The Combuijs Capers

[Combuijs]

In the classical hill time trial to Aledo SPORTLIFE extends its point lead thanks to Coen Bogarde, another 113 points to make up, totalling 330 now.



In the GC though Oliver King goes up to place 13, 3:50 behind our measuring unit. He has now just passed SPORTLIFE's Nicola Miorlin, and that distance will become greater, I feel. Albert Nieuwendijk? Hmm, never heard of...

Ah, De Telegraaf strikes again: It seems we have reached the last 16 and the quarter finals of the cup. In which season, did you say?


They also wrote we have had 10 elite international cyclists in the team. Fact check: indeed, exact 10 riders have been called up once for the Netherlands, Great Britain or Hungary. So apparently there were three wise national coaches...


And I almost forgot, but they say Oliver King is an iconic rider too. I somehow expected that already...

[Vos]

Albert Nieuwendijk? Hmm, never heard of...

Thanks Combuijs, because Albert Nieuwendijk reads your topic also and he is now extra motivated to perform in the flat TT of this evening.
His stage 8 goal = finishing at least 26 seconds before King. 

[Combuijs]

In the time trial to Zaragoza SPORTLIFE took a podium place with Coen Bogarde, while a certain Nieuwendijk finished 17th, so they won a nice 250 points.



After 128 kilometers flat and the Angliru Oliver King arrived at 7th place for which he was the talk of the town. After the race he declared that he owned everything to a very helping Yvo de Cleer.


The SPORTLIFE couple Miorlin and a certain Nieuwendijk finished 19th and 20th, so we won a whopping 22 points and reduced our deficit to 558 points. Right, where is that towel to throw...

In the GC Oliver King is now 13th on 4:08 and as he is training very hard on his hill climbing skills there might still a top 10 place possible. Mike Bauer has a 0:33 lead on KunTeam's Romeu Rosario, so can the last hill stage have a suprising end?

We have sold Inocencio Aleixo for a small amount to the new French Yoteam which operates on the Continental level. We wish them lots of success with their first purchase!

The last monument will be visited by:

181 Tristan Prins
182 Koen Helder
183 Oliver King
184 Eelco van der Laan
185 Eddy Room

[Vos]

After 128 kilometers flat and the Angliru Oliver King arrived at 7th place for which he was the talk of the town. After the race he declared that he owned everything to a very helping Yvo de Cleer.


The SPORTLIFE couple Miorlin and a certain Nieuwendijk finished 19th and 20th, so we won a whopping 22 points and reduced our deficit to 558 points. Right, where is that towel to throw...

Very good race with King, Combuijs. 

And sorry about the thowel. 
This Vuelta is going everywhere a little bit better as I expected. And all those little bits are together a nice/big number of points extra.
However, my expectations in advance could be good (besides 2 mistakes, see 2nd paragraph), and the competion could be bad or riding with bad tactics, also for sure a possibility. 
The main goals were stage 3 and stage 8, and of course I hoped for a stage 3 victory and a 2nd place in stage 8.
But also of course, not calculated in advance. And top results are always very rewarding (regarding points).

And in advance I made a mistake in estimating how good Miorlin was in stage 4. I did not expect at all that he could finish 2nd there, in advance I estimated he could finish max. as 20th or so due to his low flat- and low sprint skill. His tactics were perfect, which plays naturally also a role in deviatons from expectations.
The other mistake/miscalculation could be GC points for Nieuwendijk. Surprising to me (see preview).
Nieuwendijk is bad in the final hills stage. But at the moment he is 9th, he has a good lead of 2:04" on the nr20, and other GC contenders could be bad as well in the final stage. So there is a good chance Nieuwendijk will score GC points, it depends on his rivals in the final stage.

Without maybe possible GC points ; very satisfied with these 1.040 points in the Vuelta. 
A few hundred points more as I estimated in advance.

Good luck in the final Vuelta stage and in Clasica San Sebastian the Giro di Lombardia, Combuijs.

[Combuijs]

Good luck in the final Vuelta stage and in Clasica San Sebastian, Combuijs.

San Sebastian? That's another season and another 6 weeks  . But I will take that good luck to the Giro de Lombardia, as you no doubt intended...

In fact I started our mutual Vuelta competition to show you that you usually underestimate your riders (and your tactical capacities). And unfortunately, you did...

[Vos]

LOL, I just noticed my mistake and was correcting that.

