The Tour

Perhaps Bjarne could ge this bike out again, it would make a canny threesome !

Should have clarified, when I said hit and miss with Kittel, I was referring to him making it to sprints you should expect him to contest, ie, I see Kristoff contesting more sprints than Kittel (and Cav for that matter, although Cav always seems to have another gear at the tour), same can be said for Greipel as I see him as stronger these days, with a little less top end.

Almost opposite to mine

Contador
Bardet
JVDB
Sagan
Modolo
Voeckler
Bideau
Nieve/Frank
Voss/Ladagnous

Think Im gonna go Sagan over Cav for stage 1 in standard too to give me another transfer for stage 2. As I did have the combo of Cav/Bennati, now going Sagan/Haussler. Struggling to find much value at the sort of 8-15 range for sprinters, but plenty when i comes to lumpy/mountains, especially in the say 9-17 range.
Also can't decide on Kittel or Kristoff, and I can't get Demare in. Kittel is good don't get me wrong, but from a fantasy point of view he can be so hit and miss

Can't decide on purist, got 7 pretty much set in stone, although im worried about my sprint options. Can't seem to be able to have the balls to do it without Contador/Froome and go with another sprinter, as I only have Sagan and Modolo.
Do I drop Contador for say Talansky, and be able to bring Demare for my other mid priced climber.

Decisions

Sagan surely?

Ive gone Sagan and Modolo as my sprinters

My hardest decision is whether to go Cav or Sagan in my purist team.

If Cav then it free's up another 4+ points towards a better rider....

I'm not sure on conventions on this site re posting references to other sites. Apologies in advance if this is not appropriate.

I am running a game I'm calling Ultimate Cycling Challenge. This game introduces the concept of Combined Cycling Arts. It has 2 components:
- the Fantasy points scored in TDF (via this road.cc game in our league),
added to
- the Kilometres you actually ride yourself during the TDF period (measured via strava and picked up in our strava group). If Brits or Yanks want to be measured in miles you can but I don't think that is a wise choice here .

Biggest aggregate number wins. No prizes except massive bragging rights.

You have to ask to join our league and strava group, but at this point everyone is welcome to join. I'm running it through DTTalk.com in Australia. Here is the address of the launch article -
http://dreamteamtalk.com/2014/06/25/fantasy-cycling-le-tour-est-ici/

Think of it as fantasy cycling, now with added realism.

Might be worth factoring long range forecasts have rain for thr opening stages!

For me its set a sprint team, and then work backwards....

How many penalties, and who do you go for?

stage 2 is a must have Sagan in, and then its the best of the rest. Also though you have to keep in mind the intermediate sprints.
Ive got a couple of strong guys in such as Bennett and Bennati, but equally Greipel can be strong and if the breakaway wins it could still be a sprint for 5th place down.

As for stage 5, again don't think it will be a full n sprint and again Sagan is a no brainer (unless you wanna risk). and then maybe someone like Terpstra, and Degenkolb, but I still think someone like Greipel will do ok over cobbles.

Totally agree about stage 2. All the other stages upto 7 seem straight forward, yes there's the cobbles section but this is not a classics race, its the tour and the jersey holders teams wont want to lose it.

Yeah, the second stage will almost certainly not be a sprint; a very demanding stage. Even the first might suite Sagan over Cav & co,

S3 into London will be a proper sprint, but it's not long from there to the cobbles, where I imagine Fabs will be after a stage win.

The first week should be fairly simple to read with nigh on every stage flattish so the sprint teams will be to the fore.

HOWEVER this is the tour so anything can happen with every team wanting to be involved and have their share of the limelight.

I cant wait for it to start