Tour de France 2018 14h

[team fl]

Team FL headquarters in Triesen, Liechtenstein, Thursday 28 July 2018, 9:00 am, Hugo Marxer's office, Hugo at the phone:

"Yes... No... Okay... But I told you... He can handle it! No, Zafzaf will not be there... Doncic? It's not confirmed yet... I still think we should invest in the future of the team... This could be a big mistake... Hmm? Ok, I get it. You want results. Yes... WHAT?! No sprinter at the Tour?!! This is madness!!! But Nguyen... Yes I know he's 34 already, but he has just won a race! Ah, dammit, okay. And yes, I want to keep my job... (so far). Okay okay, let's do it your way, Afshin as THE man for the Tour. I am still not convinced, but we can work it out. But be sure that it might lead to heated debates in the team.... Yes, I will do what's necessary, but... Hello?... Hung up on me, what an arrogant prick."

[Robyklebt]

Zafzaf vs Afshin should be the title. Just to keep Liquigas away.... Of course Zafzaf won't be there, he might visit the race on some days, talk with Aeschlimann etc. But that's all.

Preselection for the Donkeys: The bolded guys are sure to start, unless they get injured.
Aeschlimann, Gopal, Innocenti, Knoblauch, Matsuishi, Matsuoka, Matsushita, Pilioko, Salkey, Sofiga, Tobar and Valdelomar.

[team fl]

Team FL headquarters in Triesen, Liechtenstein, Friday 29July 2018, 2:00 pm, Hugo Marxer's office, Hugo at the phone:

"I told you it was a risk... yes... YES! They're gone. Both have new teams... You told me not to act until Saturday!!!... Calm down... I'll find a solution, but I told you in the first place that we have better look for Team FL's future... I will continue searching of course. Yes... For two? TWO? Are you serious?! Oh come one... Well... I guess I can cancel my family dinner today then... No, I do have a life besides this!" *tutututututut*

[team fl]

Sources told the Liechtensteiner Volksblatt that actions by the Team FL team management led to the immediate retirement of Serghei Pascenco and Ngo Nguyen. Both have just finished a one day race in Japan today when the information leaked. The reason for this could be that Team FL is not planning with a sprinter for the Tour de France with Afshin Pirhashemi as their only real leader. Recent actions, the signing of the experienced french climber Clément Solaire, supports the news around the Liechtenstein cycling team. Rumour has it that this was not the last move before July 7.

[luques]

Luques saw in France!

But at the moment seems he is there just in vacation, let's see if his team will be at the start of Tour.

He is anyway not inspired at all by the stages offered

[gaurain rx]

Gaurain Rx manager to Feiting Siebing boss : "Mate, you should ride TDF, you can't let slid such opportunity to get big wins... Afternoon countenders are quite weak anyway, all scared when they hear my name coming closer"! FS : "Team is too young, not ready yet, wonder if we'll have even one rider left after stage 12... Of course Jordan is ready to overclass Etimoni and Fiu, of course Thierry will have no problem to dominate Carlos or Elias but in the moutain, we will suffer as hell, let's be honest once... Moreover, Tour de Wallonie stage 1 will edge Gaurain Ramecroix's village. Jordan told me he was highly motivated to get the win there in front of his familly and his lovely (and gorgeous I can tell you) girlfriend"!

Never know what can happen in a manager's head but seems you might wait for at least until Campeonato de Los Andes

[team fl]

There are rumours about wild cards for the following teams so far:

- Bugatti:

Michael Heller could be a decent aspirant for the youth classement. The rest of the team will more likely look for escapes and bunch sprints, I guess.

- Herakles:

The team worshipping the greek half god looks like one of the stronger teams for the french mountains. The Bulgarian climber duo Petrow and Stojanow have a nice support cast. Besides that, the team might be seen in lots of escapes, looking the regeneration skills.

- minots:

The Curz family looks like set for the Tour de France. Two of them are able to climb well, one of them looks like a sprinter. And they are always a candidate for a TTT win.

Anyway, no team is confirmed yet as a definitive part of the Afternoon Tour. Still 4 days to go...

[Robyklebt]

Lotfi cleared to ride the TdF.
After repeated attempts by ASO to bar Zafzaf to start, finally WADA and C4F admitted that the rumours about a postive doping control by Zafzaf were all wrong, lies made up by jealous opponents, nothing more. ASO immediately dropped the ban they tried to impose on Zafzaf, so now he's free to start.
Unfortunately Lotfi has already retired, and while we were in negotations with c4f to allow him to get his licence back, Lotfi already announced that he wouldn't dream of giving this shitty little stage race the honor of his participation. So ok, we can stop negotiating.

The team is decided, the problem is we forgot already. We'll have to reconstruct it by looking at the form of our riders... but ok,most of the stuff seems pretty clear anyway, should be able to figure out our line up pretty fast.

[team fl]

Is the Team FL line up for the TdF 2018 overaged? That's the question 1FLTV asked in their weekly Sportstalk. Host Ernst Hasler highlighted the fact that four of the riders expected to be active in France are oat least 30 years old, three of them even 33. He expressed his concernes wether these old riders will be still fit enough for three weeks of ongoing sporting excellence. Furthermore, Hasler spoke about the fact that so far, only eight riders have been named for the line-up, still one missing. The confirmed riders are: Afshin Pirhashemi, Willy Attison, Carlos Kaiser, Lukas Marxer, Kahlid Satour, Clément Solaire, Sandro Spaeth and Juan Villafuerte. Finally, Hasler mentioned that the tainted relationship between Lukas Marxer and Hugo Marxer could lead to problem, although so far, it hasn't been a problem. Anyway, we will know more when the Tour begins, right on the upcoming Saturday at 14h. Be sure to follow the race, live on 1FLTV with your favourite sports commentator, Ernst Hasler (#not).

[Liquigas-CND]

stop with this bullshit! I told you YungGi Kim should be riding TDF!

[team fl]

Le Matin reports that the french equipe LeMagnifique is on the verge of joining the Tour de France in the afternoon! This is exciting news. The french cycling team will be looking for stage wins most likely. Dan Summers is the main man for bunch sprints while Leroy Caster may have a shot at stage 9. For the rest of the stages, expect LeMagnifique riders in escape (Drummond, Kirk, Almiron and others) or already preparing for the next flat stage. Although Le Matin seems to have pretty good sources, The participation of LeMagnifique has not been confirmed yet officially.

[LeMagnifique]

After reading some rumors about a possible participation in the most famous race in the world, the manager of the team LeMagnifique organised a press conference to confirm the news :
"We are glad to be invited in such a wonderful race, our team might be young and less experienced but we'll be fighting as hard as we can to have some result. Moreover, the team is not convinced about the other races at this time of the year and we are proud to compete with some of the best"
Some hints about the strategy for the race has been revealed : "Mass sprint is the top priority, lots of opportunities in the first week as usual, later on, we will focus on breakaway and hunting stages like Gollum after his precious"
The team composition has been partially revealed :

Summers, Caster, Kirk, Costa, Almiron, Dattel, Clark, Drummond.
Some very young guys and one captain Dattel, they will do their best to protect the Americans Summers, Caster and Kirk.

One is missing and here's the reason : "Belocki is still in his country, he is homesick, he will probably not come back and will be cut by the team, he does not fit the team anyway, not sure why we offered him a contract. There are some great riders in the market at the moment, a new announcement will be make Saturday morning, i can't say more while we're negociating"

Already some controversy in the team and we all hope the riders will stay focus to perform on the race despite the announcement to come which must be the main topic of conversation and create tension.

[gaurain rx]

After a final round of failed negociations with René Ritter from Team FL and Abong Pilioko from Big Donkey, Feiting Siebing has decided not to participate to 2018 Tour de France : " With our young and unexperienced Team on high category races, we needed to add some experience and skills to be able to perform in such a big event. Unfortunately, the riders we contacted the last days refused to join the team even if they have no chance to participate with their own".

"The manager can't even spell my name correctly" was Pilioko's first reaction when we contacted him to know more about the unsuccessfull deal. "That shows the lack of respect and consideration he has for his riders!" The words are also rude at the side of René Ritter : "Gaurain rx was a tremendous squad, way better than the Team Fl lead by this filthy Hugo Marxer... But I don't want to spend 3 weeks riding and waiting for a pseudo sprinter of a low category team, I have higher expectations for my carreer".

"We'll try to get the best out of the races we'll ride, 3-4 wins this month would be fantastic." told Gaspard Trenteseaux, the fresh new tactical manager of the team at the end of the press conference. "Tour de Wallonie will be our main goal, we'll prepare it riding some Kermesse's in Belgium, France and Germany."

[team fl]

Jan Flachbart: "Hello? This is Jan, who's speaking?

Hugo Marxer: "Hey Jan, old house! It's Hugo, Hugo Marxer!!"

