Jayco AlUla thread

[Vader]

There's an interesting article here, reviewing the 2024 season and the WT relegations coming at the end of 2025.
https://velo.outsideonline.com/road...down-the-uci-points-team-rankings/?scope=anon

Jayco are well clear of the relegation zone, with Astana and B&B Hotels needing miracles to avoid being relegated.

Towards the bottom of the article they review how teams went compared to pre-season "2024 Team BTP NET Projections". Basically, they looked at the team rosters and the past performances of those riders, and predicted how the teams would go throughout the 2024 season.

Jayco were the standout worst performers, relative to the pre-season predictions. They were predicted to be the 5th best team, but finished a woeful 14th. The article puts it down to significant under-performance by 2 riders - Caleb Ewan and Simon Yates. Yates' transition from GC rider to occasional stage winner resulted in him claiming only 1/3 of his 2023 points tally, while Ewan's descent from mediocrity to outright shiteness has been well documented here.

 

[eth-dog]

There's an interesting article here, reviewing the 2024 season and the WT relegations coming at the end of 2025.
https://velo.outsideonline.com/road...down-the-uci-points-team-rankings/?scope=anon

Jayco are well clear of the relegation zone, with Astana and B&B Hotels needing miracles to avoid being relegated.

Towards the bottom of the article they review how teams went compared to pre-season "2024 Team BTP NET Projections". Basically, they looked at the team rosters and the past performances of those riders, and predicted how the teams would go throughout the 2024 season.

Jayco were the standout worst performers, relative to the pre-season predictions. They were predicted to be the 5th best team, but finished a woeful 14th. The article puts it down to significant under-performance by 2 riders - Caleb Ewan and Simon Yates. Yates' transition from GC rider to occasional stage winner resulted in him claiming only 1/3 of his 2023 points tally, while Ewan's descent from mediocrity to outright shiteness has been well documented here.

Velo have always overrated the squad tbf. We rocked up to each Grand Tour with a sprinter and a fringe top 7/8 GC candidate. Yates was never matching last year when the big 4 were riding the Tour, even though one abandoned. One bad day took out his GC ambitions for a top 5.

Using Yates at the Tour was always going to be stupid. If we had chosen to go with Zana or Dunbar we probably end up with a similar GC result and a much superior one at the Giro with Yates being at the very least equal to Martinez, Thomas (who's well past it) and O'Connor who were fighting for 2-4, if not better.

What will be interesting is to see O'Connor's schedule. He's better than Zana and Dunbar by 5-10 minutes GC wise and he's said he wants the Tour but if, as I suspect, none of the Big 4 ride the Giro he probably goes in as one of the favourites along with Simon Yates, Jai Hindley and Juan Ayuso if he chooses that.

 

[eth-dog]

Harper the final spot as expected. No official word on where Grondahl Jansen (probably Uno-X), Maas (who I think is very unlucky, he's a good workhorse), Quick and Porter are going. Quick should be able to find a ProTour team at a minimum, think he can end up as a good lead out rider. Porter I don't see it. Maas should get a WT team.

Hamilton signed for a year at Ineos. Probably domestique at one or two of the GT's?