@AbhishekLFC - It does feel like the team is slowly improving. If only we had these kind of results from the start of the season



July is the month of the Tour de France, but sadly we relegated from the ProTour last year and did not apply for a wildcard. Nevertheless we have six other races to ride this month, in which we might be more representative given our form.

Torshavn GP

We start the month on the Faroe Islands with a race which should favor the sprinters, but the slight hill on the circuit might throw a spanner in the works. It did, as Onley used it to escape to victory. Behind him, Ahlstrand was only beaten by Ewan to take the final step of the podium. I can't think of a lot of ways the month could have started better.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Oscar Onley	Benetton Bimex Cycling	3h48'55
3	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	s.t.
67	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	s.t.
73	Darren Matthews	Minions	s.t.
102	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	s.t.
145	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 3'09
159	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 6'15
162	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	s.t.
164	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 13'08

Rating:

Arab Tour

Sprint - sprint time trial - sprint, that is the recipe for the Arab Tour. Ahlstrand put in some good performances in the sprint, finsihing tenth, fourth and sixth respectively, which cumulatively led to tied second place in the points classification. But for a good GC classification we had to look at Bjerg's TT, and the Dane delivered with a fifth place on that stage, which became fourth overall at the end of the race on the same as Beniusis but ahead on finishing positions. There are some more races in the final month which will be decided by time trials so it's good to see him on form!

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Eddie Dunbar	Indosat Ooredoo	9h35'37
4	Mikkel Bjerg	Minions	+ 14
48	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 1'17
81	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 2'01
83	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 2'06
96	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 2'21
103	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 2'28
114	Jan Sommer	Minions	+ 2'42
164	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	+ 4'00

Rating:

Euskal Bizikleta

Pais Vasco offers hilly stages, some of which have flat finishes, so we elected for a Kalaba - Kinoshita combo to target any possible outcome. The Serbian sprinted to ninth on the opening stage, followed by fourth on the second stage. The Japanese took over by finishing fifth on the third stage, and third on the final stage. With all the bonus seconds, little gap and big groups reaching the finish line we had both our aces finishing in the top ten of the GC: Kinoshita fifth and Kalaba tenth. Even Vosekalns came home with a nice tenth on the final stage and twenty-fifth overall.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Xandro Meurisse	Specialized	14h59'32
5	Tomohiro Kinoshita	Minions	+ 28
10	Dusan Kalaba	Minions	+ 34
25	Andris Vosekalns	Minions	+ 1'37
44	Daniele Dall'Oste	Minions	s.t.
49	Dayer Quintana	Minions	s.t.
68	Nathan Brown	Minions	+ 4'21
106	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	+ 10'02
146	Darren Matthews	Minions	+ 14'32

Rating:

Benelux Challenge

Cobblestones and hills is all the Low Countries are good for, so as far as GC contender this race will have no input from us. That only leaves individual success, which could be achieved by our prologue specialist Jiang in the streets of Maastricht. The Chinese finished eighth, which would be our highest finishing position on a stage. Youngsters Dressler, Gomez and Sommer made breakaway appearances, but that was the extent of our involvement in the remainder of the race. We also extend our congratulations to former firder Zewpuntke for finally standing on the podium, as the German won the fifth stage and is no longer the biggest meme in the field.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Sam Harrison	ISA - Hexacta	20h50'16
75	Mathias De Witte	Minions	+ 11'11
95	Darren Matthews	Minions	+ 14'54
106	Jan Sommer	Minions	+ 17'11
113	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	+ 19'33
130	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 24'29
157	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 36'48
181	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 1h09'18
182	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 1h32'23

Rating:

Philadelphia International Championship

In a PTHC field Ahlstrand might not be counted amongst the favorites, but it does have its advantages as we are not forced to participate in the chase or have to form a train which will eventually derail. The Swede could cruise the wheels on the Philly roads and cross the line in tenth place. That's a perfectly fine result.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Stanislaw Aniolkowski	Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska	4h12'29
10	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	s.t.
119	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	s.t.
125	Nathan Brown	Minions	s.t.
136	Zoltan Sipos	Minions	+ 2'12
139	Anton Vorobev	Minions	s.t.

