Following two races in Japan the Asian tour moves to Indonesia for the Tour de Singkarak

A fairly new race in just its 4th year, the 2012 tour will take 250 riders over an 856 km course in the beautiful surrounds of West Sumatra. The race is made up of seven stages, but this time with increased prize money total to IDR 1 billion (just over 100,000 Aussie).

Starting in Sawah Lunto and finishing in provincial capital Padang, this year’s route will again offer some of the finest landscapes in West Sumatra, a region animated with beautiful scenery, rich cultural attractions and delicious local cuisine and delicacy.

Eighteen international teams and seven Indonesian teams will compete to show their best. This year’s race is in co-operation with ASO (the organizer of Tour de France), marking a significant international recognition and increasing international importance.

Decisive stages appear to be stage 1, which despite being only 77 kms has a cat 3 climb right on the finish, stage 3 with 2 cat 2 climbs and stage 4, the queen stage with a cat 1 and 2 in the last 30 kms

AISAN RACING TEAM - JAPAN
AZAD UNIVERSITY CROSS TEAM - IRAN
OCBC SINGAPORE CONTINENTAL CYCLING TEAM - SINGAPORE
GENESIS WEALTH ADVISERS PRO CYCLING TEAM - AUSTRALIA
UZBEKISTAN SUREN TEAM - MIXED COUNTRIES
EDDY HOLLANDS BICYCLE SERVICES - AUSTRALIA
TABRIZ PETROCHEMICAL TEAM - IRAN
ACTION CYCLING TEAM - TPE
PLAN B RACING TEAM - AUSTRALIA
CCN CYCLING TEAM (ACT) - TAIPEI
COLOSSI MICHE TEAM - NEW ZEALAND
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL TEAM - AUSTRALIA
TRENGGANU PRO - MALAYSIA
JAPAN CYCLING FEDERATION - JAPAN
PURE BLACK RACING TEAM - NEW ZEALAND
BUDGET FORKLIFTS - AUSTRALIA
TEAM SPECIALIZED CONCEPT STORE - GERMANY

POLIGON SWEET NICE
ARAYA
PUTRA PERJUANGAN
WPS MANAGEMENT JOGJA
CUSTOM CYCLING CLUB
BINONG BARU CLUB PESSEL
PENGPROV ISSI SUMATERA BARAT
CIKEAS CYCLING TEAM

Last year was dominated by the Iranians from Azad university who took the first 3 places and nearly 10 minutes on the rest of the field
Amir Zargari, who is now at Ag2R won the race. TSG, as in Malaysia, seemed to dominate the sprints. Quality of the field did not look as good to me though

in fact has been won by Iranians for last 3 years

Quite a few good stages around, 1, 3, 4 and hopefully even 5 will be good.

Quite a few good stages around, 1, 3, 4 and hopefully even 5 will be good.

Stages 2 and 5 bear striking resemblance to Tour de France profiles in a bad way.

Stages 2 and 5 bear striking resemblance to Tour de France profiles in a bad way.

yeah they were talking up their links to the people that did the tour de france route

Plan B Racing provisional team for the race

Aaron Slavik
Alex Malone
Chris Beeck
Daniel Bonello
Logan Calder
Luke Joyce
Trent Morey

Really know nothing about the Plan B lot. Who's the best climber from this group? Maybe the mysterious sage Drew will make a comeback here too.

Not sure, there best performer recently has been Caleb Jones, once of bikebug, but he is not riding.

Start list part 1, more to follow

AISAN RACING TEAM (Japan)


1 SUZUKI Kenichi
2 NAKAJIMA Yasuharu
3 KIMORI Nozomu
4 AYABE Takeaki
5 SHINAGAWA Masahiro

Top ranked of the Asian teams in the UCI standings, Aisan from Japan continue on their journey towards becoming Asias biggest team. Pretty much ever present in all of the Asian races this year. Suzuki, Shinagawa and Kimori are all racing in the Tour of Japan right now and 4 of the team raced in Jelajah Malaysia with Nakajima taking second on the stage won by Jai Crawford and took third place overall. Ayabe is likely to be team leader for this race having managed 7th overall in last years race.

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AZAD UNIVERSITY TEAM (Iran)


1 SAEIDI TANHA ABBAS
2 HAGHI ALIREZA
3 SALEHIAN FARSHAD
4 GHAFARI VAHID
5 MOAZEMI GODARZI ARVIN
6 NINO CORREDOR VICTOR

Dominated this race last year taking the top three places, while none of those three return this year, with last years winner is now riding in the world tour for AG2R, Azad are bringing a very strong team to Indonesia. It is likely that team leadership will be split between Saeidi who finished second in the recent international tour of Azerbaijan and Colombian Victor Nino who finished 3rd in Langkawi this year. the rest of the team is the same as the one that supported Saeidi to his second in Iran (with the exception of my favorite Oscar Pujol who makes way for Nino). should the top two falter then Ghafari, who finished 9th in Iran should be able back up both overall and in hunting for stages.

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OCBC SINGAPORE (Singapore)


1 HO JUNRONG
2 GOH CHOON HUAT
3 MARCUS LEONG YONG YI
4 LOH SEA KEONG
5 AHMAD HAIDAR BIN ANUAWAR

Not the strongest of the asian teams but one that is present in most of the Asian races and a team that enjoys their racing (and provides handy updates from races). team leader once again will be Sea Keong Loh who came second in this years Tour de Filipinas. Three members of this team are currently taking part in the Tour of Japan.

