SBS RaboDirect Tour de France Fantasy

[jasimon]

Hi

Stage 2 over and Team Wilton has the yellow for another day. Can Skippy's Kangaroos bridge the gap tonight?

Andrew

Nope.

And by stage 4 or 5 there will be others heading the list as their bonus stages kick in.

And the shame of it is: I've finally worked out how to make stage 19 work without completely sacrificing the sprint on the Champs Elysee - which means that I really should have stuck with stage 19 as my bonus. The decision probably only cost me 50 points I guess, which is less than some sort of rider boycott of a sprint finish would

[roller]

can someone copy/paste the ladder in here?

i can't see it from my work

cheers

[jasimon]

165 Team Wilton Les Cox 257
597 Les Kangourous John Simon 219
812 The Brown Trousers Russell Griffiths 210
833 HAKS Rohan Coghlan 209
874 Team TANG Steve Crisp 208
867 Brass Monkeys Jim Hutchison 208
966 The Little Battlers Braden Dinham 205
1034 The Straw Burgers Simon Berry 203
1124 Team Killa Andy Kilminster 201
1113 CherryPicked Cameron Mitchell 201
1112 Team Source Craig Hampton 201
1111 EPO Breaks Nick Cowie 201
1188 Lead Out Specialists Huw Carisbrooke 199
1282 EPO TestTeam minh dinh 196
1390 All Blacks Andrew Priest 193
1508 reeves rebels james lingwood 190
2022 HTFU Isabella Thompson 181
2145 Team Malvern Star Luke Conallin 179
2190 Hope a bear eats Contador Damien Green 178
2462 EPO Shack chris dart-kelly 174
2540 Another Saddle Sore Nick Payne 173
2619 DCMOcontinental Dennison Ong 172
2609 Badens Heroes richard hinsliff 172
2789 Mistaken for mopeds Sean Bennett 169
2805 SL Shirlene Loi 169
3141 Gonzo Racing Dion Origlia 164
3425 Purple Haze Cameron Kerr 159
3483 Drunkmonkeys Vanessa Hounsell 159
3489 redcorpsjames James Press 158
4155 Better than last years Christopher Stone 150
4899 Egg Enterprises David Shailer 141
5031 Sweet Lily Peter Smits 140
5411 Disturbed Turkeys Hugh Petrie 136
5760 Jetpackin Lucas Wood 132
6304 The Third Estate Alistair Perkins 127
6499 Fruit Toast & Flat White Julian Wright 125
6576 wind racers Len Montgomery 124
6658 Team Shelview Martin Shelton 123
7934 Big Ring is King Stuart Nowak 108
8720 Shut Up Legs Todd Norbury 97
9430 Lets Go Mick Peter Orenstein 86
99999 Ches Warriors Che Rogers 0

[martinjs]

I suck at this but it's a bit of fun.

Martin

[Aushiker]

I suck at this but it's a bit of fun.

Hi

I am with you ... took a nose drive last night.

Andrew

[nickobec]

Me too, fading fast Frank Schelek out of my GC team, limping along with Tyler Farrar can't swap him out till Saturday and tonight is my bonus stage. Need certain sprinters to stand up (EBH, Cav, Ciolek + Thor and JJ Rojas to keep scoring)

[Ruski73]

Me too, fading fast Frank Schelek out of my GC team, limping along with Tyler Farrar can't swap him out till Saturday and tonight is my bonus stage. Need certain sprinters to stand up (EBH, Cav, Ciolek + Thor and JJ Rojas to keep scoring)

I have a similar issue with Vande Velde but it gets worse because I decided to keep him along with Wiggins and Thomas through the flat stages, hope they go OK in the hills and blitz the time trial. Last night I had my Tour saved by Thor, Geraint, Fabian, Wiggles, Rojas. Good to see Fab back in the yellow. Will probably hold him through the mountain stages now.

[reeves]

hi andrew i have applied to add my wifes team in our mini league team name is mystical bloomers. hope this is ok with everyone.

[Aushiker]

hi andrew i have applied to add my wifes team in our mini league team name is mystical bloomers. hope this is ok with everyone.

hi

Maybe should have said no Mystical Bloomers have now joined the peloton and taken the yellow! Well done ...

Andrew

[reeves]

I know she doesn't even ride and only does the comp because i watch the tour

[HAKS]

I took a nose dive.........partly cause there were a few above me now that had stage 4 as their bonus. Just wait till the ITT I say

[cherrycam]

Me too, fading fast Frank Schelek out of my GC team, limping along with Tyler Farrar can't swap him out till Saturday and tonight is my bonus stage. Need certain sprinters to stand up (EBH, Cav, Ciolek + Thor and JJ Rojas to keep scoring)

ditto F Schlek, Farrar. Tonight is my bonus stage - just hope Cav particularly fires up, along with EBH, Ciolek, Thor, Rojas, Freire, Roche. Maybe even Farrar - noticed he came in early 20's last night.

In terms of GC, Schlek out; chose Kreuziger above Basso which looks good at the moment, Schlek A, Wiggins, Contador as expected; Armstong a little disappointing but thereabouts.

Changes for stages 7,8,9 look quite difficult - mix of breakaway, kom wannabees, potential GC riders on stage 8, top 40 finish stage 9...? Could yellow go to Cadel on stage 8? How good is Geraint Thomas (despite ultra low priice tag?)? Is Lloyd 20+min down so he can go for KOM without having a tight leash?

[cherrycam]

hi andrew i have applied to add my wifes team in our mini league team name is mystical bloomers. hope this is ok with everyone.

hi

Maybe should have said no Mystical Bloomers have now joined the peloton and taken the yellow! Well done ...

Andrew

Forgot to mention, my wife is only 7 points behind me and has Robbie in her team and double points tonight. Can she join and take yellow too? Let's not count our chickens. I can see it now - Cav heads off all the favourites into the fence which leaves Farrar (behind due to injury) to go to the lead, but an anonymous sprinter who I nearly had in my team loses his bike into the back of Farrar - hang on, wait, this happened the other night.

What's with 36 and 38 year old sprinters stealing the show?

[nickobec]

Bugger why did I pick stage 5 as my bonus stage 1,2,3,4,5,10 & 14

[jasimon]

Bugger why did I pick stage 5 as my bonus stage 1,2,3,4,5,10 & 14

Same reason I picked stage 1 as my bonus.

Cherrycam made out like a bandit - 139 bonus points.

[jasimon]

Here's a question for those of you so inclined to help out the competition:
How many points do you think Ivan Basso will gain, on average, over the 8 mountain/hills stages (that is 7, 8, 9, 10 and 14, 15, 16, 17)? Roman Kreuziger?

[ft_critical]

Andrew, please accept me, sorry for being a late joiner.

Rolling as 'The Beige Jersey'

[Aushiker]

Andrew, please accept me, sorry for being a late joiner.

Rolling as 'The Beige Jersey'

Hi

No worries. Just went in and did it. You should show up soon.

Andrew

[jasimon]

So does anyone want to talk about their thinking and tactics for the next stages?

I'm torn. There are three flat stages in the middle of the Alps and Pyrenees. The sprinters can really rack up the points - but if you hang onto them through the mountains you get nothing. How do people see the balance playing out? Hang onto the sprinters? Go for mountain men? Split the difference?

[Aushiker]

So does anyone want to talk about their thinking and tactics for the next stages?

I'm torn. There are three flat stages in the middle of the Alps and Pyrenees. The sprinters can really rack up the points - but if you hang onto them through the mountains you get nothing. How do people see the balance playing out? Hang onto the sprinters? Go for mountain men? Split the difference?

Hi

Well you can only make six transfers to assuming your initial team was a sprint team, you still can at least three sprinters and the balance climbers.

Andrew

[nickobec]

So does anyone want to talk about their thinking and tactics for the next stages?

Well I used 5 of my transfers last night to get in 4 GC/climbers and 1 transfer to balance the books.

