Gotta keep striving for that goal of finishing in the top 15 which would in worst case give us 3/5 in sponsor goals. Haven't done that well since we were in CT
Loving what Los Pollos have been doing, what a season! Also I'm pretty amazed that there are still 15 teams that can have reasonable promotion ambitions with what is left, so it will be a very fun season I'd say (especially with disband promotions).
The fight against relegation will be tough, but with the current trend I'd back the puncheur- and sprinter-heavy teams down there atm. Still there is a signficant gap to overcome for the bottom five.
Great racing in the PCT all year and an open fight till the very end, you love to see it.
PCM.daily Awards: Most Improved Member '16 // MG New Manager '16 // Thread of the Year (PCT Roundtable Analysis) '17 '18 '19 // Most Helpful Member '18 '19 '20 // MG Team of the Year (Isostar - Adriatic) '18 // MG Manager of the Year '18 '19 // Member of the Year '19
A couple of really good months for us. It looks like we're going to have a chill end to the season with so many RDs left, maybe even with the possibility of inserting ourselves in the promotion hustle.
Glad to see Voyagin pushing themselves upwards too. Good luck to everyone in that fight. Quite the lot of likeable teams and managers there, don't give up guys!
Wow, I realized we had a great month, but didn't realize it would bring us to a third place in the rankings! Don't expect to keep a podium spot at all with some very strong teams below us, who still have several big races coming up. Still a great place to be of course. Finishing top-6 will still be hard, but one can always dream. Arab Tour (Zmorka and depth) is our biggest scoring race left, so we need to prove ourselves there.
Thanks for the update, cunego, and everyone else (?) who made it happen!
Agree it looks promising for us, but at the same time the gaps are still very small from 1st down to 8th, all teams being within 500 points.
Having said that, Kwiatkowski really has some potentially great races that should see us secure promotion, with the first chance being Balkans.
It would be very cool to win the title, but for that, I suspect we can't have many poor races, and having several PTHC and HC races left, the chances of missing out on solid points are definitely there. Fingers crossed we don't slip up this late in the season.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
