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Should I ride it or should I not.. hmm.. I don't know. But a race thread is always a good thing, so here we go, with the following line-up:

x1 Paul Betancourt, Go for the GC, Paul!
x2 Elvis Bogdanic, the king lives!
x3 Valentin Bratoev, the Bulgarian brat.
x4 Martin Hrast, wonder why not every FL rider is called like that...
x5 Fran "Franz Peter" Peterlin, prepares for the upcoming classic races
x6 Dominikos Petrakis, winter is over, the avalanche still dangerous
x7 Carlos Tejeda, newest latin asset
x8 Alain Yoda, well the force, bla bla
x9 Barton Zwiebach, best when you have Diarrhea

Possible substitutes:

- Eric Lichtenstein for the two sprint stages. No idea for which rider...

Goal: Don't stop believing (It is a Journey indeed).

Donkey there too!
Dourado superstar for the GC, Topal for sprints, everybody else for something great too.

Heisenberg will poisson you all and win this shit

Wie ging das noch? Alter vor Schönheit oder so...Also bergwerk vor bergwerk und bergwerk

Kaju wrote:Wie ging das noch? Alter vor Schönheit oder so...Also bergwerk vor bergwerk und bergwerk

tssss ... sag mir lieber, ob du mich zur Not am SA/SO vertreten kannst

Favorite check (edith changes some things after the TTT:

General classement:

***** Ulisses Veracruz (Liquigas-CND)
**** Vinicius Dourado (Big Donkey)
*** Ricarod Oliveira (bergwerk)
** Eduardo Saavedra (escartinos)
* a surprise rider (like Paul Betancourt from Team FL?! Julia Glushko from Vélo Renault, or even Urs Tobler?!!! )

Points classement:

*** Aydyn Knyazev (Luques)
** Fran Peterlin (Team FL)
* Ulises Veracruz (Liquigas-CND)

Mountain classement:

*** the one who wants it
** another rider
* a surprise rider

Youth classement:

*** Francois Maccury
** another rider
* a surprise rider

Team classement:

*** no idea
** still no idea
* ...

the escartino rider is out ... change him vs. the donkey man

bergwerk cycling wrote:the escartino rider is out ... change him vs. the donkey man

just done

give dourado a star less i think ... than its good^^ .-)

bergwerk cycling wrote:give dourado a star less i think ... than its good^^ .-)

how much seconds refers to one star?

I have 9 stars.

What you're all not realizing is that Liquigas seems mentally unable to click on the "make tempo" button to control escapes. So if we really have to go for stars I'd give Veracruz only 3. Then Dourado 2. Then 1 star to basically every other rider. Big chances for a group to go through, if it depends on Liquigas, which IMO it will partly on at least one day.

Today good day by the team, bad day in the team car Gong Bang, who seems to be my DS, the other one Teddy Epeho, didn't remember that, told Selwyn Cayetano to stop giving everything 2 km from the end... at the same time telling the others to wait for him... which cost us 10". The Donkey had told to tell the others NOT to wait for Cayetano and Topal if they had problems..... but somehow something got mistranslated along the way. Very stupid way to lose time... stupid columns, not intuitive at all for Chinese!

Tomorrow flat?

flockmastoR wrote:

bergwerk cycling wrote:give dourado a star less i think ... than its good^^ .-)

how much seconds refers to one star?

in this case every star means 15 sec.

Luques here with the best line up, should be favo in all the jerseys but other managers are boycotting.

Then it should be easy for Liquigas (but looking how he handles the jersey it could be reaaaaaally interesting).

Weird stuff... but in the end what I sort of predicted happened. Liquigas not ready to invest energy for his GC chances. Or too little too late.
Plus Luques being off at the start, Mokotov too, FL with huge PC problems, so the group went through, with those 3 on, or at least 1 of them very likely it wouldn't have happened.

GC now, hard to predict.
I'm not even sure if the 6' are actually enough or not, the Terminillo is quite long and I have absolutely no clue how much time climbers win there against pulled +/- 60 climbers.
In front, after thinking it over 70 times now I'd say
Jock number 1 favorite then Hund. 5 more TT for Jock, already 24" ahead. But depends on how well the pulling in the climbs works too, if Renner works well, he could be the perfect guy for Hund. We'll see.
Next Poggi, Vargas like Renner might be a bit too strong for Poggi, but if it works he should do a good job. The problem is again Jocks TT, only 6 less, during the race a long time I thought it was more... But on the other hand IF Vargas works, Bellamy who is the most likely puller for Jock won't win much time, so there is some hope too. Doesn't seem impossible to defend what normally including the TT should be 27" seconds, but hard. If it's the Bellamy helping that is done, other possibilites too, weakened green/blue 70es, then even harder. But I would have no clue how to do that myself, so I trust BW doesn't neither. Same deal with Hund, defending what should be over a minute including the last TT seems possible, but not easy either. The 2 others in front look harder. Hannsen with 2 minutes back.. very unlikely I think. Baruk... 1' back, hard too, and I'm not really sure how "good", experienced Velo is, according to Vitesse he's unfair, IMO looks more like non communicative and maybe not super experienced? We'll see.
And again, not even sure if it's really for the escape. Let's hope for Poggi anyway.
And actually I would have preferred a nice normal sprint stage too, can't control races on principle just for somebody who consistently refuses to believe in his chances and to work... for Liquigas today it wouldn't have been difficult to keep us under control. He's announced multiple times that his big goal for the year is the GIRO, good man, but just learn to ride in defence of your leader... maybe you'll ride 20 days and still only arrive second... but just not riding in most cases won't give you a better result.