I intend to hang on to the sprinters who I think can handle some climbing aka Hushvod, JJ Rojas and Ciolek through the Alps and maybe the Pyrennes, my logic goes like this:

Tonight it is expected that the finish will be a bunch of 20 or 30 elite riders, if any of those guys are in that bunch they should win

Sunday mountain top finish, GC heaven maybe, see comment about breakaways

Tuesday 30km from Col de la Madeleine to the finish last 10km flat, do not expect them in top dozen or so riders, but green jersey points to 20th place, so if they any are in a group expect them to sprint for points

Wednesday the Côte de Laffrey is 100km from the finish this should sort the climbers from the rest. Still if my picks get over it in the main bunch, a catergory 2 & catergory 3 climb stand between them and glory

Thursday sprinters day

Friday the finish is on an airfield after the Laurent Jalabert climb in Mende 3.1km at around 10% I have no idea

Next Saturday more transfers if required.

Breakaways are more likely in mountains and middle mountain stages, GC riders are worried about other GC riders rather than the glory of the stage win and green jersey points, especially since no time bonuses. So they sit back and cover the contenders and let non contenders go for broke.

Likely breakaway riders anybody with a Cofidis, Euskaltel-Euskadi, AG2R, etc jersey. So I will not gamble there, I will stick to GC and those that can finish out of a bunch.

[jasimon]

I followed some of nickobecs thinking. The GC guys are all going to be together in the front bunch and, provided that bunch is only about 20 riders, they should score in mountains - even if there is a small breakaway. Breakaways: Can't pick em and they will only score on one stage anyway, so stick with GC riders that should be more consistent even if they don't win stages.

My team was 7 sprinters plus Fabian and an outside chance GC rider. Budget constraint means I can't keep the good sprinters around while also having good GC riders. The transfer constraint means that I need to put some GC riders into the team with this batch of transfers if I want them to be around in the Pyrenees. And if I'm going to put them in, I better put them in here because it would be a waste not to have them around in the Alps even if there may not be big moves here.

So I made three transfers this morning - Contador, Cadel and Schleck in preparation for the mountains while leaving some sprinters around:- Thor, Freire, Ciolek, Mondory. (I'm stuck with Freire because I picked him instead of Rojas before stage 1, but he is meant to be able to hang with the climbers over intermediate stages.) I also left Fabian in there in case he retains the yellow today - but he is going to get cut soon.

[cherrycam]

I would have to agree with what has been said, hence why I only made one change for tonight (Farrar out for Thomas). Tonight, though I don't expect Cavendish to get close I am hoping the others are a rough chance for points (Rojas, Freire, Hushovd, Hagen and to a lesser extent Ciolek), and Roche and Thomas could certainly be there (behind the breakaways). (Last time I named some riders who needed to perform it worked.) Breakaways are difficult to pick, GC riders very unlikely to contest although some could get some low points.

It also means that it gives me one more night and a different terrain to assess the riders. eg Freire has looked out of sorts, in reasonable position going into sprints but pulling up to not contest them. If he doesn't do something tonight I think he will be out of my team.

Basso to score 40 points and Kreuziger 50 points in the eight stages mentioned (counting 16 points for finishing). Likelihood of both predictions being within 10%: 7%. The point is the prediction is very difficult to make.
Update: Looks like a severe underestimation before the Pyrenees.

The way I look at it is to see how I think each of the stages will finish, and likelihood of different types of finish, and then choose the best riders for the finish type, taking into account things like people who like to get over the line with their noses in front compared to those who don't care. Then try to maximise with stage sequence and swap availability. The reality is I have no idea what to do over the next week.

I am just glad that Petacchi and Mcewen are no longer in the points without them being in my team. Most unfortunate the situation for Robbie though.

[cherrycam]

I got that stage very wrong...costly. Hills too close to the end.

[Aushiker]

Hi

Congratulations to The Beige Jersey. Change of yellow on the road and a change of yellow in the league

Andrew