Due to some absences and periods of sickness, as well as some pretty randomized calendar right now (races not races yet, races of future months already started), motivation to do rankings has been low lately. Current results are getting it even lower, so sorry for not having posted earlier...
So it's once more two months in one ranking update. We'll still look at May and June individually, though:
Period Ranking: May
6 races for the PT teams, thereof the second GT of the year (which will again have detailed scores in the race discussion thread), which obviously accounted for the biggest points and hence had a strong impact on the rankings.
But let's first talk about the smaller races - the classics. There actually were five of them, two PTHC, two "standard" PT - and a monument.
To start the month, Theuns took the win in Cheshire for MOL, who were easily he highest scoring team there (172) - ahead of Aker with 3 in the Top 20, and PCT team Philips.
Flèche Wallonne was a PT classic, hence bigger points were at play - and most were scored by Evonik (260), who won the race with Lopez but didn't get any depth points. Huski and UBS came next, just like in the race result.
Next was the fourth monument of the year - the only one for the pure puncheurs. Kinoshito won in Liège - and got zero points for his effort. Instead, Turgis led De Stijl to the highest score - which with 266 points was barely higher than what we had in Flèche. Aker and ISA also went above 200 points.
In Arenberg, we had the next PCT winner - who this time did score some points, as we'll see in that division's ranking update. For PT, UBS were most successful with 147 points, narrowly ahead of Aker and ELCO. All others scored two-digit numbers or lower.
Koln finally saw Ewan win a sprint classic at the highest level, and his team run away with 270 points. Puma also slightly above 200, followed by Isostar. Indeed, it's the first time in this update that you read their name...
Aker were the strongest team in these five classics by a good margin, totalling 704 points, scoring in every single race. Which was not the case of ISA, who didn't participate in Arenberg and got a zero-pointer in Cheshire - and trailing the Norwegians by 152 points. Huski in 3rd place are just three more points down, also having competed and scored in all races.
But you all know that the Vuelta obviously changes this all - or at least a lot of this. We all know it was a dominant win by Dombrowski, alongside multiple stage wins and the points jersey. Which makes Gazelle end up with almost twice as many points from this one race than Aker got from five classics - 1,538 points is a big score, more than 300 points higher than Evonik in the Giro. A difference that is almost entirely due to Dombrowski's higher scoring compared to PHL - the American picked up 1332 points in Spain.
Just like in the classics, it's a 2nd place for ISA - 550 points behind the Dutchmen, though. Degenkolb's bad last stage alone makes up for 60 points, which he lost compared to Dombrowski by not winning the points jersey despite an otherwise great race.
However, the 2nd highest individual scorer wasn't the German, but Moser's Kudus, runner-up in the GC. The Czech outfit however came 30 points short of ISA's 2nd place in the Vuelta scorings.
We then have a gap of more than 150 points to De Stijl, who in turn are almost 180 points clear of Huski. Behind them, things get much closer - I'll let you check out the detailed rankings in the Vuelta thread.
For the month of May, this means that Gazelle run away with a clear win, totalling 1,980 points, and finishing over 450 points ahead of ISA. Another 300 points back, we find Moser - the Top 3 from the Vuelta also were the Top 3 this month.
At the other end of the table, Los Pollos had a horrible month, getting just 367 points. Things didn't look much better for the likes of EA Vesuvio or Zwift, though, with cycleYorkshire also below 600 points. Zwift, cycleYorkshire and LPH also were the bottom 3 of the overall rankings after this month, with roughly a 150 points gap to Aegon and UBS.
On top, Isostar easily held onto their lead - over the new number 2 Gazelle. The gap was 540 points... King Power dropped one spot to 3rd, with Aker and Tinkoff following next. Full rankings will be presented after the month of June. But for now, here are the full May points:
Let's tackle the month in chronological order for once, so East Java goes first. It was one of the rare Herklotz vs. Phinney duels - with the former winning and the latter finishing 3rd behind PCT rider Madrazo. Thanks to a stage win on the closing day, the points difference between the two teams isn't as big as the GC points difference, but Puma win this one with 286 vs. 233. ISA scored 195 points with Aegon following at 180 - not a bad race for these teams, either.
Tour de Suisse saw a very close race that was only decided on the final kilometers of the closing ITT - where Bernal won both stage and GC. But Polar didn't get any bonus points from classification leads, and so they only just scored the highest amount of points - 302. EA Vesuvio were 2nd, mainly due to a 1-2 on the opening stage and a good GC by Wirtgen, while cycleYorkshire in 3rd will still not be happy with the last minute turn of events. These two teams scored 295 and 292 points respectively - meaning the Top 3 were within just 10 points from each other!