[Vos]

Well, it is difficult to estimate/guess in advance how good my cyclists are compared to the competition.
For example Bogarde was not even a favorite in the time trial and he finished as 2nd. This means some rivals did not have TC bonus, and if and where the competition TC bonus has, that is many times unknown to me.
And as I already mentioned ; besides the 2 clear guess mistakes, I think I estimated it good in advance. And everywere a little bit better as I expected could also mean that the competition is not good. For example health/or form issues at the end of the season, and many more other reasons other than that my estimation of my own cyclists is not correct.

About the "battle" between our teams this Vuelta. I read that you were going for the GC with King, so I expected at least a top10 GC place with him, although you never wrote that goal down. That could be my mistake too, including that I often make the mistake at my estimation in advance that the competition is riding the same as I do. That is not always the case, although regularly I make tactical mistakes too. Especially this season a lot of mistakes, but not in the Vuelta, more motivated thanks to your topic, I guess^^. Thanks for that. 

[Vos]

Congrats Combuijs, despite the thowel, you win the battle in the GC :
10    Oliver King   20   Combuijs   4: 46"   250   
12    Albert Nieuwendijk   20   SPORTLIFE   5: 25"   180   

And good Vuelta of your team, a few lightbulbs and a nice amount of points. Compared to some others who posted the total points, I think you scored even more, but I lost count, so I'm not sure.

[Combuijs]

In the last stage in the Vuelta to Ribeira Sacra Tristan Prins clinches 26th place in a free role. Oliver King manages to enter the the top 10 in the GC, far above (e.g. two places) the first SPORTLIFE rider Albert Nieuwendijk, and just above AJFactoryCycler Ed van Vliet, which is encouraging. Winner was of course Mike Bauer, before KunTeams Romeu Rosario and TeamRHB's (Rolf Holds Back?) Dino Moresi.



Division standings after the Vuelta:

1º      Flyvende_hjul   11431   3   1   2   
2º      AJFactoryCycling   9560   5   1   5   
3º      CyKings   9546   9   4   3   

18º      DeRodeVod   5528   2   6   4
19º      Combuijs   5519   1   2   1   
20º      Psychoedge   5403   2   3   6   

Luckily we lost count of how many points we were short on SPORTLIFE, but it was not even close!

[Combuijs]

In the Giro di Lombardia Oliver King could repay Tristan Prins for services in the Vuelta. Because of that help Tristan finished 16th, which was 6 places before the first SPORTLIFE rider. That should have been less, but their team first travelled to San Sebastian before realising the race was held in Italy.



In Innsbruck these riders will try the world championship time trial:

171 Sam Parker
172 Yvo de Cleer
173 Koen Helder
174 Oliver King
175 Trevor Taylor

A day later these riders will go to the only race in America to become world champion:

171 Yvo de Cleer
172 Olvier King
173 Eelco van der Laan
174 Sam Parker
175 Tristan Prins

[Combuijs]

The UCI apparently does not hold records of the time trial World Championships, so while we can remember vaguely Sam Parker scored some points in that race, we don't know the exact result anymore. Too much Combuijs Honey Ale in the end of season party...

The UCI do hold records of the latest Road World Championships, unfortunately filed under next season's one, but at least it is there. Flying Wheel Carl Martinussen won the race before SPORTLIFE's Nicola Miorlin and Cykings Mike Janson. The Combuijs Honey Ale riders did not feature on the first page of the results...



Final standings for season 2, search for your favourite team:

1    Flyvende_hjul   13461
2    CyKings   11771
3    AJFactoryCycling   9870
4    Yvo_Meppelink_ProCycling   9702
5    Wiggo_pupils   8939
6    CobbleCrushers   7799
7    CrossAndGo    7698
8    °Peachy°Melocotons   7559
9    Codex   7521
10    SentinelChickens   7491
11    SPORTLIFE   7474
12    CC_Porco_Jones   7394
13    Rekutxuteam   7233
14    Atlantico   6641
15    Zatarra   6593
16    ProdopingPong   6228
17    DeRodeVod   6198
18    Combuijs   5809
19    Psychoedge   5713
20    Caracoles   5616
21    Matterhorn   5615
22    Pomilles_Balears   5575
23    ValeronIdolo   5512
24    KunTeam   5219
25    Thorboassonarvesen   5123
26    LOSRAYOSDELARRY   5059
27    BorinotTeam   4996
28    FlyEaglesFly   4601
29    CaptainOrange   4566
30    MortoviaCycling   4493
31    skunk   4162
32    galegospolabici   4126
33    Senglarsdeflandes   4094
34    $Tourmalet   3832
35    Huesca   3609
36    EuskaPiero   3418
37    TeamRHB   3349
38    Mlb   3156
39    OmicronDS   3124
40    NormanTeam   2345
41    Turrones   2190
42    Deabruak   2131
43    Sonfuga   1807
44    RIO_mare    1560
45    Telleriarte   1431
46    WinterIsComing   1419
47    vercors   1352
48    Skyliners   898
49    KinchenTeam   743
50    Inglourious_Bastards   90

