After June already was a massive month for PCT, July is no different; in fact, only one out of the scheduled 11 races was NOT for them - the biggest one on the calendar. And with Dauphiné being postponed to July as well, we actually have an update including 11 races for PCT - everything bar Tour de France, actually.
As in June, we'll do the split by race categories - let's start with the "lower" ones:
Partial July Ranking | C1/C2
6 races in this "lower category" block, thereof 4 sprinter classics! 2 each in C1 and C2, plus two C1 stage races for the climbers. Not very varied, but the TTers, puncheurs and cobblers got some chances in the other block at least.
Sprinter clash on day 1 of the month, with the C1 Torshavn GP and the C2 Uppsala Classic, Faroe Island and Sweden on the menu.
Torshavn actually confirmed its reputation to be a good race for baroudeurs, and one of the specialists in this domain definitely is Rowe! After winning Frankfurt with Dzamastagic last month, Lampre made it two "stolen" sprinter races in a row, getting another 80 points added to their tally. 2nd place and 56 points went to Trans with Lecourt de Billot, whereas Dainese somewhat saved the sprinters' honour by taking 3rd. Gibbons added a 21st place for Assa, with the semi-local team ending up with 49 points.
It really was a day of at-home racing for Assa, as they also were one of two teams competing in Uppsala - and the only one to score. Rickaert finished 11th in Sweden to take 8 points, with Lierse unfortunately leaving empty-handed in yet another breakaway-dominated C2 "sprinter" race.
Next up in this block was the 3-day event in Eritrea. On the menu: A flat stage, a hilltop finish, and a mountaintop finish. With 17 PCT teams participating, it was one of the most stacked C1 races so far this year, alongside TDU and Lillestrom who also had 17 PCT participants.
And the competition level was really high - with one of PCT's top stage racers ending up on top: Oomen finished 2nd on day 2 and left everyone behind on the final stage, winning the GC and the points jersey. Plus ending up 2nd in KoM - 178 points for the Lierse leader. De Plus (23rd) and Novak (26th) also ended up in the scoring positions, and the team finished 3rd in team standings. 191 points for the Belgians.
After taking 3rd place in both uphill stages, Meintjes ended up in 2nd place in the final GC, plus 3rd in points. The South African scored 105 points, with Eyob, Ndayisenga and Tesfatsion all picking up GC points as well, all ending up between 20th and 30th. Even Stallaert got some points in the opening sprint stage with 4th place, and Bralirwa finished 2nd in the team standings. All in all, 130 points for the Rwandan outfit.
The final team above 100 points is Indosat, who won stage 2 with Yates. The Brit displayed some weakness on the final day, finishing only 5th - but it was enough for a 3rd place GC finish. He scored 110 points - which also is Indosat's total score.
Then we had the 4th out of 5 flat classics this month, another C1 one - and a prestigious one: Paris - Tours! For once, a sprinter classic that indeed was won by a sprinter - although the top stars unfortunately failed once again...
In the end, Bonifazio countered his manager's "Oh no, more Bonifazio" in the best possible way: by winning the race! 80 points for the Italian and his Lierse team. Zabel sprinted to 2nd, scoring 56 points for Kraftwerk. 3rd place surprisingly went to a CT sprinter, so 4th was enough for Halvorsen to make Zalgiris the 3rd best PCT team here. Räim scored another point for the Lithuanians, for a total of 42.
Betonexpressz GP was a different story in terms of points, with the race being C2 rated - and only 4 teams participating. McCormick were unlucky to not score at all - but the three others didn't get much more from the race, either. 1st place is shared by Los Pollos and Xero, both scoring 7 points. Ruiz and Tesfaye Heyi were rewarded with this amount for their 12th and 13th place. Assa Abloy even had 3 scoring riders with Magnusson, Veyhe and Rickaert - but 19th, 23rd and 24th were just worth 4 points combined.
And last but not least, there was the Tour d'Andorra - usually a "who is who" of the top PCT climbers. Not this year, though, with only a pretty weak climber field present - less than half of PCT's 80+ climbers made the trip.
Yates made perfect use of this fact - although he definitely was really strong, beating and even gapping the race's top favourite on stage 1. He added a stage 3 win, and also finished 3rd on the final day - GC win, plus points jersey, plus 5th in KoM. 224 points is the highest score any rider got in a C1 race this year, a clear confirmation of his domination. And although none of his teammate scored, these 224 points are a huge step forward for Indosat!
Oomen was the already mentioned top favourite, but he couldn't quite add another stage race win. Mainly due to a bad opening day, losing 18 seconds to Yates which turned out to be the decisive difference. Oomen went on to win the final two stages, closing the gap to 7" - but still coming short of the GC win. 2nd in GC and in points still isn't that awful. "Awful" however pretty much fits the team's depth scoring, as only Van Gils could add 2 points for the U25 standings - for a total of 147 points scored by Lierse.
A 3rd - and final - team scored more than 100 points, and rather unsurprisingly that's the Mexican Chicken. Aular left stronger climbers like Bennett, Madrazo and especially Padun behind to take 3rd place in GC and points, after taking 2nd on days 1 and 5, plus 3rd on day 3. Los Pollos also took the win in the U25 standings with Osorio, who finished 27th in GC. Beltran also got some U25 points with 4th place, for a total of 128 points scored by the Mexicans.
And what does the general picture look like in this block?
1st in Eritrea, 1st in Paris - Tours, 2nd in Andorra - there can't really be a doubt about the winners. Lierse easily run away with the top score, despite being unsuccessful in Torshavn and Uppsala. 428 points for the Belgians, a really strong result for C1/C2 races!
Indosat did very well, too, with 3rd place in Eritrea and a dominant win (point-wise) in Andorra. 349 points for the Indonesians - quite a significant gap to Lierse, but also 60 points of advantage to 3rd. Which goes to Los Pollos, scoring consistently in all C1 races, with the highlight being 3rd place in Andorra. 285 points for the Mexicans.
Popo4Ever also scored more than 200 points - 226 to be precise - even though Padun still didn't manage to display his true climbing power. But some good scoring in the sprinter classics somewhat made up for that. Rounding off the Top 5 are Bralirwa, mostly thanks to a great campaign on their home continent, with Meintjes' 2nd place in Eritrea. 172 points for the Rwandans.
6 more teams scored more than 100 points, ranging from Lampre with 147 down to Tryg with 106. In between are Xero, Trans, Sauber and Fastned. Assa almost made that group as well, scoring 99 points for 12th place.