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GENESYS WEALTH ADVISERS (Australia)


1 WALKER, Kane
2 HOSE, Blake
3 ROBINSON, Tom
4 PEARSON, Joel
5 SANDERSON, Nicholas
6 DAVIS, Samuel

due to a slight overlap with the Japanese races (like there is enough Asian races to over lap them) there is not a full genesys squad to choose from and no Jono in this race. team will be well represented with Kane Walker and Blake Hose for the overall and Pearson for the sprints. Will have to wait for jono to provide any further insight to the rest of the team.

EDIT: one interesting change on the latest start list. Nic Sanderson is out and Jai Crawford is in. not normally a Genesys rider so a guest appearance i guess. Will add some speed to the sprints and has been looking in good form

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start list part 3

CCN CYCLING TEAM (Brunei)


1 ROB GITELIS
2 SEAN SMITH
3 TIMO SCHOLZ
4 LEX NEDERLOF
5 RAIHAAN ABD AZIZ
6 AZMI HAZID ABD

This is a team from Brunei. Gitelis is down as team leader, an American rider who is 45 and has no previous results i can tell off. Timo Scholz is an experienced German rider with a solid history but hitting 40 now. Lead the tour of the phillipines for a few stages and finished 4th overall and came 12th in the Jelajah Malaysia. should be their strongest rider on paper. Nederhoff brings the average age of the three international riders on this team to a wonderful 44 years old and makes me wonder why i can only manage a 2 gentle ride about sydney given how youthful i am.

EDIT: couple of changes to this team. Gitelis is out and John Ebsen in Timo out and Lee Rodgers in and  AZMI HAZID ABD out and Fito Bakdo Prilanji in.

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TERENGGANU CYCLING TEAM (TSG) (Malaysia)


1 MOHD HARRIF SALLEH
2 MOHAMMAD SHOBRY ABDULLAH
3 KIM DO HYOUNG
4 MOHD ZAMRI SALLEH
5 MUHAMAD FAIZ SYARIFUDDIN
6 MOHAMMAD SAUFI MAT SENAN

Dominated Jelajah without actually winning the overall. No Fukushima here but Harrif is and will be looking to win more sprints after 2 wins in Jelajah and a hatful fo top 5's so far this year. Expect TSG to focus on the sprints with Zamri Salleh as back up for Harrif. Mat Senan is there best bet for overall but do not expect him to worry the top contenders.

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GLOBAL CYCLING TEAM (Netherlands)

1 Woestenberg, Peter
2 Van Agtmaal, Peter
3 Hereijgers, Kobus
4 Dudok, Tjeerd
5 Dijkshoorn, Roeland
6 Banda, Chipo

Cannot really find any information on this dutch team. probably down to my inability to search for dutch things. Maybe if one of our dutch based members stumbles into this thread by mistake they can provide some info?

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PLAN B RACING TEAM (Australia)


1 ALEX MALONE
2 DANIEL BONELLO
3 ALEXANDER SMVTH
4 TRENT MOREY
5 JAMES IBRAHIM
6 MICHAEL FITGERALD

Mentioned before, most of the team that rode in Iran. Dan Bonello returns to continue his facial hair battle with the Suren team. Lacking a little in a climbing talent in the team so expect them to just be chasing stages.

EDIT: Michael Fitgerald out and Liam Dove in

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Australian National Team (Australia)

1 DOUGLASS, NICOLAS
2 EDWARDS, DAVID
3 LOVELOCK-FAY, MITCHELL
4 EDMONDSON, ALEXANDER
5 MUNDY, PHILLIP
6 CLEMENTS, ALEXANDER

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Japan National Team (Japan)

1 MUTSUMINE / WATARU
2 TERASAKI / TATSURO
3 AKIMARU / YUYA
4 SHIMIZU / OHKO
5 HIRAI / EIICHI
6 YAMAMOTO / GENKI

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and two new teams previously missed

REINE BLANCHE(France)

1 SAMUEL DE BERNELAGARDE
2 CLEMENT DORNIER
3 DAMIEN FOL
4 JULIEN LIPONNE
5 ADRIEN MUFFAT
6 PIERRE MONCORGE

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Mess Kerman(Iran)

1 Mozafari Mohammad SADEGH
2 JAMALI MOHAMMAD
3 ESLAMPOUR AMIN
4 ZANGIABADI MOHAMMAD
5 CHEHRZAD SAEID
6 KARAMINEJAD RANJBAR MAHYAR

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3 times part 3 of the startlist?

1 ERIC SHEPPARD
:o

Should be the winner right there. At least, I bloody well hope so.

Yeah, yeah, weak excuse

No Putra Perjuangan? You'd have thought that having the elite Indonesian climber would've made them a shoo in. Have to do without Susanto then.

they are on one part of the team list, but on the start list for indonesia they are missing (there is a gap in the team list)
would be really surprised if they are not racing.

Defo think Nathan Dahlberg would have brokered this move, Jono was mentioning about Shep wanting to race in Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan kind, and that he wasn't allowed by his team in Italy, not to mention his Plan B background. Defo good for the race I'd think.

I noticed on their web site they had a 'thank you' to Nathan so wondered if he has been involved in setting the team up

Aye, just been over to the colossi miche website, they have only 8 riders in all.

flip, that's a pretty decent signing there. Jordan was in the Tour of Azerbaijan (the U23 kind), and was in a decisive break in one of the stages, possibly the third, and just got caught in the final kilometre or two there.