December Tour 25, La Ruta Azteca 14h

[Robyklebt]

Nothing much to do in the race, so I'll try to amuse myself in the forum at least.

Stage winners were decided today by me in the chat already:

1 Delpierre 2 Buccarini 3 Bologo 4 Grala 5 Crissaegrim 6 MillerUibo 7 Urbanek 8 MillerUibo 9 Karatay 10 Bay 11 Liiv 12 Davis 13 Bougault

GC wasn't in the mood to think so far, but ok, let's do it now. FL style, all wrong!
Grala will win lots of time in the TT and on the pavé stage. While his pavé is not brilliant, it's enough to drop everybody else. Davis, Bugatti, with 66 and a similar flat team should be closest, probably he will be dropped late, the rest could be dropped rather early already. Then a lot depends how the stage favorite, sure winner, Gipfel rides it. Does he ride with Tukh early for his 7th place in the GC or does he wait and only do enough to collect his win at the end? Anyway, Grala should have around 6' to L's 2 climbers in the TT and pavé stage, my guess is not enough to get back in the mountain stages, even if the lack of a good puller could hurt Grala there. Problem is also Davis for L. Looks good to get a chunk of time out of L tomorrow too, then hard to drop, will hang on the L train in the mountains, thus making him slower, with the huge risk of doing the work, but not collecting the GC reward L normally will be reluctant to ride up the mountains full power. L's leader. Urbanek might make more sense. Slightly more reg, more pavé, more sprint, less mountain, but younger. And Crissaegrim has a better chance to drop Davis by tempo, or at least make him fight a lot. But we'll see how he rides it. Davis, again, he looks good, if he finds the right amount of collaboration, have L do climbing work, but help whenever possible, have his classics ahead of Grala on some stages and using them for Davis... actually not bad chances. But overall would say Grala. Liiv and Sporgel really no chance already, but ok, let's give them 3 stars. Ah no, 2 is enough, Liiv is fine, but it's going with L and Davis in the mountains, and be beaten by them in the TT, and in GC. and only 1 for Sporgel, reg, flat, no chance.
Same for Svennson, 66 TT excellent, lots of reg, excellent, will lose tons and tons in the pavé stage. Without that he would actually have an actual chance, should be 2' something back from the TT, win back a bit of time on each mountain.. hard, but not completely impossible. 77 vs 73, maybe on some stage ride with Lafuente in between GC groups... but the pavé will just kill him I fear. Lafuente is mostly there so that I have one of my riders somewhere.

***** Grala
**** Davis, Urbanek
*** Crissaegrim,
**Liiv,
* Sporgel, Svennson, Lafuente

Not much amusement so far, so I play teamtoto.

But only 20 transfers possible, price of course the rider value, we start with 10 millions.
donkey buy MillerUibo $2,589,639, Delpierre $2,446,128 Goossens $1,519,027, Toulet $1,461,229 and Ganambarr $1,511,063. 15 transfers left, Buccarini too expensive, hm, maybe drop somebody and buy him instead...

[Gipfelstuermer]

Hesitated to inscribe here for various reasons but after the designers put a lot of effort into the competition, the race deserves to see many teams participating. Second half of December offers many interesting one day races then. Good luck and have a nice race.

[Tukhtahuaev]

Still feels a bit weird to go to this tour without a climber or sprinter, but fun to experiment with rider types I haven't used before.

Would mostly agree with the favo check. On paper the long ITT and the pavé stage should favor Grala a lot. I guess tomorrow we'll know a lot more. No clue how much time I can actually gain there

[Nomorelulz]

Will be an interesting tour, especially with Tukh unexpectedly riding without any climbers. I agree with the favos due to the pave stage, bit weird to have such hard pave though, makes it more interesting I guess. Davis also with lots of potential here. Fun to ride a long tour again.

Looking forward to the next 2 weeks with you guys.