The next four teams scored 73-73-72-72 points respectively, and they are DuckDuckGo, Spark, Zalgiris and Kraftwerk, the two latter being tied for 15th. Sony and UBS are the final teams scoring more or less significant points, 61 and 56 respectively - a disappointment especially for the former.
The final 6 teams have between 11 and 0 points, with two of them getting a bagel. Glanbia got 11 points from their only C1 race in Torshavn, whereas Zwift can't be happy with 7 points from Andorra. Even less so Genii, scoring 7 points in Andorra and leaving empty-handed in Eritrea and Paris-Tours. Colombini did Paris - Tours and Andorra, and scored two points in the latter.
At the bottom, we therefore have Jura and McCormick, both with a pointless C1/C2 month. Well, the former didn't even try to be fair - no race, no points. The latter only (unsuccessfully) competed in Betonexpressz - so despite these zero points, that's not much to worry about for either of them when being put into context.
Here are the full numbers:
Team
Tor
Upp
Eri
P-T
Bet
And
Total
1
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
10
0
191
80
0
147
428
2
Indosat Ooredoo
7
0
110
8
0
224
349
3
Los Pollos Hermanos
32
0
94
24
7
128
285
4
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
30
0
57
40
0
99
226
5
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
21
0
130
0
0
21
172
6
Lampre - Pinarello
80
0
0
11
0
56
147
7
Xero Racing
9
0
28
16
7
62
122
8
Trans Looney Tunes
56
0
58
0
0
0
114
9
Sauber Petronas Racing
0
0
41
0
0
72
113
10
Fastned
6
0
84
8
0
10
108
11
Tryg - Gobyk
41
0
33
0
0
32
106
12
Assa Abloy
49
8
12
26
4
0
99
13
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
0
0
27
0
0
46
73
14
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
0
0
12
0
61
73
15
DK Žalgiris
24
0
6
42
0
0
72
16
Kraftwerk Man Machine
16
0
0
56
0
0
72
17
Sony - Force India
37
0
21
3
0
0
61
18
Team UBS - Tissot
0
0
0
0
0
56
56
19
Glanbia
11
0
0
0
0
0
11
20
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
0
0
0
0
10
10
21
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
0
0
0
0
0
7
7
22
Colombini Cycling
0
0
0
0
0
2
2
23
Jura GIANTS
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Partial July Ranking | PTHC/HC
There are 4 races in this block - plus the delayed Dauphiné. 4 stage races, 2 each in PTHC and HC, plus one PTHC classic are on the menu.
Let's start right away with the pending June race, Dauphiné Libéré! Usually, PCT teams find it a rather tough task to compete against some of the best riders of the world in these PTHC races. But not here.
In fact, a PCT rider was the best individual scorer in this race - and Joseph Areruya's score alone was even higher than any PCT team managed to score in a race so far! He won three stages and the points jersey - but his 3rd place finish on the final day made him slip down into 2nd position in GC. Still, it was a fantastic race by the Rwandan, scoring 333 points in France! His teammates didn't score a ton of points; Schomber with his 3rd place in the prologue was the most notable contributor, with only Fouché and Van Zyl adding some minor Top 100 points. Still, Xero's 353 points is a new PCT record for now, beating LPH's Tropicale score by 24 points. Can the Mexicans strike back later in Arab Tour?
All other teams above 200 points were PT teams, so Xero had a huuuge margin over 2nd place, scoring almost twice as much as Sony did! The Indians got 184 points, mostly thanks to Choi who finished 2nd on the final stage and 4th on GC - missing out on the podium by one tiny second... 145 points for the Hong Kong native, and 39 scored by his teammates. Most of them by Carboni (26th) and Kozhatayev (35th), but Ahmad Zamri also narrowly finished inside the Top 50. Their Top 5 riders all got an additional point as well, thanks to 4th place in the team standings. Definitely a solid race by Sony!
Next in line were Popo4Ever, which is pretty straightforward given that Padun was the 3rd best PCT finisher on GC with 6th place. His performance was worth 120 points. Aniolkowski was the biggest contributor among Padun's teammates, thanks to a strong 2nd place on stage 4. Otherwise, they just had Zouzou, Papanov, Gladysh and Sergis in the Top 100 - 249 points for the Ukrainians in the end.
After being dethroned as the division's top scoring team in a single race, Los Pollos got the chance in Arab Tour to take that lead back. HC-rated, three flat stages and a pan-flat ITT to decide the race - perfect terrain for the Mexicans.
And indeed, Zmorka didn't leave a doubt about the race win, beating the pack of 4 80 TTers by nine seconds in the ITT stage. This obviously was enough for the GC win. Unlike in Tropicale, however, LPH couldn't quite make it a 1-2, despite Sütterlin taking 2nd in the ITT stage. He only finished 4th on GC though. 203 and 113 points for the two LPH leaders. They also got the win in the team standings, plus some points by Aguilar Mendez and Quispe for finishing in the Top 50 - all in all, 339 points. Which is 14 points short of Xero's Dauphiné score - given that Los Pollos lost Sterbini - who was well on track for a Top 20 - on the final stage, it's pretty clear where they lost these points... Still, they now have the 2nd and 3rd best scores of the season with 339 and 329 points - not bad to get 668 points in just 9 race days!
In 2nd place, we have a team that didn't shine with a top GC result, but with great depth! UBS had Haugard in 5th, Dillier in 7th, Blum, Bohli and Van Asbroeck in 17th, 18th and 23rd, with the latter also taking a 2nd place on day 2. Blum surprisingly won the U25 standings, with all 9 better U25 TTers missing the decisive split on day 4, and UBS finished 2nd in the team standings. 257 points must be a better than expected reward, but surely a very welcome points haul in their not-so-comfortable situation!
The situation is far more comfortable for the 3rd best team, as they're actually fighting for promotion - it's Indosat! Dunbar taking 4th in the ITT stage and 3rd in the GC obviously is their top scorer with 111 points, but they also had Arif Prayogo in 12th, Firdaus in 21st, Venturini in 28th and Gani in 32nd. Abdul Halil furthermore won stage 2 (finishing 6th in points), with Arif Prayogo 4th in KoM and Firdaus 2nd in U25, plus the team 4th in team standings - all in all, a great 237 points tally for the Indonesians!
The weird split on stage 4 definitely played a major role, allowing the latter two teams a great depth result - and clearly holding back especially Assa Abloy, who came 4th with almost 100 points less than Indosat.