Rating:

Tour of Slovenia

The Tour of Slovenia traditionally contains a team and individual time trial mixed with some hills. We go full on for the GC with Cattaneo, not bringing a sprinter even though Matthews brought a good effort on the opening stage with eleventh place. But the team time trial already put us in our places as we finished mid-table, and Cattaneo was dropped quickly on the hilly stage. Quintana and Vorobev's breakaway attempts led to nowhere, even though both were present in a break which partly made it to the end, but they were already caught by the peloton. Bjerg did perform according to expectations with a seventh place in the final TT, but Cattaneo's 37th in the GC is bad.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Tom Wirtgen	EA Vesuvio	13h13'54
37	Mattia Cattaneo	Minions	+ 6'07
43	Nathan Brown	Minions	+ 6'41
75	Dayer Quintana	Minions	+ 8'40
110	Zoltan Sipos	Minions	+ 12'31
125	Mikkel Bjerg	Minions	+ 14'51
137	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 16'28
165	Darren Matthews	Minions	+ 23'53
174	Anton Vorobev	Minions	+ 26'30

Rating:

Rankings

Some high-banana races this month and it shows in the rankings, gaining two places up to fifteenth. More than 300 points above the relegation line, but also more than 800 behind the (direct) promotion line. Luckily we've long ago satisfied ourselves with a midtable position. Kinoshita continues to lead the inner-team battle but Ahlstrand's good month compared to Cattaneo's bad sees the Swede move into second ahead of the Italian. Bjerg has started his late season assault and is tied with Kalaba for fourth.

Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	5		ISA - Hexacta	2758	117	23.57	3842
2	1		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	2673	128	20.88	3403
3	3		Sony - Force India	2622	119	22.03	3591
4	6		Indosat Ooredoo	2485	131	18.97	3092
5	2		Team UBS	2376	115	20.66	3368
6	4		ELCO - ABEA	2311	96	24.07	3923
7	11		Benetton Bimex Cycling	2302	119	19.34	3152
8	8		Specialized	2119	126	16.82	2742
9	7		Tryg - Eni	2066	124	16.66	2716
10	10		Ekoi - Le Creuset	1889	120	15.74	2566
11	9		Bralirwa - Cegeka	1770	114	15.53	2531
12	12		DK Zalgiris	1733	123	14.09	2297
13	15		Lotto-Caloi	1620	114	14.21	2316
14	13		Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska	1618	110	14.71	2398
15	17		Minions	1552	122	12.72	2073
16	16		Manada Coyote	1449	118	12.28	2002
17	14		Sauber Petronas Racing	1375	107	12.85	2095
18	18		Everesting	1306	116	11.26	1835
19	23		Kraftwerk Man Machine	1241	122	10.17	1658
19	19		Tafjord Kraft	1241	124	10.01	1632
21	19		JEWA TIROL	1185	125	9.48	1545
22	22		Llapi-Vita	1118	124	9.02	1470
23	19		McCormick Pro Cycling	1077	104	10.36	1689
24	24		Podium Ambition	878	114	7.7	1255

Pos	Last	Rider	Nat		Team	Total
1	1	Sam Oomen	NED		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	1121
27	24	Tomohiro Kinoshita	JPN		Minions	387
43	54	Jonas Ahlstrand	SWD		Minions	291
50	42	Mattia Cattaneo	ITA		Minions	256
93	95	Dusan Kalaba	SER		Minions	131
94	211	Mikkel Bjerg	DEN		Minions	131
159	124	Mathias De Witte	BEL		Minions	77
203	186	Nathan Brown	USA		Minions	45
211	183	Dayer Quintana	COL		Minions	43
216	199	Andris Vosekalns	LAT		Minions	40
225	197	Zoltan Sipos	HUN		Minions	36
239	215	Anton Vorobev	RUS		Minions	31
240	222	Daniele Dall'Oste	ITA		Minions	31
294	266	Luca Dressler	GER		Minions	18
316	291	Zhihui Jiang	CHN		Minions	15
332	342	Jhonatan Casillas	MEX		Minions	12
399	374	Enzo Paleni	FRA		Minions	4
400	437	Jan Sommer	SWI		Minions	4

@SotD - I think Ahlstrand took offense of your words given how he performed in the last month but in general I agree and see some underperformances. But I never expected promotion with this team so those losses are not critical.
@AbhishekLFC - We're going u-u-u-u-u-u-up.
@kandesbunzler26 - Will be an exciting battle for tenth place these final months.



August, September, October. the final three months of the year where we are looking to consolidate our midtable finishing position. A few races this month look quite suited to us, so as long as we live up to standards we will be fine.

Deutschland Tour

We kick off in Germany, with¨Ahlstrand and Bjerg as our two leaders in this PTHC race. The month could not have started any better as Ahlstrand crossed the line first on the first stage. The next stage he would finish sixth, losing the leader's jersey, and took eighth on the fourth stage. On the final stage he came close to his second win, but a second place is also nice, especially when you consider that the combination of all these results resulted in the points classification victory! The good performances didn't end there, as the third stage time trial would be the decisive factor in the GC. Despite strong opposition, Bjerg took home sixth on the stage and in the final classification, resulting in a very nice points haul from this race!

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Tom Wirtgen	EA Vesuvio	18h17'02
6	Mikkel Bjerg	Minions	+ 39
96	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 2'45
124	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 3'41
128	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 4'00
133	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 4'06
134	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 4'12
148	Jan Sommer	Minions	+ 4'45
161	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	+ 5'38

Rating:

Post Danmark Rundt

Bjerg continuesto his home race with another time trial important to the GC, though some hills might also have an influence. As for the sprints, it's Kalaba leading the team here, but the result on the opening stage was exactly the same: a win! The Serbian would not play a role in the other two flat stages though, so no complete copy-paste from Germany. Instead, his competent hills and time trial skills were enough to keep him in the GC top ten at the end of the race, which is also not bad. The hilly third stage turned out to be not that difficult as even Bjerg finished in the peloton with ease, leaving him with a great shot at the GC on the final stage. Dunbar and Durbridge would be the only two riders faster than him, and only Dunbar had finished in the same group on stage three, so the runner-up position belongs to the Dane! Two great results in a row, this month is shaping up to be our best so far!

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Eddie Dunbar	Indosat Ooredoo	15h05'30
2	Mikkel Bjerg	Minions	+ 5
10	Dusan Kalaba	Minions	+ 49
74	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 2'56
90	Jan Sommer	Minions	+ 3'27
154	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 4'35
156	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 4'37
161	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 4'45
190	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 9'04

Rating:

Chrono d'Arenberg

For all good performances so far we also need to have a throwaway race. Chrono d'Arenberg is a time trial over cobblestones, which we deemed too risky for the Dane, so instead we participate with Matthews, Casillas and Sommer. The Barbadian clocked the fastest time of the three, thirty-seventh overall, making this race not entirely pointless.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Patrick Gamper	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	35'22
37	Darren Matthews	Minions	+ 1'08
53	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 1'44
55	Jan Sommer	Minions	+ 2'01

Rating:

Ras Tailteann

Three flat stages over in Ireland, so we bring back Ahlstrand into the fray. For once we did not win the opening stage, in fact fourteenth is not even close to the win. The Swede performed better on the second stage, taking a podium finish with third place. A thirteenth place on the final stage was more on the disappointing end. With all the bonus seconds accounted for Ahlstrand finished eighth overall, which seems quite good given the results on stage one and three. We'll take it in a PTHC field, though there was potential for more.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Caleb Ewan	ISA - Hexacta	11h54'35
8	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	+ 35
80	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 50
122	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	s.t.
127	[b]Cesar David Guavita	Minions	s.t.
131	Jan Sommer	Minions	s.t.
149	Enzo Paleni	Minions	s.t.
151	Luca Dressler	Minions	s.t.
155	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	s.t.

Rating:

Milano - Torino

Kinoshita is also active this month, for one race only: Milano - Torino. With the PCT puncheurs split between this race and GP Lugano there should be a good result up for grabs. He rode a strong pace on the penultimate climb, reducing the group to it's core, but was not really a threat in the sprint to the finish line. Eighth seems like a result that could have been a lot better, but also not the end of the world.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Laurens De Plus	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	4h28'01
8	Tomohiro Kinoshita	Minions	s.t.
62	Daniele Dall'Oste	Minions	+ 2'01
135	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 6'58
138	Jan Sommer	Minions	s.t.
140	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	s.t.
142	Luca Dressler	Minions	s.t.
162	[b]Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 11'02
168	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 12'39

Rating:

Rankings

A month with some stellar performances sees us leaving the relegation battle long behind. We move up five places from fifteenth to tenth, the highest we have been all season. Let's remain realistic though, we are not in the promotion fight, the gap to fifth place is the same as the gap to twentieth place. This does probably mean we're safe from relegation though. Holding on to the top ten would be nice, we have some nice races coming up but it's not like our season has failed if we don't achieve it. Ahlstrand surprising results have him skyrocket into the rankings and becomes our best scoring rider, overtaking Kinoshita. Bjerg's superb month moves him onto the podium position ahead of the non-racing Cattaneo, who has Kalaba close behind. Then it's a big gap to the rest of the team, with De Witte still best of the rest in sixth.

Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	1		ISA - Hexacta	3351	136	24.64	4016
2	2		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	3280	142	23.1	3765
3	3		Sony - Force India	3151	139	22.67	3695
4	6		ELCO - ABEA	3119	120	25.99	4236
5	4		Indosat Ooredoo	2842	145	19.6	3195
6	5		Team UBS	2717	137	19.83	3232
7	7		Benetton Bimex Cycling	2709	141	19.21	3131
8	8		Specialized	2404	138	17.42	2839
9	9		Tryg - Eni	2297	140	16.41	2675
10	15		Minions	2132	139	15.34	2500
11	10		Ekoi - Le Creuset	2063	136	15.17	2473
12	12		DK Zalgiris	2029	137	14.81	2414
13	11		Bralirwa - Cegeka	1960	133	14.74	2403
14	14		Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska	1867	133	14.04	2289
15	13		Lotto-Caloi	1787	126	14.18	2311
16	16		Manada Coyote	1721	133	12.94	2109
17	20		Tafjord Kraft	1561	138	11.31	1844
18	18		Everesting	1500	138	10.87	1772
19	17		Sauber Petronas Racing	1499	119	12.6	2054
20	19		Kraftwerk Man Machine	1497	137	10.93	1782
21	21		JEWA TIROL	1455	141	10.32	1682
22	23		McCormick Pro Cycling	1396	119	11.73	1912
23	22		Llapi-Vita	1300	143	9.09	1482
24	24		Podium Ambition	1099	130	8.45	1377

Pos	Last	Rider	Nat		Team	Total
1	3	Eddie Dunbar	IRL		Indosat Ooredoo	1197
24	43	Jonas Ahlstrand	SWD		Minions	492
34	27	Tomohiro Kinoshita	JPN		Minions	425
42	94	Mikkel Bjerg	DEN		Minions	367
57	50	Mattia Cattaneo	ITA		Minions	256
63	93	Dusan Kalaba	SER		Minions	230
167	159	Mathias De Witte	BEL		Minions	77
221	203	Nathan Brown	USA		Minions	45
225	211	Dayer Quintana	COL		Minions	43
232	216	Andris Vosekalns	LAT		Minions	40
247	225	Zoltan Sipos	HUN		Minions	36
261	239	Anton Vorobev	RUS		Minions	31
262	240	Daniele Dall'Oste	ITA		Minions	31
318	294	Luca Dressler	GER		Minions	18
333	332	Jhonatan Casillas	MEX		Minions	16
337	316	Zhihui Jiang	CHN		Minions	15
415	399	Enzo Paleni	FRA		Minions	4
416	400	Jan Sommer	SWI		Minions	4
447	511	Darren Matthews	BAR		Minions	2

@redordead - Dusan the reliable
@Nemolito - It felt like the best month in ages



Only thee races in the month of September, just as we reach the top ten even races we're not looking forward to, so the big rise we had last month might come down crashing again. However, the chances of us falling back in the relegation zone are millions to one, so at this point we are just looking for a challenge to finish the season.

La Tropicale Amissa Bongo

The only race this month we actually look forward to is La Tropicale Amissa Bongo. A prologue, three flat stages and a slightly longer epilogue. We have three GC specialists with Bjerg on form against the clock, Jiang very potent over short distances and Kalaba eying the bonus seconds in the sprint. After the opening stage they were ninth, sixth and seventeenth in the GC, within three seconds of the lead. With the Serbian taking second place on the next stage, the bonus seconds moved him into the GC lead. A seventh place on the next stage was good, but rivals did take bonus seconds and dethroned him. Sixteenth on the final stage was a disappointment, placing him fourth at three seconds from the lead heading into the final stage, with our two other aces at fourteen seconds. Jiang would lose ten seconds on the final stage and Bjerg only two to finish seventh on the stage, with the duo twenty-sixth and eighth overall. Kalaba is not bad over short distances, but so were the riders right above him. He finished the stage nine seconds behind the winner, taking the virtual hot seat when it came to the GC but would end up taking the final step of the podium, five seconds off winner Farantakis. So close to a fantastic result, but this is one of the races we will look back on fondly at the end of the year.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Stylianos Farantakis	ELCO - ABEA	9h37'12
3	Dusan Kalaba	Minions	+ 5
8	Mikkel Bjerg	Minions	+ 9
26	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	+ 17
29	Nathan Brown	Minions	+ 20
36	Zoltan Sipos	Minions	+ 23
38	Anton Vorobev	Minions	+ 24
52	Darren Matthews	Minions	+ 41
107	William Junior Lecerf	Minions	+ 2'02

