A total of 7 races were on the menu this month, including yet another monument and the first GT of the year! Two other PT classics, two PTHC classics and a PTHC stage race were the other ones - lots of events to cover, so let's go!
The month opened with one of cycling's biggest happenings - if not the biggest of all - the legendary Paris - Roubaix. A monument, one with really tough cobbles, and not many hills for once.
It was the perfect playground for Pedersen, who timed his sprint to perfection and got his first ever win in the Vélodrome! The Dane became the first double (RvV & Roubaix in the same year) winner since Bewley in 2017, and only the 3rd rider to get this double - Bewley and Boonen did it 3 times each. Maybe we should rename him to Bedersen, as he kind of breaks a pattern here. Jokes aside, Pedersen scored 280 points again, and with Grieg also having Bohli (21st), De Gendt (29th), Stokbro (34th) and Jansen (37th) in the Top 50, that's 350 points for the Norwegians. One point better than in Flanders, check.
After a rough start, Wisniowski's form got better and better lately - and it resulted in yet another 2nd place behind Pedersen, just like in RvV. So his 2019 Roubaix win will likely remain the only one of his career - that's still one better than most riders. And 2nd place still is worth a ton of points, 205 to be precise. Girmay scored some good points once again with 23rd place, and all in all that's 254 for Assa.
Gerts took the final podium spot, in the monument that should suit him less of the two, but he won't care. 3rd place is 3rd place, and 3rd place in a monument is worth 165 points. With Van den Berg (28th) and Meeus (46th) adding some points above the minimum, Rabobank's total score is 213 points.
Three races were held during the Giro, the first of them being the PTHC Tour of Lithuania. Two flat stages, a TTT and a hilly stage for the big finale - let's say that the stage was set for last year's winner Wirtgen to go back-to-back.
And he did. But his team didn't get the best score in Lithuania. They didn't even get remotely close to the top score - which could well be the highest non-GT score of the season. 590 points. Which is almost 150 PpRD, in a PTHC race.
Scored by whom? Obviously by King Power. They didn't quite get the race win - Gidich would've needed to gain some bonus seconds against Wirtgen to do so; instead, he lost some. 3rd place on the final day and 2nd place in GC for the Kazakh. But that's only the beginning. 2 - 3 - 7 - 11 - 12 - 13. These are no lotto numbers. These are the GC places of Gidich, Herregodts, Van Baarle, Mano, Matsuda (also 2nd in U25) and Fung. 6 in the Top 13. Vanthourenhout in 22nd would've been the best rider of some other teams - he was #7 for King Power. Who obviously won the team standings as well. 590 points, an insane output for 4 days of PTHC racing. Hats off!
And yes, Vesuvio did take 2nd place in terms of team scoring. They won the stage 3 TTT, and together with King Power were at least one level above the rest. Wirtgen also launched a smart attack on the final stage, winning the last intermediate sprint (and 6 bonus seconds) - and almost the stage, finishing 2nd in the end. The first 3 were so close - with Gidich in 1st and Wirtgen in 3rd, the two of them would have been tied at the top... But Wirtgen did win, and therefore was the top individual scorer with 231 points. But Vesuvio's team depth was far less impressive than King Power's, with no other rider in the Top 20 (but still 4 more in the Top 50). They even just ended up 7th in the team standings - and with 322 points overall.
Even though Cullaigh finally got his first win, and Romo a Top 10 in the GC, it wasn't quite enough for cycleYorkshire to take 3rd place here - missing out by just 7 points. Against... Xero! Areruya did what he had to do on the final stage - he won! And thanks to the judges being rather generous with time gaps for once, that was even enough to end up 4th in GC, scoring 152 points in total. The Kiwis had Vermeersch and Ganna in the GC Top 30 as well (the former ending up 4th in U25), resulting in 196 points.
Next up was the MG world's biggest climbing event, the PT classic in Liechtenstein - the only mountain classic on the PT calendar. Hence, it obviously attracts all top climbers - except those busy in Italy. This year, this meant that Herklotz couldn't be here to defend his title - but otherwise, only Eastman was missing of all 82+ climbers, given that even Padun got a wildcard.
Rather surprisingly, top favourite PHL didn't only miss out on the win - he even failed to get a podium! And also rather surprisingly, it was Morton who took over the task of dominating the race! A first attack with 6km to go left only himself, Dombrowski and Kudus (catching up later) up front. And with 2km to go, he simply rode away from them, winning the race almost a minute ahead of his first chasers! A fantastic win and 225 points for Morton - and 260 for cycleYorkshire, who missed out on any depth points. But who cares if you get such a commanding win?
The fight for 2nd was very close, with Dombrowski narrowly winning the duel vs. Kudus. Will we see that fight again this year? We'll see - what we know by now is that the American was rewarded with 161 points for his performance, with Warchol adding a decent 19th place. Peters also scored with his 45th place, making it 218 points for Gazelle.
For Moser, Kudus' 3rd place in the race wasn't enough to claim 3rd place in the team scoring list; instead, Polar scored 3 points higher - most of the points obviously coming from Bernal's 4th place, but Inkelaar and Mas also got some points with 22nd and 37th place respectively. 167 points for the Finns, 164 for Moser.
Before covering the Giro, let's take a look at the other races. Despite being later in the calendar, Veenendaal - Veenendaal is next. A PTHC event, on paper one for the sprinters - but in recent years that wasn't really the case, for whatever reason.
And it wasn't one for the sprinters this year, either. So it was a good strategy to have both a sprinter and a rouleur in the lineup - which Assa Abloy definitely did! Konychev took the win with a late attack (despite having Halvorsen in the group as well), and Dainese sprinted to 12th - a greatly needed points boost for Assa, 198 points!
For once, it paid off having a leadout, as Lampawog's leadout for Van der Lijke was so strong that they took 6th and 5th respectively behind the four attackers! Gunnlaugsson also added a Top 50, making it 152 points for Vesuvio!
