Paris Nice start planning now

So my team will probably look like this to start:
Martin,
LuLuSanchez,
Millar,
Kloden,
Phinney,
Astarloza,
Szmyd,
Moreno,
Zabriskie.

Wiggo and Spartacus the obvious dangers to leave out.

Useful summary although I've been planning for about 2 weeks. Hence Volta and Haut Var threads. Essential nowadays to get off to a good start with so many star riders of a particular type who can score heavily early on. Second ITT is a climb so technically an ICTT.

My team is going to consist of Climbing TT guys, so anyone that can climb and TT

Had a quick squizz at possible riders and got a base team of 6 who i believe will be taking part and just got to fine tune it.

I have not read the Volta & Haut Var threads, doing my research by watching the races have not finished Volta ao Algarve yet and finishing the downloading Tour du Haut Var in french. So no spoilers

If you need those races or any other cycling races http://cyclingtorrents.nl

Its defo more of a climbers tour than that of a sprinter, but there is a must in my team ready for the stage 2 sprint based on his current form and price

My starting team:

Tony Martin (OPQ)
AR Value: 38.4 previous winner
David Millar (GRM)
AR Value: 28.2 TT
Thomas de Gendt (VCD)
AR Value: 18.4 TT & Rouleur
Samuel Dumoulin (COF)
PC Value: 14.7 Can't TT but can sprint and does climb
Richie Porte (SKY)
DS Value: 14.4 TT & climb

Likely canidates

Alex Rasmussen (GRM)
DS Value: 10.1 TT & prologue specialist
Jerome Coppel (SAU)
DS Value: 14.6 local GC hope who did 15th in TdF Monaco prologue

Would like but might be a bit out of budget
Tejay Van Garderen

Will wait and see what "DS" are added later

Extra research results from prologue at 2010 Paris Nice and 2010 & 2011 Tour De Suisse (short & hilly)

from what i know so far of who is riding i have 6/9 places pretty much in my head. my team contains 2 sky, OPQS, Liqugas, AG2R and Saur riders

Sounds like a profile that Jonathan Tiernan-Locke would suit, and he's bang in form.

It would be perfect, but Endura aint racing

By my calculations you've got 11.2 left. You can get 2 reasonable DSs for that but not TJ

Right, really done the homework for this.

Going pure once again - so i've gone for:
3 Frenchmen, all with P-N form;
2 climbers;
1 TT specialist who showed some form in the mountains in recent years;
Couple of cheap DS who have good early season form.

Game on!

Right, i've narrowed it down to 31 riders, so i'm waiting on the final start list, see if that narrows it down for me again and THEN and only THEN, will i make up my mind on anyone after studying form, past results and so on......

NO seriously, you think i'm pulling your leg this time and giving you false information, i'm not, i need to climb back up the rankings and win a stage to get on that leaderboard with a high score

I have a notepad this year aswell

The stage profiles are up:

http://www.letour.fr/2012/PNC/COURSE/us/100/etape_par_etape.html

Stage 5 is going to decide it unless some super human TT guy blows them away in stage 1 and 8

Stage 8 is a 450m climb over 9k, don't forget. it's not just a time trial. there's every chance of it being won or lost on the Col d'Èze if you ask me

Provisional start list;

http://www.letour.fr/2012/PNC/RIDERS/us/engages.html

2 of my DS aren't there - tweak, tweak, tweak.

What i've learned from the pure league is a good DS can be as valuable as a 'star' rider.

Done!

Ok with the provisional list, 31 riders is cut to 22, now just to work out DS from Star, that should cut the list down again, then by teams, then i MIGHT have a team to pick

Just picked my provisional team and I'm pretty happy with it, although it's not looking that strong for Stage 2...

aside from Tony Martin and Thomas Voeckler, I will leave my star rider slots blank til the last minute.

But i'm fairly set on my domestiques
Michel Kreder 3.2
Ramunas Navardauskas 6.9
Remy DiGregorio 5.8
Pierrick Fedrigo 5.7
Stef Clement?

I suspect Steve Cummings might not turn out for BMC, unless there is a magician who can fix a broken pelvis.

I suspect Steve Cummings might not turn out for BMC, unless there is a magician who can fix a broken pelvis.

Ok, provisional team picked

1 Rider from a place near a gate where their twin nuns eat on "Anchor"
1 Brit
1 Shrimp on a barbie
4 Legs of Frogs
1 Who lays in the sun
1 Little holy drummer boy

You can get 6/9 nationalities, but i bet you dont get 2 of my 9 guys, specifically the first and last clues

unsure on your team and nationalities

I wanna say 1 is german, then brit, then aussie, 4 french, a Spaniard? and i really arnt sure american?

unsure how to describe my team so will just give nationalities

2 french, 1 german, 1 spaniard, 1 estonian, 1 italian, 2 aussies and 1 belgium

Not bad, no American though

All change after provisional declarations:
Martin,Wiggins,LuLuSanchez,DeGendt,Porte,Phinney,Astarloza,Moreno,A.N.Other

Ok how about

2 x Belgian (being picky ?)
2 x french
1 x Aussie
1 x Maori
1 x German
1 x Dane
1 x Slovak

Any Guesses ?

