Rapid Vitesse

[Laurens88]

The year 2019 was, like every year so far, the most successful year in the team’s history. We won 63 out of 135 races (excluding 15 national championships) and won an incredible amount of 11 classics. 8 of those classic wins happened between 25 August and 13 October, which even RSF-legend Alkword referred to as “a nice streak”. Really, who could have imagined this when the team started its RSF-career almost 5 years ago with 0 wins in the first 50 races?

Rider of the year is, without a doubt, Jasur Khushbakov. In the past year he won a stage in Pais Vasco, the classics Monte Paschi, Brabantse Pijl, GP Quebec, Tre Valli Varesine and Lombardia plus the tours of Burgos and Wallonie. This makes him the most successful rider ever in our team. Only the great Jason van Poelgeest got more wins in his career (27 vs. 18), but those were mostly smaller races. Jasur was the first rider to win more than one classic and therefore he deserves the rider of the year-award and would have perhaps earned the rider of the century-award, if such an award existed.

Next to Jasur’s wins, other highlights of 2019 were:
- Hunter Manu becoming the second rider to win 2 classics in his career (Milano-Torino and Piemonte). However, he didn’t live up to his promise yet to win many tours. The only tour he won in 2019 was the Windwards Islands Tour, but to be fair: he also didn’t get any opportunities to win other tours from his manager.
- Michael Kaltack taking an unexpected win in Paris-Tours after a sprint of 350 meters.
- Yerbolat Aitmukhambetov getting an escape win in GP Hamburg, while his manager was chilling at the pool during a business trip to Myanmar
- Winning 4 out of 5 stages in both the Tour of Wallonie (well ok, only 1 opponent there) and Tour of Burgos (against 11 opponents)
- Evgeniy Lushnikov winning 2 races in May after a sprint with a 4-man group that contained 2 not too tired riders of the same team. Doing it once could be the result of an opponent screwing up, but doing it twice against different opponents shows that Zhenya really was a sly old fox. That’s also why he joined the team’s staff after his career ended.

All in all, 2019 was a good year for us. For 2020 we have no clear goals again, other than the simple goal of just trying to win every single race we ride.

Happy New Year to all of you!

[Laurens88]

Here’s the review of the first two months of 2020. Two relatively successful months, although there were not so many important races of course.

Race results

In the first months of the year the Tour Down Under was the most important race. The race was designed for a climber like our own Hunter Manu and since Manu is from Down Under too he was of course in top form and very motivated to win. Winning the tour seemed to be difficult because his arch enemy Georgi Svidirenko was also signed up. In stage 2 Svidirenko tried to make a move on the flat together with his lieutenant Soslan Tigiyev. However, it backfired on him and suddenly Manu had a real chance to win the tour. This gave him wings and he actually won 2 stages and the yellow jersey. Bernardo Toloza also won a stage.

At the end of January Duncan Cleverley, the eternal second with only 2 gifted wins on his name, suddenly started winning. He won the first semi-classic of the year (Cadel Evans Great Ocean Race, our third win in a row here), a fantasy race plus the first stage of the Tour de Besseges. So at the age of 33 his relatively anonymous career finally got a bit of color. Manu managed to finish second in Besseges. After a surprisingly good time trial he only had to surrender to the unbeatable Simba Tawanda.

Alejandro Mansilla managed to grab a surprise win in the first classic of the year: Omloop Het Blad. After making the tactical choice to not give everything to not be dropped on the Berendries, he had just enough energy to hang on on the Muur and Bosberg and stayed in the first group with a chance to sprint for the win. In the final sprint, he beat the Le Bihan and Thornquist (on paper two stronger sprinters) who were too focused on eachother. Let’s hope Mansilla can get some more lucky wins in the other Flemish classics.

Rider news

Youngsters Spencer Morris from Barbados and Andris Zvirbulis from Latvia joined the team. Both riders already got their first win in February. That’s a promising start, let’s see if they can get some more in their career.
Our Uzbek veteran Sanzhar Tuychiev retired in January after a relatively anonymous career without major highlights. He got some chances to win classics last year, but somehow he was never the lucky one in escape groups. Some other riders in the team are getting old as well, so in the coming months more changes in the team roster are to be expected.

[Robyklebt]

So basically you're saying that you've won 6 classics in a row now....
Checked further, seems you didn't start at Montreal and Emilia, so it's 7 in a row in which you started..... Avoid the afternoon for MSR if you want to keep the series going. Bogarin won't be beaten! (If the series is still going on after today)

[Laurens88]

That's not what I was saying, but if you checked it, it might be true. Would ride MSR in the morning or afternoon, or not at all. Normally I don't have the riders to win it, so I may skip it if I have better things to do that day.

[Robyklebt]

It's not true anymore, now it's 7....
But seems you've hurt the highly developed fairplay sense of free team by winning the 7th

[Laurens88]

Yeah, it was not really a win to be proud of, but what can you do if 15 minutes before the race starts you find out that you can't be online much? For a cat 1 race I might just go offline and not ride for the win, but for a monthly goal and as a co-favo with Freudenfeuer and Erkrath (who didn't ride at all and beat Freude in the sprint for place 2, just 1 second behind Browne), I think it was not totally unfair to check in from time to time and immediately putting in a rider for the next 15 km and then riding red alone the last 20 km as a compensation. And if others thought it was, they had plenty of opportunity to attack me while I was off. I'm actually surprised that free didn't try anything, other than of course complaining about me and trying to manipulate Freude.

But I can understand the negative fairplay vote, especially if he believed I did it on purpose (which I didn't). Although indeed free used to do the same thing in the past even while being online: not riding all race claiming to be only co-favo and then still winning it in the end. I guess managers who both ride with the main goal to win just never really like eachother much.

[Laurens88]

It's the end of the year, so it's time for the yearly review for Rapid Vitesse. Not many memorable races from this year. The most memorable win was winning Dunkerque in an unexpected but in the end deserved way. That's why Alejandro Mansilla gets the "Rider of the year"-award this year. He won two stages, points classification and the GC in Dunkerque plus the classics Omloop Het Blad and GP Harelbeke. In his career he got 10 wins, 6 of which were in 2020. Objectively speaking perhaps Romario Browne - 11 wins in 2020 including Quebec, Monte Paschi and Brabant - would have deserved the award too. However, he also got many losses and therefore the sentiment leaned more towards Mansilla.

Overall the team rode 120 races this year and won 47 of them (including 1 TTT, excluding 8 NC's). Our win quote therefore is an acceptable 39.2%. The team won 7 classics (cat 4+), 3 stage races and 8 other jerseys. Browne (11 wins) won the most races, but also Mansilla (6) Hunter Manu (5), Haralds Stībelis (5) and Andris Zvirbulis (7 TT wins) deserve a mention here.

News about Rapid Vitesse in 2021 is going to follow soon.

Overview of all "Rider of the year" winners:
2020: Alejandro Mansilla 
2019: Jasur Khushbakov 
2018: Gints Priekulis 
2017: Jason van Poelgeest 
2016: Tomas Miknevičius
2015: Ruslan Ergaliev 

[Gipfelstuermer]

7 classics is extremely strong! Hope to race with you in 2021 again!

[Laurens88]

In the previous message I already announced that soon there would be some news about the year 2021 for Rapid Vitesse. And here it is:
After 947 races, 341 wins and almost 6 years, Rapid Vitesse is going to leave the world of Cycling4Freaks. This post is going to present lots of statistics about the team and its riders. I always kept an Excel-file with statistics about my riders, so might as well do soemthing with it now.
In total, 88 riders have had the privilege to ride at least one race for Rapid Vitesse. 68 of them managed to get at least 1 win. We've always been a team that has multiple leaders and pretty much all of our riders have had the skills and opportonity to catch at least an escape win. That is reflected in this statistic. Of the 20 riders that did not get a win, 15 were riding for the team only 1 season (in the first month, before my team-reset) or just a few seasons. The 5 who rode their entire career for our team were pure helpers without sprint or reg.

Team statistics
Total number of races: 947 (#167 on the all time ranking)
Eternal points: 169.150 (#80 on the all time ranking)
Points per race: 178,61 (#14 on the all time ranking of teams with >100 races; 2nd of the teams who never rode a GT)
Number of wins: 341 (#24 on the all time ranking)
Classic wins: 24 (#9 on the all time ranking)
Stage races: 16 (#63 on the all time ranking)
Points classifications: 23 (#45 on the all time ranking)
Mountain classifications: 6 (#177 on the all time ranking)
Young rider classifications: 12 (#88 on the all time ranking)
Team classifications: 18 (#56 on the all time ranking)

Rider statistics

Top 30 riders, by points
1. Jason van Poelgeest - 8608 points in 84 races (27 stage wins, 2 tour wins, 3 jersey wins)
2. Ruslan Ergaliev - 7187 points in 203 races (8 stage wins, 3 jersey wins)
3. Jasur Khushbakov - 7052 points in 62 races (18 stage wins, 2 tour wins, 3 jersey wins)
4. Romario Browne - 6357 points in 57 races (11 stage wins, 3 jersey wins)
5. Hunter Manu - 6314 points in 42 races (15 stage wins, 2 tour wins, 4 jersey wins)
6. Nurlan Kazhgaliev - 5242 points in 49 races (2 stage wins, 3 tour wins, 4 jersey wins)
7. Alejandro Mansilla - 4987 points in 86 races (10 stage wins, 1 tour wins, 1 jersey wins)
8. Michael Kaltack - 4451 points in 81 races (6 stage wins)
9. Vytautas Abromaitis - 4416 points in 106 races (2 stage wins)
10. Joost Drost - 4243 points in 90 races (7 stage wins, 1 jersey wins)
11. Maksat Zarlykhanov - 4002 points in 130 races (7 stage wins, 1 tour wins, 1 jersey wins)
12. Bernardo Toloza - 3999 points in 99 races (7 stage wins, 3 jersey wins)
13. Luuk Bakker - 3995 points in 79 races (5 stage wins, 3 jersey wins)
14. Gints Priekulis - 3824 points in 131 races (11 stage wins, 1 jersey wins)
15. Duncan Cleverley - 3521 points in 101 races (5 stage wins)
16. Wouter Witteveen - 3358 points in 136 races (4 stage wins, 1 tour wins, 2 jersey wins)
17. Andrius Varabauskas - 3176 points in 134 races (7 stage wins, 1 jersey wins)
18. Ravshan Faizullaev - 3055 points in 109 races (5 stage wins)
19. Eldor Yuldashev - 3036 points in 137 races (6 stage wins, 1 jersey wins)
20. Donatas Kriščiūnas - 2854 points in 69 races (8 stage wins, 1 tour wins)
21. Erasyl Ergaliev - 2830 points in 117 races (5 stage wins)
22. Justynas Jatulevičius - 2779 points in 117 races (11 stage wins)
23. Anthony Navarro - 2714 points in 86 races (6 stage wins, 1 jersey wins)
24. Wilco Zuidema - 2660 points in 57 races (9 stage wins)
25. Tomas Miknevičius - 2460 points in 169 races (6 stage wins)
26. Andriy Yakovenko - 2390 points in 84 races (4 stage wins)
27. Hugo Woudenberg - 2322 points in 121 races (3 stage wins)
28. Marco Oldenhof - 2283 points in 35 races (3 stage wins)
29. Dauren Kozhabekov - 2257 points in 195 races (7 stage wins, 1 jersey wins)
30. Rustam Bayzhanov - 2210 points in 117 races (4 stage wins)

Top 10 most wins
1. Jason Van Poelgeest 27
2. Jasur Khushbakov 18
3. Hunter Manu 15
4. Romario Browne, Gints Priekulis and Justynas Jatulevičius 11
7. Alejandro Mansilla 10
8. Wilco Zuidema 9
9. Ruslan Ergaliev and Donatas Kriščiūnas 8

Top 3 youngest stage winners (excluding NC's)
1. Hugo Woudenberg 21 years and 21 days
2. Wilco Zuidema 21 years and 25 days
3. Botir Riskiyev 22 years and 1 day

Top 4 oldest stage winners
1. Michael Kaltack 36 years and 15 days
2. Joost Drost 36 years and 13 days
3. Bekhzod Khakimov 36 years and 5 days (his only win)
4.. Romas Polujanovas 36 years and 4 days

Wins by nationality
1. Netherlands 80 (23 riders)
2. Uzbekistan 48 (12 riders)
3. Lithuania 43 (10 riders)
4. Kazakhstan 38 (8 riders)
5. Latvia 36 (7 riders)
6. New Zealand 22 (3 riders)
7. Chile 18 (3 riders)
8. Ukraine 17 (5 riders)
9. Barbados 14 (2 riders)
10. Belize 10 (2 riders)
11. Vanuatu 9 (4 riders)
12. South Africa 4 (1 rider)
13. Team Time Trial 2 (40% Latvia, 40% Vanuatu, 20% USA)

Top 5 most races
1. Hidde Postma 270
2. Otabek Bakhromov 265
3. Bekhzod Khakimov 249
4. Romas Polujanovas 234
5. Christiaan van Gils 204

Oldest rider to ever participate in a race
1. Bekhzod Khakimov: 38 years and 30 days, on 30 April 2016 he finished in 51st and last place in his last race

Top 5 most points per race
1. Hunter Manu 150,33
2. Jasur Khushbakov 113,74
3. Romario Browne 111,53
4. Nurlan Kazhgaliev 104,84
5. Jason van Poelgeest 102,48

List of classic- and jersey wins

Classics
Jasur Khushbakov - 5 (Monte Paschi '19, Brabant '19, Quebec '19, Tre Valli Varesine '19, Lombardia '19)
Alejandro Mansilla - 3 (GP de Bruxelles '19, Omloop Het Blad '20, GP Harelbeke '20)
Romario Browne - 3 (Monte Paschi '20, Brabant '20, GP de Quebec '20)
Hunter Manu - 2 (Milano-Torino '19, Piemonte '19)
Jason van Poelgeest - 1 (La Doyenne '17)
Martijn Langerak - 1 (Amstel '18)
Michael Kaltack - 1 (Tours '19)
Yerbolat Aitmukhambetov - 1 (Hamburg '19)
Leonid Palamarchuk - 1 (Hamburg '18)
Joost Drost - 1 (GP Harelbeke '18)
Emīls Zīliņš - 1 (Bretagne '20)
Justynas Jatulevičius - 1 (Dwars door Vlaanderen '19)
Alex Istomin - 1 (Rund um den Finanzplatz '17)
Gints Priekulis - 1 (Brabant '18)
Haralds Stībelis - 1 (GP de Bruxelles '20)

Stage races
1. Nurlan Kazhgaliev 3
2. Hunter Manu, Jasur Khushbakov and Jason van Poelgeest 2
5. Alejandro Mansilla, Donatas Kriščiūnas, Jonas Budreika, Kevin Vermeulen, Wouter Witteveen, Maksat Zarlykhanov and Tucker Gravy 1

Points classifications
1. Jasur Khushbakov, Nurlan Kazhgaliev, Jason van Poelgeest and Ruslan Ergaliev 3
5. Hunter Manu and Romario Browne 2
7. Bernardo Toloza, Gints Priekulis, Romario Browne, Alejandro Mansilla, Wouter Witteveen, Andrius Varabauskas, Luuk Bakker and Maksat Zarlykhanov 1

Young rider classifications
1. Luuk Bakker and Bernardo Toloza 2
3. Luuk Bakker, Bernardo Toloza, Romario Browne, Joost Drost, Thomas Keizer, Juris Rozitis, Nurlan Kazhgaliev, Anthony Navarro, Wouter Witteveen and Eldor Yuldashev 1

Mountains classifications
1. Hunter Manu 2
2. Botir Riskiyev, Jonas Budreika, Koen van der Laan and Dauren Kozhabekov 1

Keep on enjoying the game! And to whoever wants to buy him: make sure that Haralds Stībelis wins his career goal Milano-San Remo.
Perhaps with his buddy Manu Wilson as a helper?

[Hansa]

I will miss you...

[Gipfelstuermer]

So nice your statistics!

van Poelgeest and Khushbakov, two names I will remember! And the list of classics wins is impressive!

But keep coming back for fun, Rapid!

Even if you have very little time, can be nice to ride the monuments for example, just for fun with a small team

Gip

[Weezel]

A big manager goes, very bad for the game.
I always wanted to buy Stibelis, but with Celestino only one year older, it's not the perfect time.

I hope you will be back one day!

[Robyklebt]

The president leaves? But ok, you hinted at it more than once. Finally the game just too easy for you probably. Try again when people like me are a bit more experienced, give me another 5 years, than try again, maybe we can give you a bigger challenge.

Nice post, hope you keep the excel file! But one thing that really bothers me is...

The 5 who rode their entire career for our team were pure helpers without sprint or reg.

Couldn't concentrate on the rest of the post because after that I really wanted to know who these guys were! But they didn't get their winless rider category!

Btw, if you feel like giving c4f a good bye present, why not make a last batch of Rapid-races?

Anyway, dark times ahead, the president leaves, the republic is finished, and we're stuck with our king again....

[team fl]

Bah, why so final?

Anyway, nice statistics, nice career. Was a pleasure meeting you. If you're around again some time in the future, feel free to keep in touch.

[Laurens88]

Thanks for the kind words everyone! I had to be so final because otherwise I could never let go of the game. My "problem" now is mainly that I became too obsessed with winning and statistics (number of points and wins for each rider should fit his skills; I wanted to be the team with the highest average points per race in 2020; have a win quote of more than 33%, etc.). And when such things become a mission instead of just a nice statistic on the side, the game is less fun.

But if I know myself a little bit, it's likely that I will be back at some point with a new (more crappy) team without any ambitions to find back the fun.

Nice post, hope you keep the excel file! But one thing that really bothers me is...

The 5 who rode their entire career for our team were pure helpers without sprint or reg.

Couldn't concentrate on the rest of the post because after that I really wanted to know who these guys were! But they didn't get their winless rider category!

Oh, seems like I missed a category in this long list of statistics indeed! Although it's not like the names of those riders would ring a bell to most managers... The 5 riders who rode their entire career in my team without a single win are Björn Pronk, Otabek Bakhromov, Aziz Saipov, Yegor Zadorozhny and Freddy Garae.
But in some cases it were really the skills of the rider to blame for it: Yegor Zadorozhny had 6 clones due to a bug when I bought him on 02.06.2018. Yegor and his clones rode at least 1044 races in total without a single win...

[Gipfelstuermer]

And when such things become a mission instead of just a nice statistic on the side, the game is less fun.

Oh, I understand that feeling, but I have some positive story on that: I remember when I had my goals too focussed on statistics and not on races. For example "Bring JJ to Top-10 race wins", then "Bring JJ to Top-3 race wins", then "Bring JJ to Top-1 race wins"... these goals were so hard, because it was only statistics and not about the race anymore. It became much better when I had race-goals again: "Be the first to win 2x maglia ciclamino". It was so much better because, firstly, it made me focus on the race itself, and secondly, it was something nobody had done before.

Now I try to only set race-specific goals. Well, kind of easy for me... "Win a monument" or "Win a GT" are pretty obvious goals and I am weak enough I never did it before... so if you are very skilled (like Rapid), it will get harder. After the first monument, will be harder. But ok, Rapid, you have won LBL & Lombardia... how about next goal MSR, PR or RVV? Hey, I found a nice goal for you! Come back 3x a year for these races, that you have not won so far

PS: Can you share your statistics sheet? Maybe I can build something similar for my team Not all the stats can be seen ingame so easily.

[Bear]

Even if I probably never raced against you, it's really sad that you retire. As Gipfel wrote it's a lot about goals. And in the end we all know that this game can be so much fun. It's also possible to go for just some special races... everyone makes his or her own decision.

You really achieved a lot until now. So many wins. A lot of people will remember you as one of the most succesful teams.