The Combuijs Capers

[WinterIsComing]

Unlike Combuijs, my cyclists have to learn a lot about Time Trials. I hope to climb a bit in the Allround Classification in the BinckBank Tour though. Good luck with Carlo!

[Combuijs]

In the last stage of the Binck Bank Tour to Lanaken Carlo Bemelmans was 6 seconds short and finished 4th, while helper Eddy Room managed a 10th place.



In the GC Carlo finished 6th and the rest of our team was 11th, 12th, 14th and 15th. So, in the GC we did a "WinterIsComing" but then on a lower level (they were 2nd, 7th, 8th, 10th and 24th).

Too many goals in this season's Vuelta and only five riders to achieve them:

21 Arjen Rutte
22 Yvo de Cleer
23 Julius Maalderink
24 Daniel Rooijakkers
25 Andreas van Zijl

We have a shared leadership between Arjen and Yvo, one of them has to reach 10th place, we want get Julius up in the individual division standings, Daniel can do his thing in the time trial and help on the cobbles and Andreas is here to please a sponsor in stage 9.

In the first stage the Chicken Pass Yvo de Cleer managed to become second in a free role. Andreas van Zijl got 26th place and Arjen Rutte lost 7 minutes, which is more than expected. We will have a conference this afternoon about the leadership in our team...



Division standings after the first stage of the Vuelta:

1º      WinterIsComing   29032   5   7   18   
2º      $Tourmalet   28739   11   15   14   
3º      Combuijs   25251   19   15   11   
4º      Kalarratas   17502   4   14   8   
5º      Plopsala   16000   16   4   3   

We have a new leader, which is a bit unexpected. Or maybe not...

Next five weeks updates may be more scarce due to holidays of our spokesman, but we will try to keep you informed.

[Rico]

Five weeks!!!???!!!

The sale of honey ale must have gone through the roof. 

[WinterIsComing]

Have a nice holiday, Combuijs! Pity if we cannot enjoy your reviews in the final week of the season, but it's more important that you will enjoy your well deserved holiday. Thumbs up for your work throughout the season. 
I really had fun reading all of it, as well as I enjoyed racing together with you in 3g! Next season we will both be in 1st division. Hope you will keep your Combuijs Capers alive

I will try to consolidate my first place in the rankings, although it was a bit unexpected to me as well that I was able to overtake $Tourmalet. 

[Combuijs]

Some nice results in the Vuelta until now:

Stage 2 saw Julius Maalderink finsihing 10th, before Arjen Rutte (19th) an Yvo de Cleer (23rd).

In stage 3 Yvo de Cleer finishes 11th.

In stage 4 we have Julius Maalderink 20th and Arjen Rutte 18th.

Daniel Rooijakkers wins the 5th stage, a time trial. Andreas van Zijl 7th, Yvo de Cleer 8th and Arjen Rutte 24th. This was our 20th win this season, so a special Spanish edition of our Combuijs Honey Ale was appropriate.

Arjen Rutte wins the 6th stage before Julius Maalderink, Daniel Rooijakkers picks up 7th place.

Arjen Rutte wins also the 7th stage before Julius Maalderink, Daniel Rooijakkers picks up 15th place, Andrea van Zijl 19th.

The GC after this stage:

1    Pedro Kranz   19   MelonKas   0: 00"   0   0
2    Yvo de Cleer   19   Combuijs   0: 10"   0   0
3    Giovanni Arias   19   WinterIsComing   0: 25"   0   0
4    Nobby Kellman   19   $Tourmalet   0: 50"   0   0
5    Les Winger   19   WinterIsComing   1: 01"   0   0

In the Giro di Lombardia these riders will finish amidst the carlights:

21 Tristan Prins
22 Carlo Bemelmans
23 Yvo de Cleer
24 Chester Laybutt
25 Eddy Room

In the WC time trial these riders will be tortured:

21 Daniel Rooijakkers
22 Koen Helder
23 Norman Schuh
24 Julius Wiegel
25 Andreas van Zijl

In the WC race these riders will represent their countries:

21 Carlo Bemelmans
22 Chester Laybutt
23 Adam Neeskens
24 Tristan Prins
25 Eddy Room

Our mechanic Tigran Filin is really doing his best, but still no improvements for cobblestones...


