Unlike the other divisions, PT didn't have a lot of races - but definitely a lot of racing, with the first GT of the month already in the history books! The Giro obviously had a massive impact on the April ranking - let's take a closer look:
Period Ranking: April
A GT, a monument, plus two PT and PTHC classics each - that was the PT schedule in April. Let's start with all those one-day races and talk about the Giro in the end!
The month kicked off in the best possible way for division leaders Isostar, as David Per was the first monument winner of the year not called Pedersen. His triumph in the Velodrome brought his team 315 points - obviously the highest scoring in any of the classics this month.
But that wasn't enough for the cannibals in lime, as they also won GP Liechtenstein, with Phinney defeating his main rival in the fight for the individual crown. Winning there was worth 273 points.
At least the third PT classic of the month for once went to another team, as Aker's Mohoric won the Amstel Gold Race, with his team bringing home 265 points. Is it a coincidence that he's an Isostar alumnus? They really must be injecting their riders some winner genes there...
The PTHC classics saw some interesting racing as well. Not really in terms of results, though, as Pedersen simply won both of them, definitely moving up to the "beast" category. Which inevitably means that Grieg got the highscore in both races, with a rather huge 220 points in Roma Maxima and pretty "standard" 172 points in Veenendaal.
In the spoiler, you can find the points of just these five races. And the winners are - by a decent margin - Aker, scoring a whopping 800 points, or 80 PpRD. However, given that Isostar weren't present in the PTHC races they still were the most efficient team of the month - getting more than 100 PpRD...
Spoiler
P-R
Lie
Roma
Veen
AGR
Total
1
Aker - MOT
195
32
145
163
265
800
2
Duolingo
240
132
138
19
137
666
3
Isostar - Specialized
315
273
0
0
45
633
4
Grieg-Maersk
158
40
220
172
40
630
5
Polar
148
144
119
13
78
502
6
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
171
25
16
122
148
482
7
Team Puma - SAP
45
215
16
92
51
419
8
King Power
147
48
114
22
69
400
9
Gazelle
150
69
0
0
178
397
10
Team UBS
214
83
0
0
83
380
11
MOL Cycling Team
61
109
0
0
201
371
12
cycleYorkshire
170
46
44
33
40
333
13
Moser - Sygic
45
148
0
0
131
324
14
De Stijl Cycling
50
171
0
0
87
308
15
Aegon - Peroni
63
132
0
0
90
285
16
Evonik - ELKO
50
106
0
0
118
274
17
ISA - Hexacta
50
87
0
0
110
247
18
Huski Chocolate
89
67
0
0
90
246
19
Los Pollos Hermanos
51
45
27
50
66
239
20
ELCO - ABEA
35
75
32
28
58
228
21
EA Vesuvio
45
56
0
60
50
211
22
Zwift Pro Cycling
45
44
0
0
72
161
And now comes a wild Giro jumping in and messing up those rankings. I'll post the full points per rider and team in the Giro discussion thread to give you a better overview, but let's start with the obvious: PHL dominated this race. He took over the Maglia Rosa pretty early on, adding some points to his tally every day - and ending up with 1,076 points. I guess everything above 1,000 points is a pretty decent score, so he should be pretty happy with that. Given that the GC win alone is worth 500 points, he packed quite a lot of additional points on top of that.
The other pretty dominant rider was Arnaud Demare - who indeed ends up being the second highest scorer. His gap to PHL is significant, but 705 points aren't too shabby, either. Completing the podium is Egan Bernal, who claimed 2nd overall and white on the last possible occasion, scoring 662 points - definitely a fantastic result for him.
Sivakov and Oomen are next - too bad for Lierse that they can't take home those points... Grosu and Smith aren't that far off, either - all of them are above 400 points. Madrazo, Galta and Barguil round off the Top 10. As said before, you can find all the details later on in the Giro thread.
But individuals are just one thing, what matters in the end is team scoring. And there the picture slightly changes. Of course, Evonik still come out on top, but PHL's teammates didn't contribute too much. Still more than Demare's, though, as Puma were only the 4th best team of the Giro, with both Polar and King Power scoring more. Tinkoff round off the Top 5, being the last team above 700 points.
At the lower end, especially cycleYorkshire had a horrible Giro, going home with just 148 points. But some more teams won't be happy with their scoring, either - the good thing is that they still have two GTs left to do better this year!
Yeah, I know, you're getting bored and want to know the full month rankings. OK, let's talk about those then.
I said it before, the Giro had a big impact. And so, despite being just 16th considering the other races, Evonik win the month with 1,524 points. However, both Polar (1,383) and Aker (1,364) got pretty close - within 200 points, that is.
Tinkoff, Puma and King Power all finish within 47 points of each other (1,237 to 1,190) - and then there's an almost 200 points gap to Isostar in 7th place. Indeed, 7th - something pretty unusual to see for sure, but not unexpected with their GT lineup strategy.