We're halfway through - and to make it the perfect Sandwich, we now have the sole classic in this block. And we can even continue the PTHC/HC alternation, as the Philadelphia International Championship indeed was a PTHC race.
And it was a great race for PCT, actually, with PCT sprinters taking 6/10 Top 10 spots, including the win and 3rd place! And the winner is... Halvorsen! The Norwegian himself and his Zalgiris team haven't been favoured by luck so far, but in this race, he just was clearly the strongest! And not only did he score the 170 points for the win; Räim finished 12th for 28 points, and Pszczolarski got a Top 50 finish as well. All in all, that's 200 points flat for the Lithuanians - a big boost for the morale and their points tally in the relegation fight!
Aniolkowski narrowly missed out on a win in his previous PTHC race (Dauphiné); here he got his next podium, which was obviously far more precious though. 100 points for Popo4Ever's sprinter, as the Ukrainians also got 5 points from Varga's 30th place plus another 2 points from Lutsyshyn. 3rd place then is for Démare and Tryg, with the French sprinter star taking 5th place and 80 points. Another living legend in Kump added 2 more points for 82 in total.
Next up on the menu was the HC Benelux Challenge - one of the weirdest races of the year in terms of race design - and often in terms of outcome. A mix of prologue skills, hills riding and cobbles is required to be successful there - and one rider combines all of that pretty much to perfection (with defending champion Küng, who likes all of this too, not being there).
Which rider? Well, the riders being taken down one of the weirdest development paths possible - a true "jack of all trades", as labelled by his manager: Tom Pidcock. 3rd on the flat-rated stage 2, winner on the hilly day 3, plus 4th and 6th on the cobbled days 4 and 5 - whereas he wasn't the strongest on the cobbles, as expected, his performance was easily enough to take the GC win. And the points win. And obviously the U25 win.
Can you still remember Xero's record score from Dauphiné? Well, forget about it, that's already obsolete. Pidcock alone scored the ridiculous amount of 292 points in this race. Prologue winner Schomber added 49 points. Novardianto, who surprisingly finished 2nd behind Pidcock on day 3 and ended up 11th on GC, contributed 62 points. Van Zyl's 17th place was worth 24 points. Lazkano and Hamza picked up 2 points each for 3rd in the team standings. All in all, that's... 431 points! It was a ridiculously successful week for the Kiwis out there in Benelux!
What about the other teams then? Well, UBS definitely had a great race as well, although not on Xero level. Pretty unfavourable results on the final day made them lose 2-3 on GC, with Bohli dropping to 3rd and Van Asbroeck to 5th, but that's still a great GC outcome for them. Jacobs and Spengler ended up 22nd and 29th on GC - the latter also had the team's best stage result with 4th place on day 5. The Swiss also finished 2nd in the team standings - 251 points for them.
Which is not much more than the strongest team got, with Lampre scoring 238 points. While they didn't have any outstanding stage results nor a top-level GC finish, they had many solid scorers. Rowe was their best man, taking 4 stage Top 10s in a row, plus 6th on GC. Riesebeek in 8th also gave them two in the GC Top 10, and Daniel narrowly missing out in 12th place. GvK rather went for stage results than for GC, which was rewarded by a 2nd place on day 5. All in all, still a decent race for the Italians.
Bralirwa also just got above 200 points thanks to Stallaert's great sprint on the final day; all other teams ended up below 150 points.
The final race of the month - clashing with Andorra - was the Tour of Slovenia, a PTHC race combining hills, TTT and a long ITT. And as often in these races, the PT teams tend to get decent depth results and to not leave too many points to PCT teams.
And as often in these races, Indosat tend to stick out of the bunch - and so it was this time, too. They were only the 7th team overall, but still clearly best of PCT with 142 points. Dunbar's 3rd place in the ITT was their standout stage result, with the Irishman taking a strong 6th place on GC and 122 points. Besides 4th place in the team standings, the Indonesians also had Purnama Setiawa doing a decent job by taking 31st on GC, with Rohendi and Abdurrahman picking up Top 100 points.
Assa Abloy also have some good TTers - with especially Paillot doing well this year, and he did so again. 5th in the ITT, 8th in GC, that's 83 points for the Frenchman. Their only other points are for Van Aert's 6th place in the KoM standings, resulting in 86 points for Assa Abloy.
Jura weren't entirely happy with how the race went for them, either, but they still end up being PCT's #3 in this race. Not having a standout result, they still had to decent scorers with Masnada and Küng, taking 34 and 33 points respectively. The former finished 5th and 4th on days 3 and 4, and ended up 5th in the points standings. The latter finished 16th on GC. Darbellay also got a Top 50 result, with Errazkin and Brunel scoring Top 100 points; the latter also picked up the final U25 point. 79 points for the Swiss, in what was the 2nd lowest scoring PTHC race for PCT teams, right after Ukraine. I told you, these races tend to be dominated by PT teams.
Now, let's try to get an overview of who did really well this month.
Well, like in the C1/C2 block, there's not really a question about who tops this partial ranking - just by how much. Xero were the best PCT team by far in Dauphiné and Benelux, and despite a comparatively mediocre score in Philadelphia, they get a dominant win with 814 points!
Los Pollos also did a good job, as they were the strongest among those who did all 5 races. Winning Arab Tour was obviously their main achievement, but Dauphiné wasn't bad, either. 575 points - "just" 239 points behind Xero...
And we have some other names than the usual suspects at the top of the rankings, with UBS taking 3rd place - they only did Arab Tour and Benelux, but they scored 508 points from these two races, hats off! Relegation fears should be a thing of the past now?
It also was a tremendously important block in the fight against relegation for Zalgiris, who are 4th with 468 points, with Halvorsen's Philadelphia win making up for the biggest chunk of them.
The fight for 5th then was pretty close, with Assa Abloy finally taking it with 391 points. No true standout result - even though they were 2nd best PCT team in Slovenia, this didn't result in a lot of points - and actually even another disappointing Dainese outing in Philadelphia, but still consistent scoring throughout most races.
Sony with 384 and Indosat with 379 points came very close - the former with good scoring in Dauphiné and Benelux, the latter doing well in both races they did, Arab Tour and Slovenia.
It's then a 50 points gap down to Tryg, who did all 5 races - without a standout result, but with decent points everywhere. 326 points for them, followed by Lampre with 312 - the vast majority of these thanks to a great Benelux Challenge.
Bralirwa narrowly missed out on the 300 points mark, as they round off the Top 10 with 293 points, most of which were scored in Benelux as well.