Rating:

Tour of the Battenkill

Sometimes there are races you are forced to participate in, and sometimes there are even two clashing races you wanted to avoid at all cost, but end up coming together. In this case we have to spread our practically non-existant cobblestone squad into two teams for the Tour of the Battenkill and Rheden GP. In the former, we selected leader De Witte without any of his default backup, together with the time trial talents who would all rather be swimming in a sea full of sharks than riding over cobblestones. They all finished though, even Paleni over one and a half hour behind winner Wisniowski. De Witte finished 33rd which is about expected.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Lukasz Wisniowski	Assa Abloy	5h22'55
33	Mathias De Witte	Minions	+ 7'17
96	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 27'19
100	Nathan Brown	Minions	+ 27'36
114	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 33'02
144	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 58'16
152	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 1h17'12
154	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 1h39'00

Rating:

Rheden GP

As Rheden GP is considerably more flat and has a higher probability of a sprint, we hope Matthews might be able to pull an almighty surprise. In fact the surprise came form Jiang, who went into the morning breakaway and got a 31st place finish out of it, two positions better than the team over in the States achieved. Likewise, we not only covered the last position with Vorobev but also the second-last position with stagiare Lecerf.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Mads Pedersen	Grieg-Maersk	4h13'51
31	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	+ 2'05
90	Jan Sommer	Minions	s.t.
99	Darren Matthews	Minions	s.t.
159	Zoltan Sipos	Minions	+ 9'38
169	William Junior Lecerf	Minions	+ 20'31
170	Anton Vorobev	Minions	+ 23'17

Rating:

Rankings

One very good race and two not so good races almost makes a status quo. We lose one position, which does mean we have dropped out of the top ten. Still, compared to months ago, eleventh is quite good. We have a few races remaining in October so we are still in with a shot of getting back in the top ten, but with a bad month we could well drop down to fifteenth, which is still way above the relegation cut. Bjerg and Kalaba scored good, to edge away from Cattaneo in fitth and closer to Kinoshita in second in the individual riders rankings, but Ahlstrand enters the final month as our best scoring rider. Only the Dane is done with racing for the season, but for the other four contenders anything is still possible.

Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	4		ELCO - ABEA	3887	152	25.57	4168
2	1		ISA - Hexacta	3559	146	24.38	3974
3	2		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	3452	151	22.86	3726
4	3		Sony - Force India	3375	146	23.12	3769
5	5		Indosat Ooredoo	2850	147	19.39	3161
6	6		Team UBS	2809	146	19.24	3136
7	7		Benetton Bimex Cycling	2799	148	18.91	3082
8	8		Specialized	2447	144	16.99	2769
9	9		Tryg - Eni	2373	146	16.25	2649
10	15		Lotto-Caloi	2300	153	15.03	2450
11	10		Minions	2264	148	15.3	2494
12	22		McCormick Pro Cycling	2262	146	15.49	2525
13	12		DK Zalgiris	2224	148	15.03	2450
14	13		Bralirwa - Cegeka	2135	144	14.83	2417
15	11		Ekoi - Le Creuset	2111	144	14.66	2390
16	14		Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska	1897	146	12.99	2117
17	19		Sauber Petronas Racing	1856	146	12.71	2072
18	16		Manada Coyote	1771	146	12.13	1977
19	17		Tafjord Kraft	1611	146	11.03	1798
20	18		Everesting	1557	146	10.66	1738
21	21		JEWA TIROL	1552	148	10.49	1710
22	20		Kraftwerk Man Machine	1514	144	10.51	1713
23	23		Llapi-Vita	1332	147	9.06	1477
24	24		Podium Ambition	1190	143	8.32	1356

