Bar the PTHC races, CT teams had the same (potential) calendar as PCT - meaning 8 races each in February and March. So as for the other divisions, we'll have two separate period rankings first, before presenting the current overall standings.
Period Ranking: February
Although the biggest points of the month were available in HC stage race Juarez, CT teams usually struggle to make a big impact in those races. Still, Air New Zealand's 73 points were among CT's Top 10 points per race (not per RD, though) this month. Tafjord's Samyn campain can definitely be considered a success as well. They struggled more in Omloop, but still scored the highest CT result.
The C1 cobbles weren't very CT-friendly, either, with both Viana do Castelo and Kuurne yielding rather small scorings. Meaning that we have all the big numbers in C2 races. Bianchi's 94 points in Herning are a fantastic value (the second highest CT score of the month), knowing that "just" winning a race is worth 50 points. Which is exactly what Colombini got from Gent - Wevelgem.
The highest score of the month - the only one above 100 points - was achieved by Jura in Catalunya, where they took a pretty much expected win with a rather unexpected rider. 154 points means a 55 points gap on Tryg, who still took the 3rd highest February score.
Overall, we have a very close race for the February standings - the first 6 teams actually are within just 15 points! Colombini top the rankings, two points ahead of BWT and 5 ahead of Tafjord. But while these three plus Caja Rural (5th) and Bianchi (6th) all spent at least 12 race days, Jura only rode in Catalunya and still end up 4th.
The mood of the three new French teams likely is pretty different, as they take the bottom 3 positions - not counting Eddie Stobart who didn't race yet. They're having a pretty rough start - especially when comparing them to Colombini, Caja Rural or Bianchi... Maybe everything will be better in March?
Oml
Cast
G-W
Hern
Samyn
Cata
Juar
KBK
Total
1
Colombini
0
0
50
26
0
18
59
8
161
2
BWT
0
0
26
40
0
75
0
18
159
3
Tafjord
26
14
23
0
70
3
0
20
156
4
Jura
0
0
0
0
0
154
0
0
154
5
Caja Rural
0
2
38
69
0
43
0
0
152
6
Bianchi
0
0
12
94
0
28
0
12
146
7
Oktal Pharma
0
0
0
0
0
56
42
0
98
8
Tryg
0
0
0
0
0
89
0
0
89
9
Air New Zealand
0
0
8
0
0
0
73
0
81
10
McCormick
0
0
0
1
0
62
0
0
63
11
Pas Normal
0
0
22
37
0
4
0
0
63
12
Glanbia
0
0
0
0
0
54
0
0
54
13
BNZ
0
0
4
1
0
41
0
0
46
14
Staffbase
5
0
0
0
0
4
0
36
45
15
Podium Ambition
0
0
1
3
0
32
0
0
36
16
Bonduelle
0
0
0
3
0
30
0
0
33
17
Bordeaux
0
0
0
4
0
8
0
0
12
18
Le Creuset
0
0
0
0
0
4
0
0
4
19
Eddie Stobart
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Period Ranking: March
Only one HC race this month - and it was the worst of all for the CT teams, with only 11 points scored in total (6 by McCormick, 5 by Air New Zealand). C1 looked much better, especially with Air New Zealand and Oktal Pharma both scoring 70+ points in Guadeloupe's first edition. Pais Vasco was less successful, but BWT's 51 points are still respectable. Finally, the classic in Lillestrom saw Bianchi take home a solid score of 48 points.
So it's again C2 races where we have the highest scores of the month. Not in the classics, though, where the highest number of points goes to Tryg in Placci (53). In Geraardsbergen and Izola, no-one got more than 50 points; in Belgium we had BWT on top, in Slovenia both Staffbase and Bonduelle share the highscore. So what remains is the month's only C2 stage race, Jelajah. In Asia, three teams scored more than 100 points, with BNZ (134), McCormick (120) and Jura (117) separated by just 17 points. The next CT team is Glanbia on 52 points, which is a massive gap for the Top 3!
Unsurprisingly, Jelajah has a massive impact on the period ranking, where the same 3 teams stand on top. Jura win the month, 9 points ahead of McCormick and 10 ahead of BNZ. BWT and Bianchi round off the Top 5.
At the bottom, Podium Ambition are pretty far off what their name suggests. Bordeaux and Eddie Stobart share 2nd-to-last, while we have even three teams on the next higher spot, with Colombini, Caja Rural and Pas Normal. Remember that two of these actually were Top 5 last month - preferences and luck sometimes change quickly.
Bos
Guad
Jel
Vasco
Plac
Stra
Izo
Lill
Total
1
Jura
0
0
117
16
32
0
20
0
185
2
McCormick
0
0
120
0
41
6
7
0
174
3
BNZ
10
0
134
0
19
0
10
0
173
4
BWT
50
0
19
51
27
0
0
0
147
5
Bianchi
34
0
7
17
23
0
15
48
144
6
Tafjord
45
6
0
10
38
0
10
24
133
7
Bonduelle
0
47
16
7
8
0
50
0
128
8
Tryg
0
30
16
0
53
0
26
0
125
9
Oktal Pharma
0
74
38
3
5
0
0
0
120
10
Air New Zealand
1
78
0
5
0
5
0
14
103
11
Staffbase
21
0
20
0
0
0
50
0
91
12
Glanbia
0
0
52
16
6
0
0
0
74
13
Le Creuset
2
7
25
0
0
0
39
0
73
14
Colombini
16
0
2
0
4
0
30
0
52
15
Caja Rural
36
0
13
1
2
0
0
0
52
16
Pas Normal
16
0
24
0
2
0
0
10
52
17
Bordeaux
0
3
0
26
0
0
14
0
43
18
Eddie Stobart
0
12
7
0
10
0
11
3
43
19
Podium Ambition
6
1
3
0
0
0
0
0
10
Full Ranking
After three months, the leader is the same as after the first month already: McCormick Pro Cycling! They have even extended their lead from 5 to 46 points now. And the new runner-up is Jura GIANTS - having reduced their gap to the leader by about 100 points during these two months. Having these two teams on 1-2 isn't a surprise by any means, given that they were clear promotion (and even title) favorites in pre-season predictions. And they're the only ones left with a PpRD of more than 10, which might see them far ahead of the rest by the end of the year. But projections are projections, for now we're looking at "hard" numbers.
And those tell us that Colombini still hold onto their 3rd place they already had by the end of January! 19 points behind Jura - but only 14 ahead of Caja Rural as well. Two new teams on 3-4, they're definitely shaking things up so far!
BWT currently are on the final (direct) promotion spot, but PpRD sees both Glanbia and Tryg slightly ahed of them. According to this average value, BNZ should be in the promotion race as well, whereas Bianchi have already used up some additional race days.
At the tail end, Eddie Stobart have finally launched their season, and even scored their first points - and while they by no means look like even midtable candidates, they might not finish dead last. Podium Ambition are projected to end up holding the red lantern, with Le Creuset not far ahead, though. Those three teams are the only ones yet to reach the 100 points mark. Let's see if they can do so by the next ranking update!
In terms of biggest gains and losses, there's actually not much of note. Tafjord didn't race in January and so were at the very end; they've now bounced up to 10th - and might still have an outside shot at promotion. Jura are the only other team having gained more than 3 spots.
On the other hand, Bordeaux dropped 6 spots, which leaves Bonduelle as the best new French team. And Glanbia did the inverse of Jura, dropping from 2nd to 6th; no other team lost more than 3 places.
No surprise at the top, as the division's best two riders in terms of OVL lead the standings - although in reversed order, with Ian Boswell leading 14 points ahead of Lahcen Saber (247 vs. 233). In 3rd place we find the first slightly surprising name with Fausto Masnada, with Andrew Talansky having dropped from 1st to 4th.
Vegard Breen rounds off the Top 5 as the best "pure" cobbler, while Saber obviously is very capable on this terrain as well. We then have three more stage racers in the Top 10, with Warbasse, Kozhatayev and Ablenado. Hoelgaard is having a great season so far as well, which is reflected by his current 9th place - but the big surprise in the current Top 10 is without any doubt Chatarunga, who's not even in the division's Top 80 according to OVL, but currently sits in 7th!
