Written by Ello Ello at 15:29 31/12-2019
Episode 7: Planning
Henri (manager): If we can score in 2 of these then I think the season will be going up at last.
Commentary: and the race is on to round out the podium, Sylwester Pilarski and Herman Stevens are sprinting for the line and at the post Stevens pips it!
Commentary: He’s won this race before but this time Lincoln Hannity will be 4th in Sagarmatha.
Commentary: It’s been 3 seasons since he stood on the podium but finally Sylwester Pilarski has managed it.
Henri (manager): It’s true, we’d been struggling this season but 3 really good performances here has really got the team going again. Of course, you hope those 4ths could be podiums but honestly right now we’d have been delighted with 8th so 4th is huge. It was especially great to see Sylwester crossing the line in Grejs Lobet 3rd as it had been so long since he had a properly good result and it’s great to see the hard work put in by him over the last few months to prepare for this be rewarded.
Sylwester Pilarski (rider): That was such a good feeling. I’m still kind of not fully believing I have managed to do this. I know, I didn’t win but over the last 3 seasons I had only 1 points finish and was getting next to no captaincy chances. So when I sat down with the management at the end of last season I was pretty worried about whether I’d even be riding for EE this season. But in the end the chance was given.
Henri (manager): we offered Sylwester a final chance to finish on a high before becoming just a TM. He spent a lot of time just preparing away from the race scene, getting refreshed ahead of showing what he’s got mid season and I’m pleasantly surprised, there’s a chance we may start preparing for him to try and do the same again next season.
Bertus de Keijsere (coach): I’ve seen pretty much all of Pilarski’s career from when he started at EE, to the time when he came so close to winning at the Monte Rosa tour and of course his senior win at Frejus - col de Turini and I can’t think of a rider who I want to succeed more and as a rider he’s always shows himself to be a great and willing TM.
Pilarski (rider): It’s hard to say what happens now. I think the next few months will see me return to helper duty. The team are pretty set on Valparaiso now and whilst I probably won’t be a part of that team I expect I’ll be well set to support Sadiq at the DH races at that time.
Henri (manager): With Valpa now not far away the preparations are in full swing. Lincoln Hannity finished 3rd last season so we don’t need to worry too much about entering since the race will give us a wildcard for him. This season DSC will be our captain as we hope to complete the collection and win the YC. Maciel [Placido] and Bertus have been spending the last week fine-tuning Daniel’s schedule up to that point and a lot of credit has to go to them for finding what looks like a very strong preparation.
Placido Maciel (coach): Preparing a rider for a major tour is on the surface of it quite a simple thing, we need to get his freshness and race shape really high so he can perform in his top form. But it’s never easy, freshness requires a break from racing whilst to keep race shape you need to keep racing so it’s about balancing and compromising on these two aspects. EE’s way of doing it is to aim for a race shape of just over 90% with freshness as high as possible and then to use the profile of the stages to maximise every possible chance we can to rest up.
Bertus de Keijsere (coach): given that this is now the 5th or so season that we’ve come to Valpa with a rider who we want to be at peak fitness you’d have thought that we’d simply recycle a plan from a previous season. But that’s never the case, a few years ago Iancu entered his peak early and got a 2nd place at Muelle San Carlos the week before but then last season we wanted Hannity to race the week after Valpa so we needed another schedule and also the races that we do 2-3 weeks before Valpa are never identical so this all becomes one colossal balancing act. This year we also need to tie it into the team’s trainees who we want to do a few light races with Daniel in the build up as well. By the end of this we hope to get a very crude plan that we can go with.
Henri (manager): planning is probably the most complex thing of running the team. We’re quite a volatile team in terms of our standing in the racing world so that means we never truly know what races we’ll be eligible for 30 days into the future. A few season’s now we’ve looked at the start of the season and thought we’d likely make a certain race and then things change 10 days in and we have to rewrite the plan. For that reason we normally only look forward in blocks of 20 ish days with the exception being events such as Daniel’s peak form preparation that can require a bit more although is does have the advantage of being able to pick random races so there’s not the constraint of only picking races we’ll be competitive in.
Bertus de Keijsere (coach): I think the most complex preparation we’ve had to do is probably with Gherman Cristache last season. His season 49 finished on day 88 at the Don Hill tour and we then had 41 days to recharge him and prep him so that on he’d be fully ready for Cymru Taith. That one was pretty rocky and at some points required rewriting the plan on a daily basis for when he’d exactly finish recharging.
Placido Maciel (coach): We got lucky with that one, there were a few nice little tricks that helped mean that the recharge took a bit less time than we expected and so by day 23 we were ready to start preparing him which gave us a nice bit of wiggle room but ye there were some times around day 20 when we were really worried it was touch and go.
Henri (manager): This week is going to be a bit more relaxed than the last one, we have a few preparation races for various targets and there’s only 2 big races. Rila Lakes which Arpad Faltus always enjoys and Pinchor where we’re not entirely sure who will be leading the line for us there just yet but it will partially depend on who we want to go and support Daniel at Valpa a week later.
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Comments
thanks
unlikely Hannity can take it though, he won't be able to repeat his performances at Valpa from last year
...just noticed, it'll be game on for the England jersey too, hehe.
nice win today - good luck in the valpa!
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