The Norwegian Flying Wheels are the first champions, congratulations to them. It would be fair if next season they just kept to the road instead of flying around. Both teams coming from the same 3rd division as we did have relegated. WinterIsComing is no surprise as they switched to a new youth academy, but $Tourmalet is a surpise, they simply stopped scoring points. Anyway, it's clear it's pretty difficult to stay on the World Tour if you want to.

While he has hardly appeared in a race De Telegraaf has called Adam Neeskens an iconic rider. As always they can draw conclusions based on very few data...


So, bring on season 3!

[Zatarra]

Congratulations on your good season. You've won a race at last and you're able to right at WT level next season as well!

The question for season 3 remains: will you be able to finish in front of the Zatarrians this season? .

[Combuijs]

We are preparing for the next season in Australian Prospect, so that's a good reason to see what our prospects are for season 3.



As you can see not a very inspiring environment, but now we can focus on the things that really matter. Our main goals will be to stay in the World Tour and to develop our greatest talents. These are hill cobbler Garret Rose, hill sprinter Thomas Freitag and tour rider Oliver King. A very diverse group of targets, but we think we can manage to train them all more or less optimal. The big puzzle will be where to fit in a spell of sprint training for Thomas. We might do it after the current hill training or we might do it after all the other necessary skills have been trained.

Of course we want to beat Zatarra and SPORTLIFE this season, but they have shown to have a better team than we have. I think we will depend on a holiday-lapse from their side...

In long term we will be cutting away the less talented riders and we will try to find some replacements in other fields, like a time trialist, another tour rider and a nice 19 year old to train up. We have started by firing our current time trialler Trevor "no score" Taylor. We have seen some interesting riders, but our treasurer keeps shaking with his head. Prices are extremely high now.

Our short term goals are the Omloop het Nieuwsblad and the Strade Bianchi as we have sponsor deals for both of these races.

After consulting our mechanic Tigran Filin and our treasurer we have decided to go for Scott bikes this season as they are a bit cheaper than the Specialized ones of last season and we don't have a serious time trialler up until now.


Our ultra short term goals are the Tour Down Under, which will feature:

171 Midas van Veldhuizen
172 Carlo Bemelmans
173 Thomas Freitag
174 Tristan Prins
175 Eddy Room

And our first goal will be the cup ride against Telleriarte (Continental Pro Tour), which is a village of 207 inhabitants in Basque Country. These 5 riders are going to battle against these 207 in a climbing hill race in Switzerland:

1 Tristan Prins
2 Olvier King
3 Chester Laybutt
4 Sam Parker
5 Eddy Room

We wish all players lots of fun and success (in that order), and just that little bit less success than we will have.

Proost!

[Combuijs]

Carlo Bemelmans was called up in the national team for helping services in a hill race around Offida. His help was of such quality that Dutchman Jurgen Lustig could finish second.

The cup race to Rheinfelden against Telleriarte was too close for comfort. In the end Tristan Prins with help from Oliver King could take 6 seconds on Marcus Røsner-Hansen.



For the next round we stay in Switzerland for a hill sprint race against Continental Pro Tour team Kinchen. We should be considered favourite for that race, but Geneve is still far away...

[Combuijs]

Two races in the Tour Down Under and still no points. Unhappy? Not entirely, we have Midas van Veldhuizen on place 17 in the GC, so there might be still some points for us long term.

The first stage to Lyndoch went to Yvo Meppelink Pro Cycler Wilfred Bentinck, no doubt the first of many to come this season. In the second stage Bloemen aan de Mitte showed that they don't need to adjust to the World Tour level as Elvijs Igaunis won in Paracombe.

No beer or champagne for them though: