Second Grand Tour of the year, and definitely with some expectations as well after a not so succesful Giro. First goal for us was to get a stage win to complete our GT stage winning trilogy, then we wanted to get as close as possible to a top-5 in GC, and an other goal was a decent final standing in the points classification and consistency in sprints in general.

So, let's start with the good news. We got the stage win! On stage 10, a flat stage, Halvorsen bagged his first victory for the team, beating Wouters from our friends at Lotto - Caloi in a very close sprint.

Then to remain positive, Aular did reasonably well in the fight for a good GC. When looking at the competition it was clear that top-5 would be hard and seventh was a realistic goal. In the end, the Venezuelan champion was quite consistent, even tried his luck with some attacking in the group of favourites, and finished 8th. Our second best rider and his most important domestique Osorio was 41st. Nothing too special, but that's life.

The third goal seemed to be unreachable, sadly. The competition was strong, so expecting 5 sprints wins of course would be crazy, but apart from the one stage win and one fourth place Halvorsen mostly finished around the 15th position. Mostly even in a great position with 2 km to go, but then deciding not to sprint, or at least let go for one km before starting his sprint. Our rouleur Ruiz not being used at all also didn't feel very pleasant. So that means, for the second GC in a row, our scoring was quite a bit below what could and should have been possible. Adding that to some other underperforming races, and the fans are starting to bite their nails for the second half of the season, where we'll go to the Tour de France with our weakest GT line-up, at least in theory.

But we want to end on a positive note. Locally seeded and grown Aguilar Mendez sat on the hotseat for a little while during the individual time trial, and also sprinted to a fifth place on a flat stage that went to the breakaway, great result for the Mexican. Nigerian champion Abolaji was in two breakaways as well, including the one where Aguilar Mendez sprinted to a fifth place. Always a good feeling to see developing riders making a mark.

Relegation talk getting more serious after each race, so we really needed to score points in Scandinavia. We had a good rider for the course in Sergio Higuita, and he did very well by starting the race with a third place on the first stage. He was a bit weaker on the second stage, which suited him less, but still fifth in GC with one stage remaining, a stage that suited him on paper. Everything seemed to be going perfectly until the final km of that stage, where Higuita imploded and dropped all the way to thirteenth in GC. Extremely bad day for him sadly, definitely when looking at some names who beat him on the stage and in GC. The team is having a bad streak. This will need to end soon if we want to stay in PT. Vamos muchachos!

Flat classic with a Halvorsen clearly not in form, so we had some fear he'd finish 18th again. During the day we saw youngster Galvan Ramirez join the breakaway and trying to be the last man standing, which was nice. In the end Halvorsen finished ninth in the sprint. Not a stand-out result, but acceptable for sure.

Final race of the season already for Eastman, who needed to make up for a weak Vuelta a España. And he did. He finished second in GC and even came close to winning the race after an attack on the final stage, so it's good to see him end his Oxxo career with a (minor) bang. Which is not the same as a banging minor. Great work by master domestique Aular has to be reported as well, and Sütterlin coming close to winning the time trial as well. Damn you, Sony!

Vive la France as the journey for Sütterlin to his next race was rather easy, the well known Herbiers PT time trial classic. The German actually did very well to finish sixth, and with Zmorka's third place and Vlatos' 19th place we had a nice total points tally of over 300.

We open this post of several race reviews with the PTHC Clasica San Sebastian. Higuita looked strong, but attacked just at the right moment, and had no more juice left for the final sprint for second place, finishing 8th in the end. No depth points, with second best rider Beltran in 77th.

We thought we underperformed in our other two GT's, but nothing could prepare us for a GT this bad. Aular had a very realistic top-10 goal, aiming around seventh in GC, but barely scored any stage points and finished 13th. Lopez Nolasco had one very good stage to finish third, but was also anonymous and making wrong decisions elsewhere, dropping to sixteenth in the end. Our sprinter Marin scored exactly three points.

A sprinters race with a top-5 possibility for Halvorsen. Had to be content with eighth, which is another underperformance. Good rouleur and decent sprinter Ruiz was unable to finish higher than 41st.

Historically a good race for us, but history is there to be changed. Individual good performance from Zmorka to finish third in GC, but Sütterlin finishing outside of top-20, with Vlatos around 180th, is crazy, to say the least. Halvorsen was there for the sprints as well, but he did not get away with a stage podium on four opportunities.

Historically a badrace for us, and history is there to stay the same. Had some good hopes of at least a decent GC this time around, but the whole team took a day off on stage 3, finishing ten minutes behind the stage winner. Zmorka scored some points with a fourth place in the long time trial.

A cobbled race, so around 20th place is what we could expect. 21st place was the final verdict for Ulloa, scoring some points in our penultimate cobbled classic of the season.

Final race of the season for Halvorsen. A good sprinter capable of top-10 and even top-5 with his 81/80 spr/acc and decent back-ups, as well as good flat support in Ruiz and others. Three sprint stages, not even one top-10 in the end. 25th (!!!) in GC in a race that could/should have been vital for our surival (have heard this before), and barely any points we take back home from Ireland. Galvan Ramirez came close to winning white, finishing second in that classification.

Not a lot of races for us in the past weeks, but we went onto cobbles twice. First time we visited different countries for the cobbled/hilly/time trially Tour of Northern Europe. The race started off very disappointing with the whole team losing many time for no reason at all, and Marin unable to perform in the sprint opportunities. On the final two hilly stages, Higuita did well with a third and fourth stage, but barely any gaps were created and he didn't do better than 29th in the final GC.

Ulloa was only 64th in the Tour of Northern Europe, but had a chance of a best result of the year in the USA, with a relatively weak startlist in Battenkill. Top-10 was the ultimate hope, in the end we have to be content with 14th. Definitely not the worst result of the year for him though, scoring some welcome points in the fight for PT survival. All hope in Higuita's basket now, with two rather hard hilly classics remaining!