And so, Katrasnik's 2nd place was only good enough for Cedevita to be the 3rd best scoring team. Groselj narrowly missed out on some more points by taking 31st place, making it 127 points for the Slovenians.
And yet another PTHC classic was on the menu, with the cobbled Roma Maxima. Not quite with the same extreme contrast of first climbs, then cobbles as in Strada Appia Antica, but a bit of the same mould. Just one major climb, and then lots of shorter cobbled sections. A race that can often have riders doing well who otherwise are rather under the radar - and we had the same this year!
Not at the very top, not at all. Wisniowski is a name you expect up there - and after a rather rough start to the season, he has now found the right setting post-decline, and simply dominated the sprint of a 12 rider group! 170 points for the Pole, with Girmay adding another strong result with 21st place, and Taubel just sneaking into the Top 50 as well. That's 183 points for Assa Abloy.
One of the aforementioned riders is definitely Siric. Although he has established himself as a very solid cobbler and regular Top 10 finisher this year, he doesn't really look like a top contender on paper. However, he already finished 2nd (behind Wisniowski) last year, and he repeated this great result in 2024! Same 1-2 as in 2023, albeit with Wisniowski riding for another team. It's 125 points for the Bosnian NC, plus 7 for Poljanec' 26th place - that makes 132 for Cedevita.
3rd placed Ferreira on the other hand didn't have a top result so far in 2024 - he definitely has now! It was a very close fight for 3rd, which the Portuguese won. With Garcia Cortina scoring as well (24th place), that's 108 points for Polar.
The final race of the month marked the start of the Ardennes week. Flèche Wallonne and Liège - Bastogne - Liège will take place in May, but the PT rated Amstel Gold Race was scheduled for the last day of April. It has the reputation of being the easiest of the three races, with climbing skills mattering least and sprinter skills most - how did this translate to the final result?
Looking at the winner, this assessment doesn't really hold. Not (yet) among the top puncheurs, nor among the fastest ones on the final stretch - but one of the best hybrids and with a great kick, Valter was one of five riders who attacked pretty early - but he was the only one to survive! His gap was just big enough to hold onto a great win on top of the Cauberg - that's 225 points for the Hungarian! Aker didn't have an amazing depth behind him, with only Bagioli finishing inside the Top 50 as well, but that's still 265 points and the top score for the Norwegians.
"What if" will be asking Giro hero Lutsenko. He wasn't among this front quintet and first had to chase them down - ending up having not quite enough left in the tank to overtake Valter. Still, it was a good start to the Ardennes triple for him as well, rewarded with 161 points. And Gazelle also had Aleotti in 25th place, plus Malecki, Peters and Godon in the Top 50 - 222 points for the Dutchmen.
In what his manager calls the "least suited of the Ardennes classics" for him, Areruya continues to achieve great things in his return to PT racing, claiming 3rd place in a relatively close fight against Lopez and Gidich. And with Pidcock - maybe the strongest domestique in the field - taking 18th place, that's a pretty nice haul of 182 points for Xero.
And before we get to the obviously biggest race of the month - at least in terms of scoring - let's get a short overview of all the other scores, just to see who did well outside of the GT:
Pos
Team
P-R
Lit
Lie
R-M
Vee
AGR
Total
1
King Power
168
590
67
36
20
140
1021
2
Assa Abloy
254
45
40
183
198
111
831
3
EA Vesuvio
120
322
56
55
152
90
795
4
cycleYorkshire
40
189
260
0
41
97
627
5
Polar
91
0
167
108
136
40
542
6
Rabobank
213
132
53
0
0
143
541
7
Grieg-Maersk
350
0
45
69
17
47
528
8
Gazelle
84
0
218
0
0
222
524
9
Xero Racing
87
196
59
0
0
182
524
10
Cedevita
74
0
121
132
127
45
499
11
Evonik - ELKO
139
46
153
0
0
158
496
12
Aker - MOT
160
0
64
0
0
265
489
13
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
147
0
105
74
24
64
414
14
MOL Cycling Team
190
0
141
0
0
72
403
15
Lidl Cycling
50
121
66
6
43
106
392
16
Team Puma - SAP
51
81
57
52
52
63
356
17
Oxxo - Frisby
45
0
91
2
102
88
328
18
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
179
0
62
0
0
75
316
19
Jura GIANTS
98
0
45
17
12
131
303
20
ZARA - Irizar
73
0
86
70
15
54
298
21
Fastned
105
26
83
0
0
61
275
22
Moser - Sygic
45
0
164
0
0
40
249
We can see the obvious Lithuania boost for King Power, making up for more than half of their scoring! Assa also started doing really well, in particular the two PTHC wins and Wisniowski's Roubaix podium were great results. EA, rather close behind, also did all of these six races.
cycleYorkshire did everything except for Roma Maxima, and they did rather well, before we get to Polar as the first team skipping Lithuania. Rabobank, Grieg, Gazelle, Xero, Cedevita, Evonik and Aker all are pretty close - there's just 53 points between Polar in 5th and Aker in 12th!
Tinkoff, MOL and Lidl are the lower midfield, with Puma somewhere in between midfield and tail end. The latter definitely goes for Oxxo, Carlsberg, Jura, ZARA, Fastned and Moser - although most of them didn't have any Lithuania points, and Moser even had no PTHC races at all.
Last but not least, let's tackle the month's biggest race, the first GT of the year: The Giro d'Italia. 21 days in Italy, mostly hilly this year, with very few really high mountains and really flat stages. A TTT and a long ITT on top of that. If that's the description of a perfect menu for one rider, who could that man be?
There are no two ways to see it: this race was tailor-made for Silvio Herklotz. And his potentially biggest competitors knew that and didn't even attend. So, there wasn't a whole lot of competition for the German - and he used that to get a truly outstanding score - one he didn't even reach with his Tour de France win two years ago. How did this come?