Pos	Last	Rider	Nat		Team	Total
1	1	Eddie Dunbar	IRL		Indosat Ooredoo	1197
29	24	Jonas Ahlstrand	SWD		Minions	492
38	34	Tomohiro Kinoshita	JPN		Minions	425
40	42	Mikkel Bjerg	DEN		Minions	401
54	63	Dusan Kalaba	SER		Minions	318
69	57	Mattia Cattaneo	ITA		Minions	256
176	167	Mathias De Witte	BEL		Minions	79
233	221	Nathan Brown	USA		Minions	46
242	225	Dayer Quintana	COL		Minions	43
245	232	Andris Vosekalns	LAT		Minions	40
257	247	Zoltan Sipos	HUN		Minions	36
269	261	Anton Vorobev	RUS		Minions	31
270	262	Daniele Dall'Oste	ITA		Minions	31
303	337	Zhihui Jiang	CHN		Minions	22
327	318	Luca Dressler	GER		Minions	18
342	333	Jhonatan Casillas	MEX		Minions	16
429	415	Enzo Paleni	FRA		Minions	4
430	416	Jan Sommer	SWI		Minions	4
462	447	Darren Matthews	BAR		Minions	2

October his the third-last month of the year but the final month of cycling action, before we head into the winter break. Which division we'll be riding in next year seems to be set in stone, as we are eleventh in the PCT division which is not part of the promotion or relegation zone, so it will be PCT again. We still wish to fight for something in the final month, so we will try to finish in the top ten. We would have to edge out one team above us though.

Tour of Japan

We kick off in the land of the rising sun in a stage race dominated by the MTT on the penultimate day, which sounds exactly like Cattaneo's favorite parcours. The opening prologue was targeted by Jiang, who finished third, and Kalaba who finished fifth and could take the GC lead with some bonus seconds. He couldn't manage to do it on stage two, but by winning stage three he took the yellow jersey in style. The Serbian held on for another day but had to concede after the MTT. We did not expect anything else, as we knew it was time for Cattaneo to shine, as he did by finishing third on the stage and moving up to second in the GC, a result that was not challenged on the final day.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Rafael Reis	Benetton Bimex Cycling	18h32'00
2	Mattia Cattaneo	Minions	+ 8
38	Nathan Brown	Minions	+ 1'35
58	Dayer Quintana	Minions	+ 1'58
61	Andris Vosekalns	Minions	+ 2'02
75	Daniele Dall'Oste	Minions	+ 2'27
104	Dusan Kalaba	Minions	+ 4'17
141	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 9'38
155	Zhihui Jiang	Minions	+ 12'55

Rating:

Paris Tours

Ahlstrand's final classic of the year should be a celebration of a fine season by the Swede, leading the individual standings within the team into this race. However, by his performance he seems to have thought his season already ended. 74th place is simply unacceptable in a sprint finish, especially with Bonifazio winning the damn thing.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Niccolo Bonifazio	Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	4h53'59
74	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	s.t.
85	Darren Matthews	Minions	s.t.
156	Jan Sommer	Minions	+ 3'46
169	Mathias De Witte	Minions	+ 4'51
181	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 6'49
184	Enzo Paleni	Minions	s.t.
187	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	s.t.
188	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	s.t.

Rating:

Tour of Britain

Britain offers a few hilly stages for Kinoshita to shine in, as well as two flat stages for Ahlstrand to finish the season on a high, for real this time. It wasn't exactly a high after a fourteenth stage on the opening stage, but fifth on the second stage doesn't make us mad. What did make us slightly mad is Kinoshita's bad form, almost losing time on stage three and losing 24 seconds on stage four. Vosekalns finished in the same group as his leader on both stages, and on the final stage as well. End result: twelfth and thirteenth in the GC, the Latvian finishing ahead. If you look at his result, amazing, if you look at the Japanese's result, disappointing,

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Nikias Arndt	JEWA TIROL	21h00'31
12	Andris Vosekalns	Minions	+ 44
13	Tomohiro Kinoshita	Minions	s.t.
27	Daniele Dall'Oste	Minions	+ 7'54
135	Jonas Ahlstrand	Minions	+ 32'35
150	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 38'43
163	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 43'34
165	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 45'04
191	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 1h27'49

Rating:

Giro dell'Emilia

The final race of the season takes place in Italy with a hilly race led by Kinoshita. In a perfect recap of his season the Japanese is always there at the front, but lacking in the final sprint. Eighth place is an average result so fitting to be his final finishing position. But is that enough to bring us into the top ten?