At the bottom, Los Pollos seem to have lost a lot of momentum, finishing dead last this month. cycleYorkshire, ISA, Vesuvio and ELCO all are less than 100 points away though, and Zwift didn't make a big jump up, either.
Here are the full April rankings:
P-R
Giro
Lie
Roma
Veen
AGR
Total
1
Evonik - ELKO
50
1250
106
0
0
118
1524
2
Polar
148
881
144
119
13
78
1383
3
Aker - MOT
195
564
32
145
163
265
1364
4
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
171
755
25
16
122
148
1237
5
Team Puma - SAP
45
784
215
16
92
51
1203
6
King Power
147
790
48
114
22
69
1190
7
Isostar - Specialized
315
364
273
0
0
45
997
8
Grieg-Maersk
158
354
40
220
172
40
984
9
MOL Cycling Team
61
559
109
0
0
201
930
10
Duolingo
240
255
132
138
19
137
921
11
Team UBS
214
453
83
0
0
83
833
12
Moser - Sygic
45
449
148
0
0
131
773
13
Gazelle
150
368
69
0
0
178
765
14
Huski Chocolate
89
500
67
0
0
90
746
15
De Stijl Cycling
50
427
171
0
0
87
735
16
Aegon - Peroni
63
423
132
0
0
90
708
17
Zwift Pro Cycling
45
428
44
0
0
72
589
18
ELCO - ABEA
35
289
75
32
28
58
517
19
EA Vesuvio
45
297
56
0
60
50
508
20
ISA - Hexacta
50
244
87
0
0
110
491
21
cycleYorkshire
170
148
46
44
33
40
481
22
Los Pollos Hermanos
51
205
45
27
50
66
444
Full Ranking
Obviously, one rather low-scoring month was by far not enough to dethrone Isostar, who remain in the division lead. However, their PpRD has taken a dent, dropping from 50 to about 46 - and their lead has shrunk from about 850 points to 650.
Their closest rivals still are King Power - but despite having scored more points than Isostar, their PpRD has dropped even more, and so the expected gap between the two teams at the end of the season is slightly above 200 points. Still, we could have a very tense head-to-head race between these two!
And yeah, currently it really looks likely to be just a duel, as EA Vesuvio, who were very close to King Power a month ago, had a really poor month and dropped down to 8th. Instead, Grieg have gained one spot and are on the provisional podium - both actually and projected. However, all of Polar, Tinkoff, Aker, Evonik and EA still are within just 500 projected points, so it's a very long way to go still! And as we know, two GTs are still to be raced...
Which could be what the lower-end teams are betting on. Although, Zwift are already so far away from safety that even a TdF win probably wouldn't keep them up. It's a very different thing for all the others, though - let's put it that way: the division generally is still so close that almost every team could end up on the podium or down in PCT. In fact, we have almost the same gap between 1st and 3rd as between 3rd and 21st! Currently, there's a 300 points gap between ELCO in 9th and Los Pollos in 10th - but just 222 points between 10th and 21st.
According to PpRD, Puma is still the most likely relegating team besides Zwift - but with a probable GT win yet to come in, they're really unlikely to go down. So then it's probably UBS who have to be most afraid - but take a look at those numbers on your own, as too many teams are likely to be involved in that fight to just enumerate them.
Surprise, surprise - Phinney is no longer on top! With his Giro win, Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier managed to overtake the TT World Champion, but by a mere 109 points. Given that PHL seems to be done with his season, it's unlikely that he'll stay on top, though.
Taylor Phinney still comfortably sits in 2nd place, and will be looking to win one or two more of those smaller races to claim back the lead. Mads Perdersen defended his 3rd place with two more fantastic wins - he's up to 4 classic wins this year...
Arnaud Demare has left behind Bryan Coquard to be the division's top sprinter - if we consider that Pedersen isn't one as well. Egan Bernal made a huge jump from 39th to 6th - being the 3rd best stage racer in the current ranking. With Lukasz Wisniowski and David Per, we have two more cobbled classics specialists, while Peter Sagan likes the hilly ones more. Caleb Ewan - dropping from 4th to 10th - rounds off the Top 10.
As expected, we have less sprinters in the Top 10 than by the end of March; instead the stage racers start invading them. With the Vuelta to be raced in May, this probably isn't bound to change - but we'll see in a month!
All the way up in 3rd after the Giro is great news. A big thanks to Mads Pedersen for that of course. Everyone from 3rd to 21st is still somewhat connected, so it remains to be seen where we might be in the rankings in a month or two. Pedersen has most of his big race days behind him, so it's time for others to step up now.
Unfortunately a dissapointing month for us. In particular Veenendal and Amstel was very poor, and cost us quite a lot in the hopes of being competitive in the longer run. The Giro was about what we could expect although we never found a way to shine. Farantakis was mostly invisible when he should have been a good gamble for atleast a couple of stage podiums, while Giannoutsos and Mavrikakis never got it to work properly. Not disastrous by any means, but as leaders they should have managed more.
The first ever fully GT was no succes unfortunately.
