Starting of march with the cobbles in Norway. And of course we know it was time for our lead this year, Ruben Zepuntke.
But it didnt go as we expected, though a nice line up with Zepuntke and Nareklishvili, we only could score with a 9th place from Ruben Zepuntke. This was sadly a disappointment

This Tour is not even worth to write about considering the final result but i will do it anyway.
Stage 1 for the sprinters and we hoped Willwohl and/or Reinhardt could do something here. If we consider a 9th place as something they did it.
I can only repeat what i said at Stage 1 for the 2nd one. Just with an even worse result, 16th for Willwohl.
The 3rd stage was finally something for the GC riders, we didnt have one who could compete and this shows here. Our best rider was our talent Van Bekkum at position 103.
On Stage 4 it was time for the final decision, a rather hard stage. And this meant, with our current condition, nothing to get out of here. Our best guys finished 27 minutes after the winner, Lehtinen, Vanhoucke and Van Bekkum as 101-103.

A hilly classic were we hoped for Guerreiro to continue his good results. He could keep his performance from before but he still got in as 9th.

Another race on cobbles for us and a a chance for Zepuntke again. This time a bit more hilly. And our expectations were high again.
And also this time we didnt get what we hoped for. We scored solid with the 6th place of Zepuntke but we know he is capable of so much more.

This Tour wasnt a big goal for us and more towards gaining experience and maybe score a bit.
On Stage 1 there wasnt more for us to get that the 17th position of our young sprinter Stalberg.
On the second stage with a hilly finish our leader, Ruben Guerreiro, did come in 6th and could score a bit.
The 3rd and final stage, with it's long final climb wasnt really suited for our guys. This did show in the result were Guerreiro came in with 3'47" at position 24. In the final GC he finished then as 16th. Besides that there wasnt much to report but with our expectations being low this was an okay-ish result.

Cobbles classic? Another chance to get disappointed, Let's go! A typical Zepuntke, i think for every other Cobbles Rider i would be happy with a 4th Place but he is just too god for this.

Back at home, and every year we wanna do good here. Will be able to score high this year? Short answer, No. Again Willwohl could do better than an 11th place.

After Geraardsbergen this was another chance for Zepuntke here in Brittain. And he told us the same story again, 6th place. Not really bad but for him just below what heis capable of.

Do i even need to say it again? Cobbles time here in Belgium. And again, Zepuntke, a Machine! Again "only" 6th and the same has to be said like the other races he attended this month.

This race again was a chance for Guerreiro to score. But with being a C1 race it was a hard competition. In the end he dud finish in the main group as 10th what we consider a small success.

This 6 day tour is usually not too bad for us and we hope we can score he decently.
The first stage is a task for the TT specialists and we did send Predatsch and Campenaerts here they could at least finish in 7th and 9th.
The second stage was a rather flat one and a sprint was to be expected. But since we didnt send one we couldnt really shine here.
The same was the case for the 3rd stage. We just finished it without any result worth to be mentioned.
Stage 4, a TTT more on the short site but we did send a decent squad here so we hoped we could place our guys well in the GC. As Team we finished as 6th and kept our guys in the race I would say.
Another flat one after the TTT, means another uneventful one for us.
The final stage was again a TT, below 10 km so even Prologue specialists could shine here. With Campenearts and Predatsch more focusing on longer TT's they could "only" come in as 10th and 11th.
In the final GC this meant for us the 9th place for Campenaerts and the 13th for Predatsch in this very close competition.

