Harper last minute withdrawal from UAE Tour with illness which means they have no GC rider. need to hope Groenewegen can pull out a stage victory. Stage one was a new finish with an uphill drag ( super difficult ) won by Milan. Pogi lead it out and collapsed in the last 100 metres. This was a perfect stage for Bling.
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Matthews would not have beaten Milan given the form he’s in.
Just ridiculous power levels.
Jayco have been awful at the Ruta Del Sol. Groenewegen must be driving the team crazy. Perfect lead out in the last stage of Alula but chooses to be overly patient and finishes second, while today in the UAE Tour instead of following his lead out he drops one rider back and gets boxed in. Please follow your lead out. Bling races next in the PN. he is fine but just not racing.
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Excellent podcast by matt stephens on his coffee ride featuring Bling. He owns a nice apartment in Monaco and 2 flashy cars.
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Hamish Mckenzie wins stage three of the pro velo super league. I have to wonder why he is riding in this series seeing he is contracted with Jayco’s WT team in 2026, and is rding for the Conti team in 2025. he could have been riding the ruta Del Sol. jack ward is looking good for the overall title, although he will miss a round to watch the Aussie Mountain Bike championship.
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Jack Ward wins the final stage of the Tour of Tasmania, and he gains 17 seconds on Marriage to win the GC by 1 second!
Ward is super talented. I was impressed with how he attacked on stage 2. Jayco needs to nail his signature. Gotta say the womens edition has suffered from. Negative racing.
Merlier with a special sprint performance in stage 6 of the UAE tour. Walscheid finished a photo finish 4th which shows how good Jaycos lead outs have been and of course Groenewegen is faster. Berhe stuffed up the final of stage 4 of Ruta Del Sol. He was in a large breakaway and couldnt hold the wheel in the final 8km before the steep final 500 metres. Of course he easily wins the sprint from the third group. Really Jayco should have had 2 or 3 riders in this break.
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Jayco has selected an uninspiring team for opening weekend in Belgium with no Bling or Schmid and even including a development rider for KBK.
Gotta give a shout out to Amber Pate who has really improved in her two years in the WT and Mackenzie Coupland who should be WT ready in 2026. Finally, I am disappointed in how the wonen’s side has played out in the women’s Pro Velo League. Unfortunately team tactics withing the same team are styming the ambitions of individual riders.
Ben O’Connor confirmed for Paris Nice.
4 WT riders and a dev rider, two short of the usual 7.
Some riders will double up from Omloop. Where is Durbridge? I know he’s not the rider from the past BUT he always rides classics.
Apparently, Durbridge elected not to ride opening weekend. Plapp is back training on the road and should be back in Basque country.
An uninspiring edition of Onloop. Jayco did well to get reinders into the break who survived to amke the final, however, the rest of the team were rubbish. If Jayco had a second rider in the final, then they could have lead out Reinders who has a good sprint and could have top 10 or better. Although, KBK has an easier parcour I suspect the race will explode. If not Walscheid can top 10.
The women’s edition was a disaster with no team prepared to chase, so riders who would not even dominate the Aussie NRS winning. Jayco has to LEARN to ride to the team’s capabilities which means you must be in the break in these level of races. Jayco had a rider in the break and they win this race.
Team Jayco should be called Team Reinders. It’s been a shocking effort by the team to only have one rider in the finals with 60+ in the peleton. I have no idea why Liv Alula Jayco did not ride Van het Hegeland which they could have won and instead think they will beat Wiebes in Le Samyn. And the women’s team rode brilliantly in le Samyn BUT were in the wrong race.
Jayco,s womens team did an excellent job to get five riders in the final of Strade Bianche. They lack the top end talent to get a result, however, if they continue to ride like this then race circumstances will give a win or two. Mens team was awful as PN and TA are more important.
Jayco have a loaded team at PN with Oconnor, Matthews, Schmid, Durbridge, Hepburn and Walscheid. RECKon they are favorites for the TTT. They will hope that Dunbar and Groenewegen get a result. It is clear these are priority races because there are no young riders in either team.
Jayco would have won that TTT at PN if Durbridge did not crash out in the previous stage. Anyway, O’Connor is in a good position to attack GC. Groenewegen hopeless in TA. crashes with 10kms to go in TA when he was nowhere near his train and that was all she wrote.
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Dunbar crashes out of TA. It’s been another horrible week for Jayco.
It is a deliberate move to have a slow build up for the TDF, however, his form is not what the team expected. Of course he was not helped by the the stuff up with the restart after the neutralisation in stage four which caused him and others to lose time. It does not help that riders have the mind on different targets. O’Connor could have got himself back into GC contention if the team was more vigilant in stage six when the stage split on the descent. There wa sno reason why Bling or Schmid could not have positioned O’Connor to be at the front.
I don’t what to say about Dunbar. He was in good shape and would have done a top 10 or even a top 5 and a rider crashes in front of him. I will say that Dunbar is a bit soft as he finds it hard to ride under adversity.
Finally, Jayco needs to get their act in order or they will be thrown into the relegation dogfight which should not be the case with their talent. Anyway they should do well this week at Denain or Korkstridje. As expected, Jayco is going hard at Kooij. I reckon they are a decent chance.
I have been watching the Swift challenge to receive contracts from Alpecin and Canyon Sram. Its actually disappointing from a Jayco point of view that Emily Dixon won the competition. She has some really good characteristics and anyway should have been on the Jayco development team.
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Good win by Michael Storer in the Siberian stage of Paris-Nice. His interview on the podium was a gem.
Ignored by the Australian media except for SBS.
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Actually I was surprised with the amount of airtime it got on local media.
The ABC ran with it quite heavily, I know a few who were disappointed to hear it there first before they got to watch the replay.
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I watched the last part live, then saw it come up on Euro sports media quickly.
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