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After the retirement of the legendary Murodbek Makhamadzhonov the team is now in a bit of a transition period without any real leader.

The current roster:

Zafarmurod Rakhmonaliev
Oleksandr Piskun
Zemenfes Mengisteab
Zakhar Karatay
Ondrej Nebyla
Harrison Nembhard
Kensi Taiwia
Artem Palamarchuk
Zhansultan Dosmagambetov
Shokhzhakhon Mamatkhodzhaev
Tlaloc Coyotecatl
Shohrat Dawamat
Ibrokhim Ibrokhimov
Deimantas Girdvainis
Graziano Alborghetti
Traian Aelenei
Terentiy Tikhomirov
Abylaykhan Zhangylyshbay
Sergey Pak

The Big Donkey is very happy to see Tukhtahuaev back! Now just ride in the afternoon.
Sadly I just had to fire Tukhtasinov as assistant DS last Saturday. I realized that he was too old, same as the DS and the other assistant DS. But since you're back maybe you'll produce another talented DS that can take over the position soon!

Anyway, viva Tukht! Welcome back! Join the afternoon! (Level is quite a bit lower than it used to be, we have T-Mobile-A, r anti-Ganna, AAD, Bergwerk and so riding there now, your class would be more than welcome!

Unfortunately my current schedule makes riding in the afternoon difficult. I'll try to join you for a few races on the weekends when I can, but I can't promise too much

It took only one week for the first real success to come. In one of the most exciting flat race I can remember, Egor Stepanov managed to win the mass sprint to give the team its first win since the comeback

13.03.2023,9 :00 : Cuglieri-Cagliari: Flat Stage
1. 00:00:00 Egor Stepanov (Tukhtahuaev)
2. 00:00:00 Ilario Mosconi (Gipfelstuermer)
3. 00:00:00 Georg Steib (Black-Star)
4. 00:00:00 Cody Boer (Trekken Racing)
5. 00:00:00 Bernardo Simoes (Cultural Salamanca)

Both Milano-Torino and Milano-Sanremo almost went into the history books for the team, but in the end we just fell short.

At Milano-Torino a late escape allowed Erbolat Kenzhebek a 2nd place finish. Stepanov with outside chances in the bunch sprint took the wrong wheel and disappointed in P14.

15.03.2023,10 :00 : Milano-Torino: Flat Stage
01. 00:00:00 Phil Taylor (Kreatief)
02. 00:00:00 Erbolat Kenzhebek (Tukhtahuaev)
03. 00:00:00 Smithson Utivich (Schartner Bombe)
04. 00:00:00 Percy Rojas (SV Furpach)
05. 00:00:01 Oleg Potrov (Rsc Spree)

In Sanremo the team were complete outsiders, so all hopes were on the escape. To everyone's surprise the escape actually went through. Unfortunately Vladimir Bogaciuc was not quite strong enough to win, but a 2nd place finish at one of the most important races is still a major success. This is already the 4th Milano-Sanremo podium finish in the teams history, unfortunately still without a win

18.03.2023,21 :00 : La Classicissima: Flat Stage
1. 00:00:00 Fitzgerald Pineda (CerveloTestTeam)
2. 00:00:00 Vladimir Bogaciuc (Tukhtahuaev)
3. 00:00:00 Daan Vercruysse (Belgium)
4. 00:00:00 Damian Schiffbauer (pinte pakkers)
5. 00:01:35 Vinncent Verhoeven (Romoc Riders)

New arrivals for April and May

Bulgarian flatrider Atanas Peshov was already signed for the beginning of April. In the future he is supposed to keep the peloton together towards the end of races and help our second new signing.
Normunds Deklavs from Latvia will hopefully become the next star sprinter for the team. Deklavs is also quite competent on pavé and may sneak a few good results in Belgium next spring

Yaroslav Nesterenko managed a surprise win out of an escape today. In the final sprint everyone else watched each other and no one reacted to his launch

This is the 5th entry to the Palmarès since the comeback and all 5 of them happened in Italy. The team is now thinking about joining the Giro in May to increase the chances of good results

