@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