Carrying on (slowly) with the season-ending festivities, now we transfer to the sweetest (and in addition most bitter) second of the Podium Cafe 12 months: recognizing the winners of the FSA Directeur Sportif! And to evaluate a number of the attention-grabbing components of this 12 months’s competitors as nicely. I’ve requested the rostrum finishers to cease by in feedback and share their secrets and techniques with us. It’s their second to indulge in your glow.

Photograph by Tim de Waele/Getty Photographs

Males’s Competitors

It looks like I usually begin this dialogue with a take a look at how shut the competitors was, and will we actually have it get any nearer? Nicely, I suppose till we get a one-point victory the reply will proceed to be sure. This 12 months, draisienne1000selle, helmed by Chabinho, defeated Zaidex by José Madureira Pinto by a mere 152 factors, with Champagne Masi’s Blues within the Bottle an extra 303 factors again. [The all time record is a Fignonian 9-point spread from the 2012 women’s comp, if you’re curious.]

Not solely are the numbers shut between the highest two, the groups themselves have an excessive amount of overlapping rider selections, with the largest distinction being draisienne’s alternative of each Yates Bros over Arnaud De Lie and Carlos Rodriguez. The fateful day that arguably determined all the season was October 7, when the Yates Boys completed fifth and sixth for Chabinho, forward of Zaidex’s Rodriguez in seventh, a 250-point web achieve that accounts for the ultimate unfold. Blues closed exhausting with Marc Hirschi and Remco Evenepoel having sturdy finishes, and earned a really respectable third place with a hard-charging peloton of different FSA DS groups nipping at their heels. Your Males’s Competitors Last High Ten:

1. Chabinho, Draisienne100selle, 25,082 factors
2. zaidex, zaidex by josé madureira pinto, 24,930
3. champagne masi, Blues within the Bottle, 24,623
4. bouhanniRacing, Quelqu’un a les trimestres de Thibaut Pinot?, 24,344
5. JM21, Sport Membership Sem Rodinhas, 24,261
6. Stefan King, Van Daert Evenepoel, 24,065
7. AnthoADR, Daghe Biking Membership, 23,905
8. Celestn, ”””24 and underneath – Celestin”””, 23,699
9. Jule, Mamie Nova, 23,663
10. PvdV, Pietje Pelle op zijn Gazelle, 23,555

None of this 12 months’s podium confirmed up close to the highest in 2022, so congrats on leveling up! And a shout out to Jule, whose Mamie Nova is making a second straight top-ten, and PvdV, who has Pietje Pelle within the prime ten for the second time in three years.

Photograph by JEFF PACHOUD/AFP through Getty Photographs

Girls’s Competitors

Huge congrats to Rob Nicolai and Flyindustman for essentially the most dominant victory in FSA DS historical past! Their 19,100 factors fell simply in need of the all time factors file, set in 2012, however the 1,759- level distinction between the highest two is way past the standard outcomes right here, which all the time come right down to mere a whole lot of factors, if that.

In the end, it got here right down to getting large returns on all of their costly hires — Kopecky, Labous, Persico, Lippert and even van Anrooij, with all however Persico bettering on the performances that bought them priced so excessive to start with. mpw5’s Wet Day Girls (nice identify) rode Kopecky, Niewiadoma and Labous to a powerful second, simply forward of Sastre08’s Imanoleta squad, and a charging pack all certain collectively. Try the highest ten after flyindustman:

1. Rob Nicolai, flyindustman, 19,100 factors
2. mpw5, Wet Day Girls, 17,341
3. sastre08, Imanoleta, 17,292
4. andytheciderman, Roast Dinner Appreciation Society, 17,174
5. johnnysteeler, I haven’t bought a clue, 16,902
6. ovesty, Lotta and the remaining, 16,641
7. Moncassin31, Pédale!, 16,635
8. dave.49, Dave’s Staff, 16,203
9. iiturriotz, Iiturriotz taldea, 16,137
10. stubob, Kool n the Gang, 16,103

That is Rob Nicolai’s second prime ten in three years, and similar for ovesty and iituriotz, who have been there or thereabouts in 2021.

Mixed Competitors

Extra excellent news for mpw5, who completed a extremely respectable sixteenth within the males’s comp to win the Mixed title! Nothing too historic about their end, however a complete of 18 factors (including the location in each comps) is correct in there with a typical profitable complete.

1. mpw5, ♀2. Wet Day Girls, 17,341; ♂16.Ready for Gaudu, 21,841
2. PvdV, ♀30. Pietje Pelle op zijn Gazelle, 14,826; ♂3.Pietje Pelle op zijn Gazelle, 23,555
3. andytheciderman, ♀4. Roast Dinner Appreciation Society, 17,174; ♂36.Roast Dinner Appreciation Society, 20,759

Photograph by Dario Belingheri/Getty Photographs

Cut price Riders of the Yr

Questioning what drove these groups to victory? Discovering worth that… nicely, typically plenty of folks noticed, through which case you needed to have these riders simply to maintain up. However actual greatness is in discovering hidden gems. Listed here are just a few instances for this 12 months’s prime values.

On the lads’s facet, Ben Healy will get my vote for finest discount, a two-pointer coming in who generated 1671 factors, topped solely on a per-point-spent charge by Felix Gall, the #1 one-pointer who bagged 1131 factors. On the prime finish of the size, 18-point discount Primož Roglič rode his regular stream of marginal positive aspects to a 3685-point season, lower than 800 off full-priced Tadej Pogačar and barely 200 in need of second-placed Remco Evenepoel, who at 42 and 34 factors paid off fairly sufficient, however not just like the ski jumper.

Photograph by Luca Bettini – Pool/Getty Photographs

On the ladies’s facet, no one can prime 1-pointer Cédrine Kerbaol’s per-point-spent haul of 1005, however there have been different terrific bargains larger up the chain, resembling Christina Schweinberger’s 2004-point haul as a six-pointer, and Gaia Realini’s four-point value for delivering 1697 factors paid out. And naturally there’s little debate on the prime finish, the place 52-point Demi Vollering cleared the impossibly excessive bar set for her with a 5282 level complete… however that was a mere 900 higher than her teammate Lotte Kopecky’s sensible season, the place you may have spent thirty factors to haul in her 4386-point complete.

In our Males’s World Rankings, UAE Emirates stunned Jumbo Visma, nothwithstanding the latter’s grand tour treble, by taking the group competitors by 1250 factors. Belgium and France completed off the entrance of the nation comp, in that order.

In our Girls’s World Rankings, SDWorx was each bit as dominant as you bear in mind, almost doubling up second place Canyon SRAM. The Netherlands took the nation title, although not and not using a problem from Italy.

*****

OK, your flip! How did your group work out? What strategic prospers or failures would you wish to share? What different traits struck you as attention-grabbing this 12 months?

And the way quickly will you be able to make your 2024 group? [Correct answer is “right now” even though functionally it will be more like February 1.]

Thanks all for taking part in once more this 12 months! And thanks as all the time to our glorious sponsor, Full Pace Forward (FSA), makers of so most of the key elements to the 12 months’s nice victories. Keep in mind how a lot quicker Jonas Vingegaard’s bike was on the Tour de France time trial? Yeah, they constructed that cockpit (beneath). Their wheels stay in every single place, underneath the FSA and Imaginative and prescient manufacturers. And I’m simply speaking highway; their Gravel and MTB choices are simply as noteworthy on the highest ranges of the game.

Photograph by Jean Catuffe/Getty Photographs