Teams & Riders EF Pro Cycling

[Oldermanish]

It wasn't a serious question.

It was a non-serious answer, too.

 

[Anderis]

 

[Samamba]

EF has already earned 220 UCI points for NCs. Probably the think I like the least about the whole system. Not a dig towards EF tho, atleast the Colombian one is worth the points and they just started their season really good. Vaughters seems to have learned from his mistakes.

I wouldn't be surprised if they win the one day race in Portugal tmrw too.

 

[Anderis]

EF has already earned 220 UCI points for NCs. Probably the think I like the least about the whole system.

220 points is not much, though. They've won 3 races and that's still fewer points altogether than a 5th place in Tour Down Under.

And I think NCs giving points is a good incentive for the teams to allow their riders to participate instead of preparing solely for international races and there's a better chance for worthy winners of NC titles.

 

[Samamba]

220 points is not much, though. They've won 3 races and that's still fewer points altogether than a 5th place in Tour Down Under.

And I think NCs giving points is a good incentive for the teams to allow their riders to participate instead of preparing solely for international races and there's a better chance for worthy winners of NC titles.

It will be even more after the Ecuadorian road race. 220 points is definitely still a good amount. And the incentive should be something else, not giving easy points to certain teams who have riders from countries where there is almost no competition. You shouldn't be punished for having a team with a lot of riders from very competitive countries.

The fact that you get the same amount of points for winning the Belgian, French, Spanish, Colombian, ... nationals as winning the Ecuadorian, South African, Israeli, Estionian, Latvian, ... road race is ridiculous. De Bod got 50 points by beating a 26y old guy from EFs own development team. And again, this isn't a dig at EF. They're not the only team benefitting from it at all. Israel will win up to 300 points from the Israeli Nationals alone in June. The same as winning certain WT races, by doing absolutely nothing apart from buying plane tickets to Israel for a few riders. I don't see how anyone can argue that that is fair now that UCI points have become that important. With the top 20 rule those Nationals points have become even more important now.

Most of these countries had notable winners before UCI points mattered btw. Also, the TDU is also massively overrated UCI pointswise, but that's besides the point.

 

[Anderis]

Perhaps the system would benefit if the points for NCs scaled according to how well the nation has performed in the UCi ranking in the previous few years. But given how any of dozens 1.1 and 2.1 races gives more points than once-in-a-year event like NC, I don't see it as a big deal. If it was, everybody was free to hire some of their riders according to how easily they could score some points for NCs. But I don't think it's necessary as the NCs are only ever going to matter for two very evenly matched teams, there's just so overwhelmingly many more points to grab elsewhere, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this "injustice".

 

[Anderis]

Just for context: the average point gap between two neigbhouring teams in the ranking for 2020-2022 was around a thousand points, and it's probably going to be even bigger in the 2023-2025 ranking as the number of points for various races got increased and there will be fewer races cancelled than there were in the peak of the covid pandemics.

And here we're discussing that De Bod scored "easy" 50 points.

And I've just checked that the Israeli championship last year was only worth half the points compared to South African or Ecuadorian and Israel Premier-Tech only scored 140 points in both RR and ITT combined. Was it changed for this year?

Also nothing takes place in isolation and if you're there for NCs, you're not there for another race that you could score in as well. All in all, the impact of NCs will be miniscule.

 

[yaco]

Points earned by riders who are in a National team at a race should not count in the UCI points race.

 

[Samamba]

Perhaps the system would benefit if the points for NCs scaled according to how well the nation has performed in the UCi ranking in the previous few years. But given how any of dozens 1.1 and 2.1 races gives more points than once-in-a-year event like NC, I don't see it as a big deal. If it was, everybody was free to hire some of their riders according to how easily they could score some points for NCs. But I don't think it's necessary as the NCs are only ever going to matter for two very evenly matched teams, there's just so overwhelmingly many more points to grab elsewhere, I'm not going to lose any sleep over this "injustice".

Those .1 races obviously give more points cause they're on avarage way harder than a lot of those nationals. Giving advantages to riders from certain countries just straight up looks like some form of discrimination. You simply don't really care about it because it benefits the team you support. Which is obviously fine but the statement that those points won't matter in the end is just false.

Just for context: the average point gap between two neigbhouring teams in the ranking for 2020-2022 was around a thousand points, and it's probably going to be even bigger in the 2023-2025 ranking as the number of points for various races got increased and there will be fewer races cancelled than there were in the peak of the covid pandemics.

You have one example (one cycle) and you conclude those things... There is not a single reason to think that the difference between 18th and 19th place at end of 2025 will be more than a 1000 points. That being said. It doesn't matter how big it is. Even if it's more than a 1000 points. You do realize there's 3 years of NCs? Those points add up. Teams like Israel and EF get way more than a 1000 points in that time from nationals alone.

And I've just checked that the Israeli championship last year was only worth half the points compared to South African or Ecuadorian and Israel Premier-Tech only scored 140 points in both RR and ITT combined. Was it changed for this year?

Yes it has changed

Also nothing takes place in isolation and if you're there for NCs, you're not there for another race that you could score in as well. All in all, the impact of NCs will be miniscule.

Most NCs are at the same time in June. And let's not act like guys like Camargo, Caicedo and even Chavez would have been getting a lot of points in Europe at this time. Chavez for example would've been training in Colombia anyways.

So no we don't agree at all. You seem to agree that it isn't really fair, but that it won't matter in the end and the impact is small. I disagree for certain teams who not only get free points from nationals, they also have more chance at getting points for Worlds and continental championships because they will have more riders that will lead countries there. Not because those riders are really good, but because they are from a country without actual good riders.

 

[Anderis]

You simply don't really care about it because it benefits the team you support.

I'm very disappointed that you decided to try to make it personal. EF may have already won some titles but it's still early days and it's within the realms of possibility they'll eventually lose a place in the ranking to a team that's going to score even more.

You have one example (one cycle) and you conclude those things... There is not a single reason to think that the difference between 18th and 19th place at end of 2025 will be more than a 1000 points.

I said nothing about difference between 18th and 19th, I said about average difference between two neighbouring teams, which didn't have 2 data points, but 20. It means as much that the expected difference between 18th and 19th is going to be at least 1000 points as it tells that expected difference betwenn 9th and 19th is going to be at least 10 000 points. You think the NCs points may potentially decide who gets relegated and that's fair, my point was that if it's really going to, I'm not going to see much unfairness in it because if it comes down to that, it means those two teams were too close to call anyways. Pure luck alone is going to make bigger point swings over 3 years than all NCs combined. If two teams are within 500 points after 3 years, I find it impossible to determine which one has really been the better team over those 3 years because that 500 points can as well be your rider taken out in a crash caused by another team as it can be several NC results combined, or being refused an invite to some continental races because of nationality. And, as I said, the difference between the "midfield" and the relegation zone is probably going to be over 10 000 points. It's realtively easy to score as many points elsewhere as to not care about NCs at all unless you're battling teams that are performing at virtually identical level to you and you don't have a very strong case of claiming that you deserve to be WT much more than them anyway.

You do realize there's 3 years of NCs? Those points add up. Teams like Israel and EF get way more than a 1000 points in that time from nationals alone.

No, I dumb and I don't realise that. I don't think EF got anywhere near 1000 points from NCs in 2020-2022 combined. Even if it's possible they'll get that many in 2023-2025, it's still not going to be 1000 difference over another team because that another team is also going to score something unless they do something very wrong. Also it's one thing to score 1000 points by a team that's performing very well and is scoring both in strongly and weakly contested NCs but a weak team scoring 1000 points from weakly contested NCs alone is a much more extreme example. I think only Israel and Astana threaten that scenario if the points for the Israeli NCs got upped, but then it still balances out a bit- either you're a team from a weak cycling nation and get to score some easy NC points or you're a team from a strong cycling nation and get to have advantage with invites to all sorts of domestic calendar races. You're arguing one factor in isolation based on hypothetical worse case scenario but a realistic scenario mitigated by other factors is almost certainly going to be less impactful than what you picture.

With the first quoted paragraph you lost my willingness to argue in good faith for any longer, though. I'm probably going to ignore your next answer.

 

[Netserk]

Well replied, @Anderis.

 

[Samamba]

I'm very disappointed that you decided to try to make it personal. EF may have already won some titles but it's still early days and it's within the realms of possibility they'll eventually lose a place in the ranking to a team that's going to score even more.


I said nothing about difference between 18th and 19th, I said about average difference between two neighbouring teams, which didn't have 2 data points, but 20. It means as much that the expected difference between 18th and 19th is going to be at least 1000 points as it tells that expected difference betwenn 9th and 19th is going to be at least 10 000 points. You think the NCs points may potentially decide who gets relegated and that's fair, my point was that if it's really going to, I'm not going to see much unfairness in it because if it comes down to that, it means those two teams were too close to call anyways. Pure luck alone is going to make bigger point swings over 3 years than all NCs combined. If two teams are within 500 points after 3 years, I find it impossible to determine which one has really been the better team over those 3 years because that 500 points can as well be your rider taken out in a crash caused by another team as it can be several NC results combined, or being refused an invite to some continental races because of nationality. And, as I said, the difference between the "midfield" and the relegation zone is probably going to be over 10 000 points. It's realtively easy to score as many points elsewhere as to not care about NCs at all unless you're battling teams that are performing at virtually identical level to you and you don't have a very strong case of claiming that you deserve to be WT much more than them anyway.


No, I dumb and I don't realise that. I don't think EF got anywhere near 1000 points from NCs in 2020-2022 combined. Even if it's possible they'll get that many in 2023-2025, it's still not going to be 1000 difference over another team because that another team is also going to score something unless they do something very wrong. Also it's one thing to score 1000 points by a team that's performing very well and is scoring both in strongly and weakly contested NCs but a weak team scoring 1000 points from weakly contested NCs alone is a much more extreme example. I think only Israel and Astana threaten that scenario if the points for the Israeli NCs got upped, but then it still balances out a bit- either you're a team from a weak cycling nation and get to score some easy NC points or you're a team from a strong cycling nation and get to have advantage with invites to all sorts of domestic calendar races. You're arguing one factor in isolation based on hypothetical worse case scenario but a realistic scenario mitigated by other factors is almost certainly going to be less impactful than what you picture.

With the first quoted paragraph you lost my willingness to argue in good faith for any longer, though. I'm probably going to ignore your next answer.

Brother I said you were biased. Basically everyone on here is biased, I am too. Everyone here knows that I'm a Lotto fan, just like everyone knows that you're an EF fan. Nothing wrong with that. No reason to act like I insulted your mother or something. I probably wouldn't care that much either if it benefitted Lotto. And just to be clear, I really don't care about the points EF is getting. They're way too good to be relegated anyways, but that's just completely besides the point.

I simply just don't get how you can think it is fair that a rider who wins a 20 rider race, existing of 20 riders from the same team basically should get the same amount of points as a rider who beat a peloton full of riders that are present at the Tour de France. When you have a system where points are that important you can't just do things like that. If you want to give points to nationals, you need to have some sort of category system where the hardest nationals reward more points (basically like you said earlier).

And yes luck is a big factor in who relegates/promotes and who doesn't, but that's out of peoples hands, this isn't. If you make the UCI ranking this important, you need to make it as fair as possible, the UCI doesn't do that at all. It's already better than last cycle with more points to GT stages in particular, but it's still far from the best they can do.

I don't get the whataboutism from you either trying to point out other things about the system that aren't really fair. I don't like the whole relegation system as a whole because indeed it's technically easier for for example French teams cause they have so many races only they are interested in (sponsorwise), but I really don't get the comparison you make about "invitations" as literally every big team can get into those races (or do you mean that certain muslim countries refuse to invite Israel?). They choose not to (for good reasons sometimes, don't get me wrong). Israel for example basically races everything nowadays, EF didn't last couple of years but they have realized now they need to race more. DSM also didn't race a lot of races but seem to have all the Belgian small races on their schedule now.

Anyways it's probably better that we stop arguing yes.

 

[Potomac]

IIRC, even before the current sponsors, this team made it a point to have NC riders, for whatever reason.

I would think the current sponsors would find a lot of value in having as many NCs as possible now..

Edit...
7 victories now with NC Ecuador ITT, and they must have NC Ecuador road race in mind as well.

Edit...

8 victores after Ecuador RR

 

[Potomac]

Start list for Algarve in two days time. What does the hive mind make of it? I am underwhelmed.

21 BISSEGGER Stefan
22 CORT Magnus
23 DOULL Owain
24 EIKING Odd Christian
25 KUDUS Merhawi
26 PADUN Mark
27 VAN DEN BERG Julius

 

[Potomac]

PCS has a good page for team wins over the years...

Wins per season for EF Education - EasyPost

Overview of the total number of wins, number of GC victories, classics and stage wins per season for EF Education - EasyPost.

www.procyclingstats.com

 

[nedhill]

Brother I said you were biased. Basically everyone on here is biased, I am too. Everyone here knows that I'm a Lotto fan, just like everyone knows that you're an EF fan. Nothing wrong with that. No reason to act like I insulted your mother or something. I probably wouldn't care that much either if it benefitted Lotto. And just to be clear, I really don't care about the points EF is getting. They're way too good to be relegated anyways, but that's just completely besides the point.

I simply just don't get how you can think it is fair that a rider who wins a 20 rider race, existing of 20 riders from the same team basically should get the same amount of points as a rider who beat a peloton full of riders that are present at the Tour de France. When you have a system where points are that important you can't just do things like that. If you want to give points to nationals, you need to have some sort of category system where the hardest nationals reward more points (basically like you said earlier).

And yes luck is a big factor in who relegates/promotes and who doesn't, but that's out of peoples hands, this isn't. If you make the UCI ranking this important, you need to make it as fair as possible, the UCI doesn't do that at all. It's already better than last cycle with more points to GT stages in particular, but it's still far from the best they can do.

I don't get the whataboutism from you either trying to point out other things about the system that aren't really fair. I don't like the whole relegation system as a whole because indeed it's technically easier for for example French teams cause they have so many races only they are interested in (sponsorwise), but I really don't get the comparison you make about "invitations" as literally every big team can get into those races (or do you mean that certain muslim countries refuse to invite Israel?). They choose not to (for good reasons sometimes, don't get me wrong). Israel for example basically races everything nowadays, EF didn't last couple of years but they have realized now they need to race more. DSM also didn't race a lot of races but seem to have all the Belgian small races on their schedule now.

Anyways it's probably better that we stop arguing yes.

Samamba,

The points system is not fair, it weights heavily towards Belgium and French Teams.

This is because there are so many more races in those countries that statistically favor the teams from those countries.

Please stop arguing these minor points, as they are weak in comparison to the massive advantage Lotto had over the last three years as still didn't make it.

 

[Anderis]

Brother I said you were biased. Basically everyone on here is biased, I am too. Everyone here knows that I'm a Lotto fan, just like everyone knows that you're an EF fan. Nothing wrong with that. No reason to act like I insulted your mother or something. I probably wouldn't care that much either if it benefitted Lotto. And just to be clear, I really don't care about the points EF is getting. They're way too good to be relegated anyways, but that's just completely besides the point.

You may remember, last year there were some discussions about the points system. Some people were very vocal about the fact that it's ridiculous that Belgian and French teams can score gazillions of points in those countless 1.1 local races and how many points you can get this way compared to WT events. This was very much not benefitting EF, who were seriously threatened by relegation at some point, yet I wasn't one of those people ridiculing the system. I didn't care that much even though the whole thing was not benefitting my favourite team.

Now you imply that I only don't care because something does benefit my favourite team. I take it as a personal insult because, as I have proven with the example above, you're being unfair to me. It was also a cheap way to try to invalidate my opinion based on who I am and not what I wrote (if it was not, then why even mention it?). I have no time for people who want to treat me like that.

I simply just don't get how you can think it is fair that a rider who wins a 20 rider race, existing of 20 riders from the same team basically should get the same amount of points as a rider who beat a peloton full of riders that are present at the Tour de France.

FYI, if you re-read my posts again, I've never stated that the current system is fair, just that I don't think this particular unfairness matters all that much all things considered. So at this point you're arguing with an opinion I've not expressed.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Carapaz/Uran haven't started racing in Europe yet, Carthy peaking for bigger goals, Bissegger is out of form, Healey injured and Padun currently looks about 5kgs over race weight. They've still got 10 wins so far in February and almost won a TTT against higher budget stacked teams, what a phenomenal effort from them.

 

[Potomac]

Start list for Algarve in two days time. What does the hive mind make of it? I am underwhelmed.

21 BISSEGGER Stefan
22 CORT Magnus
23 DOULL Owain
24 EIKING Odd Christian
25 KUDUS Merhawi
26 PADUN Mark
27 VAN DEN BERG Julius

What a rubbish post!
ha ha ah

 

[Samamba]

4 guys in the first group after the Muur is straight up impressive for a team that doesn't focus on these kind of races. Too bad they didn't really have someone to get a sprint result in the end.

 

[Anderis]

Yeah, that's been the problem with their classics team for years- they often have the numbers, but nobody strong enough to be up there with those few strongest who break away at key moments and neither do they have someone who could be realistically expected to be one of the few quickest guys from a biggish group of riders with decent sprinters in it, so they often end up doing a bunch of work for no benefit to themselves. Yesterday I wondered if it wasn't just better to sit up and ride for minor placings because getting even a top5 would have been very unlikely with these riders if everything came together and they didn't have the strength in numbers anymore due to burning out their riders in the chase.

Having 4 riders in the top30, considering they have sent a team without Bettiol, Honore and M. Van den Berg was way above my expectations, though. But I wish they came up with some solutions to the shortcomings of their classics team. It's a shame to see so many strong guys working their *** off for Doull to finish 16th in a sprint or something like that.

 

[Anderis]

Pretty underwhelmed by the results in the French classics TBH. Such a strong roster and the best result over 2 days was a 15th place. The performances in UAE Tour and Omloop were not bad for what the team has got in terms of riders for those two races but in terms of results, the team seems to be losing momentum a bit.

 

[Potomac]

According to PCS this is the lineup for the Trofeo Laigueglia on Wednesday

PICCOLO Andrea
BETTIOL Alberto
CARAPAZ Richard

Only a partial but that's three strong riders.


I as looking at startlists for TA and PN at PCS just now.
EF, and most other teams, don't seem to have announce anything at all like their full lineups.

 

[Anderis]

Damn, 2nd TTT this year and narrowly missing a win for the 2nd time!

 

[Ricco']

The Caleb Ewan's of TTTing