2 x Belgian - Boonen and De Clercq or Wynants
2 x french - Di Gregorio and Jerome/Bonnet/Casar
1 x Aussie - Porte
1 x Maori - Henderson
1 x German - Martin
1 x Dane - Morkov/Jorgensen/Klostergaard/Lund (safe to say he's from Saxo and is a DS)
1 x Slovak - Brajkovic

I Must have at least 4 right with a suspicion of 7

So far I've got:

An Italian,
A Spaniard,
A Brit
A German
A Yank
A Kiwi,
An Aussie
A Dane
and a member of a certain Baltic state who I'm not giving away just yet!

Estonia - Taaramae/Kangert
Latvia - Saramontins/Smukulis
Lithuania - Navardauskas/Konovalovas

Yeah, one of those

How is this for a tactic. If you think Tony Martin is going to win the ITT, don't pick him. Instead pick 2 cheap DS from his team OPQ, and pick the stars who you think will come 2nd and third.

Good tactics ???

It works if you think you can do that, BUT why not have Martin, plus a DS from his team AND the 2nd and 3rd guys??

Hmmm, might work but there's no points listed for the next stage yet so not sure how it'd stack up.

The major down side is that if you pick two of Martin's team mates and he doesn't win that is then two wasted picks. You also don't get any ongoing GC points for those two DSs after that stage.

Picking Martin and using a throwaway cheap DS pick on his teammate might work better. That being said its all about the gamble and if you get it right it could pay off.

I'm also trying to work out which sky rider will finish highest on stage 2 ... but no obvious sprinter stands out. Can Luke Rowe sprint? Or will he go for a long one?

Starting with;

2 Belgians
1 German (team mate of 1 of the above Belgians!)
1 Brit
1 Aussie (team mate of above Brit)
1 Russian
2 French (1 of whom was highly rated by Tommy Voeckler in a recent interview)
& 1 Lithuanian

Not finalised yet tho..

So i can pick an OPQ DS who can sprint, ready for stage 2, and an OPQ DS who can time trial a bit...this should cver me a bit.

So
2 from down under
2 from America
1 from former eastern bloc
1 brit
1 german
2 from the med (i.e Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal might be on the med,Tunisia Algeria or Libya)

Luke Rowe is more your endurance guy, so he'll be pulling the sky guys along to get them into the finish in a good position

If you want a sky sprinter then Hunt or Nordhaug would be your best bets, but most sprinters will have stayed away from this race

Still no guesses on my

1 Rider from a place near a gate where their twin nuns eat on "Anchor"

Work back from the clues

I was being a bit cheeky with my team and tried to throw in a low baller with my descriptions - Wiggins is British but was born in Ghent, Belgium so dont know if he holds dual nationality

Bugger me, i have gone through every world flag and still cant find them. I give up unless it's a state flag.

Unless one of my team pulls out its now set in stone with my 2 transfers for the next day also sorted.

Greg Henderson?

Thats two points less i think....

Its nowt to down with a flag

It is the opening stage of race. Bonus points on line for winner.

ie you pick the best chances possible to win
1st place = 35pts + 10pts GC + 5 pt points + depending speed up climb KOM points. ie If Tony wins he is worth at least 50pts, 2nd place at least 43pts, 3rd etc.

Who do you guys think will be the main man for Ag2r?

Peraud seems to run well in this race but if Roche is racing will he be team leader? And if they're both raciing do you think one work for the other to help them succeed or will it end up like the TdF a few years ago?

Thought that I was pretty good at this,but Paris-Nice is giving me a headache...Not convinced that Tony Martin is the man for the short TT with a little lump in it..As for the rest...climbers or one day specialists...mmmmm..

I'm with you on Martin, but i'm usually wrong !

I've gone for nearly all climbing all rounders and might see how it goes in the purist league for this race.

Well no prologues with a lump this year to gauge form, how about the Tour de Suisse prologue on a similar profile
2011 results
1. Fabian Cancellara (SUI), Leopard-Trek, 9:41
2. Tejay Van Garderen (USA), HTC-Highroad, at 0:09
3. Peter Sagan (SVK), Liquigas-Cannondale, at 0:17
4. Gustav Larsson (SWE), Saxobank-Sungard, at 0:17
5. Andreas Klöden (GER), Team RadioShack, at 0:18
6. Thomas Danielson (USA), Garmin-Cervelo, at 0:20
7. Peter Velits (SVK), HTC-Highroad, at 0:21
8. Bauke Mollema (NED), Rabobank Cycling Team, at 0:22
9. Levi Leipheimer (USA), Team RadioShack, at 0:22
10. Linus Gerdemann (GER), Leopard-Trek, at 0:22

(editted due to auto correction of my original prologue = problem???)