We are very happy with our sales manager though. As Ricoo already remarked, the sale of Combuijs Honey Ale is going through the roof.

[Combuijs]

The 8th stage of the Vuelta was won by Yvo de Cleer, but in the 9th stage we were very disappointed by the 11th place of Arjen Rutte, the 14th place of Andreas van Zijl and the 19th place of Yvo de Cleer. Also sponsor Mercedes Benz was disappointed, so we won't ride in a Mercedes bus next season.

The last stage of the Vuelta was won by our Arjen Rutte before Julius Maalderink (2nd), Daniel Rooijakkers (13th) and Andreas van Zijl (23rd). That was our 5th win in the Vuelta.

In the GC we got a happy sponsor Ford who could choose between Yvo de Cleer and Arjen Rutte:

1    Les Winger   19   WinterIsComing   0: 00"   1000   166667
2    Pedro Kranz   19   MelonKas   1: 26"   800   150000
3    Giovanni Arias   19   WinterIsComing   1: 33"   650   133333
4    Nobby Kellman   19   $Tourmalet   2: 01"   550   116667
5    Romeu Maximo   19   Kalarratas   2: 08"   500   100000
6    Yvo De Cleer   19   Combuijs   2: 25"   450   83333
7    Michel Elzinga   19   WinterIsComing   2: 47"   400   66667
8    Arjen Rutte   19   Combuijs   5: 55"   350   58333

And we had Andreas van Zijl on 19th place. So we will ride in Ford Transits next season :-)


Still some food for thought as we had calculated that Arjen would end higher than Yvo in the GC which was not the case, even when Arjen was leader in all stages.

Tristan Prins was second in the Giro de Lombardia, helper Eddy Room 29th.

The World Championship time trial was won by Spaniard Jesus Alberto Soto of WinterIsComing. Our Daniel Rooijakkers was 12th, Koen Helder 21st and Norman Schuh 26th.

The World Championship race was won by Australian Isaac Montgomery of WinterIsComing. Our Carlo Bemelmans was 12th.

Team classification at the end of the season:

1º      WinterIsComing   39220   9   8   20   
2º      $Tourmalet   33786   11   17   15   
3º      Combuijs   30182   24   19   11   
4º      Kalarratas   21321   4   14   10   
5º      CojoNudos   19924   3   6   4   
6º      Plopsala   17388   17   4   4   
7º      Bolaverde   16378   7   6   8
8º      Jediondos   14243   0   2   4
9º      MelonKas   10835   2   5   1   
10º      eaglesOFcarthage   10494   9   3   5   

Individual classification at the end of the season:

1º      Pedro Kranz   19   5982   MelonKas   2   5   1   
2º      Julius Maalderink   19   5454   Combuijs   6   6   2   
3º      Romeu Maximo   19   5269   Kalarratas   1   3   3   
4º      Yvo De Cleer   19   5260   Combuijs   7   3   1   
5º      Valentijn Teffer   19   5079   WinterIsComing   3   2   3   
6º      Kirk Trump   19   4942   $Tourmalet   3   2   5   
7º      Nobby Kellman   19   4802   $Tourmalet   0   5   3   
8º      Hallgeir Solhaug   19   4351   Bolaverde   5   1   0   
9º      Lucas Freitas   19   3730   Kalarratas   0   2   0   
10º      Tristan Prins   19   3699   Combuijs   2   5   3   
11º      Carlo Bemelmans   19   3667   Combuijs   3   2   2   

And so we are going to prepare for a very tough next season on World Tour level.

[Combuijs]

All riders have been salivating as they saw our new Specialized bikes. We don't want to hear complaints about their material from now on!


The riders had some problems with masseur Egon Kreuz, so he has been replaced by Vince Haber, who wants to spend more time in Europe after the Brexit.