Austria, just a few meters away from our home country we hope we can place some guys in the Top 10 for this Tour.
Stage 1 started already with a heavy climb at the end. Our leader Vanhoucke was able to come in 10th only 35 seconds behind the winner.
Second stage and again a steep climb at the end. This time it was even harder and Vanhoucke couldnt deal with it as good as the day before. COming in as 22nd with 3'42" beind the winner.
The 3rd stage was finally an easier one. A sprint was to be expected and to our surprise our veteran Reinhardt could finish in 3rd place here.
On the 4th stage there was again some Mountains to climb but this time not at the end so we didnt expect huge gaps between the GC guys. We did finish in the peloton with over 6 minutes behind the leading groups, though not with favorites but some dangerous riders.
Stage 5 was a hilly one, not as steep and long as before but still hard. And it was a huge success for us! Kobe Goossens our loyal Allrounder could snatch his first win ever for us! He came in 38 & 45 seconds before everyone else. Great Ride from him!
After the previous day we were back on the flat and hoped Reinhardt could repeat his result from before. This time it was only enough for the 6th place in the sprint.
The final stage was a flat TT to decide the GC for this tour. Predatsch was with us in Austria and could finish as 7th here.
In the final GC our best man was Vanhoucke as 13th sadly not quite Top 10 but competition was hard here also.

In the north we were racing in this really flat race hoping Willi Willwohl could do something. Big competition and no surprise for us here, Position 13 for Willi.

Of course we did send here our best TT riders, like everyone else, and wanted a good result. In the end this only was enough for the 10th place. Pretty close to Top 5 so we must acknowledge that everyone was just better and our own performance wasnt that bad either.

Vancouver, Canade our next stop this season. This 7 stage tour always creates sume fun races so lets see how our team will do here.
Stage 1 started well for us with Harm Vanhoucke finishing in 6th at this short timetrial.
The second stage was one for the sprinters but there was a small group ahead who could get the win and our sprinter Willwohl finished 6th in the end.
Another sprint on the 3rd stage and again Willwohl could live up to his skill and only finished 9th.
On the 4th stage we needed to climb and it was a hard stage for the gc riders. Our rider Vanhoucke couldnt keep the pace of the Top Guys and only finished as 14th with more than 2 minutes behind.
Day 5 in canade was again flat and a chance for sprinters but not for Willi, he came in as 10th here.
Another hard stage on the 6th day with some steep climbs and it was basically the same as the last hard stage. Vanhoucke wasnt able to stay at the top group and lost again valuable minutes as 29th.
The final Stage was a TTT. Our squad here was decent and could take the 6th place but i think we could have reached even more with everyone being in good condition.
That lead us to a 14th place in the final GC for Vanhoucke. This wasnt what we hoped for in the end but not far off from the top 10.

Its all about the Sprinter and we Have Willi here. Sadly he couldnt deliver Top notch and finished as 8th.

Racing at hour home country is always special. This classic was not ours, only the 29th place for Mager was disappointing. We couldnt show our colors well here.

This 4 stage tour in our small neighbouring country Luxembourg seems to be perfect for the puncheurs so we did send Guerreiro as lead here.
Stage 1 did already stretch the field with a lot of small gaps. Guerreiro came in 4th here and even Goossens could finish as 7th. Good start for us.
The 2nd stage was more on the flat side. There was a little gap after first 20 and our veteran Reinhardt came in as 9th. Guerreiro and Goossens sadly lost some time.
At the 3rd Stage this time Guerreiro as 7th and Mager as 15th could finish in the leading group.
The final stage was here and there idnt happen much regarding Gaps and GC changes. Guerreiro finished as 5th on this stage. In the final GC he reached the 7th place and also Mager could come into Top 20 his 19th place.

The last race in June for us was this hilly one in Hong Kong. Here again we could count on our man for this, Ruben Guerreiro. He did miss the Podium with finishing 4th but still again a really decent result from him.

Cycling.Daily:
"Hello Mr. Ezee, thank you for this Interview. We all could see that there was quite a lot going on the last time. First the Team losing their sponsors, followed by the announcement of the Organisation closing down. And then the turnaround and the look for new partners I guess. Can you explain this all a bit further and share with us and our reaers what was going on behind closed doors?"

Ezee:
"Hi, and thank you too fr this oportunity to share what happened this season so far.
You are right the last weeks and months were really full of events and stressful for our teams management. We actually heard pretty early rumors from our sponsors side, Würth MODYF, that they considered to stop the sponsorship for the future. So shortly before the 2nd half of the year we had a long talk between us and the sponor about the future and it became clear that we couldnt continue like this anymore. The spring and the classics were rather disappointing, though we invested a lot before the season, and this wasnt enough for Würth MODYF anymore."

Cycling.Daily:
"Sorry to interrupt here, but that means your current partner wanted to drop out because you couldnt produce the results?"

Ezee:
"In the end, yes. But I understand this, even if it wasnt then only 2 years they invested a lot and their goal was to have success so we could show the sponsor and their colours in the big race. And we see now we will most likely clearly fail this. Their are basically 2 kinds of sponsors i would say, and both are valid. One wants to have success and need the attention for their brand to grow further, thats what Würth MODYF does. On the other side you have companies that wanna support cycling and use this as an "image platform" I would say. Success isnt here the main goal, its often more to have a sustainable and "friendly" project to show to their customers and so. Of course, some profit wouldnt be bad too, after all we all need to earn money.
Anyway, Würth MODYF now wanna focus more on general sponsorship for races and cycling in general, this will be more benefitial for them long term."

Cycling.Daily:
"I see. Thanks for all the information on that. One thing i noticed is that the current season was rather disappointingthen for them, but how are you feeling about the current season personally?"

Ezee:
"Well, the season itself is still going on so its not the time for a final judgement. But of course you see how we built our team and you can see the results that we produced and it just shows that not everything worked and in the end we are kinda far behind what we wanted to achieve. But thats professional cycling/sports in general, you cant plan everything and even with the best plans it wont work. There are also a lot of other teams out there who all want to succeed and this time it was us to not be on the lucky side."

Cycling.Daily:
"After all of this how it came that after it was, also suddenly, announced you will close doors that you finally decided to continue?"

Ezee:
"After the decision of our sponsor(s), no just Würth MODYF but also all the other secondary supporters, declared to stop their sponsorship we fell dejected and so we made the first annoucnement to stop the project. But after this we got a lot of great messages and feedback from other Teams and Managers as also from the the MGUCI itself. This and also some connections that were handed to us made us regain confidence to continue and build this whole project from the scratch. Here I wanna thank again all the ones that reached out to me for their words and support!"

Cycling.Daily:
"You say a lot of support but also connections. Does this mean you are in talks with new partners already or even have some new one already?"

Ezee:
"Well you could say that."

Cycling.Daily:
"Exciting, is there already something you can share with us and our readers?"

Ezee:
"I guess its a good time and way to let you all know. Yes we have found a new primary partner! And not just a sponsor who will be seen on our jersey, we actually sold a masive stack of our shares on the team. The team will be now owned half by me and half by our new business partner and also sponsor. But with this deal its not focused solely on logos and naming rights, it will also allow other naming sponsors in the future while still getting support.
Okay to make it short, I am happy to introduce our new partner DeNA. A japanese company in the field of e-commerce, mobile games, network infrastructure and many more. If you are familiar with this field you have heard of it. There are 2 things what makes this such a great partner. In generally they already own and run different sports organisations, most famours probably the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, a professional Baseball Team who just won the NPB Chamionship last season. They also have a professional japanese football(the real one not the american one) and Basketball team. So the cycling team will the next sports organisation in their portfolio. Another important factor is that they have a really strong relationship to Nintendo, which is also a major shareholder, so there will be definitely enough financial support if needed."

Cycling.Daily:
"Incredible news for the team! With this new partnership it probably means you wont be run under a german license anymore? And what is the general idea for this new project and the team the upcomming years?"

