Campeonato de los Andes 15:00

[flockmastoR]

Hello Afternoon guys.

I will give my afternoon comeback tour! My 3rd Campeonato after one year of total failure and one year of total success we will end up somewhere in the middle this year.

Line up will be around Platini and Hilbert

[Kaju]

Kajus here too.
Don´t know how, but we will kick flockes ass

[Robyklebt]

The donkey here too. If the ape managed to win this 3 times in a row of course the donkey should do it 6 times in a row easy.

The team:

1 Vinicius Dourado The great Donkey climber and leader. GC all for him.
2 Lakhdar Gaouaoui: Helper with reg
3 Gaston Lajeunesse: Last helper in the mountain for Vinicius. And possibly can ride for himself if theres an opening
4 Cestmir Matuska: Future classic star, here as a helper
5 Spartaco Poggi: Brilliant helper, can escape too
6 Taxiarchis Stratigopoulou: Young greek climbing sensation, here helping Vinicius and learning for 2015
7 Sinclair Saddler: 21 year white jersey pretendant. Or maybe just a guy with reg and we hope he can stay in the race longer than regless Borthwick would have
8 Reto Tobler: See Poggi, but a bit weaker
8 Urs Tobler: classic star, time trialist, helping, escaping, helping, more helping

Goals: Ok, actually we thought to start with a canon fodder team... still expensive 490k, so after all we probably will look for sitters when necessary. GC normally should be hopeless, even if Dourados reg will help him a lot. Stages.... modern racing tactics seem to be that the favorite for the stage attacks at km 1. And the GC favorite usually too... so probably we won't get any stages, but ok, let's see how classless the participation turns out to be.

[Kaju]

Is it a joke?

[Kaju]

So, obvious it isnt a joke

Little Kajulyse befor the mountainstages begin.


General classification
*** Ulises Veracruz
** Valerio Pontremolesi
* Rafal Maijka, Aki Kitahara, Nessi Pas, Vinicius Dourado


White Jersey
*** Taxiarchis Stragigopoulov
** Akira Hikari
*

Green Jersey
*** Gaston Lajeunesse, Valerio Pontremolesi, Ulises Veracruz
**
* Gianpaolo Peluso


Mountain Jersey
*** A rider of a team which want to fight for the red and has enough reg

[Robyklebt]

GC wise...

Veracruz und Pontremolesi in my view roughly at the same level. Of course Veracruz will win lots of time in the TT, but Pontremolesi has one mountain point more, which can give regular seconds advantage. Even more because of the 2 classics, that in the end are much stronger than the ones Liquigas has. 74 with 62 reg and 70 with 64 reg. Liquigas has 72 and 71, but the 72 with no reg, he'll suffer a lot later on I think. So for loading purposes not unlikely that Kaju will have an advantage more than once, can increase the time gains. And then for attacks, the 2 Kajus have more flat too, 82+79 vs 75+71. Pretty big team advantage there. And as long as Liquigas is in command, he'll have to control the race a bit most likely, which weakens his team further. So... roughly equal I'd say. Depends a lot on how good Liquigas is, experience and so on, if he was a complete newcomer I'd say Kaju wins it easy, but he isn't, so it could be a nice fight.

Behind 3 outsider teams. Start with Donkey: Dourado only 84 mountain, but with 76 Lajeunesse helping wise he should be ok. Lajeunesse not usable for attacks really, no reg, but for helping he often should be still pretty ok. Won't always be at 1000 though. And Stratigopoulou will be 74 soon, then 75, so loading wise Dourado should always be there really in the end. Advantage over Liquigas too, not against Kaju. The chance for Dourado could be if Kaju and Liquigas control each other too much. Block each other.
Next Britain: With experience he'd have fairly good chances. Kitahara 85, has enough reg. Majka, miswritten Majka, no reg, but 85 mountains too, so the only one with 2 climbers. And Figueredo with 77 mountain. He can light up the race in the mountains, not 2 days in a row of course, but he really can make the race there, he can decide how the mountain stages are ridden, attack, sieb, wait, in the end it's his decision how it will be ridden. But with 4 races so far in the end don't think he'll ride for the win, just not enough experience normally. But who knows, like Dourado, more than Dourado, he can profit from Liquigas Kaju markage, and unlike Dourado he actually could force them to have to face difficult situations.
Last Pas from San Miguel, for me with his reg absolutely no GC chance. And a bit too much offline so far, but ok, didn't really matter. Like Britain no experience really, 8 races so far.

