Key riders:
Thomas Lövkvist is the best climber in the squad, and probably the most experienced one too. He's the man that will take the top 10 in Paris-Nice, and hopefully he will win some other week long stage races as well.
This guy is amazing. He can do almost everything, except climb the highest mountains, and he will hopefully bring us some wins in the hilly races. Also quite a good sprinter.
Main sprinter for the team, will compete for point jerseys and stage wins during the season, especially in Tour de California and Tour de Missouri.
First race this season is Etoile de Besseges. Some strong riders here but they shouldn't be in to good shape. My objective here is to take some stage wins and maybe points jersey so I get my invitation to Paris-Nice.
Etoile de Besseges - Stage 1: Le Grau de Noir - Le Grau de Noir
A really flat stage today, with not even the slightest sight of a hill, so it should definately be a stage for the sprinters. Favourites are Tyler Farrar, Jimmy Casper and Fabian Cancellara.
The race started with a quick break, and 7 riders tried their luck for the day, somewhat of a kamikaze mission.
They never got more than 2,5 minute though, and were brought back in time for a bunch sprint. Haven't got any pictures here though, because all riders turned invincible in the screens.
The sprint was weird, there were no trains, and I couldn't get Farrar up the field. With 3 km to go, he was in the middle the peloton surrounded by other riders. The other riders had trouble as well it seemed because when I read the name of the winner it said.... CRISTOPHE MOREAU! He won with half a bike in front of Laurent Mangel and Leif Hoste.
Etoile de Besseges, Stage 2: Nimes - Saint Ambroix
This stage looks almost like the first one, but this time we have some hills. I will try to get a rider in the break so it doesn't become a complete failure like stage 1.
With 12 km left to the first mountain sprint, a break of three riders, including our young Dane Rasmus Guldhammer. 9 other riders later joined them.
Guldhammer won the first mountain points of the race without any competition from the others.
With only 45 km to go, the 12 riders up front still had 5 minutes to the peloton. Agritubel and Caisse d'epargne started relaying really hard and the time gap melted away.
With 3 km to the last mountain sprint the gap was only 40 seconds, so Guldhammer attacked, he was going for the mountain jersey today. And he took it, he passed the sprint with only 25 seconds to the peloton.
This was going down to a mass sprint. After yesterdays bad result, I decided to try a sprint train today. And with 4 km's to go it was Guy East up front, with Boasson Hagen behind him and at last Farrar.
And this time, the others had no chance. Farrar destroyed the sprint, and only Hagen could follow.
Moreau was nowhere to be seen, so that means Farrar takes over yellow. A good stage today. We took the mountain jersey, Farrar took yellow and white and we got a sweet 1-2.
Etoile de Besseges, Stage 3: La Grand Combe - Les Salles du Gardon
This is probably the decisive stage. There will surely be some breakaways on the final hill, and some might try to go away on the last mountain. Our hope here is for Boasson Hagen to try something, but with riders like Schleck, Valverde and Moreau it will be hard.
5 riders managed to get away from the start, and with Guldhammar not in it, the mountain jersey surely is lost now. 42 points available.
The break were kept at around 3 minutes until the hill up to the last mountain points. With a few km to the top Fränk Schleck, Gutierrez and Arrieta attacked. I didn't have any choice but to tell Hagen to follow.
But Gutierrez was very strong. He attacked through the descent and when the last hill started he had a small lead over the rest. Behind him a large chasing group were forming, both Schleck and Hagen here.
But they couldn't catch Gutierrez today. He was just to strong. At the end of the day he won with 32 seconds over the chasing group, who got caught by the peloton right at the finish.
Arvesen sprinted and took second in front of Devolder. Hagen 6th.
Etoile de Besseges, Stage 4: Allegre - Les Fumades
Nothing special happened until the very end of this stage. There was a break but no changes in the mountain classification.
The usual break
But towards the end when the pack were back on level terms, things started to happen. With just over 10 km to the finish, there was a huge crash in the peloton, and 46 riders went down! With them almost all the stars. Cancellara, Horner, Devolder, Dumoulin and leader Gutierrez were all down.
This was a huge chance for us to take back the yellow jersey, we just had to win the stage. The train today was just with Hagen and Farrar from our team, who followed the relay train. Behind Farrar were Elmiger and Arvesen, two other threats.
The sprint started with 2,5km left to go, and Hagen jumped out of the wheel in front. Farrar and Elmiger followed but Arvesen couldn't keep up.
Farrar started sprinting on the km mark and now Elmiger couldn't follow. Geslin came fast on the other side of the road but faded. Second win and yellow for Farrar! Elmiger took 2nd and Hagen 3rd.
Nice story, If I gave the link of the story to a cousin of mine, she would buy PCM09 (without having any clue on road cycling), she would just create & play with this team, as she loves Paramore
keep it up, it's ncie 