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Tiesj Benoot	Sony - Force India	4h43'06
8	Tomohiro Kinoshita	Minions	s.t.
49	Andris Vosekalns	Minions	+ 3'17
55	Daniele Dall'Oste	Minions	s.t.
142	Jhonatan Casillas	Minions	+ 10'03
163	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 12'31
172	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 14'48
179	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 15'16
188	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 25'18

Rating:

Rankings

WE DID IT! Tenth place is ours, and ninety points clear of McCormick makes it seem like it was easy as well. In a year after relegation where we were unable to sell our ageing leaders, this is a perfectly fine outcome. Of course promoting straight back would have been nice, but we're in a good spot to rebuild for the future now. Individually, Ahlstrand's bad final month and Kinoshita's better month closed the gap to seventeen points, but the Swede holds on to become our best rider of the year, and 32nd overall. We have four more riders in the individual top fifty as aside from the Japanese we also have Bjerg, Cattaneo and Kalaba in positions 47 to 49, separated by less than ten points, highlighting that all our leaders had decent scores this year. De Witte holds on to best of the rest ahead of a final charge by Vosekalns, with Brown, Quintana and a tie between Sipos and Dall'Oste completing the top ten. At the bottom, Gomez scored his first points in his career in the final month, leaving only Guavita and stagiare Lecerf without points.

Pos	Last		Team	Total	RD	PpRD	Proj
1	1		ELCO - ABEA	4049	162	24.99
2	2		ISA - Hexacta	3855	163	23.65
3	4		Sony - Force India	3692	163	22.65
4	3		Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam	3647	163	22.37
5	6		Team UBS	3154	163	19.35
6	5		Indosat Ooredoo	3081	162	19.02
7	7		Benetton Bimex Cycling	3073	163	18.85
8	8		Specialized	2686	163	16.48
9	9		Tryg - Eni	2630	163	16.13
10	11		Minions	2586	163	15.87
11	12		McCormick Pro Cycling	2496	163	15.31
12	15		Ekoi - Le Creuset	2445	163	15
13	13		DK Zalgiris	2437	163	14.95
14	14		Bralirwa - Cegeka	2409	163	14.78
15	10		Lotto-Caloi	2358	163	14.47
16	17		Sauber Petronas Racing	2279	163	13.98
17	20		Everesting	2107	163	12.93
18	16		Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska	2059	163	12.63
19	21		JEWA TIROL	1824	163	11.19
20	18		Manada Coyote	1820	163	11.17
21	19		Tafjord Kraft	1710	163	10.49
22	22		Kraftwerk Man Machine	1607	163	9.86
23	23		Llapi-Vita	1422	162	8.78
24	24		Podium Ambition	1247	163	7.65

Pos	Last	Rider	Nat		Team	Total
1	1	Eddie Dunbar	IRL		Indosat Ooredoo	1197
32	29	Jonas Ahlstrand	SWD		Minions	497
36	38	Tomohiro Kinoshita	JPN		Minions	480
47	40	Mikkel Bjerg	DEN		Minions	401
48	69	Mattia Cattaneo	ITA		Minions	396
49	54	Dusan Kalaba	SER		Minions	392
183	176	Mathias De Witte	BEL		Minions	79
204	245	Andris Vosekalns	LAT		Minions	61
223	233	Nathan Brown	USA		Minions	52
246	242	Dayer Quintana	COL		Minions	44
265	257	Zoltan Sipos	HUN		Minions	36
266	270	Daniele Dall'Oste	ITA		Minions	36
267	303	Zhihui Jiang	CHN		Minions	35
280	269	Anton Vorobev	RUS		Minions	31
332	327	Luca Dressler	GER		Minions	18
349	342	Jhonatan Casillas	MEX		Minions	16
436	429	Enzo Paleni	FRA		Minions	4
437	430	Jan Sommer	SWI		Minions	4
464	462	Darren Matthews	BAR		Minions	2
465	521	Fausto Agustin Gomez	ARG		Minions	2

@AbhishekLFC - Where a lot of things went wrong in the first months, they went right in the final months!
@baseballlover312 - I guess part of our team identity is being a retirement home, so we'll see



We've reported in the important races every month but did you know there are some extra events throughout the year? We cannot score points in them but they do provide some entertaining races and awards, with the Tour de l'Avenir for our youngsters, the National Championships for the pride of their nation and finally the quest for the rainbow jersey in the World Championships.