However, the month's high-score was achieved in Scandinavia, where we had the revenge of the Herklotz vs. Phinney clash. And boy, did the latter strike back! Two stage wins in three days, GC win, points jersey - Phinney's Isostar left with 455 points in their bags! This time Herklotz only came 3rd behind a PCT rider (Novak), and so Puma ended up a good amount of points back - 190 points down, to be precise. That's 265 points for the Germans, with King Power and Gazelle only 4 and 8 points further back.
This final result of the month obviously had a huge impact on the June outcome, where Isostar - once again - throne far above all else. 921 points scored are 342 more than runner-up MOL (579) - who only raced twice this month, though. The same is true for Puma, finishing 3rd with 551 points out of 7 race days. Which was actually more efficient than the Slovenes.
Gazelle and De Stijl both end up just above 500 points, too, both having raced three times as well.
If we turn around the table, we have - once again - Los Pollos on top. Just 111 points were added to their not-so-big tally. Grieg-Maersk were certainly feeling the lack of classics this month, scoring just 150 points. Duolingo and the PTHC-avoiders from ELCO - ABEA were the other teams below 200 points - with Zwift just one point above that random threshold.
Here are the detailed numbers for June:
Java
Suisse
Dauph
Scand
Total
1
Isostar - Specialized
233
233
0
455
921
2
MOL Cycling Team
0
0
352
227
579
3
Team Puma - SAP
286
0
0
265
551
4
Gazelle
0
62
197
257
516
5
De Stijl Cycling
102
0
239
163
504
6
ISA - Hexacta
195
0
151
90
436
7
King Power
0
168
0
261
429
8
EA Vesuvio
0
295
0
115
410
9
cycleYorkshire
0
292
0
99
391
10
Aegon - Peroni
180
0
146
40
366
11
Polar
21
302
0
40
363
12
Team UBS
0
95
78
189
362
13
Tinkoff - La Datcha Team
0
0
243
96
339
14
Moser - Sygic
104
118
0
100
322
15
Aker - MOT
0
0
175
124
299
16
Evonik - ELKO
0
0
26
209
235
17
Huski Chocolate
90
0
63
65
218
18
Zwift Pro Cycling
0
149
0
52
201
19
ELCO - ABEA
0
0
0
198
198
20
Duolingo
0
110
0
59
169
21
Grieg-Maersk
0
0
103
47
150
22
Los Pollos Hermanos
0
46
0
65
111
Full Ranking
Sure, this is the only thing you all were waiting for, so let's go!
Without any surprise, Isostar still lead the division - with their advantage now being close to 1,000 points! Their PpRD has again slightly decreased - from 46 to 44 - but I guess that's first-world-problems with such a huge lead!
Our new runner-up weren't among the Top 5 before - not even inside the Top 10 - as the Vuelta and another very solid month in June made Gazelle jump up from 12th to 2nd! They definitely played their best cards very well - let's see what they've got left for the rest of the season!
PpRD currently sees them finish 3rd, though, as King Power - the former 2nd best team - have spent 18 RDs less so far and are projected to move back up to 2nd place. It's currently looking good for the Thai to fight for a podium - however, they're trailing Gazelle by almost 400 points, so they need to use that RD difference efficiently...
King Power in turn have a 220 point advantage over Aker - MOT, who moved up from 6th to 4th. They're leading the big chasing group which is actually hard to delimit - there are "just" 601 points between the Norwegians in 4th and EA Vesuvio down in 16th! Also inside this group are Puma, who moved up to 12th now - and who very likely have the Tour as their by far biggest card to play.
And let's also mention Tinkoff, who are still sitting in 5th despite a mediocre cobbles campaign and no obvious world-beaters (their best individual rider currently is 28th as you'll see later)! ISA in 6th place also had a great period, making the greatest jump of any team - last time they were down in the relegation zone (18th)!
When speaking of it, let's take a look at who's down there now. Zwift, no surprise - they've been dead last in the first ranking update, and they will probably stay there. Only 2,313 points scored so far, they're definitely doomed.
While ISA were the team doing the biggest move in the right direction, Los Pollos are the done doing it the other way round. They took a huge drop of 11 positions, being the worst team two months in a row - 21st place for the Mexicans. And they're already 275 points behind their closest rivals, cycleYorkshire - who gained one spot at LPH's expense. Still, the Brits are about 150 points away from safety as well - and might be eyeing the Tour as well to save them.
We then have a group of three teams who are currently looking to fight against relegation, all within just 12 points! They are Aegon (19th), Duolingo (18th) and UBS (17th). UBS are clearly looking the worst of them, having used up between 10 and 18 race days more than the teams behind them so far.
So that's 4 out of 6 promoting teams in heavy relegation danger - while both Polar and Aker should be safe and are even fighting for a podium!
And now, let me know what YOU think of those numbers!
Not sure how to feel about this. Points wise, we are closer to the top 10 than to the relegation zone, but we also used more race days than the teams around us.