We had some problems with the tactical views of Roque Moron, so we have replaced our director with Portuguese Belarmino Farinha. That of course means we will have still some communication issues, but with some Portuguese lessons for everyone we feel that can be solved.

The UCI has published some remarkable figures about last season, and one of them is that our team has raced in all stages.


Another one is that we have raced them all with 5 riders. To quote George Clooney: What else?


We will ride in the Cup for the first time and we will do a Paris-Nice stage from Chatou to Meudon, a flat hill cobble race, against Continental Pro Saul Salinas Team. With cobbles and hills as their weak point, I think we are favourite in this race.

These rider will make their cup debut:

11 Chester Laybutt
12 Adam Balogh
13 Julius Maalderink
14 Arjen Rutte
15 Julius Wiegel

In the Tour Down Under these riders will represent the Combuijs Honey Ale team:

441 Carlo Bemelmans
442 Adam Balogh
443 Adam Neeskens
444 Tristan Prins
445 Eddy Room

We have not ordered any Magnum bottles yet, we just hope for some points on this difficult World Tour level.

[Combuijs]

Yesterday evening we had a nice cup race against Saul Salinas Team. In the race from Chatou to Medon, Chester Laybutt did what we was bought for last season:

1    Chester Laybutt   a hours 0 minutes 0 seconds
2    Adam Balogh   a hours 0 minutes 15 seconds
3    Earl Stamer   a hours 0 minutes 15 seconds    

In the next round we will ride Milan - San Remo against fellow World Tour team Skyliners. At the moment both teams have not any sprinters, so this might be a close one.

Yesterday evening also Carlo Bemelmans made his international debut for the Dutch team, and he even did finish. Way behind winner Erling Brynildsen, but let's not talk about details, shall we?

The first stage of the season in the Tour Down Under was won by that phenomenal Erling Brynildsen of Borinot Team, but more importantly our Tristan Prins managed 8th place in a free role. So the first points are already there and we are immediately out of the relegation zone. Leader Carlo Bemelmans Finished on 1:28 which is not too bad.

And de Telegraaf strikes again: according to this quality paper we have been in the top 5 of the first division. Oh yes, and pink elephants can fly!


(Admittedly, we had rank 3 when I first logged in in this new season, but that was before we bought our new cycling equipment. We probably just had a lot of money...)

[Combuijs]

In the second stage of the Tour Down Under Carlo Bemelmans finished 18th, so some additional points for us. But in further stages we did not do well enough, as expected.

Division standings after the Tour Down Under

1º      BorinotTeam   958   2   0   0   
2º      Rekutxuteam   861   0   1   0   
3º      Yvo_Meppelink_ProCycling   740   2   0   0   

26º      galegospolabici   95   0   0   0   
27º      Combuijs   93   0   0   0   
28º      Skyliners   92   0   0   0   

Already the relegation line is approaching rapidly...

Mechanic Tigran Filin received a compliment for the quality of the bikes


De Telegraaf reported that money should be no problem for us. Well, we are not Ajax, aren't we?


They also reported that we have had our first international rider in the team, Carlo Bemelmans. Well international he was, but he did not finish within the first 100 in Sallanches.


That being true, the rest of the news was rather trivial: We scored points with an U23 rider in the first division. Great deal that!


No doubt they will report tomorrow that we sold our first rider, Daniel Rooijakkers. Milanezen wanted him very badly. The paper will speculate that millions will be involved, but in fact it was only 40,000

These riders will do the first stage in Europe, de Omloop het Volk (yes, I know this is called different nowadays).

261 Chester Laybutt
262 Adam Balogh
263 Ørjan Henningsen
264 Julius Maalderink
265 Arjen Rutte

These riders will bite the dust in the Strade Bianchi:

261 Chester Laybutt
262 Ørjan Henningsen
263 Julius Maalderink
264 Oscar Meijer
265 Arjen Rutte

We again hope to score some points here!

[Combuijs]

Chester Laybutt finished 13th in de Omloop het Volk, which was a bit disappointing. He complained about having a bad night before, in which he had a point. Next time we will protect the team bus against night noises.

In the Strade Bianchi he became 19th, well rested now, but this race is less to his liking.

Division standings after the white roads:

1º      CobbleCrushers   1370   1   0   1   
2º      Atlantico   1360   1   0   0   
3º      Rekutxuteam   1206   0   1   0   

22º      galegospolabici   335   0   0   0   
23º      Combuijs   313   0   0   0   
24º      KunTeam   226   0   0   0   

We have bought Thomas Freitag from Vitimper for services in Milan - San Remo, the cup, hill sprints in general and long term hill training.

These riders are going to the sun:

221 Eddy Room
222 Carlo Bemelmans
223 Thomas Freitag
224 Julius Maalderink
225 Arjen Rutte

[Zatarra]

From what I've heard Konrad Magnussen is looking forward to the first flat-cobble confrontation with Maalderink and Rutte.

[Combuijs]

In the first stage of Paris-Nice we did nothing to remember, but the second stage over the cobbles to Vierzon had our interest beforehand. And as you might have heard, not only our interest. In hindsight Zatarra's remark was brilliant tactics, because now Arjen Rutte looked over his right shoulder to note with satisfaction that he would beat Konrad Magnussen, but alas, on his left side Rolv Sele could surprise him. Very happy with second place, but it could have been more, one feels. Julius Maalderink finished 30th as a helper. Still, congratulations to Zatarra from a farmer with dental problems...

And yes, De Telegraaf has awoken one day after the event:

[Zatarra]

Thank you, Mr. Combuijs. Rolv was very happy with the stage win and Konrad was happy to see his team mate win. He knows he will get a chance to beat Arjen himself later on.

[Combuijs]

Arjen Rutte knows now over which shoulder to look in the cobble race in the Tirreno Adriatico. He will be prepared!

Yesterday afternoon Carlo Bemelmans picked up a 19th place on Mont Brouilly with some help from Eddy Room.

Thomas Freitag has started his ale drinking career quite promising with a 10th place in Orléans after terrific help from Carlo Bemelmans.

We have sold our second rider. Andreas van Zijl has found hope and a new team in Espérance. He can show off his cobbleclimbing skills there.

After a heated conversation with Norman Schuh we have allowed him to find another team in which he can flourish, of course against certain financial conditions.

Yvo de Cleer will be our second national rider. He received a phone call from coach GinneR this morning while trying to get some rest after this night's training.

De Telegraaf has noted our yesterday's podium place as well:


Additional news:

These riders are going to beat Konrad Magnusson in the Tirreno Adriatico:

191 Arjen Rutte
192 Thomas Freitag
193 Ørjan Henningsen
194 Guido Leeghwater
195 Epifanio Merchan

[Combuijs]

No serious results in the remainder of the stages in Paris-Nice, this were the division standings after the first stage of the Tirreno Adriatico:

1º      Rekutxuteam   2163   0   2   0   
2º      BorinotTeam   1550   2   1   1   
3º      Atlantico   1546   1   0   0   

24º      Codex   551   0   0   0   
25º      Combuijs   538   0   1   0   
26º      vercors   476   0   0   0   

In the flat stage to Salsomaggiore Terme in the Tirreno Adriatico Thomas Freitag was of course not up to Wilfred Bentinck (but then who is?) of Yvo Meppelink Pro Cycling but 24th place for a hill sprinter is not bad. 19 year old Guido Leeghwater did well as a helper, he finished 45th.

Thanks to Thomas we have passed to the third round of the cup. He was the one who could just beat Rolf-Peter Baumgartner of Skyliners in Milan-San Remo. Somehow very satisfying to beat a German team with a German rider. The next round we will have a time trial finishing on a hill against teamsomio from the Pro Continental Tour and it is really a pity we have sold our two less bad time trialist. We will have to ponder how we are going to handle this.

This afternoon there will be snow on the top of Terminilio, so we will have to see what Epifanio Merchan can do there. And tomorrow morning there is the important cobble race where we will play the Arjen and Ørjan cards...