Season 17

[Vos]

Alaphilippe won the 2020 worldchampionship race in Imola

This CFF season 17 the Giro d'Italia finishes also in Imola, on the Autodrome Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari.
The CFF record holder of this Giro stage 10 is the retired legend Arno Verbeek ( TeamRHB ).

Who is going to win this prestigious Imola stage in season 17 ? And who is going to win the Giro d'Italia ?
previous Giro winners :

3x  Mike Bauer ( CyKings )  -->  s2 + s5 + s6
2x  Anthony Hilton ( CaptainOrange )  -->  s11 + s12
2x  Antonello Lorenzetto ( Marcatone_Due )  -->  s8 + s9 
2x  Adam Roethlisberger ( Rekutxuteam )  -->  s3 + s7
1x  Aleksandr Menke ( FaltososDeChigre )  -->  season 16
1x  Oscar Marcos ( IKIBASQUE )  -->  s15
1x  Romeu Rosario ( KunTeam )  -->  s14
1x  Lazare Pires ( FrançaiseDesJeux )  -->  s13
1x  Rafael Carlos Loinaz ( °Peachy°Melocotons )  -->  s10
1x  Steven Pillig ( Turrones )  -->  s4

And who are the winners of all other tours, stages and races of season 17 ?
Good luck everyone ! 

[Franky]

I'm back here! 

[Davilo07]

Second season in a row in d1 for lemarche. And I am going to try to make a 3rd one. This year my goals are very similar to last's:

-paris Roubaix it's always our main goal. This year we'll train very hard to  achieve it. Vou Vou, Jonny "beGood" hummelsby, Zack gray and David kamper are the dream team for this task.
- winning any other classics. Rooney will be going to gent with gorter as his main helper. This year bbt doesn't suit him as last year did, so they are going to focus their season in this first cob-hills races. Tunik wants to try his luck in the Ardennes. And alstad in the latest moun-hills classics of the season.
-another top5 in classics. With the riders above plus legarra, who came to the team to show us what he is capable of in San remo and stamjnisder in Frankfurt.
-top3 in the Copa mapei teams classification. Have you heard of this competition? A very interesting classics extraofficial competition. You can compete by teams and individually.

We will see at the end of the season what we were able to achieve. Good luck to everybody!

[Vos]

Today hills specialist Kluivert and sprinter Lebrun were sold, what is a big quality-loss, also and already in this Tour Down Under.
These transfers caused at 1am that my team moved up from place 50 to place 27 in 1A, so I have no longer the poorest 1A team.
Also I needed the space (in my always too full team), although I bought 2 other cyclists at the same moment ;

Valotti (30, gold tour) for just 2,1 M. High ranked ( and i.mo. overrated ) as nr 93 due to his good TT skill.
Because although he can climb and ride hills, both skills are not strong. And he has just a little cobbleskill aside and no sprint skill.
He can ride the TDU to get in topform, but his future in my team is uncertain. Maybe he will be just a helper, or maybe he will be sold soon.
After testing Valotti in Paris Nice, his future will be more clear.

Walker (35, silver hills + little sprint) ; an "investment" of 21k to give this 14x Australian international a joyfull, dignified end of his career.
He is very delighted to ride for my team, because it is the first time ever that he is riding in division 1A.
A great way for him to say goodbye to cycling after this highest level TDU in his own country.
No pressure, because I have no expectations that he can score points. But he is extra motivated now, so maybe he surprises me.

   selection SPORTLIFE

The goals for this not good, poor selection are :
Rubiera for good results in hills stages 1 and 2.
And Millan should score a few points in stage 4, the time trial.

71 Rubiera ( 25 ), hills
72 Millan ( 33 ), TT
73 Raymond ( 31 ), hills
74 Walker ( 35 ), hills + little sprint
75 Valotti ( 30 ), xp / form

stage 1 TDU ;
28º Rubiera 
A very bad start of the season. Unexpectedly Rubiera dropped in s2, what messed up the tactics.
In previous season he finished as 7º in this same stage 1 TDU ( with the same not-topform and the same tactic ).
The much less good helper was not the reason of the s2 drop, because helper Raymond stayed in the front groups of s1, s2 and s3.

[Vos]

After the relegation of CobbleCrushers in previous season, it is now official :
SPORTLIFE is the only team that is all 16 seasons in division 1A.

[Thorin]

After the relegation of CobbleCrushers in previous season, it is now official :
SPORTLIFE is the only team that is all 16 seasons in division 1A.

Wow!

Nice job, Vos!

[Vos]

Thanks 

[Vos]

stage 2 TDU ;
15º  Rubiera
It went better in this stormy hills race. And Rubiera is not in topform yet, so probably my expectations were too high in this TDU.

[Davilo07]

Hills have seen their level increased very much this season caracoles and others are now in d1 so there are more competitors. And this second race was a very strange one, the wind messed up the whole thing and we could see different groups attacking and at the end, the usual one, won.

[Vos]

Indeed, you are totally right, Davilo.
And Rubiera ( 25yo ) is not happy with the young, amazing hills specialists.
He was 10th in the golden hills ranking, but he dropped 6 places at the start of this season.

[Aurora Australis]

Not bad for an old guy.
5º   Richard Levin   35   Aurora_Australis   a 0 minutos 16sg   83


And first one to gain this achievement (well once it arrives later today - or tomorrow CFF time).


Btw: Great job Vos.  Only a few more seasons for you to be 1st to the 25 seasons in Div1 achievement.

[Vos]

stage 4 TDU ;
14º  Millan

Very nice result ( 5º ) and nice milestone of Richard Levin. 
Is Levin also going for the Chris Horner Trophy, AA ?

Chris Horner Trophy= points of a 37yo, although that seems to me extreme difficult for any cyclist, and most likely too difficult / impossible.
But for sure I will give it an attempt somewhere in the future, just for fun. 

[Aurora Australis]

If Levin makes it to 37 years, he'll get it easy (I don't think any other cyclist is likely to).  Of course that's subject to two things, first that his spot isn't needed for a 19-year-old, and second that I remain in Div1 (not a problem this season - but I suspect a big problem next).

I think winning a race at 34 years of age would be harder.

[Franky]

I started this season as I started 2 seasons ago... failing with Jasper  such a hard S1!! (then, other times I go hard in S1 and ohh, you spent a lot of efforts..  )

[Vos]

An embarrasing start of season 17 ; for the first time ever SPORTLIFE did not achieve a top 10 result in any of the TDU stages.
Already in the relegation zone of 1A ( 33º ), and my team does not have cobblehills specialists, so it will drop even further in 1A.

Well, in most other seasons I had no cobblehills specialists and my team was not prepared for the TDU ;
so, I guess this is again a season that will really start in Paris Nice.

But in contrast to many other seasons ; I have not one or more prepared cyclists for the first tours of the season.
Despite this, hopefully my Paris Nice selection is strong enough to get SPORTLIFE out of the relegation zone.
Although that is doubtfull, because 4 out of the 5 will be tour cyclists, what causes difficult strategic / tactical choices ( and less points ).
What makes it even more complicated ; 3 of them ( they ride the Vuelta a Periódica and the Calles Blanco ) are just in stages 4 and 5 in topform.