First of all, he started the Giro right with his first stage win. A 2nd place and two 3rd places were added in the first week - which he didn't even end in Pink, though, after Lutsenko joined the sprinters on day 4, getting a decent gap.
Week 2 however was where he left absolutely no question open about the race winner. Three wins and a second place, not only taking a solid 2 minutes lead in the GC, but also the points jersey.
He "only" added two more wins in the final week, thereof what must be the most prestigious one of the race, atop Monte Zoncolan. So that's 6 stage wins plus 4 additional podiums (look at that ratio!), meaning that he podiumed in almost half of the stages! Didn't we say it was a tailor-made race for him?
His stage results alone are worth more than 550 points, and 13 days in Pink also amount to more than 200 points (plus 7 days in 2nd place obviously). The Ciclamino win comes on top of that - and yeah, he obviously won the GC for 500 points, too.
Which makes how much in total? Believe it or not, but it's 1,637 points. One thousand, six hundred and thirty-seven. Just to relate - only five riders scored as many points in their entire season last year! It's obviously the highest score by far, and obviously the Pumas also were the highest scoring team by far. However, his teammates were kind enough to not add too many points on top of that. 89 to be precise - Stork, Cemazar, Wibisono and Van Wilder all got a Top 100 (the latter taking the final spot in there), plus 4 TTT points (1 going to Herklotz) - that's all. But "all" still is 1,726 points in total - in the last 2 years, this would've been the highest score in any race all year long. The only thing I can add to that: Hats off.
Another team having an outstanding Giro - given that they had no GC contender and hence no big GC points - were Gazelle. And most of all puncheur Lutsenko. Sending him was a gamble - but it paid off big time. On one hand, the competition among the puncheurs wasn't huge - and on the other hand, the Kazakh just did an amazing job!
He couldn't quite keep up on stage 1 - but then struck back to win stage 2. And after joining the group of sprinters and getting a one-minute gap on day 4 (and taking a surprising 5th place on the day), he took over the Maglia Rosa, which he was able to defend on the next 6 stages as well. But it's not like he was just wearing the jersey, he definitely did do it justice - taking a 2nd and 3rd place on the next two stages.
Lutsenko added another win on day 9 - in a bunch sprint. Yes, indeed - after a 5th and a 4th place, he even won one of these sprints. And he took over the Ciclamino after this stage - which he lost a couple of days later to... Herklotz, obviously. He also added another 2nd place (behind Herklotz) in week 2 - and that marked the end of his great stage results. He still ended up on a very remarkable 17th place in the GC, as well as 2nd in points. And he won the team standings with Gazelle - scoring a whopping 648 points overall, being the 3rd best scorer of the race.
But Gazelle didn't have "just" Lutsenko - as his teammates scored nearly as many points combined as he did. Carboni and Leknessund also got a Top 20 in the GC (finishing 15th and 18th respectively), Senni and Aleotti ended up 26th and 27th. We've already talked about the obvious team standings win (by 20 minutes!) - and they also took the white jersey with Leknessund. And Aleotti won stage 20. A whole race filled with many, many highlights and rewarded by 1,243 points - and they didn't even need Dombrowski for this... Beware of Gazelle in 2024!
Carlsberg were one of the teams that really got screwed in last year's Giro, with Galta poised to finish on the GC podium (or getting close at least), before all the breakaway shenanigans happened. Well, this time, they were the team that benefitted by far the most from one of the rare breakaway successes.
It's not like Carthy had bad form in general - he had a really stupid time loss on day 1, but also got a stage podium on day 11, and some Top 10s otherwise. He was 13th going into the final week - which he started by almost beating Herklotz on top of the Zoncolan. After another good result on day 18, he moved up to 4th in GC - before making a crazy breakaway move on the final mountain stage on day 19.
He spent a good portion of the day in the virtual Maglia Rosa, and easily won the stage - moving up to 2nd in GC, and tying Formolo for the KoM lead. The gap to his closest rivals was big enough to easily defend 2nd place in the closing ITT, getting a huge and really unexpected success! Unexpected because of the TTT and the ITT, but his successful move more than made up for this. 712 points and the 2nd highest individual score were his reward.
But just like Gazelle, Carlsberg didn't rely on one rider only, as indicated by their 2nd place in the team standings. Aranburu (31st), Eg (39th) and Jensen (44th) made the Top 50, with the latter getting 5th in U25. Aranburu got a 2nd place right on day 1, whereas Walls did the same 3 days later, in the first bunch sprint. The latter also got two more Top 5 results, ending up as the team's 3rd best scorer (behind Aranburu). All in all, it's 1,044 points for the Danes, as the 3rd and final team reaching 1,000 points.
Behind the Top 3, it got crazy close for 4th to 7th, with just 8 points separating these 4 teams.
First, we have Polar. Which seems like a logical outcome, given Latour's 3rd place in GC. The Frenchman was the 4th best scorer of the race with 497 points. He had an anonymous first week, then woke up on stage 4, getting 4th, 4th, 6th, 4th and 5th in the remaining week 2 stages. He made his big move on stage 18, almost winning it with a great attack - you know who beat him in the end... He didn't on stage 19, where Latour was the best GC rider behind Carthy - it was the stage where he lost what would have been an easy 2nd place in GC. But with a GC podium, it clearly still was a great race for Latour!
Besides Mullen's 2nd place in the closing ITT, Polar didn't have much else to write home about. Eyob cracked the Top 50, with all of Nych, Christensen and Sweeny getting a Top 100 - all in all, 166 points from Latour's teammates, which makes it 663 for Polar.
Next, we have the only wildcard team of the race, Sony - Force India, taking 5th place. Olivier had a great race, starting with a 5th place on stage 1, a 2nd place on stage 10 - and a commanding win after a gutsy late attack on stage 14. A 4th place on stage 18 finally secured him 4th place in GC - and he surely would have wished for his team to chase harder after Carthy on day 19, as that would've probably granted him the podium... He ends up just 2 points short of Carthy's score, totalling 495 points.
Otherwise, there was one strong sprint from Kulikovskiy, taking 3rd on stage 7, and two stage Top 10s by Howson and Cataford in the ITT. Carcueva and Cataford also got Top 50 GC results (the latter taking exactly 50th - in front of Hayter), and all in all that's 659 points for the Indians. Or 4 points less than Polar.
Another 3 points down, we have Jura, who mainly had two decent scorers. Stüssi's 7th place in GC is not outstanding, but still very solid, including some stage Top 5s - and given that he was sitting in 2nd and later 3rd in GC for quite some time, that's also some bonus points.
The other pretty big scorer was sprinter Szarka, in his first race as a leader. The Hungarian got his first career win on stage 8, plus two more stage podiums. The Swiss then also had a 2nd place in the TTT, plus another 2nd place by breakaway member Küng on the penultimate stage. Küng, Brunel and Setiawa got a GC Top 100 - while Errazkin added a 30th place and some decent points. In total, that's 656 for Jura.
And yet another point down, we find ZARA. Choi battled against Stüssi in the GC until the very end, winning the duel by 5" and hence taking 6th place. He also got 3rd places on stages 14 and 16 (and the necessary bonus seconds for his GC result), and ended up scoring 291 points.
Just like Jura, ZARA had a Top 10 GC rider and a strong sprinter, with Thijssen even winning twice! Stages 4 and 7 went to the Belgian - but with a 6th place being his 3rd best result, he couldn't really fight for the Ciclamino in the end (as all other sprinters).
Besides Choi, ZARA had a very strong Conci in the Top 15 as well, with Soler also making the Top 50. And the Spaniards ended up 4th in the team standings, bringing their points total up to 655 points.
It's then a 100 points gap down to Oxxo, who were definitely hoping for more than 5th place in GC by Eastman. But the American had too many lackluster performances in the mountains, so even the TTT win wasn't enough for him to get close to the expected GC podium. A Zmorka stage win on the final day was the other highlight besides the TTT win, and 539 points is the lower than expected yield.
Almost another 100 points down, we find cycleYorkshire. Yates won 3 hilly stages and finished 2nd in a bunch sprint, taking 3rd place in the Ciclamino standings - and was by far the team's biggest scorer with 341 points (and 6th in the individual rankings). His teammates barely added 100 points, so that's just 444 for the Brits.
Evonik are definitely expected to be far higher in one GT, but 10th isn't all that awful for them in the Giro. Foss' 12th place in GC (and 2nd on the memorable stage 19) is the team's standout result, while Plapp's 25th place is pretty good as well (good enough for 3rd in U25 - beware of him next season...). Sureda added a 3rd, 4th and 5th place each from sprints, making it 393 points in total.
It gets pretty crowded now outside the Top 10, with Rabobank almost making it as well. And let's be honest, they should've made the Top 10, maybe even the Top 5, with Van Poppel and Formolo. But the former was absolutey horrible, having a 7th place as his top result. And the latter wasn't great, either, despite the race starting well with 2nd place on day 2. But despite all these hilly stages being seemingly perfect for him, he only got one more podium.
And when he looked like the Maglia Azzurra winner, he failed to add the single point that would've seen him ahead of Carthy - so he has to share the win (and the points). So, without any great results, that's only 385 points for the Dutchmen.
It also was a disappointing race for Fastned and Wellens, who only just finished in the GC Top 10, with less than half a minute to spare. A 3rd place was his only notable climbing result - another climber who could (or should?) have done much better. At least, Cras' 16th place somewhat salvaged their scoring, bringing Fastned's total to 360 points.
It's a similar story for MOL, where Almeida was worse than expected (8th), and the team didn't have much else to offer. Brozyna's 23rd place isn't bad, but that's not really big points, either. 359 points for the Hungarians.
Cedevita also are pretty close, totalling 340 points. Tao Hart was really disappointing all race long, often getting dropped when he shouldn't have been. A strong final ITT brought him within 21" of the Top 10, but an 11th place definitely isn't what he came for. Habtemichael finished in 22nd place, so that's another result pretty similar to Fastned's and MOL's.
And Tinkoff round off this group and the Top 15, another 2 points down, on 338. They didn't bring any standout riders, they didn't get a standout result. But with Vlasov (20th, plus 2nd on a stage), Rikunov (21st) and Foliforov (29th), they surely got the depth they expected. They shouldn't be overly unhappy with this outcome.
Aker are next, as the final team above 300 points - AHJ's stage 17 win was certainly their highlight, but their best scorer actually was Laporte, who was holding onto the Maglia Azzurra for most of the race! 145 points for the Frenchman - 309 for Aker.
Despite Hirt getting 9th place in GC (and 3rd from the stage 17 breakaway), Moser's overall score looks disappointing, with just 282 points. Besides Hirt, they had 3 riders in the Top 100 - and that's all from this race.
EA Vesuvio didn't even have a proper GC rider, with Girdlestone never really fighting for the lower GC spots. And, far more disappointingly, their move to send a top puncheur didn't pay off even remotely as well as Gazelle's, with Mohoric getting just one single stage podium and 87 points. Which explains the Luxembourgers' 263 points.
King Power are even two more points down. Chaiyasombat did a decent job with 24th place in GC (and 2nd in U25), but Sanikwathi wasn't very lucky in the bunch sprints (still getting a 2nd place, though). And with just two more Top 50 places by Rubio and Quita, that's a pretty low score with 261 points.
The last four teams enjoyed the race even less. Xero at least got a rather surprising bunch sprint win by Hamza - but given that Lutsenko also won one, a Hamza win can't be that surprising actually... Otherwise, Fouche did what he could, which was 28th place in GC. And 4th in KoM, where he looked like a great candidate until Carthy and Formolo decided to enter the game... In the end, Xero got 214 points from this race.
Which is still 4 more than Grieg with 210. Vingegaard did what both Chaiyasombat and Fouche failed to do - finishing in the GC Top 20. The stage 17 breakaway was definitely helpful to get there, though. Not much else to write home about, maybe Roman and Nesset getting a Top 50 as well.
Which leaves us with 2 teams below 200 points. Lidl didn't bring a true GC contender, so they had to live with Prado's 35th place as their best GC result. At least, Larsen got a 2nd place from a bunch sprint, but with 190 points, it's still the 2nd lowest result in this race.
Hence, last place goes to Assa Abloy, with just 160 points. O'Connor in 43rd place was their only Top 50 finisher. They had Prasad for the bunch sprints - but he didn't get too lucky in the lottery, getting only a 3rd place as notable result. This could've gone quite differently, looking at Szarka in particular... But it hasn't been their season in terms of sprints so far.
And that's it from the Giro - you'll find the full numbers (team & individual, including wildcards) in the Giro Discussion thread.
You can also read the Giro scores from the April overview, which is split into Giro and w/o Giro. And what does this April overview look like?
Unsurprisingly, we get Team Puma at the top, by quite a margin. And they even scored more than 2,000 points this month! Without any doubt, it was their most productive month of the year, as Herklotz won't be allowed to do another GT. The one he did, he did very, very well though, congrats!
But despite a 300 points gap to the 2nd team, the Pumas didn't even have the highest PpRD of the month - this title belongs to Gazelle! With 1,767 points, they got the 2nd best score by an even bigger margin - and all of this without spending a single day in PTHC races! Which results in a PpRD of 65.44, which is just crazy, given that this month included a GT where they had no top GC contender... Hats off!
#3 of the month is also #3 of the Giro, so we're obviously talking about Carlsberg. With their 1,360 points, we're however getting into a more crowded region, as the Danes were among the bottom teams in the "other" races. Still, given that they didn't do any PTHC events either, their PpRD is the 3rd best by a margin of more than 10 points to the rest of the division. The Top 3 all scored more than 50 points per day of racing!
But we have 4 more teams above 1,000 points this month. Obviously, King Power are there, given that they got 1,021 in the "other" races. They were among the worst teams in the Giro, though, so tehy still didn't manage to beat Carlsberg with 1,282 points. Polar also scored above 1,200 points, being one of the more "well-balanced" scoring teams (just a little more than 100 points between Giro and "other" scores). These two teams had a PpRD above 35 and were pretty successful as well.
6th and 7th in terms of points, with 1,071 and 1,058 respectively, are cycleYorkshire and Vesuvio. Both did better in the "other" races, Vesuvio even very clearly better. Racing everywhere, their PpRD however is "just" enough for 8th and 9th.
We then have 4 teams between 900 and 1,000 points, with Assa in 8th place almost reaching the upper bound, totalling 991 points. Given that they did all races, their PpRD is even outside the Top 10 - unlike the next two teams who got 6th and 7th in that ranking.
These teams are Jura and ZARA, having an extremely close fight all over the month. Choi won the Giro battle vs. Stüssi, but Jura got one point more from the race - and 5 points more from the "other" races. Which results in 959 points for the Swiss and 953 for the Spaniards, both of them scoring 30 PpRD.
Rabobank also scored more than 900 points, but have to settle for the first spot outside the Top 10 in terms of points (and 10th in terms of PpRD). With a decent Giro by Van Poppel, one could easily see them fighting for the Top 5 this month...
Evonik in 12th place had a decent month, but not a great one yet. 889 points for them, followed by Oxxo and Cedevita, totalling 867 and 839 points respectively.
Aker may only be 15th, but not having done any PTHC races, they were still more efficient than the 3 teams right above them. 798 points for the defending champions, followed by MOL, Tinkoff, Grieg and Xero. Only 60 points separate these five teams, with the latter 3 doing 4 PTHC race days each.
At the bottom of the table, we find Fastned, Lidl and Moser, between 100 and 200 points behind Xero. And yes, with Grieg, Xero and Fastned we have the previous Top 3 teams all in the bottom 5 this month - what does this mean for the overall standings? We'll see - but let's first take a look at the full April numbers:
Pos
Team
w/o Giro
Giro
Total
RD
PpRD
1
Team Puma - SAP
356
1726
2082
35
59.49
2
Gazelle
524
1243
1767
27
65.44
3
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
316
1044
1360
27
50.37
4
King Power
1021
261
1282
35
36.63
5
Polar
542
663
1205
31
38.87
6
cycleYorkshire
627
444
1071
35
30.60
7
EA Vesuvio
795
263
1058
35
30.23
8
Assa Abloy
831
160
991
35
28.31
9
Jura GIANTS
303
656
959
31
30.94
10
ZARA - Irizar
298
655
953
31
30.74
11
Rabobank
541
385
926
31
29.87
12
Evonik - ELKO
496
393
889
31
28.68
13
Oxxo - Frisby
328
539
867
31
27.97
14
Cedevita
499
340
839
31
27.06
15
Aker - MOT
489
309
798
27
29.56
16
MOL Cycling Team
403
359
762
27
28.22
17
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
414
338
752
31
24.26
18
Grieg-Maersk
528
210
738
31
23.81
19
Xero Racing
524
214
738
31
23.81
20
Fastned
275
360
635
31
20.48
21
Lidl Cycling
392
190
582
35
16.63
22
Moser - Sygic
249
282
531
27
19.67
Full Ranking
We said it - the Top 3 didn't do overly well. So they're no longer Top 3. Instead, we have a new leader. That leader is... Gazelle! After their amazing Giro run, the Dutchmen managed to jump right from 11th to 1st, currently totalling 3,907 points. With a PpRD of almost 46, they're also the leaders according to this value - and they do (very, very likely) have a Dombrowski GT yet to come. Title candidates?