Ezee:
"Thats right. In the future we will ride under a japanese license. But this doesnt mean we will be an all japanese team, thats not our focus. Of course we try to find great japanese talent who may can win for us in the future but its not necessary. Overall we have no conditions based on nationality or region in the future. But personally i want some regional riders for sure, i think its important for the region.
But I can say our concept for the upcomming season will be a huge shift and change. We got full support for it from DeNA. Next year our team will be full under (or exactly) 25! We wont sign any rider above that age and focus solely on riders we train and develop ourselves. The only exception for this will be riders who signed with us already as neo pro but since we are not that old as team none of them will be over 25 anyway."

Cycling.Daily:
"Oh thats some drastic changes, does that mean your current leaders like Zepuntke, Vanhoucke, Guerreiro, Willwohl and so on will not ride for you next season? And what about the results? It does seem like you will have huge success, result wise, with this."

Ezee:
"That's right. Both. Success in the form of results and points isnt what we are looking for the next season(s). Success will be measured differently, in how we are able to train and develop young riders. And also the riders you mentioned and everyone else above the age of 25 will not ride for us next year. This definitely means a busy transfer season for us but I look forward to it and cant wait to get to work."

Cycling.Daily:
"That was a lot of informations we got here. Thank you for sharing all of this with us. Do you wanna share anything else with our readers?"

Ezee:
"I didn't announce our team name yet. We will ride under the name of 'DeNA RoadStars' next years, you may see some similarities to some other teams of DeNA, that may be on purpose.
Now its time to focus on the last part of the season and hope we can finish in style and then its time for me and the management to get back to work and build something nice for the next year. Thank you for the interview and the chance to share all with you."

Cycling.Daily:
"Thank you too for this interview and all the news you had to share! We wish you best luck for the rest of the season and look forward to what the future brings to your team!"

Result

13

Willi Willwohl

Team Würth MODYF

s.t.

GC

22	Jason Osborne	Team Würth MODYF	s.t.
23	Victor Campenaerts	Team Würth MODYF	s.t.
26	Kevin Predatsch	Team Würth MODYF	+ 30

Stage 4

3

Ruben Zepuntke

Team Würth MODYF

s.t.

Stage 5

1

Ruben Zepuntke

Team Würth MODYF

4h11'34

GC

49	Ruben Zepuntke	Team Würth MODYF	+ 7'26
54	Beka Nareklishvili	Team Würth MODYF	+ 7'55
76	Warre Vangheluwe	Team Würth MODYF	+ 11'19

Stage 4

6

Nicolas Heinrich

Team Würth MODYF

s.t.

GC

24	Harm Vanhoucke	Team Würth MODYF	+ 4'43
92	Beka Nareklishvili	Team Würth MODYF	+ 12'38
112	Pierre-Pascal Keup	Team Würth MODYF	+ 14'56

Stage 3

5

Kobe Goossens

Team Würth MODYF

s.t.

GC

14	Ruben Guerreiro	Team Würth MODYF	+ 3'41
15	Harm Vanhoucke	Team Würth MODYF	+ 3'44
25	Sakari Lehtinen	Team Würth MODYF	+ 6'39

Points

2

Kobe Goossens

Team Würth MODYF

30

KoM

2

Kobe Goossens

Team Würth MODYF

48

Team

2

Team Würth MODYF

+ 2'26

Results

4

Ruben Zepuntke

Team Würth MODYF

s.t.

Result

8

Ruben Guerreiro

Team Würth MODYF

s.t.

Booker wrote:

Ezee, that sounds like a big challenge to do a U25 team, but if you pull it off, it would be quite fun to see the U25 rankings of most C2 races filled with DeNa RoadStars superstars-in-training!

I hope it will keep you intrigued as you see the growth of your riders over the years. I guess I wonder, if you train a rider up as a homegrown one, once they hit the age of 25, will that be the last season riding for the team or will you consider keeping some on as homegrown talents (maybe shifting the age limit up on a case-by-case basis)?

So glad to see you stay in the MG regardless!

The only exception for this will be riders who signed with us already as neo pro but since we are not that old as team none of them will be over 25 anyway.