Popo4Ever are fairly close behind, with good Dauphiné and Philadelphia results. Zwift, DuckDuckGo and Sauber are the other teams above 200 points. Jura follow relatively closely with 185 points, looking up to UBS to see how really good scoring could be done with just 2 races. They're the final team in the Top 15.
And then, it's an 80 points gap to 4 teams who scored between 106 and 100 points - Trans, Colombini, Genii and Glanbia. Spark got pretty close to 100 points with 93, whereas Fastned absolutely can't be satisfied with their 84 points.
Nor can Kraftwerk, participating in 4 races for just 67 points. Lierse definitely didn't have luck on their side either - especially in Arab Tour with all points going down the drain after a random split. 48 points for them, with McCormick once again taking the final spot with just 27 points scored. Similar story with unlucky splits for them in both Arab Tour and Slovenia... A recurring theme this month, sadly.
Here's the full overview:
Team
Dau
Arab
Phi
BNL
Slo
Total
1
Xero Racing
353
0
30
431
0
814
2
Los Pollos Hermanos
132
339
58
40
6
575
3
Team UBS - Tissot
0
257
0
251
0
508
4
DK Žalgiris
30
92
200
146
0
468
5
Assa Abloy
136
148
16
5
86
391
6
Sony - Force India
184
0
64
136
0
384
7
Indosat Ooredoo
0
237
0
0
142
379
8
Tryg - Gobyk
56
82
82
68
38
326
9
Lampre - Pinarello
0
74
0
238
0
312
10
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
0
45
0
203
45
293
11
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
149
0
107
20
0
276
12
Zwift Pro Cycling
55
100
0
71
14
240
13
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
100
73
41
0
0
214
14
Sauber Petronas Racing
118
0
20
73
0
211
15
Jura GIANTS
0
106
0
0
79
185
16
Trans Looney Tunes
29
10
40
27
0
106
17
Colombini Cycling
0
53
0
52
0
105
18
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
0
61
0
0
40
101
19
Glanbia
1
80
8
11
0
100
20
Spark-BNZ Racing
0
13
0
61
19
93
21
Fastned
0
40
0
44
0
84
22
Kraftwerk Man Machine
12
16
12
27
0
67
23
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
0
7
0
41
0
48
24
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
10
0
0
17
27
Period Ranking | July
Well, it's actually "July+", with Dauphiné being the "+" - and we'd actually have a different winner if we only looked at the July races.
But Dauphiné is part of this update, and so we our winners obviously are Xero! 7th in the lower-tier races, clear winners in the upper-tier ones, and a total of 936 points scored in 33 days of racing! Definitely impressive - but it's actually "only" the third best PpRD, despite all of their great success.
"Only" the 4th best PpRD was scored by Los Pollos, but the Mexicans still had a great month with 860 points - only 76 less than Xero in the end. Their 38 RDs is the highest amount spent by any team across all divisions in a single month so far - although that number obviously is slightly skewed by the fact that Dauphiné actually was a June race.
The biggest winners of the month then come in 3rd place - with a fantastic PpRD average of 34.67, Indosat managed to score 728 points in just 21 days of racing! That definitely must be frightening for the previous Top 5 teams - we'll soon see if it already made an impact.
We then have a rather big gap down to UBS in 4th - the Swiss scored 564 points, or 164 less than Indosat - but they only needed 18 RDs to do so, and have the 2nd best PpRD value of the month! Zalgiris must also be relieved about having a good month for once with 540 points scored and a PpRD above 20, the 6th highest value in this update. The Lithuanians round off the Top 5 in July.
Popo4Ever also cracked the 500 points mark, even if they just barely did so with 502 points. Assa narrowly missed out with 490 points - the main difference is that the Swedes used up 8 RDs more to get 12 points less, hence getting only a midtable PpRD of 14.
It's then 5 more teams above 400 points, all between 476 and 432, a span of just 44 points. Lierse come first, followed by Bralirwa, Lampre, Sony and Tryg. Lampre, who take the final Top 10 spot, have the highest PpRD in this block, with 20.86 actually being 5th best this month. On the other hand, Tryg's 12.71 is only lower midtable.
It's then a gap of more than 100 points down to Sauber with 324, but the Sammarinese still have a higher PpRD. Same for DuckDuckGo, scoring 287 points in 21 race days.
Rounding off the Top 15 are Zwift with exactly 250 points, while Trans in 16th are the final team above 200 points. Both of them however have a PpRD below 10, which isn't great news having spent more than 20 race days.
The same holds for title favourites Fastned, who had a shockingly bad month with Groenewegen disappointing everywhere he rode, and no-one jumping in to somewhat save the month.
Previous leaders Jura only take 18th place this month - but unlike the teams surrounding them, they won't actually be unhappy with their score. 185 points in just 9 race days means a PpRD of 20.56, which is #7 in this update.
The Swiss however are the final team in this update feeling pretty good, with the 6 teams below them also having the lowest PpRD average of the month. At least, all but one of them scored more than 100 points. Spark were best with 166 points, followed by Kraftwerk with 139. Glanbia (111), Genii (108) and Colombini (107) all are only just above 100 points.
And then we have McCormick - who had similarly few RDs as Jura, but just some awful luck and hence an awful score. 27 points, that's a 2.45 PpRD average...
Full numbers, please? Here we go:
Team
C1/C2
PTHC/HC
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Xero Racing
122
814
936
33
28.36
2
Los Pollos Hermanos
285
575
860
38
22.63
3
Indosat Ooredoo
349
379
728
21
34.67
4
Team UBS - Tissot
56
508
564
18
31.33
5
DK Žalgiris
72
468
540
26
20.77
6
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
226
276
502
27
18.59
7
Assa Abloy
99
391
490
35
14.00
8
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
428
48
476
24
19.83
9
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
172
293
465
25
18.60
10
Lampre - Pinarello
147
312
459
22
20.86
11
Sony - Force India
61
384
445
22
20.23
12
Tryg - Gobyk
106
326
432
34
12.71
13
Sauber Petronas Racing
113
211
324
23
14.09
14
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
73
214
287
21
13.67
15
Zwift Pro Cycling
10
240
250
29
8.62
16
Trans Looney Tunes
114
106
220
24
9.17
17
Fastned
108
84
192
22
8.73
18
Jura GIANTS
0
185
185
9
20.56
19
Spark-BNZ Racing
73
93
166
22
7.55
20
Kraftwerk Man Machine
72
67
139
23
6.04
21
Glanbia
11
100
111
21
5.29
22
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
7
101
108
19
5.68
23
Colombini Cycling
2
105
107
17
6.29
24
McCormick Pro Cycling
0
27
27
11
2.45
Full Ranking
Looking at the July update, it's rather unsurprising to see that we have a new (previous) leader: Los Pollos! They had the highest PpRD in the previous ranking update, and they transformed potential into actual points, scoring 675 points more than previous leaders Jura this month. With 2,880 points, and a projected outcome of 3,786 points, promotion is now looking like a formality for the Mexicans. Definitely an awesome month for them!