Jan: "Oha. Hugo, what do you want?"

Hugo: "What do I want? Is that the warm welcome for an old friend?"

Jan: "Old Friend? Come on... The famous Hugo Marxer. Remember the good old days when you managed to screw up the team's tactics with your actions?"

Hugo: "Ah, that's the past, the future is important! Listen, Jan, there is this Czech guy, we want him for the Tour de France, do you know him? It's Jiri Mrv... Mvr... Mgrmpf... Fuck! ..."

Jan: "... Mrkvicka. Yes, I know him, nice guy."

Hugo: "Ah yes, that's it. Can you speak to him? His agent seems to be a prick, wants his full market value... but we only have around 1,8 Mio. left."

Jan: "I see, yes, I'll speak to him. But only under one condition..."

Hugo: "Yes?"

Jan: "Never call me again!" *tutututut

Hugo: "Jan? Jan! Ah dammit, I just hope this works. The team management will not be amused otherwise. And Ritter and Kim have already booked their vacations... Anyway, I thought I've heard something about René, I hope he's not too pissed about his non-consideration, he tends to speak out without thinking..."

[team fl]

Pretty short this time, the favourite check (with revsion from Edith):

General classement

***** Afshin Pirhashemi (Team FL)
**** Petar Petrow (Herakles)
*** Wladislaw Stojanow (Herakles), Caius Aeschlimann (Big Donkey)
** Artyom Filatov (luques)
* Horacio Cruz (minots), Vicente Cruz (minots), Michael Heller (Bugatti),

Points classement

*** Cian Sweenay (LeMagnifique)
** Maren Böhm (Bugatti)
* Ilya Korobko (luques), Dan Summers (LeMagnifique)

Mountain classement

*** The one who wants it
** Another rider
* A surprise rider

Youth classement

*** Michael Heller (Bugatti)
** another rider
* A surprise rider

Team classement

*** Herakles
** Team FL
* Big Donkey

[team fl]

First stage, first sprint: As expected Cian Sweeny (LeMagnifique), the big favourite for Green, won the stage. He's also the first rider wearing yellow and there is not much doubt that he will defend it on the second stage. Ilya Korobko is wearing white due to sprint points. Besides that, Bixente Cruz from minots got the only Mountain point during the stage and is leading the mountain classement for now. There is not much to say about the GC favourties so far as it seems the TTT at stage 3 will be the first battle among the GC teams.

[team fl]

Stage two, more of the same. Again it was Cian Sweeny who dominated the final bunch sprint. Today, it were Hiroshi Matsushita from Big Donkey and Dragan Tonev from Herkales who rode together for an escape. While Matsushita attacked a bit earlier, right before the GPM, he's now wearing the polka dot jersey. After 87 km in front alone, Tonev joined the Japanese solo artist. Anyway, the peloton had everything under control, led by LeMagnifique. So after the first two stages, everbody's now looking at the TTT at stage 3, where the first steps for a successful GC campaign will be made. Or how they say: You can't win the GC in the TTT at stage 3 already, but you can lose it already very well. #nopressure

[Robyklebt]

I admit, now I miss Zafzaf a bit.
Haven't really checked all the stages, but seems to me that Zafzaf with his ok pavé and all the mountains would have had a chance. Depending on training too, but still. And since I was shocked to see that Zipoli has more eternal points than Zafzaf... damn, maybe should have kept him?
But... on the other hand I'm happy he's gone. For example Saturday, with Zafzaf I really would have had to be there, don't think FL attacks with Afshin on the first flat stage, but you never know who is there, with others, yeah, be there or lose the GC. And well, afraid of losing with Zafzaf now. Liquis fault. Counted on him to beat Lotfi at the Dauphiné, then Lotfi still doesn't start the Tour, but the chances that he does increase a little bit. He's been beaten in an important race, so ok, nothing to lose at the Tour. But like this? Won Tirreno-Catalunya-Pais Vasco-Romandie-Giro and Dauphiné. Plus Flèche and Liège. No no, now I'm afraid of losing. Usually the good thing is that at RSF you can't lose, you can only win or not win, but somehow here it would have felt like losing if he didn't win, so... no way. But as I said, even if he had arrived 2nd in Dauphiné, most likely not here.
Most important reason: Just tired of him. A mistake, I know, I don't know how long it will take me to get a guy as lucky as him again (not only training, races too), ride the wave as long as you can... but no, already had Zipoli before, now Zafzaf, some nice relaxing climber who doesn't want cereals for breakfast is much better. Enter Caius!
A simple honest tax paying Swiss,he likes Rösti for breakfast, he gets sweat outbreaks (???) if we mention pavé, perfect rider for this tour. Don't think he's a danger for GC really, but ok, depends on how FL rides the pavé stage too. If he happens to be a GC danger, we'll ride for him later, no problem. If not, we want him to win some stages. Or one at least. More better, but the minimum requirement for this Tour is 1 stage. For the whole team.
GC to me looks like Afshin. Most dangerous challenger for the moment I'd say Petrow, Good on pavé, but his problem is that he's 85 mountain like Afshin. Helper 1 more, both lots of reg, so not hopeless, but not easy either. Today important then for those 2 here. For the rest to me looks really difficult. Tobar? At times I'm sort of thinking about riding for him a bit maybe, but don't think he can win enough on the pavé stage to defend in the mountain. If he had a 80 helper or so.. why not, new climber one month earlier, now 78, going towards 80, that would have been worth a deep thought, bring him for project Tobar. Like this seems difficult, but will see on the pavé stage. Tobar for sure will not wait for Caius, but if I then ride for him or not with some of the others, not sure.

