Tour of Oman

Profile
--^- ---^ ^--- ----

With the classics on the horizon it's going to be the likes of Gilbert, Flecha and EBH who are going to try out their legs on the climbs but when it comes to hills you never know

Doh !

according to Team Sky website Flecha and EBH not racing ?

they not racing

Neither is Gilbert - claims it's too warm

Sky only have a couple of changes, Sutton and Hunt in and Barry will be out, So Rowe, Dowsett or Puccio are the reserves

Full list here http://www.letour.fr/2012/TOO/RIDERS/us/engages.html

No EBH, Flecha or Gilbert

BUT there will be Kittel, Sagan and Millar for your climbing and Cav, Farrar, Galimzyanov and Greipel for your sprints with a few other names i'll keep to myself

This really does take over my life. I LOVE IT!!

Griepel over his illness i take it ?

Whats wrong with Euskatel ? i thought the hot weather would have suited their riders.

I think its invite only?? Astana, Euskaltel, Ag2r, Vacansoleil, Movistar, Saxo Bank and Lampre all missing, so some decent riders in those teams

Invites ... same as Qatar; same teams.

Some more names competing: Vandevelde, Rasmussen for Garmin. Goss back in for GRE but rubbish in TDU. Joaquin is in for Katusha ... love that!

Nibali, Greipel back, Ten Dam for Rabobank, Fuglsang and Sutton.

Wow! Excited already. Going for better than my 200th place in Qatar!! Crap for a previous prize winner (at least I was infront of the wife)

Teams by Tuesday

Mmmmm, this is going to take some deep thinking as there a lot of good riders. Rodriguez is a must in my opinion but after that who knows.

The first 3 days are flat by the looks of it with day 4 and 5 having the hills to contend with.

Just spotted a TdF winner in there ... although he did win it last week

.... Andy Schleck.

Stage 1 and 2 have the same profile on official website ... someone cocked up. Stage 2 is actually a bit of a tough finish.

stage 5 is a proper mountaintop summit finish too, 1,265m

provisional start list is up...

Thanks Dave
For a while I thought there were 900 riders

I know it may be warmer there, but from bit I've seen on Eurosport it's not exactly exciting racing.

Stage 4 is nothing terrible, a little bumpy, good for breaks maybe; but 5 should be good. Couple of Ks of 13.5% at the end. Going to be interesting to decide when to bring the climbers in.

Why can you only quote certain peoples posts?

Anyway....

Dave " provisional start list is up..."

Glad to see you have torn yourself away from The Big Shimano show - when do us monkeys get to find out out the future?

Oman is completely different from Qatar if your thinking its the same. Oman actually has some decent hills and the mountain top finish looks a belter.

not sure about the quoting, i'll check the cogs.

March 1 and June 1 for Shimano news. Both very interesting.

Why have Eurosport got Stage 1 "live" on Wednesday when it starts on Tuesday. No prologue? Confused?

Well last week eurosport had listed highlights from stage 5 of the ToQ on the same day eurosport 2 had listed live coverage of stage 1 (this being the day of stage 1)

The big question is to go with Cav or not to go with Cav.....I feel i will end up with egg on my face whichever way i go

basically i have a team with Cav and a team without Cav that causes 3 changes in my team overall

Rather have egg on my face than road rash all over my back! Poor Mr Cav.

Greipel v Cav on the sprints with a few other thrown in could be excellent!! It will be fun watching then up Stage 5 too.

Might drop Cav and Gripes for stage 5
Bring in some guys with decent sprintability

Sohrabi is a must again . . . its his 'home' tour after all.
and he is cheap so I can afford to buy a decent climber like nibali

Thought he was from Iran ?

Kittel for climbing, does your disinformation run that deep

I am not aware of a tour d'Iran so I put 'home' in quotes, cos I thought Oman was probably the hearest place to Iran. . . . and it's only 2 letters different.

Now if Ali Al Habsi could ride a bike, I would definitely pick him for the Tour d'Oman

Aye point taken. The way Iran is at the mo half the UK and USA competitors would get locked up for spying.

I forgot, how many transfers can you roll over?

You get unlimited until first stage then two per day after that.

You can roll over 2, so if after the first stage, you make no transfers, you will have 4 the next day, if you use only 2, you will still have 2 rolling over, but the most you will ever have is 4

unless there's more than two available, like in the classics or on a rest day of the tour. basically two rollovers max, plus however many free transfers are allowed on the stage

So on rest days we could have upto 6?

I was just pointing out what it would be for the tour of Oman

I must leave enough dosh in the bank to be able to bring Cav in for Fridays stage. Looking at the sky photos on Facebook, he seems to have his climbing legs on, leading his team up the training climbs.

...there again, Jon Tiernan Locke is looking like he knows how to go uphill.
http://www.cyclingfever.com/stage.html?etappe_idd=MjcwNzA=&_ap=video
Might pick him for the uphill stages in Oman.

Truths in the climbing legs aside, I'm more worried that given his injuries he'll be more "miss" than "missile"

It seeems that the first stage is a uphill finish, light and easy but uphill, isn't it? maybe Goss time??? I've many doubts with my team, expecially with the stars...

It goes up 80 metres over the last 30kms so not really much of a rise and i think the last 5 is completely flat.

So sprinters at the start then make no transfers for stage 3 so you can use 4 transfers to get the climbers in for stage 4 and another 2 to beef it up with punchy domestiques for stage 5?

You say that, but Stage 4 has been deemed "flat". Have a look at the profile .... if I was cycling it, I wouldn't call it flat!!

Who is good on stages like this? Hushovd, Goss, Tiernan, Schlek?!

The first 50k is virtually downhill the whole way - if it was me i would go full belt to pick up speed to see how far i could free wheel up the hill before getting off and pushing

When did endura get an invite to the tour of oman ??

Take anything you read in Fantasy Cycling threads with a sack of salt. Lots of smoke and mirrors being deployed

Normally the smoke appears in the hall of mirrors

With about 12 hours to go the pressure is on to pick your team, unless of course your really switched on and have settled your team already.

I have been trying different line ups with an eye on stage 4 and 5 and in doing so have money spare.

I've gone for:

Cav
Boonen
Griepel
Galimzyanov

Hayman
Steegmans
Guardini
Sohrabi
Kruopis

But i will probably change it again

I also have three men different, 1 star and 2 DS, but still formatting my time

I'm going for:-

Three legged man
German
Eastern European
And again
And again
And again
Another German
Australasian
And an Asian

GER
GBR
RUS
GER
Lithuania (whats the shortened?)
GER
BEL
AUS
جمهوری اسلامی ایران

So GKAM likes Wagner and Kuschynski

Decided to stick with that team and i need 5 transfers for stage 4

Fingers crossed they all do well and i dont have to mess about changing them.

Problem comes though on stage 6, which is flat, do you take out a possible race winner / runner up to put back in the likes of Cav or Griepel which might gain you a few extra points

@ stumps - problem is that we all did that in qatar and cav collected more grit than points for us all. Same dilemma for me hoping my team will be consistent and will not have to make many changes. Have also managed to have some spare credit just in case.

Ignore, double post