Speaking of Jura, the Swiss actually ended up dropping just one spot. They now have a 345 points deficit compared to Los Pollos - which will probably only increase after Deutschland Tour and Post Danmark Rundt - but they still have a PpRD of slightly more than 22, which still is 2nd best of the division. And unlike in the previous update, they're now actually the team with the lowest amount of race days spent in the entire Top 10. 2,535 is their current score.
But it was really, really close in the fight for 2nd actually! Bralirwa had a good month and almost closed the gap - to end up one measly point behind! It's 3rd place for the Rwandans with 2,534 points, as they're the 3rd and final team with a PpRD above 20. So it's still looking good for promotion!
However, the hottest team of the moment is lurking just behind, with Indosat making a massive jump up from 9th to 4th! And not only that - they also are now projected to finish 5th, so promotion now looks more real than ever! Furthermore, out of their 35 remaining race days, they have 22 with Dunbar or Yates, who have done a more than awesome job so far, so we'll see if the Indonesians can even threaten Los Pollos?!? Right now, they're exactly 400 points behind with 2,480, and have used up more RDs - but they have a great leader duo waiting to score even more points...
Currently, Fastned still have a better PpRD, though. The Dutchmen really didn't have a good month, dropping from 2nd to 5th, totalling 2,370 points now. But they have the biggest amount of RDs left behind Jura (from the top teams), and they're still projected to finish 4th and hence to promote. Another July-like performance would likely put the promotion campaign in serious danger, though!
So, that's the Top 5. But I just tell you that it's incredibly crowded behind. Lierse have dropped from 5th to 6th, but they only trail Fastned by 47 points. Their major disadvantage is the RD usage, and Oomen's season having come to an end.
Assa Abloy are just another 10 points behind, having lost a spot as well. But some good performances in Germany and Denmark, and they're fully back into business. Next up are the July winners, Xero, after a big jump from 13th to 8th. Their PpRD currently has them in 6th place, being projected just 67 points behind Indosat - all of a sudden, everything seems to be possible again!
Sony and Lampre round off the Top 10, the former totalling 2,264 points, the latter 2,253. Which means that between 2nd place and 10th place, we only have a difference of 282 points - and we've seen that a single race can actually make that difference! And the difference between 5th and 10th is only 117 points, so basically we have an insanely wide open race for promotion this year!
On the other hand, the race for the Top 10 spots doesn't look that interesting anymore. While UBS did a great job in July and basically should have gotten rid of any relegation fears, they trail Lampre by 281 points already - pretty much exactly as much as we have between 2nd and 10th. The Swiss are right below the 2,000 points mark, which they'll almost certainly crack in Vineyards already.
Popo4Ever definitely aren't in the promotion race anymore for now, trailing UBS by 46 points. Behind them, we have McCormick, who have lost 3 spots after a miserable month - but according to PpRD are still the most likely team to still compete for a Top 10 spot. They're also the only ones having spent less than 100 RDs so far. In terms of absolute points, the gap to Popo3Ever is already quite big, though, 227 points, with the Americans totalling 1,699 points currently.
With 14th place, we arrive in what I'd currently call the relegation danger zone. The danger isn't really big for Sauber with their 1,602 points, but the gap to 20th is "just" 400 points, with a significant RD disadvantage for the Sammarinese. It's a similar situation for Tryg, who round off the Top 15 with 1,571 points.
Zalgiris are even closer to the relegation zone with 1,497 - but having actually been on a relegation spot in the last update, moving up from 20th to 16th and having a 280 points gap still must feel like a major success to them.
DuckDuckGo then are the team in the "bottom 11" with the best PpRD, so they might not be extremely worried yet - but a 200 points gap still isn't much, and having lots of RDs left can also mean lots of potentially low scoring races...
It's then another 100 points down to Colombini, and now the serious danger area definitely starts! They just have 109 points of margin to 20th place, and despite being one least active teams so far they must be a bit worried by now...
Which is even more the case for Kraftwerk, who follow 5 points back - totalling 1,319 points - and having spent 3 RDs more. And then, we arrive at the first relegation spot - 20th place, which currently is taken by Zwift. After a bad month, they're back in the relegation zone - and Kraftwerk currently are more than one PpRD better. It might all come down to the Tour of America between Colombini, Kraftwerk and Zwift, who have all confirmed participation. Looking at DuckDuckGo's RD usage, chances are high that they'll be there as well - without a strong GC contender like the others, though...
The four remaining teams currently all have a PpRD below 10 - basically meaning they'd need to improve by more than 3 PpRD to get to safety. Which seems like a tough job - but might still be possible for one team... This one team isn't Trans, though, who currently are 21st with 1,124 points.
And it isn't Genii, either, with the Luxembourgers having used up 124 race days already and having the second lowest PpRD. 1,054 points for them.
Despite only totalling 907 points right now, Glanbia seem to be the team with the biggest potential of making a big jump up. Just because of one man: East-man. If he can replicate his California domination in Tour of America and Tour of Japan, a significant improvement might be on the cards. But the rest of the team should still contribute a bit, otherwise the gap to safety will eventually grow too big.
Last but not least, we have Spark, who are really having a season to forget. Both Madrazo and Bobridge were considered to be potentially shaky leaders - and both definitely are, especially the Australian. With almost as many points missing to safety as they have scored so far, staying up currently looks like an impossible mission. Up to their leaders to turn things around - but it'd take a massive improvement to really get somewhere.