Schlegel in 11th is slightly disappointing - but by far not as much as Moscon, who's only 53rd! From the OVL Top 5, only Kanter is lower - but the German has only raced in Guadeloupe so far, so that doesn't mean a lot yet. But in general, we're missing the sprinters in the individual standings - Aregger in 13th is actually the best placed after Saber! Let's see if the next months are more sprinter-friendly then!
I opened this thread with a heart attack looming in my chest, only to feel immense relief when scrolling through it. I feared the worst with our disastrous march, using alot of racedays for almost no points. But, I am thrilled to keep hold of the podium place as best newcomer. I almost have no choice but to declare my ambitions as valid to achieve direct promotion. With Baltic Chain a goalrace I hope the only way is up. Saber's statue is about halfway built now with the amazing season he's having. Thanks for the work you put in Fabi, and good luck to the others in the coming month(s)!
Considering a number of races haven't gone as I would have liked I have to feel good about this. I am sure we won't hold first and doubt we make that projection as Boswell has used over half his race days, Warbasse is probably close and we have the ToA to suck up a lot of days. So good we have some cushion.
Jura still looking strong for the division title.
Probably helped us that PCT took a lot of cobbles points and the remainder were pretty distributed. So lots of teams in with a shot of promotion which should keep things interesting.
I really enjoyed this read Fabianski, thank you very much!
We now see a much clearer picture than we did in january and some teams are finding their right spots. As for Tafjord, we have higher ambitions than 10th, so need to continue climbing. Without Breen we could have forgot to still be in contention. Now Dyrnes and EBH needs to step up if we're gonna fight for top 5.
We would have been right up there with Hoelgaards points, great job by him. But watch your back Tryg
I hate to scroll down that far for Moscon, but it looks like Jura can bounce back without him. McCormick and Colombini also looking good for promotion.
So at the end of March, (if I play around with the table a bit!), Glanbia are in a notional 3rd place.
It is very tight apart from the "Big 2". Glanbia's 3rd place is only 250 points from 10th place
We are still running on momentum from Táchira a bit but April will be crucial.
We have two target races- California and the USA Challenge They are in fact our only races in the month. If we are to hang in there in the to 5 this will be a month where we need to stretch our lead or at least make it a real lead, not just a projected one.
Extra bonus comments:
I constantly have the knowledge that 1/7th of our Race Days are tied up in the ToA where I will not have a strong team so we need to keep scoring highly before then through all those week long Stage Races with TTs !
Special shout out to all those new teams up there battling it out
Everyone else might have points but we have Rum, white beaches & significantly less stress #ads
Plus we're still on track to have at least one Top100 rider
Very interesting races so far. Love seeing McCormick at the top, but indeed, at this time of year, especially in CT, how much you've raced your leaders makes a big different. The promotion fight looks like it will be quite eventful all year!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Obviously can't say that I'm unhappy with how the rankings evolved since January
Not all of the races went according to expectations - but everyone knows that feeling of course. The highlights in the last two months were definitely the two C2 stage races. The total score in Catalunya was definitely expected - to be honest, I was hoping for even higher numbers, but we were generally disappointing in the mountains (especially Stüssi) and threw away some depth points including the U25 jersey. We were lucky to still somehow win the tour, but we clearly need a better strategy in future mountain races.
On the other hand, Jelajah went much better than expected, almost according to our dream scenario. I thought that with the shift from C1 to C2 the hilly stage might be less selective this year (due to a much weaker startlist), and that gamble finally paid off. Both Aregger and Chavanne did a great job there, and are already below 1,000k / point, which usually is our target for maxed riders.
In the individual standings, two riders stick out. On the negative side, that's clearly Moscon; 28 points in 15 RDs is just ridiculous, especially looking at his last two seasons where he performed really well. I've got no clue what happened to him - the failures in HK and Pais Vasco can partly be explained (not the lack of activity though), but the massive underperformance in the classics is inexplicable to me. He clearly has to step up for the remaining 26 RDs of his calendar!
On the upside, his failures were largely compensated by Masnada, who sits in a nice 3rd position currently! Which is largely due to his great showings in Hong Kong and Catalunya, as he also miserably failed in Pais Vasco. Let's see if he can keep up his nice PpRD; given that he'll be our (designated) leader in only one race, that might be hard, but he's already proven that he can jump in for other leaders anytime.