Mmh, looking at tomorrows stage: MUCH harder than I thought, I somehow thought it was mostly flat with a 5 finish... but no, siebing possibilites all over, argh. That means that tomorrow we could see a nice GC fight too, between the escapers today, one dropping the other (Poggi, grr) and possibly climbers vs escapers. Or nothing at all might happen as well, but with tomorrows stage being kind of difficult.. .mmhh. we'll see how it goes.

Things are interesting now...

IMO the favo is still Liquigas but clearly he will use the thing for doing nothing the whole tour (not that he would have done much more otherwise), so it will depend if those who won today will want to ride for the GC or not.

For Aydyn things at sprint are quite difficult, Krasauskas should have been in the line up too but seems I forgot him, like this will be hard. Mokotow isn't a problem but it seems like he wants to follow me.

Next days will probably attack, Dmitrenko got some seconds back, yuppi!

Robyklebt wrote: Baruk... 1' back, hard too, and I'm not really sure how "good", experienced Velo is, according to Vitesse he's unfair, IMO looks more like non communicative and maybe not super experienced? We'll see.

Well maybe "unfair" was a little hard, but he's very uncooperative and I don't think that's because of a lack of experience after nearlly one year with 129 races. Every time I raced with him he tried to join a Group, then did no work at all to have an advantage later. That's why groups I experienced with Velo in it, crashed every single time cause others stopped working too, according to his behaviour. Yesterday was better cause he tried to get that red Jersey so desperately that he didn't even realize he was actually doing much work for the rest of the Group.

Spartaco not in yellow anymore.... hoped to keep it, but the sieb on the 5 was too much. Grr, so put Selwyn under reg to give Jock yellow, grrr. Not happy.
GC now Spartaco looks out really, maybe that will make the others go easier on him and he can come back? Will still ride for him tomorrow I think.
Easy win for escartinos today, since none of the stage favorites, the 3 teams who got away plus Liquigas, who followed the wrong guy in the last km attack (but after following Dourado earlier probably too weak to follow anyway, seemed interested in catching him, ok for me, no bonifications for super dangerous climbers. Good for Dourado, ok, without the attack trying to surprise the other climbers, he probably would have been in the group 1" ahead (but not get any bonifications, so who cares)But I tend to think it will be between Jock+Hund, (+Poggi grrr) to get the time back climbs would need to be ridden fast, somehow doesn't seem like anybody will be interested. Liquigas because he told us he doesn't care about GC (an improvment I think, used to be that he had no chance, now he seems to just say that he isn't interested in it, not denying his chances) the rest of the climbers with not much interest to carry him. Somebody could sneak away, Paul for example... but ? Think will be yesterdays escapers, but lots can happen here...

Ok, Poggi definetly out, McDonald too. Hund left, 5'... could be enough. Depends a lot on how the mountain is ridden tomorrow.
Dourado 4th, grrrrrr.... actually if I had gone at 150 instead of 200 would have scored bonifications almost surely, and even had a small chance for the stage... small.

Never thought this could actually happen but Hund still in yellow and calculating the TT in still more than a minute in front. Today not absolutely flat but its long from the last 8 to the finish line. Should be controlable with Ampere and Weisskopf. Really thought that Hund is actually losing way more on the 8s. Liquigas kind of to afraid of the other climbers. Where was the need to attack? it was clear that bw at least can follow. So best would have been to just go in tempo the km you attacked. Dont know how much you would have won more but a red attack that early cost you lots of seconds

Btw: @FL you see now what "poissoning" means

Yesterday though wasn't that easy for Liquigas. Of course because he decided to ride the way he rides on the stage that Hund got all the time.
And made mistakes too as usual.
First, mistake not to ride with Umberto from the start, why ride with the weaker classic? Would give him a few more seconds, not enough, but more. Might save him 1 km
Second, after the attack he rode with everybody 1 km then out, he thought he needed to suck Not sure what possesses that guy at times. Everybody cooperating was perfect for him. After attempting to suck he then ended up riding alone...
Then... when to go/attack... difficult, I wouldn't know either actually. OK, should have been earlier, we know that now. But attack correct IMO, if he doesn't he risks Dourado getting back in. GC wise the biggest risk for him was still Dourado, not that BW guy, he seemed so afraid of (if I go earlier he wins 30"!!!... BS). Fighting, staying, attacking in the last km, Dourado gains time. Not enough to be the outright favorite, but most likely enough to be close on paper again. So I think attacking was the right option. Maybe make me fight on the 9 and attack 2 km later... but the risk there is that then I go in tempo to cover.
So not easy yesterday for Liquigas. Of course self inflicted, 100%. Easy to control Hund before. But not easy or automatic yesterday. He take the game too seriously I think, too afraid to "lose", so not attempting to win.

And of course huge mistake by me the first day with Selwyn... 10", with those 10 or even more seconds in reserve.... I'd have had much better chances.

Grrr, a bit too late. It looks like I play better with the app then with the computer anyway, Aydyn winning in the peloton MS