Hope others, Lecce, Aix, Marzahn etc. etc. write their brillant analyses here too, or comments or whatever, Robyklebt, the press speaker of the team has no problem writing a lot, but the new boss, petit singe this motherfucker seems to be more aggressive, not the nice friendly dude that Roby is and was, if this thread develops into another, Roby writes, others read or don't but only write their worthless results in their worthless teamthreads he might forbid me to write here!
Ok.
Favorites:
Obvious:
Manuel Santillo 83 mountain 70 TT, he has a 6' advantage to everybody else thanks to the 60 Km TT and a 84 mountain helper. Clear favorite. Except that Roby is neither Mangahn nor Elb, so no sense in building up a favorite with good skills but no experience and no team. Santillo won't win. Sorry Nilk...
1) Lack of experience 52 races. Ok, there are 3 Nilkheims, this one 52, another 47, one more with 35, so he might have 130 races, still, he doesn't really have enough experience to win it against people like petit singe, Bergwerk, Lecce, Aix with lots of experience.
2) Lack of team: After the 84 and 83 climber he has a 63 as best climber. And 79 is his best flat rider, that's the same that has 63. So he often will be isolated soon. And if towards the end he still has chances to win it, I don't doubt that Lecce, BW, PT or Aix will kill his chances with an attack he can't counter in a middle mountain stage.
3) Pavé. Which almost makes the 2 other points moot. 50 pavé. 79 best flat rider, he will lose a lot there, he won't be able to contain his loss in the non pavé parts with a strong flat team. Like BW with Carnell, Aix with Marchino and PT with Grillboy, he will lose a lot. 6' won in the TT, regular loss in the mountain, big loss Pavé, really see no chance for Santillo.
So, who is the favorite?
A climber, clearly.
Let's start with the nr 1.. petit singe
Gamov: 89-49-55,8, that's mountain, TT pavé
Buonarroti 86-49-55,4
Both Regmonsters. But the weakest in the pavé compared to the other favorites.First question, will the great ape, oh, sorry, small ape, manage to stay with most of the others on that stage? The advantage of the reg is not huge this time, the opponents have reg too, even though not as much, and it's the Tour, not the Giro. Weakness the team behind those 2, only Berlogea with 71 mountain, the rest is under 60. So attackable in middle mountain stages by BW and Lecce at least. Will make the announced double leadership harder as well, yep, petit singe this idiot want to ride with 2 leaders, Robyklebt could tell him it's shit, and did, after all he tried that for x GTs never won.. but won with a clear single leader, Gamov.. Other possible weakness, the motivation, right now petit singe seems to thing that a stage win for Gamov is more important, after not winning any at the Giro Yuri wants to win at least one here. But that probably will change, the chances to win are there, he probably will concentrate on the GC when the mountains start.
Lecce:
Corvia: 87-49-64,0.
His big advantage: 64,0 pavé, CLEARLY the strongest there. his problem, he will lose some time to the rest between and after the pavé, his best flat rider has 81, next best 80. BW has 87-85-82-81, PT 87-82-80, Aix 88-82-80-80. Still, he should come out in front, but by how much? Winning a lot there will be very important for him. If not, more difficult, but still possible. The team is very strong in the mountains, 87-81-77-76-75, three 75-80 (ok, flat not all 80) and one 80-70 (ok, only 69) Plus he could benefit from a BW-PT block... Gamov-Mandelbrot, clearly the strongest in the mountain, both not wanting to do the first move, Corvia with 87 stronger than their 86 helpers, with his strong support team an attack from far (don't ask me where, haven't really analyzed the thing yet...) could be succesful. His problem then could become Aix though. Balotelli, 81-69 as leader.. .don't think that can work, but who knows, think Corvia has better chances.
