Giro stage 12 ITT

Dave Atkinson wrote:

si, lo creo

Gracias, muy amable...

enrique wrote:

Dave Atkinson wrote:

si, lo creo

Gracias, muy amable...

Compraros un habitation, vosotros dos!

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

Oh dear, and that my friends is the end of my Giro, what a joke

should have gone De Gendt and not took Ulissi out. Think im gonna give this game up and quit while im behind.

I did the same; took out Ulissi, Matthews and a cheap one for Malori (didn't know about his crash and it wasn't mentioned in any of the reports I read but may have forgot to check twitter); Siutsou and Majka and I already had Cataldo, but he'd also had a crash, but got some points from him but was hoping for 5th or so. Got a few points for Siutsou as well. At one point I was back home before going to another job and Ulissi was 1st and Majka hadn't finished. I was very worried I'd screwed up but in the end I got 173 and went up a couple of places. I think our TT specialists did equally badly but I had Aru and Cataldo already and didn't take any pens. So far this Giro has rewarded defensive play in both the real tour and the fantasy game.

At 120 points behind the lead and only about 70 behind 2nd you're still in with a shout as there are a lot of mountain points up for grabs. We'll all have the same 7 riders or so. It's the other two cheaper ones that will count.

Very happy with my man Uran though as I've got a bet on him to win at 14-1 (could have got better odds but only went for it 10 mins before the deadline so used an account I had a fiver in and hadn't used for a couple of years - put a little extra on as well). That's looking pretty good right now but we've seen so many crashes and Pozzo is still a threat but Quintana is going to have to get better fast to take that kind of time back. Maybe Uran will attack while the fire is hot to get rid of Evans and Quintana for sure. Pozzo will be there to the end but his achilles heel(s) are the cold and descending, which is where he lost most of his time to Uran. I also didn't pick any other OPQS rider as well as I thought they'd all be told to take it easy to save themselves for the mountains. Then there are 3 others in the top 10. Brambilla 6th or Poels 7th would have been the picks of the day but they hardly have a great reputation in ITT.

Dave Atkinson wrote:

enrique wrote:

We'll see if dave's comment still holds true...

Dave Atkinson wrote:

... i look forward to seeing exactly the same people doing well...

the 2013 giro winner is currently 2nd. and the 2012 giro winner is currently 5th.

so it's not exactly all change, is it?

And I was 10th (and 5th most of the race) in the 2011 Tour and 20th in 2013 but I've never done well in the Giro. I think it's because I just followed the other races rather than picking for them and used the other races to work out a strategy for the big one and kept myself fresh; a bit like my man Uran.

Alan Tullett wrote:

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

Oh dear, and that my friends is the end of my Giro, what a joke

should have gone De Gendt and not took Ulissi out. Think im gonna give this game up and quit while im behind.

I did the same; took out Ulissi, Matthews and a cheap one for Malori (didn't know about his crash and it wasn't mentioned in any of the reports I read but may have forgot to check twitter); Siutsou and Majka and I already had Cataldo, but he'd also had a crash, but got some points from him but was hoping for 5th or so. Got a few points for Siutsou as well. At one point I was back home before going to another job and Ulissi was 1st and Majka hadn't finished. I was very worried I'd screwed up but in the end I got 173 and went up a couple of places. I think our TT specialists did equally badly but I had Aru and Cataldo already and didn't take any pens. So far this Giro has rewarded defensive play in both the real tour and the fantasy game.

At 120 points behind the lead and only about 70 behind 2nd you're still in with a shout as there are a lot of mountain points up for grabs. We'll all have the same 7 riders or so. It's the other two cheaper ones that will count.

Very happy with my man Uran though as I've got a bet on him to win at 14-1 (could have got better odds but only went for it 10 mins before the deadline so used an account I had a fiver in and hadn't used for a couple of years - put a little extra on as well). That's looking pretty good right now but we've seen so many crashes and Pozzo is still a threat but Quintana is going to have to get better fast to take that kind of time back. Maybe Uran will attack while the fire is hot to get rid of Evans and Quintana for sure. Pozzo will be there to the end but his achilles heel(s) are the cold and descending, which is where he lost most of his time to Uran. I also didn't pick any other OPQS rider as well as I thought they'd all be told to take it easy to save themselves for the mountains. Then there are 3 others in the top 10. Brambilla 6th or Poels 7th would have been the picks of the day but they hardly have a great reputation in ITT.

To be fair at the point when I wrote what I did, I didn't expect Uran, Evans, Majka and Kelderman to come as high as they all did. I think its the fact that I used penalty points that annoys me most when it goes wrong. I am still in with a shot of a decent finish, but i feel the way the stages now are its gonna be difficult to make up much ground. and Ive had to make penalties for today. Ive gone with Malacarne to be one of my cheap riders. Im thinking of maybe going no Evans from now on and Quintana instead. (Ive took Evans out today for Bouhanni). Looks like this will be my team for tomorrow with just 1 penalty, and if it goes wrong can change it with two transfers for sunday (Quintana, Uran, Majka, Pozz, Kiserlovski, Kelderman, Monfort, Arredondo, Malacarne). I could go Evans instead of Quint and make an extra transfer and put Poels in for Monfort, but Ive just got this feeling Evans is tired. (I could do that swap for free though as I said for Sunday, if its needed). Another plan for a risk sunday would just swap Poels for Arredondo as he won't target any mountain points Sunday looking at the profile, whereas Poels may go well to the finish.

stevemarks wrote:

Compraros un habitation, vosotros dos!

Que lindo eres... Pero lo nuestro no se puede esconder en la oscuridad...