Stüssi and Mäder obviously are too low in the rankings as well, but after just one race I don't want to draw any premature conclusions. On the other hand, Aregger and Chavanne have been doing well so far; hopefully they can keep up the good pace!
The projections obviously look really nice for us. Especially given the fact that Moscon will be our only "leader" to have spent more than half of his RDs by the end of April, while Stüssi, Mäder or Rekita have barely launched their season. Which should be an advantage over McCormick, where iirc both Boswell and Warbasse will be above 50% after California - let's see how much of the load Keough and Kuss can take over. I suppose the latter will be racing ToA, which seems to have a heavily stacked startlist this year. Still, McCormick have been doing great so far, and I expect them to be in the fight for the division title until the end!
Hats off also to Colombini, what a season especially Saber is having! However, the latter will also be above 50% RD usage after Baltic Chain Tour, so others have to step up to make the dream of first-year promotion come true. Vliegen has been great so far in hilly classics, but there aren't that many of them left. But him, Betancourt, Lampaert and Itami, plus maybe Dzervus and Gilanipoor will need to score quite some points to keep the stage-race heavy teams at bay!
For Caja, Ablenado obviously had a standout Tachira, but Alarcon clearly needs to step up if they are to stay in promotion contention. The cobblers have been doing great, and Guardini still has some great results in him as well. Let's see if Serrano and Quevedo can add enough points for them to stay in the Top 5!
My personal guess is that both BWT and Glanbia will gain some spots thanks to their good TTT lineups, given that there are quite some fitting races in CT this year. And Tryg should improve quite a bit too, as their PpRD suggests. Kanter hasn't done a lot of racing yet, and Schlegel sometimes has good races, too. Hoelgaard has been strong all season long already, so they have a nice core. Zimmermann should have some U25 battles vs. Mäder - although the former surely wants to avoid races with TT kilometers...
And no, I didn't forget about Bianchi, but I do think that they will drop quite a bit. The four early hilly C2 classics fit them very well, and Chatarunga had a standout result. But I think the squad lacks some quality on too many terrains to stay in the promotion fight - up to you to prove me wrong
And what about BNZ? Honestly, I don't know. I was really surprised to see Kopfauf win in Jelajah, but that guy surely has some more scoring opportunities this year. The mountain squad looks nice, but only one of them can TT - and two of the remaining C2 mountain stage races even contain TTTs. Their puncheur squad looks great - but they're still lacking the big result so far. But overall, BNZ cover every terrain, which is some good base to fight for promotion (and yeah, I know Jura don't cover cobbles at all).
Tafjord are the last team I might see in the promotion fight - but to be honest, Hagen hasn't been looking good enough so far, even worse than Moscon (7 points!), and Dyrnes + Breen can't carry the team into the Top 5. Sure, Breen has been doing a great job, but with quite some cobbled races already done, his scoring potential is limited. He'll need a great Tour du Faso for sure! The hills squad has to deliver some great depth result (alongside some podiums), and the sprinters have to consistently score well, too, if they are to move inside the Top 5. I don't want to be too pessimistic, but it looks like too much would have to fall into place for them.
Last but not least, thanks to all fellow CT managers who have been very active in the discussion threads, as well as all higher division managers who show some interest in the lowest league as well! This is what keeps the game alive, and I hope to contribute a little bit to that as well
Well, the scoreboard shows how bad our two months were.
Of course, I learned a lot, and we might have to fire some of the management guys, but that's tough.
Mostly because we failed 3 stage races out of 4 (Catalunya, Jelajah and Guadeloupe). For Jelajah it was excpected, though I would have liked a bit more agressive racing, but Guadeloupe and Catalunya are not excusable.
Nothing to see in the classics, except another good performance of Wackermann in Izola, but that was to be excpected too (and not too much of a bother).
Pais Vasco has to be our highlight, with Rodriguez winning the KoM, so I'm happy with that, but that's not much for two monthes.
Guerao and Itturia will have to do better for the rest of their races!
Thanks a lot for the update Fabianski, and good luck everyone for the rest of the season. Indeed the promotion fight will be interesting.
McCormick and Jura already demolishing the competition in terms of PpRD, as one would have expected! Cool to see a couple of the new teams high in the standings, but also BWT and Glanbia, would love to see those two continuing like this.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