Don't have big.hopes for the Tour, but after that we should be getting some decent results from all of our remaining races, with either Gerts or Grosu leading the team in most of them
Interesting how close the table is outside of "the title fight" and "the battle for last". Could be an exciting finish to the season.
Not the best period for Evonik but a strong Vuelta saves it for us. A bit scared how the table will look post Tour as our lineup looks very weak. From now on we have to trust Lopez to deliver a lot of times.
May feels like a missed opportunity to leap outside the bottom 5. The Ardennes were good to us. Then the Vuelta seemed like a very good chance for some eay points. Eastman delivered, but there were some good points left to be picked if Van Stayen was any good.
June was always going to be a slow month for us.
Hopefully The Tour, Slovenia and Lithuania can set us well for the last third of the season.
Congrats to Isostar for continuing to reck everyone else and to Gazelle for having such a sick run.
And more importantly thanks for the great write-up Fab!
Not too bad, actually. We'll drop a bit further down after the TdF, but looks like we might be able to challenge for top 10 in the last months of the season.
Thank you for the write-up and the update, Fabianski!
This is a solid update for us, being well inside the top 10, and with quite a gap down to the relegation spots. That's the most important thing. Then we're also surprisingly high in 4th, I feel, but as others have written, it's really, really close, only being 400 points ahead of 12th as it stands now. Thus, our placing can change quickly, and only for the worse, but we should anyway be able to produce points in the second half of the season, hopefully keeping us safe with a margin, and also fighting for a top 10.
Isostar has been phenomenal, very well done, Croatia!
Tough to see Los Pollos near the bottom, I hope they can still turn it around. cycleYorkshire and Duolingo have significant scoring potential at Le Tour, which might make it even tougher for every other team battling relegation. In general, the Tour should shake things up, but few teams in the title race seem poised for big points there, so I think Isostar is still looking good at the top!
TdF seasons are always super weird to deal with until it comes around, with no idea whether the gap to the top positions remains manageable.
Isostar is obviously and deservedly blasting off at the speed of light again, and even the best possible Tour would see us barely get by Gazelle with few leader RD left after, so I'm sticking with our sponsor goal of trying to reach the Top 5.
Not winning the TdF would greatly jeopardize even that, so there's no reason to dream bigger just yet.
Thanks for the update! I completely understand the feeling of dwindling motivation for any reason, no worries.
I think you'll definately be in 2nd place after the Tour, but catching Isostar will be impossible. It's not a bad setup croatia has, so catching more than 1200 points I think will be very difficult
We're ina lot more trouble than I hoped we would be in at this time of the year I have to say
We need a big Tour really to push ahead of some others in the relegation mix and give ourselves some cushion given some of the races in our calendar aren't really our forte.
Isostar really are the MG all conquering champions aren't they? No one can seem to get close!
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
Sure! Sorry for having forgotten - I had everything ready, but somehow forgot to post Here you are
Btw, I also finally added the score details to the Vuelta thread, as promised before...
Individual Ranking
After Taylor Phinney for once wasn't on top of the previous update, the empire has struck back. Despite making a pass on yet another GT, the ITT World Champion did enough to get back to the top - now totalling 1,959 points.
Joseph Dombrowski's 1,332 points scored in the Vuelta are definitely impressive - and they're enough for current 2nd place. 96th in the last update, he's definitely done a great job in Spain.
And former leader Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier just had to sit there and watch those two competitors pass him, being already done with his season. It definitely looks unlikely that he'll finish on the podium now...
Mads Pedersen and Arnaud Demare didn't score a whole lot in the last two months and both dropped a spot due to Dombrowski moving up. Egan Bernal was able to hold onto 6th place, thanks to his Tour de Suisse win.
Merhawi Kudus is another new name in the Top 10, and the Vuelta runner-up was the other reason why Bryan Coquard and Lukasz Wisniowski lost a couple of spots each and now are 8th and 9th. Davide Formolo - yet another new name - rounds off our current Top 10, kicking out Caleb Ewan (11th). Peter Sagan (13th) and David Per (16th) are the two other riders who lost their Top 10 spot.
At least one more rider will be outside the Top 10 in the next update, as we should expect Herklotz to be in the Top 3 after the Tour de France - but let's first race THE race, and then look at its implications on the rankings!
Three riders in top 21 and yet we are still very much caught up in the relegation battle. That speaks volumes of just how bad the rest of the team has been. With the exception of Scheling no one has really stepped up to overcome their condition, with most of them even being significantly worst than in the previous seasons.
5 riders between 177-183 points is a really odd consistency. Coquard and Chiarello seems to be the only leaders of our team to perform according to expectations. Vlatos, Farantakis and Koretzky isn’t on par.
A lot of riders within 100-250 points though, and since the team is a big depth project I guess that is pretty good. Miltiadis and Bouglas are on their way to join them.
it will be tough to have a good lead after the Tour, but we'll see. Let's hope we can keep it up.
Here you are 