The full standings:
Pos
Last
Team
Total
RD
PpRD
Proj
1
4
Los Pollos Hermanos
2880
124
23.23
3786
2
1
Jura GIANTS
2535
115
22.04
3593
3
3
Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes
2534
123
20.6
3358
4
9
Indosat Ooredoo
2480
128
19.38
3159
5
2
Fastned
2370
119
19.92
3247
6
5
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
2323
130
17.87
2913
7
6
Assa Abloy
2313
124
18.65
3040
8
13
Xero Racing
2295
121
18.97
3092
9
7
Sony - Force India
2264
123
18.41
3001
10
8
Lampre - Pinarello
2253
120
18.78
3061
11
12
Team UBS - Tissot
1972
121
16.3
2657
12
11
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
1926
124
15.53
2531
13
10
McCormick Pro Cycling
1699
99
17.16
2797
14
14
Sauber Petronas Racing
1602
120
13.35
2176
15
18
Tryg - Gobyk
1571
119
13.2
2152
16
20
DK Žalgiris
1497
114
13.13
2140
17
17
DuckDuckGo - Everesting
1429
104
13.74
2240
18
15
Colombini Cycling
1324
102
12.98
2116
19
16
Kraftwerk Man Machine
1319
105
12.56
2047
20
19
Zwift Pro Cycling
1215
107
11.36
1852
21
22
Trans Looney Tunes
1124
116
9.69
1579
22
21
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
1054
124
8.5
1386
23
23
Glanbia
907
100
9.07
1478
24
24
Spark-BNZ Racing
731
114
6.41
1045
So, we have a promotion race including 10 teams, and a fight against relegation for up to 11 teams - what else do we need for the final 3 months?
With August racing about to start, what do you think are the chances for the teams fighting for promotion or against relegation to actually succeed?
My current bet would be that Los Pollos will win the division, with Indosat going up to PT as well. Just too many Dunbar/Yates RDs left for them to miss out.
The other Top 5 spots are hard to guess. Bralirwa might need some more Izagirre/Uwizeyimana magic in Denmark, like they did in Norway, to complement the expected points by Stallaert and Meintjes. Fastned really should go up, but Van Hooydonck doesn't have many races left, and Groenewegen has been disappointing. Olivier should be their key rider in the final 3 months.
Lierse's chances probably aren't great, with Oomen's season already over. Novak, Bonifazio, De Plus and Gamper will have to jump in - not an easy task. Assa Abloy? They could get a decent result in Germany, and at least Paillot should do well in Denmark. But they'll need Dainese to deliver his A-game in his 5 remaining RDs - and most of all Gesbert finally delivering according to his skillset.
Xero's chances will mostly depend on whether Areruya can keep his level of scoring. And whether Bennett can actually fight for podiums and not just for Top 5s in his remaining races. But promotion could definitely be on the cards.
Sony only have one Choi race left, so their fate mostly lies in Benoot's hands. He didn't handle the pressure too well this year, but he'll have to to make them go up. Lampre on the other hand rely on their depth, which might be the right call - but with mostly subtop leaders it can also go wrong. I currently don't see them going up - but with these close gaps anything can happen.
And Jura? Well, I don't know. Things aren't looking bad currently, but we'll need to score above our expectations in Vineyards and Denmark at least. Then it could happen - we'll have a better idea at the end of August.
In terms of relegation fight, I'm afraid it doesn't look great for the current bottom 5 teams. If any of them should make it, I'd bet on Zwift, with DuckDuckGo maybe being most at risk of falling down if they indeed do ToA. I don't really see any of the other 4 staying up - although you never know with (B)Eastman...
The dust of many, many stage races has settled - and we have a completely new Top 3! Sam Oomen now tops the standings with 902 points, which also will be his final score. It's almost 100 points more than last year and definitely a good season by the Dutchman!
However, he won't stand a chance of winning the division. Because in 2nd place we now have Joseph Areruya, moving up from 8th. The Rwandan beast currently totals 843 points - and it wouldn't be surprising to see him end up close to 1,500 points, having still 14 RDs left! He's less than 50 points away from last year's score, which is just... amazing.
Eddie Dunbar clearly has taken another step this year, and with 10 RDs left he's already in 3rd place. 774 points for the Irishman, 110 points short of last year's score - which he'll easily beat. Pretty weird for a rider outside the Top 20 in terms of OVL to fight for the individual rankings podium, but this year has definitely shown that strong TTers who can climb well are clearly underrated (same for Wirtgen in PT actually). He's clearly one of the factors why Indosat are currently flying!
Alberto Dainese, the previous leader, has dropped down to 4th place after a pretty bad month, with low outcomes in Philadelphia and Paris - Tours. 754 points for him now, and he'll need an awesome Ras Tailteann to potentially catch up with Dunbar again. 5 RDs left for him.
Joeri Stallaert has defended his 5th place and the standing of being PCT's top cobbler, which he simply is. 736 points currently - how many can he add in the two cobbled races that are left?
Arnaud Démare lost 3 spots, despite doing well in Torshavn and Philadelphia. He still has some good races left, and he's basically Tryg's life insurance this year, scoring almost 50% of the team's points so far.
Dylan Groenewegen did even worse than Dainese and Démare, as he fell all the way down from 2nd to 7th. He was just awful in Torshavn, Arab Tour and Paris- Tours, basically wasting another 8 RDs this month. 663 points currently - how many can he add?
We go along with one of the month's top improvers, Adam Yates. He was 26th in the previous update, now he's 8th. With Oomen done and Yates having 12 RDs left, he's even fighting for the title of PCT's top stage racer!
Ki Ho Choi in 9th place was also in that fight, but an inexplicable failure in Eritrea probably sees him out of it. Japan alone probably won't be sufficient to catch up with Oomen - although it isn't impossible, either.
In 10th place, we now have Yoann Paillot, making Assa the 2nd team with two riders in the Top 10. And basically confirming the theory of underrated TTers with decent uphill skills; the Frenchman isn't even among PCT's Top 40 riders in terms of OVL...
Given that we have two new names in the Top 10, two riders also dropped out. One is Manninen, dropping just from 10th to 11th, with a decent chance of getting back in. The other one is Theuns, who didn't race at all and fell all the way down from 6th to 15th.
We already mentioned Yates as a notable improver. Another rider making an impressive jump was Pidcock, starting the month in 57th and getting all the way up to 16th! Who said his OVL wasn't in line with his potential scoring?
Zmorka moved up from 42nd to 21st, with Padun improving from 75th to 25th. In the Top 30, however, no-one can match Aular's jump: from 94th to 26th - and probably the main reason for Los Pollos' pretty massive lead by the end of July!
Thanks for the brilliant update Fabianski. Obviously fun to read about our successes, but it was also very well written and detailed in all the other parts too
Obviously a great period for us that theoretically puts us into promotion contention for the first time this season. The remaining race days don't give me a ton of hope even if Bennett was racing to his usual standard this year, and he really isn't. Only two races left for him - not sure if he and Japan will have the same special connection as other PCMs, but that would be a huge help. Doubt it with the weird new MTTs. I don't know if it's completely the new PCM, the calendar, or luck, but it seems clear that he's basically had one "average" race and then really underachieved after being a Top 20 rider in a really similar division last year, and 21st and 22nd his two years before that. If he was on that course we'd currently be competing for the podium as many predicted.
Areruya is gone until the end-of-season hills, where he will need to be really winning everything. Houle has two races left that were huge scorers for him last year and should be again on paper, but his AI has been awful even with his slightly lower stats so I wouldn't be shocked if he didn't score another point.
Pidcock and Fouche are both done leading and only have about 18RDs left between them - I have secret hope Pidcock can win a couple more stages if the AI lets him but otherwise it would be foolish to rely on anything but minor depth and U25 points from them.
Basically, things look really down for us still and unless we pull out some huge results I'm not even sure we're in the promotion fight.
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
Losch being our 2nd best scorer is massive yikes. Halvorsen still has some big races left, if he can deliver a couple hundred extra points we should be good, and then my mans can leave before his back is broken. letsago
Love how bad we have been. I don't really get why. I guess next season back down to the CT and rebuild with new leaders and get back to the PCT for round 2.
Thanks for the great update. Pretty much as expected this month for us given so few race days and that the ones we had were a stretch. We didn't do well with the splits in either race but even if we had the upside was probably not big.
Not expecting much better news in August so have gritted my teeth for that one.
On the division I think the author underplays Jura's chances, projected make them look pretty safe for promotion and TT strength will still play out in a number of races still to come.
This month has shown the ability of one month to move things so I would be pretty surprised if at least one of the current top 5 didn't drop out and one of the current bottom didn't swim to safety.
The huge missed opportunity by Van Hooydonck plus a rather anonymous Paris Tours for Groenewegen and low scoring climbing this month led to a low PPRD.
Still a bit of a gap but it`s melting and can`t have too many of those months.
Thanks for the update and hopefully the team is doing better again.
Quite a horrible month for us to be honest. Philadelphia and Paris-Tours were huge letdowns, and unfortunately Gonzales Salas missed out on a top GC result in Arab Tour by missing the split on the final stage. Overall, we scored about 200 points less than expected, which could very well turn out to be the difference between promoting and not.
Not a lot of race days left, but we should have some good ones coming up in August with Ras Taileann for Dainese, Deutschland Tour for Paillot/Gonzales Salas and Denmark Rundt for Paillot. Hopefully Gesbert can also show better form in the fall than he did in the spring. ~100 points for him so far this season is rather dreadful. I think we're still in contention for promotion, but it's definitely looking much more difficult than it did a month or two ago.
Paillot is definitely the rider of the season for us so far. He's been incredibly consistent and no doubt a huge benefactor from the new game mechanics. I think he's got a chance of retaining a top 10 in the individual rankings, which would be quite amazing!
Thanks for another comprehensive update, Fabianski!
It's cool to see Pidcock having a good season given how expensive he is
Rooting for Los Pollos to win the title and it should be a fun battle for promotion with all those other teams, many of whom I'm also a fan of. Either way I see PT getting only stronger next year
Man, less than 120 points between 5th and 10th is nuts! We still have just over 200 points on 6th place, but given that gap was over 500 two ranking updates ago, that's not at all comforting.
Our path to promotion is very clear: Meintjes has Maroc and Japan, Stallaert has Kigali and Rheden. If they score well there, that might be enough. Otherwise, we could indeed need some Izagirre/Uwizeyimana magic in Britain, but we also have quite a lot of virtually pointless (literally and figuratively) race days with Deutschland, Riga-Jurmala (unless Silvestre pulls something out of the hat), Quebec, Emilia and very likely Balkans, which is the big one in terms of RDs (unless Izagirre/Uwi pull something out of their hat).
It's good to start the final push in a position where we have a little bit of room to play with, but so much now depends on how much the other teams will score. Oomen being done is huge, but five good race days from Dainese or two wins from Areruya on the hills erase the gap on our own if our leaders fail to deliver. And it feels like Lampre can always conjure up three Top 10 places in any given race, so who knows where they'll end up
I do find myself rooting for Indosat, I have to say, building such a strong team after a few seasons of fighting relegation. But all contenders would be worthy teams to promote. LPH should be a lock, but it's tough to get a grip on everyone else.
Similarly, it's a shame to see any of the relegating teams going down. For Zwift in particular I'm worried about what that would mean for their massive stable of talents, but as you said Fabianski, they probably have the best shot of saving themselves. Though if Eastman goes to the Tour of America, I still wouldn't rule out Glanbia, either, even if their deficit is massive.
Thanks as always for the big update! Can't wait to see how these next three months unfold.
I got to say this one hurts. Even with Oomen giving it his all and even Bonifazio contributing, we still see the last promotion chances slipping away. Our C1 was excellent, but the Benelux challenge randomness (which we profited from in the past, I know) and the weird gaps in Arab Tour make a lot of difference.
Furthermore I agree with your analysis that it's nearly impossible to go any higher with a) having the most used race days of the entire division and b) our best scorer ending his season. PPRD would see us drop to 10th and to be honest that does sound realistic.
For the promotion I still think Fastned is a lock, although they had a bad month. Pollos and Jura were there ages ago and I also feel Bralirwa cannot fall out of the top 5 at this point. I think Xero are the favourites for the 5th spot at the moment, but it will be very exciting until the last race.
Relegationwise I think the last 5 are going down as well unfortunately. Kraftwerk always has that ToA magic and Colombini is just to good to go down.
What an incredible update again, thank you for the amazing work, Fabianski!
Benelux and Slovenia might have been low scoring races, I'm obviously still happy with how we did in general. A good Zmorka and Sütterlin, a decent Manninen and a stellar Aular. I believe we have decent scoring chances in the rest of our races as well, so promotion should be almost secure by now, unless we flop heavily. With several other teams in the top-5 (and below) still having quite some superb leader rd's left (like Areruya and the Indosat tandem), a lot can still happen for the top positions. And I believe Jura is also still well in the battle for the title. Like Ulrich said, the author seems to be underestimating that team
Never expected to be in a relegation battle at this stage of the season. Kelderman and Reis would have to win everythign they're riding in to even put us in reach of a top 10. It saddens me, but the dream of a back to back his now well and truly died. No matter, we press on. Sometimes you just have to admit you failed. I was too ambitious with the riders we signed last summer but I hope we can still prove the doubters wrong by performing big in the late season!
I am glad to see Nemo performing so well at the top, and it is definitely an exciting season. Can't wait to see all the twist and turns and drama!
Starting to feel like we are battling for a top 15 finish instead of being in the relegation battle and the pprd predictions are starting to turn in our favour for that too.
The three teams on the relegation bubble are all favourites for varying reasons so it will be a shame to lose one or more of them.
And I echo the Jura will promote that others have said, definitely looks like they've got enough about them to hold on and it will be nice having a Swiss PT team again.
The division is really heating up. We drop a bit down to 10th which is still good for us if the season was to end today. But holy hell there's still everything to race for at both ends of the table.
For us our captains still have good races left where they, in traditional Lampre style, can overachieve and push us back into the promotion race.
Monsalve still has Vineyards, Maroc and Tour of Japan left. Those races can either end up being amazing or horrible depending on a few key stages but if he sticks around the top 10 area as he has done for the most part of his season so far.
Countinho has been a little middling this year but it could also just be poor planning. His final race is Vineyards, which didn't have the start we hoped it would but if he scores a few more points to contribute to the cause then we can be happy.
Maxime Daniel has had a solid but very forgettable season, he has three races left in Arenberg, Kigali and Rheden where he can produce something for us that could really latch us onto the promotion spots, he is due one of those outlier performances this season.
Meurisse and Turgis has not stepped onto a racebike for months now as there was a void in the middle of the season of races that suited them but they have a lot of races left to go still where they can create something. Meurisse will be solo leading in Balkans and Euskal, the latter is a race he steamrolled last year so pending the strength of field he should be in with a good shot of a good result there. He will share leadership with Turgis in GP Cycliste and Emillia. Turgis also has solo leadership at Lugano and Japan Cup where he might be able to chase some good results too.
Lastly, Rowe and Dzama has a shot at pulling a number on the pack in Riga so that could be another potential upside, but could also be a very low pointer in a PTHC race for us.
LPH on an expected promotion trajectory and Jura should be safe. Bralirwa will come down to the four races Cunego mentioned further up. Fastned should be safe but they have had some shaky months recently and with Xero still having RDs on Areruya where you expect at least a GC win in Balkans to come through that gap looks less and less sufficient.
Very few teams at the bottom can call themselves safe too. Probably from Zalgiris and down are teams that will have everything to race for in the last 2-3 months of racing, and I expect ToA to have incredible impact on the lower half of the table. While Glanbia are most likely relegated already Ryan Eastman will potentially stealing away valuable points from riders like Powless which could endanger Zwift who might be able to pull off one of the wildest survivals we've seen in a bit with the team at their disposal.
It says a lot about Kraftwerk's normal ToA pedigree that I don't fully consider them to be in danger of relegation as they normally always grab a huge amount of points from it but their position is not fantastic going into the end of the season.
Colombini have been unable to make both the traditional underperformers in Reis and Kelderman fire when it mattered this year and they might end up paying the price come end of the season.
Seems like Zalgiris has a lot riding on Halvorsen's shoulders to end the season, despite how shaky sprints have been this year it's a damn good set of shoulders to be relying on for safety.
That has to be about the best case scenario for us this month. This was our biggest month of the season, with both Dunbar and Yates riding two races each that they had a good chance of a great result in.
Dunbar did well with 3rd in Arab and maybe a tiny tiny bit underwhelming with 6th in Slovenia, but rode well in both TT’s so can’t be unhappy with that. Yates was absolutely awesome this month though - a stage + 3rd GC in Eritrea and two stages and the GC win in Andorra is amazing and totally unexpected. He’s been amazing all season, and I can only think it’s the combo of great energy stats + high ACC (for a stage racer), with a shitload of luck and good fortune that’s gotten him to this point. He wasn’t plan A, B or C during transfers which just goes to show what a funny game this can be. We have some decent leader Rds left with Yates, a Dunbar and Abdul Halil, but I guess we will see if we’ve used up our bundle of luck already? Britain should be a lock for a good result at least from Dunbar - maybe he can finally climb to the top step of the podium.
Slightly disappointed with our depth scoring though - Abdurrahman and Rohendi have been disappointing and haven’t added any decent depth results. Nur Hasan has done ok in the 78-79 sprinter roulette and should be comfortably 100+ points come end of season. Surprisingly, lvl 1 neo pro Prasetyo Fridays is also up there close to 100 points which is amazing! Hopefully a sign of things to come.
It’s going to be such a clench of a run-in to the end of the season, and we could again see the final races decide promotion/relegation. It’s so close from 2nd all the way to 10th, it’s nuts. Every single team in that region deserves to go up really, incredible to see what Xero have done this month too. Good luck to everyone, it’s gonna be a ride for the remainder of the season for sure
Thanks for the outstanding update too Fab, amazing as usual. Appreciate all of the effort mate
I think this month has basically ended any realistic chance of us finishing in the Top 5 this season. With the races we have, and the leaders assigned to them, I don't see us making up the deficit to 5th (or above), and keeping all the other teams behind us as well. There is a very good possibility that we will score more points than last season, and end up in the same position (8th) or worse at the end of this one. It's a bad season to be a promotion contender unless you're among the best of them!
We didn't do badly this month in all honesty, with just Eritrea making us lose about 80-100 points. Even with that, I'm not sure our leader schedule going into the last part of the season would have sufficed.
Great to see Los Pollos now more or less assured of their second promotion to PT at the first attempt itself, not that at any point of the season did that feel unlikely! Great jump by Xero this month. They'll probably make it too I think
The rankings here show a huge problem for my team as well, which was hard to "fix" mid-season, though as relegation team in need to get under the budget, and was missed in previous seasons actually.
Time trialists are probable the kind of riders with the best money/point ratio and more important, those that can be planned a bit easier due to less random TT results in the used version at the moment. Something that changed with the game change and wasn`t really given enough credit in my team building.
In especially in the last months, my leaders, who on paper should have done a lot better, struggled due to some randomness, Groenewegen is doing so all year already, Van Hooydonck is doing so in stage races, that normally suit him, Olivier is just one of many on less random terrain, so scoring can be tricky, Vansevenant is not yet ready for consistent scoring.
So the lack of regular TT points really hurting me right now and in worst case could cost promotion.
More ideally though the last 1-2 updates, which weren`t perfect were just a mid-season low and it will go back to some highs again in the races to come. All my leaders have shown to be potential winners already, time for them to do so again.
Another great update. Seems like the fight for promotion is still really heated up. Of course i'm cheering for my conglomerate teams but plenty of other teams id love to see going up in there including the option of Dzmastagic going for one more PT run