[team fl]

Stage three, team building on 36 km. In the beginning, it looked like minots could win it, but then the team around the Cruz family forced the tempo too much which cost to much energy in the end. So Team FL could celebrate comfortably over 40 seconds in front of all other equipes. Afshin Pirhashemi took over yellow already too, having now a decent time advantage (Clémenet Solaire too, btw.) against the other GC contenders. While Cian Sweenay still leads the points classement and Bixente Cruz rocking the polka dot jersey, Sandro Spaeth is first in the youth category, for the moment. Today's TTT is going to be followed by another flat stage tomorrow, before the hilly part begins. So for now, the classemnts look like this:

General classement (GC contender version)

01. 00:00 Afshin Pirhashemi (Team FL)
06. 00:00 Clément Solaire (Team FL)
12. 00:43 Horacio Cruz (minots)
16. 00:47 Caius Aeschlimann (Big Donkey)
22. 00:47 Elias Tobar (Big Donkey) -> self claimed GC contender (see Roby posting above)
27. 01:02 Wladislaw Stojanow (Herakles)
29. 01:02 Waleri Boschinow (Herakles)
35. 01:09 Artyom Filatov (Luques)
49. 01:16 Michael Heller (Bugatti)
(Vicente Cruz seems to be out of this already with losing 06:11 in the TTT)

Points classement

01. 001 Bixente Cruz (minots)
02. 001 Hiroshi Matsushita (Big Donkey)
03. 000 Everybody else

Mountain classement

01. 100 Cian Sweenay (LeMagnifique)
02. 60 Maren Böhm (Bugatti)
03. 43 Ilya Korobko (Luques)

Youth classement

01. 00:00 Sandro Spaeth (Team FL)
02. 00:43 Augustin Cruz (minots)
03. 00:43 Damian Cruz (minots)

Team classement

01. 00:00 Team FL
02. 02:09 minots
03. 02:21 Big Donkey

[team fl]

Stage four, first upset. While Team FL was controlling for GC and LeMagnifique riding for a bunch sprint for Cian Sweenay, Bugatti and Big Donkey (as well as minots for a while) had other plans. At the beginning, it was the fight for the mountain jersey that Javier Cruz from minots won at the only GPM on the road (and no sieb in the peloton at the first siebable km btw). Then, finally, 2 km before the finish line, Torsten Klemm from Bugatti attacked with Elias Tobar from Big Donkey in his wheel. The further decided the sprint among them and nicked the stage win from the sprinters (Ilya Korobko from Luques won in the peloton). Tobar gathered 6 bonification seconds for the GC and now the whole world is wondering who Big Donkey is riding for, Aeschlimann or Tobar. In the rest of the classements nothing big changed. Today will be slightly different as it's the chance for classic riders or climbers with some sprint skills. Or an early group maybe? We will be wiser after the stage is over.

[luques]

ARTYOOOOOOOOM!!

First victory for Luques team that now can be more quiet for the rest of the Tour!
Totally unexpected and also undeserved as FL did all the work today

[team fl]

ARTYOOOOOOOOM!!