Bergwerk
Mandelbrot 89-49-56,0
Rinner 86-53-62,2
Mandelbrot basically equal to Gamov. less sprint, so for the stages Gamov rather the favorite, 0,2 more pavé. For the moment, Gamov 33 might lose there, in the mountain too of course... let's hope not
The 0,2 interesting, if the form is the same (which I think it is) then he might win time in the pavéstage. Which would be very hard to get back for Gamov. Already the 2" now are not really making pt happy. There really is not much between Mandelbrot and Gamov, every second counts, and the luck in the TT might turn out to be decisive. Or the 0,2 pavé. Good for BW, he has the team to keep Gamov away after the pavé. Good for BW as well: He has a better team after the 2 very similar sets of climbers. 75, 74, then 63, 62. Clearly superior to the PT team, might manager to isolate the 2 Singe climbers while still having 4 riders, and Lecce 5 (again, don't ask me when, not sure if there is a stage where that makes sense) BWs biggest problem: BW himself. We saw it at the Dauphiné once again, he just is a useless whiner too often. No risk, afraid of taking the necessary risk to win, prefers to just complain about the difficulty of winning instead of trying. And in my view because of that often not a very good manager. He has the team to put Singe into trouble. Will he have the guts to try it, without guarantee that it works? He might have an advantage over Gamov after the pavé, will he take the risk to attack Corvia but maybe having Gamov suck his wheel? We'll see, but often BW prefers to play it safe for some worthless 5th places in a stage instead of riding 100% for the big win. REason IMO he's afraid of somebody profiting from his work. Which can always happen, Gamov, Corvia, Sheringham could all profite one way or another from him, let's hope BW shows some guts and rides for the win instead of the usual weak riding for 5th places with Colby. Dauphiné was better than expected though. Still not 100% for Mandel, which very likely would have meant the GC win, but better than expected. Other possible danger man, really interesting option IMO: Rinner. 62,2 pavé, so he should win time on everybody except Corvia, could end up together with Corvia even, thanks to the better flat riders. Then 53 TT, which means, he should gain over a minute in the 60 Km TT to Corvia, Gamov, Buonarroti and Mandelbrot. according to the Robylations he should gain exactly: 1'12". With time on everybody else in the pavéstage and Mandelbrot as a helper... could work. Interesting option, would probably mean not fighting for stages with Mandelbrot, but could work for the GC.
Aix:
Sheringham 87-51-56,0
36" to the rest in the TT, not enough probably 1:1 vs Mandelbrot-Gamov. Probably together with Mandelbrot at the pavé stage. Where he could profit is, see Lecce, a Mandel-Gamov block, both waiting for the other to do the first move, since if it's between those 2 every second counts. The team behind, not great, but could be ok. 72 and 70 mountain, risks being dropped by Lecce-BW regularly as well, but 87, often should manage to follow still. His chance is mostly "parasiting", he should be behind Lecce after pavé, then wait and see.
ByZickl
Lesage 86-50-58,1
Has a good helper with 83 as well. Advantage, pavé, could be strong enough to gain some time on Mandel-Roby-Gamov. Then win agin a little bit in the TT. But difficult, with 86 not sure to follow Corvia, this missing point IMO makes it more difficult for him to win than for Aix. But with chances too.
Strassenflitzer:
Mock, 87-50-52,7
Despite the pavé, thanks to the team, flat helpers, could have a chance. What will kill him IMO is the manager, not experienced enough and too often offline.
Verunga: 86-52, 52,3. Pavé again, plus probably behind Mock after the pavé. Weaker team for bringing him back.. don't really see his chances.
Rest, forget the rest, Villeon has an interesting rider, but don't know Villeon, so no comment.
SHould be between the first 4 mentioned teams, maybe the first 3 with Aix as a very dangerous outsider. Race will be made by Lecce and BW, they decide how it goes basically, the rest, including PT will have to wait and profit if they see a chance. Stars, percentages, pff. forget it... Corvia, Gamov, Mandelbrot, Rinner, Sheringham the 5 big names IMO. Alphabetically here, hope no mistake.
No problem, just didn't really see the sense in it at the time.. .maybe to help Lesage come back by disrupting the front? 