Tour de l'Avenir

With the reboot of the academy we have a presence in the Tour de l'Avenir again. Our five youngsters Dressler, Gomez, Guavita, Lecerf and Paleni formed a team with the SEE Turtles Obando, Revelo and Sheffield for this nine day event. The team was not expected to play a role in the stages or the general classification, so they had to show off their skills in breakaways. Paleni appeared on the stage three breakaway and Revelo, riding in our colors for this instance, on the stage six breakaway, both with no mountain points or stage result. On stage seven we even went with a trio of Gomez, Obando and Paleni in a large group but even that was caught with ease. Guavita went into the breakaway on the final and toughest stage but even there it led to nothing worth mentioning. In the end Sheffield scored our best finish on a stage with 25th on the stage eight time trial, from our riders it was Guavita's 43rd place on the prologue. In the GC Obando finished 44th, with Gomez 87th. Paleni finished last by over fifteen minutes to second-last, but at least he finished.

Pos	Rider	Team	Time
1	Leo Hayter	Sony - Force India	33h42'06
44	Bryan Raul Obando	Minions	+ 15'26
79	Franklin Joel Revelo	Minions	+ 31'07
87	Fausto Agustin Gomez	Minions	+ 32'14
93	Magnus Sheffield	Minions	+ 34'58
96	Cesar David Guavita	Minions	+ 37'54
97	William Junior Lecerf	Minions	+ 38'20
128	Luca Dressler	Minions	+ 50'47
192	Enzo Paleni	Minions	+ 1h49'22

National Championships

Because of rich diversity in nationalities we participate in a lot of national championships, and usually win a lot of jersey which gives our jersey designer new headaches to incorporate their flag into our overalls. This year however the results were somewhat disappointing with only two time trial victories. Surely not everything could go our way but when the Japanese Championship is totally flat, the Swedish Championship is held on cobblestones and Paleni's invitation was lost by the postal services there's no chance for us there. Honorable mentions to Cattaneo dragging the entire group of favorites up the mountain only to be beaten by a ungrateful late attack, Bjerg riding a terrific time trial but unlucky to be born in the same country as Würtz, and Vorobev almost pulling an upset with a late attack only to be caught in the final kilometer. But the two riders who deserve their time in the spotlight are Fausto Agustin Gomez, the new Argentinian Time Trial Champion, and Zoltan Sipos prolonging the Hungarian Time Trial Championship.

		RR	TT
	Gomez	2	1
	Matthews	2	4
	De Witte	13	42
	Lecerf	60	60
	Jiang	8	5
	Guavita	26	13
	Quintana	17	8
	Bjerg	10	2
	Paleni	DNS	DNS
	Dressler	17	14
	Sipos	6	1
	Cattaneo	2	4
	Dall'Oste	22	21
	Kinoshita	4	5
	Vosekalns	8	11
	Casillas	6	2
	Vorobev	2	5
	Kalaba	4	3
	Ahlstrand	2	10
	Sommer	6	?
	Brown	17	9

World Championships

The World Championships this year are held in Inverness, Scotland on a hilly route, over six events with participation from at least one Minion in all of them. Our best contender on this route is Kinoshita but like last year Japan was bound to the B Race to qualify for the main event, but unlike last year he could not help Amezawa win the event despite a valiant attack and peloton-pulling effort. This meant that our only participant in the main event was Sipos for Hungary, helping Valter to a historic bronze medal for the country.



All five youngsters participated in a U23 event, with Guavita and Gomez appearing in both. None of them nor their teammates came any close to a medal. Who did have an outside shot of a medal was Bjerg in the individual time trial, taking a provisional second place when he crossed the line. The big guns still had to finish, including his compatriot Würtz, which pushed him down to seventh which is no medal but still a great result. And perhaps his intel from starting early was useful to his compatriot who took home his second consecutive gold medal.

As always our biggest event in terms of participation and medal chances was the team time trial which kicked off rainbow week. Quintana's Colombia had no influence at the top but Bjerg's Denmark, Cattaneo's Italy, Vorobev's Russia and Brown's USA all had chances of medals. Despite having the soon-to-be two-time Time Trial World Champion and our best time trialist, Denmark only finished fifth. Italy and Russia tied for second place but the milliseconds favored the latter, giving Vorobev a silver medal and Cattaneo a bronze. But they were beaten by Team USA by three seconds, making Brown a three-time Team Time Trial World Champion!

		B RR	TTT	U23 ITT	ITT	U23 RR	RR
	Bjerg		5		7
	Brown		1
	Cattaneo		3
	Dressler					67
	Gomez			25		102
	Guavita			32		109
	Jiang	118
	Kalaba	92
	Kinoshita	33
	Lecerf					88
	Paleni			27
	Quintana		17
	Sipos						184
	Vorobev		2
	Vosekalns	82