First victory for Luques team that now can be more quiet for the rest of the Tour!
Totally unexpected and also undeserved as FL did all the work today

GW again. I did the work mainly for GC control, which happened to turn out to be work for the stage as well. I am still a bit dazzled about my decision to sprint with Afshin from 150m. In retrospective it made zero sense to do that, but at that point, I was convinced it was the best thing to do, for whatever reasons. As I wrote in the fairness vote for the Big Donkey, Karma hit back 150m later .

But besides that, stage five was quite interesting. It had an early escape with a climber, a fight for red, an attack out of that group, a "late" catch, a farmer trick and a surprising finish. Surprising that Afshin sprinted how he did (let's say it was Hugo's fault) and that the Herakles climbers could not follow Tobar's attack.

Anyway, the standing after stage five look like this:

General classement (GC contender version)

01. 00:00 Afshin Pirhashemi (Team FL) +0'' (to Yellow)
03. 00:10 Clément Solaire (Team FL) +10''
06. 00:46 Elias Tobar (Big Donkey) +6''
07. 00:53 Horacio Cruz (minots) +10''
08. 00:57 Caius Aeschlimann (Big Donkey) +10''
09. 01:05 Artyom Filatov (Luques) -4''
10. 01:12 Petar Petrow (Herakles) +10''
11. 01:12 Wladislaw Stojanow (Herakles) +10''
16. 01:26 Michael Heller (Bugatti) +10''

Points classement

01. 125 Cian Sweenay (LeMagnifique)
02. 78 Maren Böhm (Bugatti)
03. 73 Ilya Korobko (Luques)

Mountain classement

01. 006 Miguel Almiron (LeMagnifique)
02. 004 Vicente Cruz (minots)
03. 001 Caius Aeschlimann, Hiroshi Matsushita (both Big Donkey), Javier Cruz, Bixente Cruz (both minots)

Youth classement

01. 01:26 Michael Heller (Bugatti
02. 02:16 Miguel Almiron (LeMagnifique)
03. 07:02 Egor Nikiforov (Luques)

Team classement

01. 00:00 Team FL
02. 02:35 Big Donkey
03. 03:10 Herakles

[Robyklebt]

Matsushita tried to physically attack the Donkey after the stage, while yelling: "What the fuck did you think when you forced Lotfi to retire? Now we have Caius who can't even follow Tobar on a finish like this... And today Mur de Bretagne, instead of riding for a possible Lotfi win, we'll have try to not too lose too much time with Tobar and Aeschlimann. And Tobar as GC leader? Hell, what's next, Fiu for the Vuelta?"
Thanks to Hiroshi for making the Donkey's point. Instead of sitting in the team car and obsessively telling the riders what to do from km 1 to the end, today we'll hang around in other places until km 60 or so. Then we might check in with the riders a bit, but only jump into the team car at around km 120. Much nicer, more relaxing.
Of course yesterday losing 10" with Aeschlimann and 6" with Tobar not perfect, shouldn't have attacked, but did anyway, a train for Tobar didn't look too promising either, even if maybe Afshin had an own train and following in. But even then, Bugatti's guy most likely was simply on Tobar. And well, if Aeschlimann or Tobar want to win this Tour, they'll need to win it on other days, most likely they'll just be top 10 riders here, so doesn't matter if we lose a few seconds here and there. And over 2 days Tobar still won 1"!

[team fl]

Stage six, first real climber finish at the Mur de Bretagne. But in the end, it was the early escape group that made it. Two rider from team Herakles finished around 6 min in front of the main favourites, Radew crossing the finish line in front of Tonev. Third and solo riding in between was Jaime Valdelomar from Big Donkey. The clash between the GC favourites begann at km 177 when Pirhashemi and Villafuerte attacked, followed by most other GC contenders. While Villafuerte got green light to go on, Wladislaw Stojanow from Herakles attacked out of that little group, leaving the rest of the climbers behind him. Stojanow and Villafuerte finished in the same group, 19 seconds in front of the Pirhashemi group. This also means that Villafuerte takes over Yellow from Pirhashemi, most likely until the first rest day at least. Miguel Almiron could defend his mountain jersey against Radew, both with 6 points. Point and Youth classement stayed the same mostly.

Stage 6 result

01. 00:00:00 Rumen Radew (Herakles)
02. 00:00:00 Dragan Tonev (Herakles)
03. 00:04:31 Jaime Valdelomar (Big Donkey)
04. 00:06:06 Juan Villafuerte (Team FL)
05. 00:06:06 Wladislaw Stojanow (Herakles)
06. 00:06:25 Afshin Pirhashemi (Team FL)
07. 00:06:25 Artyom Filatov (Luques)
08. 00:06:25 Michael Heller (Bugatti)
09. 00:06:25 Caius Aeschlimann (Big Donkey)
10. 00:06:25 Clément Solaire (Team FL)

General classement (GC contender version)

01. 00:00 Juan Villafuerte (demands to be GC leader now for Team FL)
02: 00:09 Afshin Pirhashemi (Team FL) +19'' (to Yellow)
03. 00:19 Clément Solaire (Team FL) +19''
06. 00:59 Elias Tobar (Big Donkey) +23'
06. 01:02 Wladislaw Stojanow (Herakles) +0''
07. 01:02 Horacio Cruz (minots) +19''
08. 00:57 Caius Aeschlimann (Big Donkey) +19''
09. 01:05 Artyom Filatov (Luques) +19'
10. 01:12 Petar Petrow (Herakles) +19''
16. 01:26 Michael Heller (Bugatti) +19''

Points classement

01. 136 Cian Sweenay (LeMagnifique)
02. 87 Maren Böhm (Bugatti)
03. 77 Ilya Korobko (Luques)

Mountain classement

01. 006 Miguel Almiron (LeMagnifique)
02. 006 Rumen Radew (Herakles)
02. 004 Vicente Cruz (minots)

Youth classement

01. 01:35 Michael Heller (Bugatti)
02. 07:57 Dragan Tonev (Herakles)
03. 09:06 Egor Nikiforov (Luques)

Team classement

01. 00:00 Herakles
02. 09:40 Team FL
03. 10:44 Big Donkey

[Robyklebt]

Bad race for the Donkey on pavé. Horrible.
The goals were 3, which was at least 1 too much, knew that, so was pretty happy when it looked like a group might go through. Goal stage win gone. It then wasn't, but I failed there too.
Other 2 goals: yellow for Tobar (just a day most likely, but still nice to have yellow) and not lose too much for Caius.

But FL started very early, too early finally, and then I reacted early too, too early as well. So in the end the only guy to pay for this early stuff was Caius. Over 10'. But well, I gave up on the goal Caius pretty early, gave him 2 weak guys, then the others when they were tired. Obvious that he was going to lose lots of time. A later start to the festivities would certainly have helped him a lot. But out of GC isn't all that tragic, it's just Caius, he wants stage wins. What is tragic is that I failed on all 3 goals. No yellow for Tobar for 6", started too early as I said, then dropped back one rider too early too, (but ok, that probably no difference), simply ran out of riders and had to let the FL/Herakles group come back. FL with the same problem, started too early, despite Herakles help ran out of riders too, Luques came back each time. And he was with Caius at the start... Then the final burst, there was fresh riders vs fresh riders, was always going to be close, and it was, just 6" for Afshin at the end. Bah. Tobar unhappy.
Stage: Damn Bugatti. Was on Caster, Bugatti with a sieb on the last pavé, ok, safety on Klemm, he then obviously went out and attacked with the other guy, Caster too, Knoblauch on Klemm. Blah. Caster was the pre race favorite IMO, but with Knoblauch on him... might have had a small chance. Then yellow no chance but didn't get that either. Grrr.
Complete Donkey-failure

The rest: Luques did an outstanding job for Filatov. Clear winner of the day. Herakles, not sure. I'm not sure cooperating with FL was really in his best interest, he had Stojanow who was with Filatov most of the time... why not ride for him? That of course not perfect either, perfect would have been: do nothing at all and save energy, load the 2 climbers with 2 guys each. Hoping that FL and Luques can only help with 1. Then with a possible energy advantage try in the last pavé to drop both Afshin with Petar and Filatov with Stojanow, and gain a few seconds with both?

GC now: Pirhashemi yellow and in command. Not having to care about Aeschlimann at all helps too, 11'34" back, if he was at 1'30" or so, need to pay attention, now he can pretty much be ignored. But the 2 Herakles guys are still there, 1'12" and 1'33". Yes, in the TT they'll lose 1'30" to 2' again (actually Stojanow maybe even over 2'), so it's a 3'-4' cushion he really has. Filatov in the same range too. With Solaire as helper, normally FL should be able to control that. But he will have to ride a lot I think, despite having 3 good reg riders, FL risks being under reg quite a bit at times. Sometimes the challengers don't really realize how vulnerable the leading team actually could be, saw that with Zipoli/Zafzaf at times in the past year, team that too me seems only in need of a slight push to completely collapse, but nobody realizes it... So clear favorite Pirhashemi, but the mountains start now.