To be fair, its hardly a lump, it goes up at 6.6% over 1.1km with a difference of 82 metres

Gkam...I did say a little lump.....lol....For a short TT,I think it will make a difference to the outcome...Not Martin for me....

Can i just point you to stage 5 and 7 last year

http://www.letour.fr/2011/PNC/LIVE/us/500/etape_par_etape.html

http://www.letour.fr/2011/PNC/LIVE/us/700/etape_par_etape.html

Just to say, he came home 4th on stand 5 and 5th on stage 7

Up against the likes of

Di Gregorio, Sammi Sanchez, Uran, Kloden, Taaramae, Brajkovic, Wiggo, Tondo, Monfort, Carrara, Kiserlovski, LL Sanchez, Rolland

To name but a few, so don't rule out his climbing ability

I agree with Gkam, not so long ago they were touting Martin as a possible grand tour contender.

Good call Gkam, but i still think he's not got the form at the mo. He seems to lift himself for certain races and at other times doesn't seem to be bothered.

Yeah he's not consistent, but with two ITT's I think he's in his element and having won it last year, he'll be keen to down it again

Well I hope everyone elses picks the Belgian time trial specialist from Team Sky, as I have purposefully ignored him, and then I'll get all the points if he doesn't quite perform . . . and if he does perform I'll be chuffed anyway, so I can't lose...

Unless your Belgian is actually a Brit I'm thoroughly confused. I reckon he'll do well but if Porte puts in a cracking TT he might get the support instead as he's been in some good form.

This is going to be more of a test of the difficulty of the new game setup than these pancake flat stages in the Oman/Qatar races.

But strongmen that can TT is surely the way to go, and holding back transfers

Born in Ghent - does he hold dual nationality

I dont believe he does hold dual nationality, he was born in Ghent but raised in London, I think the reason he was born there was down to his dad (An Aussie) living there as a Pro cyclist aswell, Born in 1980, Wiggo moved back to London in 82 when his parents split

We all agree he is British but having lived there until he was 2 he possibly does qualify, but thats not the point, i think he will storm the tt course and may not look back.

Has anyone led for the whole of a race before from stage 1 / prologue through to the end ?????

I can only get from 2004-2011 but it seems Jörg Jaksche did it in 2004, the only other result is from 1933 when Alfons Schepers did it

Nice pick, but I don't see him on the official race start list (http://www.letour.fr/2012/PNC/RIDERS/us/engages.html) but as a substitue.

He does appear on the game (!) start list, though... Hmmm... Which list is right?...

By the way, thanks for the research! Mighty helpful!

How is Pierre Rolland's time trialling? I'm thinking that Europcar might be taking this kind of race more seriously since they didn't get a Tour invite...

...although he's not on that ASO start list but is in the game list for the next stage.

Rolland is out with a knee injury, that's confirmed.

List of riders for the game is based on the provisional start list and as usual will be updated before the race begins once the final start list is published.

MSW - not sure where your information Europcar hasn't got a Tour invite comes from, the list of teams hasn't been published yet?

With Voeckler and Rolland's performances last year and it being a French team it would be a major surprise if they were not invited.

Are you confusing it with the Giro? They're not taking part in that - because they didn't apply for a wild card in the first place.

Whoops. Actually I half-remembered that they didn't have ProTour status so didn't have a 100% guaranteed Tour spot. And now I'm can't remember if ProTour status does guarantee that any more, anyway, or if it's still called that. Excellent work all round from me.

Heh! Well, the UCI's constant changing of things serves to confuse! As things stand, all WorldTour teams aka ProTeams have the right to an automatic invite to WorldTour races, as well as an obligation to compete in them.

The rules were introduced ahead of 2011 season - in 2010, for example, RadioShack chose not to race the Giro to focus on the Tour of California instead and they weren't invited to the Vuelta.

So one of the highest profile teams in the sport missed two of the three Grand Tours...

Thank heavens it all went well for them in the TDF

It may have just been the rumour mill, so dont listen to me, but I understood the same as MSW that Europcar didn't have a place on the Tour this year either

There's certainly been nothing official.

Not much surprises me in this sport any more but I'd be gobsmacked if Europcar weren't at the Tour.

The sans-cuissards would probably re-erect the guillotine in Place de la Concorde and I reckon Christian Prudhomme would be first up

I agree. Inconceivable not to have Europcar, Voeckler and their lovely traditional French bikes. No, wait....

Anyway, sans-cuissards? I thought they were sans-culottes or is that something else? Google Translate says 'sans-cuissards' means 'without waders.' WTF!

Sans-culottes, soixante-huitards, "sans-cuissards"... *bof*.

Cuissards = bibshorts - thought I'd give it some added relevance

Don't let anyone tell you road.cc isn't educational...and that the French don't have a sense of humour. I'll never be able to look at my bibshorts again without thinking of waders.

Surprised no-ones talking about Luis Leon Sanchez for Paris-Nice?

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhht