Written by Velosipedska at 11:36 17/5-2021
Greetings to fans, press and other readers. Over a week into the new season, Velosipedska have resumed their cycling activities. The rest period a couple of riders enjoyed meant a lack of noteworthy results after the Monte Rosa victory last season, so this yearly review will only briefly look back at the previous season, and spend most time looking ahead at S57. We hope you enjoy this update.
---TEAM NEWS---
Our team remained largely the same, structurally. After buying a new bike at the start of the season, no new staff was hired and nothing extraordinary happened to the management side of the team. The most drastic changes happened on the rider front, which we’ll discuss below.
We would like to take this moment to thank our sponsors during this season: Red Average Ltd, Zubizarreta & Son Bricklayer, Red Average Ltd, OCM Magazine, Chili Bot Hot Sauces and Alpine. They brought around 200k to this team, making sure we can always train deserving Macedonian talents.
Our final economic position after S56:
Income
-------------------
Starting Balance: 311,650
Funding: 20,200
Rider Sales: 342,794*
Prize Money: 92,000
Jobs: 94,000
Sponsors: 194,000
Merchandise: 27,672
Expenses
-------------------
Team Upgrades: 125,000
Supplies: 13,300
Staff: 2,100
Scouting: 32,000
Rider Hires: 211,836
Training: 525,300
Net Balance
-------------------
172,580
*The sales of Pavel Jonuz & Mitre Ibraimi are part of fiscal season 57, ~250k
---RACE NEWS---
Our race news can be summarized briefly: BAD. Due to a couple of unfortunate off-days, crashes and injuries, the return of captains Riste Nikolovski and Jordan Spirkoski has not been as successful as we’d hoped. A 7th place at Volos - Larisa and 8th at David - Mirador de Fortuna for Riste have been our only top-10’s in the past 12(!) races. Luckily, we know that in cycling, only the big ones count. Perhaps a bit of bad luck here will secure our good luck in our main goals.
Riste will try to defend his Monte Rosa Tour title. He was an outsider last season, and will still be one this season, but Velosipedska will always have a chance in any race.
Jordan will aid Riste again, but will try to save his top form for another target. Depending on our position after Monte Rosa, he will aim for a YC result in Canada (Edmonton) or Norway (tour) or the USA (Minutemen).
Jovan Georgievski will get a couple of chances as well this season, but he will have to improve on last season to remain a protected rider.
---RIDER NEWS---
There have been quite a few changes in our squad. In this section we will discuss every rider briefly, some have arrived, some have departed, some were already around. We will start with the departures and new arrivals.
Gjorgji Najdoski, Leco Vasilevski and Stojance Meglenski have all joined the Velosipedska Academy. All have some Good potential in climbing, and delighted trainer Gjorgi Beqiri has been quoted as saying ‘we can probably train them I guess’. The trio might not be the super talents Nikolovski or Georgievski were at that age, but they will bolster the ranks of our climbing squad, which can currently be limited severely by an injury or two.
Near the end of last season and at the start of this season, Milan Aceski, Pavel Jonuz and Mitre Ibraimi have left as Velosipedska Academy graduates. Milan is a solid hillsprinter in whom we have a lot of faith. His abilities can’t be fully utilized in our climbing team, however. We are happy to say he has joined the only other Macedonian team in professional cycling: Alpinisti na Ohrid. Pavel Jonuz is joining him on his adventure. A beast of a man and solid time trialist, Jonuz secured a spot on our team, but was approached by the Alpinisti manager to lead their new lead-out train. We wish both riders all the best at our sister team.
Mitre Ibraimi has briefly been in our academy as well, but since the departure of our sprint squad, we feel his progression is best served at a sprint-oriented outfit. As of today,the Belgian WelchAllyn will be his employer. We are happy as always to see Macedonian riders spread out in the cycling world, hopefully we’ll enjoy seeing Mitre winning some races soon.
A few rider achievements in S57:
Riste Nikolovski’s praises have been sung often in these messages, so in brief: Riste became the first Macedonian tour winner and the first Macedonian WT stage winner. Apart from these milestones he grabbed the Velosipedska appearance record (currently 117 races), grabbing 7 wins, 12 podium spots and 38 top-9’s. Riste has currently grabbed 1337 points for the team, and accumulated over 335k in prize money. We are sure he will build upon those numbers this season.
Slobodan Meglenski became the 3d rider to reach 100 appearances, his current tally is 103. Meglenski will likely surpass Gjorgi Beqiri (105) soon. One of only 2 remaining original riders, Meglenski has always been a hard-working water carrier and one of our main ambassadors outside of the cycling world. Captains riding with Meglenski have gained over 250k in prize money with his help, and he raised 60k in funds in other activities himself. Slobodan is one of our core riders and we hope to see him ride for quite a few more years before he calls it a day.
A few milestones in short:
Blagojce Mojsov has raised 47k in funds and can become the 2d rider to reach 50k.
Eftim Nastevski (75) is the 6th and Jordan Spirkoski (72) will be the 7th rider to reach 75 appearances for the team.
Nikola Shaqiri (50), Jovan Georgievski (50) and Dragi Stavrevski (47) have reached or almost reached 50 appearances for the team.
That is all for today, we hope to see you along the road once more in Switzerland and elsewhere!
Kind regards and thanks for reading,
KrMees (Manager)
Vujadin Mileski (PR)
Subscribers: 10
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Comments
Great write-up.
Solid team . Soon you ll be able to field two teams in CL races:)
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