Thanks for the update, and the reports over the holidays where I haven't been online very much. I'll try to pick it up during the week.
LPH in freefall after a bad Giro/racing month in general. Simply not enough almost everywhere we went. Only 200 points ahead of the relegation spots now, so we might as well be in there by the next ranking update. Nevertheless, tenth after the Giro is 11 spots higher than most would have thought, so let's try to keep fighting and get our fluke results here and there to stay in the relegation fight as long as possible
Thanks for the cool update! Per and Phinney kept us alive, but all of Phinney, Gaviria and Per have their best RDs gone. I fear that it will be tough to stay up there though it looks good for the moment. We really need Higuita to find his inner Dion Smith at the Vuelta and Tour to keep us ahead of competition especially when Herklotz really starts his season. Pretty afraid of who can do the "middle-scoring" behind our big 3 as out climbung trio of Petelin, Jaramillo and Chamorro especially turned out to be awfully bust so far.
Thank you for the update and extensive summary of the month!
I had not expected to still be in second with most of the one day races going subpar, bar maybe Roma Maxima. However Dion Smith's superb giro makes more than up for that.
Generally it's nice to see that it's possible to be in second with the best rider in the individual rankings only being 20th. The depth I assembled in my team covers for a big star missing or even my leaders not performing like expected, e.g. Roglic in the Giro. Still I don't think we can be the one challenging Isostar for the title. Like Croatia also seemed to assess Puma will be the bigger danger.
A very, very good month for us, really happy with this! Up to 6th is good, eventhough it could be for a short time, seeing how close it is from 2nd to 21st. We have built a solid PpRD so far, but we will need to keep it up, as it’s definitely not a given that we continue to do as well in the GTs like we did in the Giro.
It could still go either way in our relegation battle. The only major problem I could see at that moment is that Il Giro could turn out to be our best GT and is not great to be that down with your best GT behind you.
Hopefully Formolo will have a spectacular Vuelta and we will be present with more success in the breakaways at the Tour.
Very impressed to see us at 2nd in the classics table. Debesay proving himself invaluable as the umbilical cord to any chances at avoiding relegation. Our Giro strategy crumbled completely, but hopefully Eastman will push us upwards when his time comes. Here's hoping.
Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier has now 1529 points and is done for the season. It's probably below what many would expect but i was fully aware that his scoring output this season would be lacking. I spent so much on him to maximize the chances of winning the Giro and the Tour and not because i saw that as my best path to challenge for the pt rankings - especially not this year with my pthc bands in mind.
It's directly after a dominant Giro GC victory and we are not even in the top five of the ranking with one of our two leaders already done for the season and the other one having a subpar season so far. Says a lot about how the rest of the season went for us but also highlights why i refused to see myself as a title / podium contender this season.
Rest of the season includes a fair bit of Lopez show with some of his better races yet to come including our most important race LBL (from a sentimental pov), a few more cobble races for Polanc and two GT lineups that remind of our earlier years. So I'd guess we rather have to look down in the rankings than up.
Just wanted to apologize for not posting a timely ranking update for May. I'm currently busy doing the Tour de Suisse reports (which I may not even get done in time), and then will be away for a week. Updates for all divisions will either be posted after my holidays, or I'll do May and June combined - we'll see.
Giro d’Italia
Kirsch. Valter. Girdlestone. Hepburn, Pelikan, Rucigaj, Munton and Smit.
All good riders, hopefully breakaway chances. What’s good for Kirsch? Top 15 I guess, without knowing what the startlist will bring.
Valter to collect stage placings on the hills? 8th and 7th in the first options is a good start.
Kirsch, let’s just survive these and try to establish a GC placing in the mountains. So far so good.
TT time on Stage 6. Hepburn shining with some stage points for 6th. So close to a GT Top 10 for Rucigaj in 11th!
But through the first few mountains, there’s a bad, good, and terrible stage for Kirsch. 15th in GC is still something though. Keeping an eye on Girdlestone in 22nd.
An enjoyable set of reports in Stage 15-16 with the team getting stuck into it. Girdlestone firing off in the breakaway; Kirsch riding to an actual stage Top 10. And then 6th again on Stage 19th. Only 12th overall but showing some great 3rd week climbing.
The Stage 20 breakaway. Sadly no Girdlestone or Kirsch to make a GC push, although Rucigaj gets a 5th on the stage nicely. GC hit then down to 15th. Girdlestone 25th, Rucigaj 36th, Valter 42rd.
Small results and probably not a great rankings hit – couldn’t expect much more than achieved though.
Liechtenstein
Finally Godoy opens his season. Would have loved a Top 10. Instead an anonymous 20th. Rusty!
Veenendaal
Van der Lijke with another home race. 7th, yeh, that’ll do.
Amstel Gold
Clearly Valter doesn’t like riding in the Netherlands though. Off the back in the stage race, 74th here. Geniets punches for 26th at least.
Rankings show the reward for a better start to the year before this. Still Top 10, for now!