The other jerseys.. .who cares really.
Donkey goal here was one stage win somehow, now with that small group let's make it 2.. .but ok, one the first goal. Of course I'll always keep an eye on GC too, if there is a good chance, fuck stage wins, I'll concentrate 100% on GC, but for the moment the chance is not really good enough so I'll be hoping to get a stage somewhere sooner or later. Mmh, actually not sure if I'll be always online... but now with the small group and better chances for Dourado than expected (thought would be close to 0, now it's between 5-10%) I'll probably have to be on...

[flockmastoR]

So finally after the cat tamer (leo says that), had to move to 18:00 you let the donkey win this again?

[Robyklebt]

No no, even if the chances look much better after the first highly boring and pointless week. Not that I expect the second week to be better in this abonimation of a group.

If before it was 40-40-20, or ok 39-39-19-3, now IMO it's

Pontremolesi: 50% Despite repeated claims that it was impossible to drop the "top favorite" Veracruz, well, he has 3'+ advantage on him now. And realized that it's his GC to win now it seems. Good. Still the better team. 3 classics with reg can be huge here.
Dourado: 30% 1" advantage to Pontremolesi, with Kajus highly publicezd "I have no form" I'll announce that Dourado has form, somewhere between stage 1 and the last one. 1" hard to defend against a 85,5 climber with 59,5 sprint. But not hopeless. The 2 TTs will be very important. After the first one the donkey will see if he can try to defend a lead, has to attack to increase the lead, or has to attack to get back time. Tactics for the TT promise to be interesting.
Veracruz: 15% Big mistake on one stage cost him over 2'. Like Kaju Liquigas came into this claiming that the other one was the CLEAR GC favorite. Unlike Kaju he rode like that too so far. No conviction, no confindence. Numberswise he's still very much in it, If it was 2 flat TTs he would gain aroun 4'? The mountain TT helps him with his reg too, so could turn out to be even more? The problem is, if he continues riding like he did so far... not to many chances... 15%. He rides properly it would still be something like 45-25-25... but the way he's riding... no way. We'll see after the TT if he wins enough and starts believing in Veracruz. And even if the time win there isn't as big as hoped, if Pontremolesi-Dourado is close, he might profit from a blockage there. He lost a much better position, but he hasn't lost the Andes yet.
Kitahara: 5% Winner in a way. Britain with no experience tries, a bit more variaton would help though. But he isn't riding badly. In the final so far he was ok, with a bit of luck he could have gotten more too. ON the other hand he managed to eliminate 5 of his rider all on his own. Sieb in front, keep riding in front, at the same time riding in the back and saving a group with 3 donkey, 5+4 Kajus/Liquigas or L/K, don't remember which way, and 8 or so San Miguels. When autotempo came 6 riders were dropped and eliminated, 5 of Britain, the only guy who was riding in the back while the group with all our stars was saved by 4". Would have been entirely avoidable since it was mostly Britain himself who rode in front and made the race fast. A bit more patience there would be sensible. And in the back too, there really were 12 riders with more interest to ride than his 5 in that group. Help, sure, but don't do it alone. His 5% chance comes from the blocking scenario too of course. 1'48" back he could very well profit from blocking by the 3 others too. And a different usage of his second climber, or the third climber, 77 mountain.

Anyway let's hope from some time travel so that the Andes are finished as soon as possible. Forward one week or so....