22.04.2023,10 :00 : Italian Border - Monfalcone: Flat Stage
1. 00:00:00 Yaroslav Nesterenko (Tukhtahuaev)
2. 00:00:00 Florian Schwimmer (Ansach)
3. 00:00:00 Harry Wilson (Cultural Salamanca)
4. 00:00:00 Vladimir Bogaciuc (Tukhtahuaev)
5. 00:00:00 Sergio Lador (Cultural Salamanca)

April 2023

+1,971,885
3,344 points

Overall a very decent month. It didn't start well with a very underwhelming Basque Tour, but after that results improved. 3 wins, 2 of them by Egor Stepanov in fantasy sprint races, 1 out of an escape. After the comeback there really aren't much more opportunities.
The classics as expected without any highlights. P13 at RVV and PR for Adurashidov, P18 at LBL for Kravchenko. Flèche Wallone a little bit better with a P7, but also a small and weak field. So really not much to write about.
Training went well. Kravchenko reaching 70 mountain was a nice surprise. Young riders all with decent or good training. A few more months and we might be able to fight for wins in more important races

Not riding the Giro in May, so probably good chances to get a few decent results as opposition shouldn't be the strongest in parallel to the best GT

May 2023

+2,507,850
3,799 points

May was a very successful month. Only 1 stage win by Azamat Abdurashidov doesn't sound that good, but that's not all there is to the story. We decided rather spontaneously to ride the 4 Jours de Dunkerque and Tour of Norway, which proved to be a very good decision.
In Dunkerque it was Sherzod Kholmatov who got to shine. Thanks to 3rd places in both key stages he managed to not only win the youth jersey, he actually won the GC as well. That's the first stage race victory since the comeback. As a bonus we also got the Team classification.
Norway didn't go quite as well, but still some decent results. This time Dmytro Kravchenko finished 3rd overall and we won two more jerseys. Oybek Sariboev surprisingly won the youth classification and Vladimir Bogaciuc won the mountain jersey as he was simply the only one that really fought for it. None of the other one day races are worth mentioning, but still a very good month.

We can also welcome two new riders to the team. Beksultan Babakhanov from Kazakhstan joins as a hopeful classic for the future, while the Belarussian Ilya Pashkevich is supposed to be a rather cheap hellper, who can do a lot of early tempo

June 2023

+1,609,906
1,673 points

A very underwhelming month this time. No results worth mentioning at all until the National Championships where we managed a total of 5 wins. Unfortunately those wins don't earn you a lot of money or points, so not a big help to get the team back to the top.
In the end Azamat Abdurashidov got us a real win towards the end of the month after following the right attack in a not so important race. Nothing else worth mentioning this month. The lack of success meant that we didn't have the budget for a new rider for the most part. Now the budget would be enough, but there is a very limited number of riders worth considering.

July 2023

+1,851,777
2,256 points

Another unspectacular month, but a bit better than June. Azamat Abdurashidov gave us the only win this month in a rather unimportant one day race in Italy, but there were plenty of decent results all around, including 4 top 3 positions in stages at Austria, Castilla y Leon and Pologne.
On the personel side there were a few more changes. At the start of July promising Uzbek allrounder Shodiyor Gafurbekov joined the team. He can do pretty much anything well, but his main focus will be the Spring classics. Also joining the team just now is Belgian Axel Vermeylen, who is a pavé specialist and is supposed to give us the 3rd Paris - Roubaix win

August 2023

+1,972,176
3,018 points

Lazy, so almost 2 weeks too late with the August summary. A solid month with 3 sprint victories by Egor Stepanov, one of them actually rather important at the Benelux Tour. As a bonus Ilya Pashkevich got 3rd at the BEMER Cyclassics out of a group. Actually missed a few chances for more wins, so things are looking good for the future.
The team also welcomes another young rider. Vsevolod Skorko from Ukraine joins as a future flat monster

September 2023

+2,606,329
4,751 points

An absolutely incredible end of the month! The beginning of september was nothing special until the two classics in Canada, where Oybek Sariboev got his chance to shine, taking 3rd at Québec and two days later winning in Montréal. A few days later we got another win thanks to a brave escape attempt from Azamat Abdurashidov.
All these result pale a little bit compared to what happend in the final third of the month with an incredible streak of wins and good results in the Tour de Luxembourg and Cro Race. In Luxembourg the team completely dominated the field and two wins each from Babakhanov and Sariboev meant that we won every single stage apart from the time trial. Due to the TT it was impossible to also take the GC, but Sariboev at least managed 3rd overall and also took the sprint jersey. All these victories of course also gave us the team classification.
At the Cro Race it was a similar picture, although not quite as dominant. Three stages won, one each for Atanas Peshov, Axel Vermeylen and Erbolat Kenzhebek, the team classification again and also the mountain jersey for Ilya Pashkevich. Unfortunately there were no chances in the general classification with Vladimir Bogaciuc finishing fifth as the best rider of the team.

Thanks to the much higher than expected income we managed to sign two new riders for this month. Magomed Bakayev fro mRussia is a promising classic who we expect to play an important role starting with the spring classics, while Reuben Kemp from the Bahamas is more of a support rider, who should get decent results in flat stages

October 2023

+2,879,275
4,627 points

Overall very mixed feelings about this. Stats look a lot better than it actually was, but they are misleading. A lot of money and points come from Cro Race, which was primarily done in September. After winning the final stage there it took a while to get any more results worth mentioning. Guangxi was very disappointing with mediocre sprint results and no GC chances.
Success finally came at the national championships where we won the three most important ones for the team. Shodiyor Gafurbekov won in Uzbekistan, Erbolat Kenzhebek in Kazakhstan and Vsevolod Skorko in Ukraine. Given the lack of opposition these wins are seen as mandatory, so we barely had reason to celebrate.
The real highlight then finally came at the Tour de Paves. Shodiyor Gafurbekov could win the fourth stage and also secure second in the general classification. In addition to that he also won the points and youth classification. For a while Sherzod Kholmatov was also in GC contention, actually wearing the yellow jersey for one stage, but he overexerted himself in the half stage and couldn't keep up afterwards.

On the personnel side Egor Stepanov, one of the most important riders of the first few comeback months retired. He was the one to get the first win after over 2 years.
Finally we also welcome 2 new riders. 25 years old Hugo Gil from Bolivia was signed as an additional option for the spring classics thanks to his decent mountain and pavé skill. Our second signing is Nurdaulet Rakhimzhanov from Kazakhstan, whose biggest quality is his salary

Now that the team is not in a position to win as much, we shift the focus more towards marketing to increase our budget again. I will try to at least post monthly summaries again in the future

After an incredible 2025, Murodbek Makhamadzhonov retired to signal the start of a new era. For now the team is not in the greatest position to win many races and the plan for the next few months is to target some niche races and use 2026 for a rebuild.

Artem Palamarchuk will be the main captain for sprint races, but without any sprinter as support, it will be difficult to win much. Main goal is of course MSR, where we still never got a win after plenty of tries with different types of riders.
Hubert Grala on the other hand will be the gc captain for a lot of tours. His lack of mountai skill means that he most likely only focusses on smaller, 1 week tours instead of the GTs, where we most likely won't have any gc ambitions at all.

January 2026

+3,108,888
5,165 points

Expectations for January were not big at all as there was no race for our main GC rider Hubert Grala. The plan was to focus on sprints for Palamarchuk and ride with cheap lineups in other races. In the end it went a lot better than expected.
We got off to a great start with Zemenfes Mengisteab getting a shock win at GP Letzebuerg. Then we went to Australia for the January tour, where Oleksandr Piskun got a stage win and 3rd in GC, which was much more than expected from him. In addition Artem Palamarchuk also won a stage and also the sprint jersey. Following that Artem got to shine some more. At the short Tunisian Roads tour, he managed 2 more stage wins and the sprint jersey again.
After that the month was supposed to essentially be over. Cheap lineups and out of form leaders for Down Under and AlUla, where the target was to just earn a little bit of money. At Down Under the favourites had different plans though. A completely harmless escape with Zemenfes Mengisteab was allowed to win by over 6 minutes and suddenly the GC win and team classification were already secured. Unfortunately the same didn't happen at AlUla, where an out of form Palamarchuk couldn't really do much and nothing worth mentioning was achieved.