Team Puma had a mighty impressive month - in particular with Herklotz' Giro run, of course. They did more than double their score this month, which currently stands at 3,688 points. The jump from 16th to 2nd obviously is the biggest one observed this month. However, despite this huge month, their PpRD is "only" #5 of the division. And given their heavy dependence on Herklotz, who only has 7 RDs left, they would probably have needed to be in the lead by quite a margin to really fight for the title - even a podium doesn't look that safe...
Instead, we're looking at the team in 3rd place which could spice things up at the very top. King Power may only have moved up from 5th to 3rd, but they've just shown in Lithuania that they are capable of doing amazing things. They should have a McNulty GT left - and they only trail Puma by 33 points! Their 43 PpRD average is the 2nd best, and they look well set for a podium at least - or more?
Podium or more, that will most definitely not be the case for Jura. Indeed, the Swiss have overtaken all of the previous Top 3 - but were in turn overtaken by 3 new teams, hence staying in 4th place, mostly thanks to a really strong Giro. Without a serious GT contender, it's hard to see them still up there in 3 months when Vuelta and Tour are done - but for their main goal of staying up, it doesn't look too bad currently. They're now the highest ranked newly promoted team, which is certainly more than expected at this point of the season.
Former leaders Grieg dropping from 1st to 5th clearly shows that the cobbles season reaches its end, and the GT season has started instead. With no TT-heavy race in the next month, either (and Pedersen not in Cheshire), their downfall might continue a bit, unless Cort does some magic in La Vuelta (if he participates at all). From now on, Grieg will probably be rather in damage limitation rather than attack mode - but you never know!
Xero have also dropped a little, from 3rd to 6th - but they will at least be looking forward to the remaining Ardennes races, where they should make up some ground versus Grieg, Jura and the Pumas at least. GT-wise, however, they could also struggle a bit, even though Manninen should do one of them and could well find some success.
Fastned even dropped 5 spots, from 2nd to 7th - despite having Wellens in the Giro. All of Vansevenant, Phinney and Van Hooydonck had some subpar races this month, definitely hurting their scoring - but at least the former could definitely do well in the Ardennes, too. And with 3,393 points, the gap to Grieg in 5th is still just slightly more than 100 points, so a lot is still possible.
Which definitely holds for the surprise team of April - and more particularly of the Giro - as well. Carlsberg have moved up from 13th to 8th, and unlike some teams ahead of them should be well set for the remaining GTs. They have no particular weakness and should continue scoring - even though their most productive rider in Per obviously doesn't have tons of cobbled races left.
9th place goes to Vesuvio, who may actually regret selling Godoy last offseason. They definitely struggled in the Giro (mostly because of Mohoric being worse than expected), and they will have to hope for Kirsch to be in good shape when it's his turn to perform. Mohoric should obviously score rather well in the Ardennes, but otherwise they might struggle in May, too.
The final Top 10 spot currently belongs to Rabobank, dropping from 8th to 10th. With 3,141 points, they're about 100 points behind Vesuvio - but just 33 ahead of 11th place. Formolo still has the Ardennes to score, but who will ride the Vuelta? Maybe Champoussin? Evenepoel? Both would focus on breakaways rather than GC, with big points then requiring some luck... We'll see in which direction Rabobank's journey continues.
Right outside the Top 10, we now have Tinkoff - diving from 6th to 11th. Cobbles are mostly done, and Skujins' best days seem to be over - up to Sivakov and the sprinters to perform then! Because behind them Oxxo and Aker are luring (both less than 100 points back). Both of them should have some good Ardennes races left, and both might have some good candidates for a GT, too (be it GC rider, KoM hunter or sprinter).
Another 100 points down, with 2,919 to be get an idea of where we currently are, we have Cedevita after a pretty disappointing Giro. The Vuelta might not be much better, though, as Pogacar is waiting for Le Tour according to their HQ - and given their lack of a puncheur, May might be another rough month for them. Unless Katrasnik works his magic in Köln, or Buitrago wins the Vuelta KoM (if he goes there).
Then it's a 150 points gap to cycleYorkshire and Polar, in 15th and 16th place respectively. The latter should have no worries picking a climber for both remaining GTs, whereas the Brits will surely be hoping for a Morton podium in either La Vuelta or Le Tour. Maybe Cullaigh could build upon his Lithuania success and win a GT points jersey? Which obviously is an option for Polar as well with Philipsen. Both teams will struggle in the Ardennes, though.
It's almost 300 points down to the next team then. And it's rather surprising that despite cobbles and hills, Evonik are still sitting as low as 17th place. Sure, Colombia is still missing, and the Ardennes aren't over - and we know they'll be higher up after Le Tour. But with a gap of more than 1,400 points to the leaders, it's hard to see them as title favourites by now - although we know how quickly things can change with monuments and GTs!
And then we're already down to 18th place and the first relegation spot. With Cedevita, cycleYorkshire, Polar and Evonik being the next higher teams - all having one or more potentially big scoring GTs yet to come - we even might have to take Aker in 13th place as a reference. And Aker are already more than 600 points ahead of MOL - who obviously have a Haig GT incoming, too. But it's definitely not a comfortable situation to be in.
The same holds for Assa Abloy. At least they've definitely woken up and have gained another spot, taking 19th place currently. But the cobbles are almost over, so it's hills and sprints for them now. Dainese could obviously score big in a GT - but betting on sprinters isn't the greatest feeling to have. It can go well, and if they stay up, it must be Wisniowski and the sprinters who save them.
ZARA are next, also gaining one place after a good month.They currently have a better PpRD than Evonik, but the perspectives are pretty different for both teams. At least ZARA will have a good GC contender in all GTs, and if they go as well as the Giro, they could still get big points. Certainly don't write them off!
Lidl have dropped from 19th to the penultimate spot. Already 350 points behind safety. And who could bring them back up? De Bie could do well in the Ardennes, but Amstel wasn't great. Kemboi could rock a GT, why not. Faglum is a decent GC contender for a GT - but the Giro may have had the weakest startlist. Van der Poel can always go crazy. But it's a lot of things that have to go well for them to get back up it seems! It's just weird to see how the depth approach has been working well for Jura, and almost not at all for Lidl...
And finally, we have Moser. The team of Gaviria and Kudus. How is it possible for them to be that bad? Their issue is that apart from the aforementioned duo and maybe Hirt, there aren't any big scorers. And so they didn't score big. Kudus should rock a GT and take at least 2nd place, maybe even getting the win. And Gaviria could win a GT points jersey. Will that be enough to stay up? With already 700 points between them and Evonik - and even almost 1,000 points to the next higher team - it sadly looks questionable.
So, that's all text for now, and yes, it's been a lot. Enjoy the numbers!
That one was obvious. Sure, Silvio Herklotz is back at the top - and that's where he'll stay. In the Giro alone, he scored more than all PT riders except for the Top 5 last year. Almost 400 points more than with his 2023 Vuelta win. The standings were rather close last year - I honestly don't expect them to be close this time.
The race for 2nd currently is really close. It's Tom Pidcock who currently has the upper hand, leading 1,195 vs. 1,192 against Mads Pedersen, who made up a lot of ground in the last two months. Without a disappointing Roma Maxima, he'd have taken 2nd - and Pidcock will surely find his own "ifs". Nice fight to follow!
After a very successful Giro, Alexey Lutsenko has also reached more than 1,000 points by now, and is sitting in 4th. Being just around 160 points behind Pidcock, one could well imagine him taking 2nd place after the Ardennes week. But that also holds for Mauri Vansevenant, dropping from 2nd to 5th, trailing Lutsenko by 60 points. AGR was bad, but it's an open race for the "best puncheur" title for sure!
And it's only then, only in 6th place that we have the best TTer of the world. Tom Wirtgen won in Lithuania, as expected - but now will have to wait quite some time for getting the next big points in. 916 points for him, which is 15 more than David Per, who dropped from 5th to 7th. Cheshire could be great for the Slovenian - but after that there's not really much left from him as well.
Simon Yates has jumped up from 15th to 8th after a decent Giro, and with currently 846 points isn't that far behind Lutsenko and Vansevenant. We'll see how he handles the tougher Ardennes classics!
Mads Würtz is another 60 points back, with 783 points, having dropped from 4th to 9th, and has similar issues as Wirtgen in terms of race selection. Which also holds for Lukasz Wisniowski in 10th place, although he'd obviously pick cobbles instead of TTs. Both are rare these days.
Gerts, Carthy and Eastman also are above (or right at) 700 points - but with a new GT this month, we'll obviously see more new names popping up. Maybe someone will imitate Carthy, scoring 712 points and jumping from 479th to 12th place?
Otherwise, Herklotz and Lutsenko are the most impressive improvers, with Latour also making a huge jump inside the Top 20.
Thank you for the fantastic usual as update, Fabianski.
Not the worst ever for us, but it's clear where it went wrong, we scored way lower in the Giro than we could and should have, an extra 200/300 points there, which is very much in the possibilities and expectancies, would have been massive towards our relegation battle.
But that's life. Luckily Halvorsen did his thing in Veenendaal and lucky the largest part of the cobbles season is now as good as over, so at least in most of the remaining races we should be able to have one scorer instead of nobody
That Giro score is pretty depressing. We are still in a decent position overall, but I fear a lot of the teams bellow us will score very big in at least one of the other two Grand Tours.
To answer the question of who will be riding the Vuelta. Van Poppel will be there for the sprints and Kron for some stage hunting. Yeah, not a lot to look forward to.
The Tour should be slightly better though, with Champoussin being there for stages/KoM maybe and Grosu having one last shot at the green jersey before declining.
I'm a bit surprised to see us in third because it does not feel like we're having a good season at all: No victory yet, Gidich being underwhelming so far, Tiller having some inexplicable offdays in some cobbled races, my sprinter Hsu being on 37 points so far when he had 100 more last year at the same point with the same schedule, Quita doing nothing at all and the giro probably being the worst GT we ever had.
There are some ups of course like Herregodts doing better than I expected and McNulty also so far scoring well in the race days he's had so far. And, I guess the team depth allowing for results like Lithuania makes up for some of the individual underperformances. I do really hope individual successes and our first victory will come eventually as well.
Gazelle in first on the back of some smart planning choices is impressive and I could imagine them going all the way depending on who Dombrowski will face in his GT.
Massive, massive update. Thank you for all the information and text, Fabianski! Really appreciated
For us, we managed to get through quite a critical period, scoring wise, with the Giro being part of this update. Not dropping longer down than 13th is fine, as it gives us hope of a top 10 finish. Having said that, it looks like it really will come down to the Vuelta for us, as that is our big, big GT with both Groenewegen and Novak present. We will need big points there. If we can't get them, we can suddenly be in difficulties, seeing how the big points will still be out there for other teams in both the Vuelta and especially the Tour.
These updates are incredible Fabianski. Thank you!
Hugh Carthy might end up being the greatest Carlsberg rider of all time for what he did in the Giro points wise. Whether it was luck or not, he's now 200 points his total from last year with CycleYorkshire, and 400 points above Quintana's total for us. Almost reached Galta's total from last year too. That result is incredible and feels really good from a manager's perspective, given we bought him in sort of a "throw money at the problem" move where he wasn't up for sale. Feels like might be the move that keeps us up, even if it's just luck.
Per slightly below his pace from last year, but still amazing. 2nd cobbled rider was again is great (though Gerts gained a bit in Cheshire). Sad that his season is almost over. Aranburu has sneakily almost hit his points total from last year already. Doesn't make his training worth it, but I hadn't realized he was over last year's pace. AKA has been fine, not great, and Walls has been underwhelming, mainly from the GT sprints. We'll need more from Galta in the second half, but thanks to Carthy's Giro, he doesn't have to be THE guy in the Vuelta.