Rider of the month:
Zemenfes Mengisteab. 2 stage wins in cat 3 races and also Down Under GC

Best race of the month:
AECT - Stage 5. Perfect form planning and a great strategy. Much more satisfying to win like that than the dumb luck at Down Under

Worst race of the month:
AlUla - Stage 2. P2, but not being able to win against a sprinter that goes from 150m was just depressing

Transfers in:
Graziano Alborghetti - 71-54-78-49-53-60.9-53, 21 years
Alborghetti is supposed to be our main GC rider for tours that are too mountainous for Hubert Grala. His second role will be to support Grala in his GC fights

I feel sort of insulted by Alborghetti. It feels like a "pity-buy". Big Donkey has no chance anymore if Tukh brings a strong climber, so let him have a chance, by buying a weaker one, while still being confident of beating him!
Strade Bianche winner 27? That I don't mind

Tukhtahuaev wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 02, 2026 10:07 am

Transfers in:
Graziano Alborghetti - 71-54-78-49-53-60.9-53, 21 years
Alborghetti is supposed to be our main GC rider for tours that are too mountainous for Hubert Grala. His second role will be to support Grala in his GC fights

So can I suppose you train him 80-70 style? Would make sense as support + with his pave can make him interessting for some classics.

Robyklebt wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 02, 2026 10:57 am

I feel sort of insulted by Alborghetti. It feels like a "pity-buy". Big Donkey has no chance anymore if Tukh brings a strong climber, so let him have a chance, by buying a weaker one, while still being confident of beating him!
Strade Bianche winner 27? That I don't mind

GT wins are not really my focus for this year, so I also didn't have to try and get the perfect climber. Alborghetti is good enough and has some nice secondary skills that I might use

flockmastoR wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 02, 2026 11:14 am

Tukhtahuaev wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 02, 2026 10:07 am

Transfers in:
Graziano Alborghetti - 71-54-78-49-53-60.9-53, 21 years
Alborghetti is supposed to be our main GC rider for tours that are too mountainous for Hubert Grala. His second role will be to support Grala in his GC fights

So can I suppose you train him 80-70 style? Would make sense as support + with his pave can make him interessting for some classics.

Not entirely sure yet, but definitely a bit more focus on flat than usual

February 2026

+1,406,063
5,115 points

Before the final race of the month, I didn't believe in my chances to get the Division 1 title anymore and thought this month would just be a big disappointment. Then everything just went perfectly at Omloop and suddenly we win Division 1 with in my opinion one of the weakest looking teams to do so in a long time. Investing a lot into the title fight made me sacrifice a lot of money that would have been very helpful in the longterm, so there are some questionmarks about whether the push was actually a good idea and a few negative feelings remain because of that. Still have to call February a success anyway, since making money is not what this game is about.
Results obviously very good overall with a stage and also GC and points jersey at Valenciana and the win at Omloop, which still is one of my favourite races. 2nd in GC at Algarve also sounds good, but I think there was an opportunity to win GC on the final day that I simply missed to see. Also a bad sprinting performance in quite a few races and a bit of bad luck that just happens with a lone sprinter from time to time. In the end only 2 wins for Palamarchuk, when he could have gotten 4 or 5, if I played it right

Rider of the month:
Hubert Grala. 2 stage wins in cat 3 races and also Down Under GC

Best race of the month:
Omloop. Full risk with Division 1 on the line and everything worked out perfectly

Worst race of the month:
Algarve - Stage 4. Bad sprint that cost a potential stage win and also the green jersey

Transfers in:
Traian Aelenei - 48-53-74-50-81-59-38, 21 years
A young sprinter to take off a bit of pressure from Palamarchuk. Starting skills not quite as impressive, but should be good enough to win once in a while

Terentiy Tikhomirov - 54-74-68-48-55-68.9-52, 21 years
Young classic, who is mostly going to be a helper, but might get a few opportunities to ride for his own chances. Good but not great at almost everything.

March 2026

+1,765,474
6,773 points


Paris-Nice and lots of classics were on the radar for this month. Third at Strade Bianche from Oleksandr Piskun was a good start, especially without anyone really targeting the race. Paris-Nice started off very badly, but two stage wins in the second half of the tour made up for it. Gc wise there was nothing worth mentioning, but that was to be expected.
Now it was finally time for the classics and the time to shine for Artem Palamarchuk. Of course his sole focus was on Milano-Sanremo, which he won convincingly. With that only one monument remains unconquered. He also got another win and then a second place at Ronde van Brugge to wrap up a great month for him.
The final week of March was for Zhansultan Dosmagambetov. He won E3 in a sprint from a smallish group and then was joined on the podium for Gent-Wevelgem by Zakhar Karatay. Unfortunately both missed out on the top step because of a tactical mistake in the sprint. Overall a very successful month, but that last loss hurts a bit, especially as it might have cost the Div 1 victory.

Rider of the month:
Artem Palamarchuk. Winning MSR is reason enough. Would be happy even if he retired tomorrow

Best race of the month:
E3. Fun race with a very nice sprint in the end to take the win. Honorable mention to MSR, but that honestly was not fun

Worst race of the month:
Classic Loire Atlantique. The win got gifted to someone else and my own sprint was also horrible

Transfers in:
Corentin Poitrenaud - 70-56-67-61-56-53,3-42, 21 years
New GC rider and hopefully white jersey winner at TdF

Tukhtahuaev wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 01, 2026 7:53 pm

tactical mistake in the sprint

Underestimating the rookie is not a tactical mistake!

Another great month for you, gw for MSR most of all!

April 2026

+1,743,889
8,264 points


At the start of the month there were 4 clear goals, RVV, Scheldeprijs, Gran Camiño and Amstel, with RVV obviously being by far the most important one.
We got off to an incredible start with Zhansultan Dosmagambetov crowning his spring campaign with the win at RVV. We got lucky at several key moments after taking probably unnecessary risks and winning the gamble in the sprint, but no one will ask about how it happened in a few years.
Scheldeprijs unfortunately went horribly wrong. After working all day Artem Palamarchuk simply chose the wrong wheel in the sprint and only finished 13th. With no other relevant sprint races in April, there was also no way to make up for it.
At Gran Camiño Hubert Grala got his final chance to win something for the team. It has been clear for a while that he does not really fit the plans for the future and thus both parties decided to part ways at the end of April. Even knowing that starting with him as the leader would not make sense from a financial point of view, it was seen as the right decision to let him go out on a high. IN the end he delivered and won the GC.
This great result was again followed by a big disappointment at Amstel. Caught off guard attack by an attack (That in hindsight was completely obvious) from SouthWest Packers, the win was gone pretty soon. From the peloton Zakhar Karatay managed to get 2nd, but that was only P7 overall.
The following week we raced without any real ambitions, but somehow this turned out to be the best week of the month. At Tour of the Alps Oleksandr Piskun shined with a win on stage 1 and also P2 in GC thanks to a rather fortunate field composition, but all that was rather unimportant compared to what happened at LBL. No one in the team even considered that race for their form planning and expectations were extremely low, but this time we were not caught off guard by the SouthWest Packers attack and followed with Zakhar Karatay and Elkhan Baltabekov. Karatay with the early tempo in that group was already dropped by 17s, but was brought back to the front by Oleksandr Piskun, who came from the peloton. In the end Karatay was still the strongest in the sprint after over 30km of hard tempo.
Currently the team is rising in Romandie, but that will be part of the May update

Rider of the month:
Oleksandr Piskun. Played an important role in the tours and was also the decisive factor for the LBL win

Best race of the month:
LBL. Great move, chaotic finale and a very unexpected win to finally win the fifth monument

Worst race of the month:
Schelde. Worked all day for nothing after getting absolutely shafted in the sprint

Transfers in:
Abylaykhan Zhangylyshbay - 56-71-79-57-53-63.5-54, 21 years
Hopefully the successor to Oleksandr Piskun. Only missing a little bit of flat

Sergey Pak - 48-70-67-48-50-63.7-41, 21 years
A cheap helper to finally be able to ride a bit cheaper again

Transfers out:
Hubert Grala - 75-72-72-82-55-67.5-58, 30 years
It never really clicked with him. Still quite successful, but he never fit into the teams' vision

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of Tukhtahuaev's first race and since the team has a rest day today, there is some time to look back on a few of the most important riders of our history.

10. Hiroshi Yasumura
He was the first proper leader. As a hillsprinter he could not win quite as many stages as some of the best proper sprinters did, but he still found plenty of success at important races. He won a total of 19 races and in addition to that also won the Cilcamino and the points jersey at Paris-Nice.

9. Eli Kanuk
Our first ever climber and first ever try at a GC for a GT. In the end he was just not as strong as Evaristo Zipoli, but he could at least steal 2 stages away from him at the Tour and also get 2nd in GC. Unfortunately could never win a big tour, but he made up for it a bit by winning Milano-Torino and Giro dell Emilia.

8. Ludvig Andersson
Until not too long ago he had the highest number of wins for the team. A classic sprinter and expert at farming money. Over half of his 29 wins were achieved in cat 1 races and he rarely was used as an actual leader for big races. But the few times he got his chance, he was pretty good. Winner of an unimportant Amstel, a stage at the Tour and in addition to that a 3rd place at MSR.

7. Bora Ergun
Almost as many wins as Ludvig Andersson, but also a lot of disappointments. He finished on the podium at 6 different classics, but could only win 2 of those in Québec and Montreal. The biggest highlight of his career probably came at his home race at the Tour of Turkey, where he won 2 stages, the sprint jersey and also the GC.

6. Oleksandr Piskun
One of the best helpers you can imagine. He played an essential role in winning all 3 GTs last year aswell as winning Lombardia last year and LBL this year. In addition to that he also got a few opportunities to shine on his own, winning a stage at the Tour and at Paris-Nice. He is also still not done and currently aiming for Glory at the Giro at 35 years.

5. Artem Palamarchuk
MSR. 4 times we managed to podium at this race, always with a different kind of rider, but it was never enough. He finally did it. Everything else doesn't matter.

4. Zhansultan Dosmagambetov
Probably the most impressive Flanders Classic season any of our riders ever did. Winning Omloop, Harelbeke and to crown his season also RVV. He also got 2nd at Gent–Wevelgem, which also should have been a win, if it wasn't for a manager mistake. Still at his peak right now, but unfortunately not many big races that suit his skillset remain.

3. Vladislav Tarabesh
The best climber we ever had, only prevented from reaching even greater heights by a lack of managerial skill and a better team around him. Too many great wins to list them all, the most important ones obviously winning the Giro against all odds and also winning Lombardia. He was also the reason for the biggest heartbreak, losing the Tour by just 2s in the final ITT.

2. Murodbek Makhamadzhonov
By far the most successful rider we ever had. He was so good that he even was allowed to get a nickname. Absolute dominator of 2025 winning all 3 GTs. Winning Lombardia and San Sebastian almost a side note in his incredible career that gave him a total of 24 cat 5+ Palmarès entries. By every objective measure, he should be a clear number 1 in this list

1. Igor Pankratov
The best rider ever. It doesn't matter that he didn't even get 1/6 of Makhamadzhonov's points and only won 10 races. His most important wins were at Harelbeke and Omloop, but his real value came with him always putting the teams' interests above his own. With that he helped his teammates to wins at both RVV and Paris-Roubaix and he also played a quintessential role to Ludvig Andersson winning as much as he did.

0. Zakhar Karatay
I have never hated a rider more than him. From the first moment he just disappointed. He never lived up to his potential and was always considered a failure, but then he won LBL against all odds. This was the final piece that was still missing in our Palmarès. That alone makes him deserving of a spot in this list. Since there was no space to fit him in, I just created one.

GW to ten years of fun, Tukta...Tuktha... Tukhtae... fuck it... GW