So, we're in 8th. Obviously I don't expect us to stay there, but 4 months in, we are in a way better spot than we were after 2 or 3 months. Not that many TT GC's ahead, and besides that, we always have at least a little GC chances wherever we go. Though history has shown it's the surprise great result that matter, not consistent middling ones. Another good month or so, and that's when we can start thinking about a future in PT.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
We're going into our lowscoring months, so happy to still see us in 5th position after the first GT. Roubaix the obvious standout race for us, and really not much elsewhere.
Thanks for a great update, Fabianski! It looks great for Gazelle at the moment. They will for sure be very hard to beat.
Always love to read these pieces of art. Thanks so much for doing them so regularly!
Still being this low is far from ideal but of course we have a big backlog of strong Lopez/Lecuisinier races so we will surely rise a bit further. Based on a per-rider PPRD calculation the current projection would rise from 5067 to 6722 points as Lopez/Lecuisinier had a total of 11 RDs so far. Think that is a somewhat accurate idea of how we are doing this season as Lecuisinier is probably a bit underrated due to Liechtenstein failure while Polanc looks good for a much better season but will puncture now with the cobbles almost over.
Still, with the other top teams getting into top shape now, that looks unlikely to put us into proper title contention right now. Gazelle, with a monster Giro and Dombrowski still racing a ton, probably is in a frontrunner position right now. But also Puma (Giro) and King Power (Lithuania) had some killer races where they outperformed massive hopes. So the top of the table is starting to shape up now.
I know we still have GT with Pogacar to come, but looking at the table I don't have a good feeling with how this season is going. We've been mediocre at best. Hopefully I'm wrong and everything works out, but I have a hard time seeing where the points will come from.
Really have no idea what to think here (outside of joy reading another certified banger rankings post from Fabianski) - on one hand, if we manage to only drop three places per GT, then I'll be a very happy man with Areruya fighting through the autumn classics to prevent a further 6-7 place drop to relegation. On the other hand, from the start of the Vuelta to the end of the Tour, in terms of other races I only have two Areruya, two Ganna, and one Manninen in terms of big leadership moments. As the post alludes to, the Giro is the weakest GT squad I sent, but I still doubt it will be the worst rankings drop.
Basically, relegation is still the fight we're in far more than the Top 10 as our projection would have it. Areruya is the only leader with the majority of his schedule still to go (albeit mostly PTHC), though I'd like to think Manninen still has a majority of his scoring still to come unless he wants to score around 1/3 of what he did in his previous PT season I really can't count on much of any depth scoring, so it will have to be a season of some big moments to secure our place in the Pro Tour. I'm already feeling the butterflies at the prospect of Areruya needing a result in Lombardia to bring us home
Fabianski, you prove yet again you're the greatest with another amazing rankings update - love and appreciate it as always And also with your squadbuilding - an amazing season so far for you, hope it can be the springboard to defying expectations - mainly your own - this season
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [PT] Xero Racing
Apologies for not posting very much recently - very busy, and perhaps the most miserable season to follow from the perspective of my team in quite a few years hasn't helped! Thanks to everyone involved in the running of the game for their hard work, will try to be around a bit more in the coming months.
Lidl have dropped from 19th to the penultimate spot. Already 350 points behind safety. And who could bring them back up? De Bie could do well in the Ardennes, but Amstel wasn't great. Kemboi could rock a GT, why not. Faglum is a decent GC contender for a GT - but the Giro may have had the weakest startlist. Van der Poel can always go crazy. But it's a lot of things that have to go well for them to get back up it seems! It's just weird to see how the depth approach has been working well for Jura, and almost not at all for Lidl...
I think this sums up pretty well the disaster that has been our season so far. Kemboi has been ridiculously bad - pretty sure he's been the victim of the 4th sprinter bug a few times, and of PCM bizarrely prioritising Dekker a few other times. No GT for him this season, so with 234 points from 30/49 RDs I'd be surprised if he gets to even half of what would have been hoped for at the start of the season.
De Bie is actually having a surprisingly solid season, and will probably outscore expectations, currently on course for about 900 points. I doubt he'll reach that, but survival will depend on that, VdP continuing to score at a good rate, and two good GT results from Faglum Karlsson. Based on per-rider PPRD we'd be on for 5570 points which should be enough to survive, but I'd be shocked if those 3 all reach the 750-900 points they're on course for.
Given that, I'm already working on the assumption that relegation is pretty much inevitable. Should I decide a rebuild is something to stick around for the plan is likely to be new sponsor, return to the talent focus, and try to build a team that might actually do something in PT. But we'll see - after all, the last long-term rebuild has ended up with another unsuccesful (albeit longer) PT stint
A strong period from us for 10th across all Teams, although carried by the Giro where Choi and Thijssen both did well.
Currently 20th and in a pretty precarious position. Projected to be 2 points above the drop zone with a big gap to projected 16th. Going to be a tough battle with some very strong teams in order to stay up.
Big 2nd half of the season ahead with Choi in the Vuelta and another race in Suisse to come. Shikai has a lot of races left including the Tour where we'll need a big performance. Some good potential for Cosnefroy and the sprints also. Fingers crossed we can get the job done!
Outside of our amazing Giro, this stretch brought mixed success.
Jonas Rutsch did finally get a Top 10 in a big race and hinted at his potential, but Veenendaal not going to the peloton and Kanter not quite making an impact in Lithuania either hurt our points scoring elsewhere a bit, and there wasn't seen much of Madouas either.
Overall though obviously a memorable period of our season.
I really can't count on much of any depth scoring, so it will have to be a season of some big moments to secure our place in the Pro Tour. I'm already feeling the butterflies at the prospect of Areruya needing a result in Lombardia to bring us home 
