Fleche Wallone

Meersman out! Still riding LBL hopefully, so 1 grey rider.

Also the fleche wallone and LBL have KOM classificatons, any chance of getting points from these included. Would give greater reward to riders in breakaways.

Gone a bit radical by pickung Bilbao -hope he gets in the break.
And Wegmann to do even better . . . .

But resisted Henao - not enuf exp yet, need someone very similar but with more exp. R U following me ???

I have a risky wild card Frenchman up my sleeve.

Wegmann to win tomorrow would be fantastic

More than 1 point this time would be fantastic for me.

I am expecting big performances from Wegmann&Martens today.

I've got 4 greys Oh well

Greys are cool...In the classics they score almost as many points as my other riders....

Well my team then for today

Rodriguez
F Schleck (in for Cunego)
Vanendert (in for Gerrans)
Martens

Wegmann
Nordhaug
De Waele
M Kreder (in for Hermans)
Florencio (in for Westra)

1 team at the race has only sent 7 riders (dont know the team yet)

GreenEdge, according to the start list.

Think Gerrans was down initially but he's not starting.

http://www.letour.fr/2012/FWH/RIDERS/us/partants.html

Alejandro Valverde (MOV)
Rigoberto Uran (SKY)
Joaquin Rodriguez (KAT)
Jelle Vanendert (LOT)
Rinaldo Nocentini (ALM)
Arthur Vichot (FDJ)
Lers Petter Nordhaug (SKY)
Gregory Habeaux (VWA)
Xavier Florencio (KAT)

I was really tempted to bring in Gilbert for Rodriquez, but in the end I bottled it and saved an extra transfer for Liege.

Not much happening so far although some of you may be interested to hear there's been a crash and:

"And Rigobert Uran of Sky and Martin Velits (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) were also involved in the crash, but as far as we know, are still racing."

Mads Christensen up the road on his own with a lead of ~ 25 seconds, Van Hecke and De Wilde looking to join him.

Edit: break's been caught, nothing happening at the minute.

Todays break seems to have formed:

"Bellemakers has been joined by Anthony Roux (FdJ). De Wilde is giving chase and is at 40 seconds. The peloton has apparently decided to let them go, as the gap is now 2 minutes."

bellemakers FTW!

I'm so glad I had the tactical knowledge and foresight to include Bellemakers. Might hoover up some break points here (not that I completely understand the rule!)

I made 2 changes, one inforced through a grey'd out rider and one tactical (leaving me 6 for LBL)

Philippe Gilbert (BMC)
Joaquin Rodriguez (KAT)
Bauke Mollema (RAB)
Dries Devenyns (OPQ) (Henao out)
Gorka Izagirre (EUS)
Michel Kreder (GRM)
Xavier Florencio (KAT)
Bert-Jan Lindeman (VCD) (Tom Dumoulin out grey'd)
Benoit Vaugrenard (FDJ)

Made my changes on Monday otherwise I'd have done it slightly differently:

Samuel Sanchez (EUS)
Jelle Vanendert (LOT)
Sergio Luis Henao (SKY)
Vicenzo Nibali (LIQ)

Michael Albasini (GRE)
Rinaldo Nocentini (ALM)
Bert de Waele (LAN)
Xavier Florencio (KAT)
Michel Kreder (GRM)

Nibali, Vanendert, Henao and Nocentini were the ones I picked up, dropped Santambrogio, Valverde, Rodriguez and Gerrans.

The reason i kicked Henao, Uran is there and will be Sky's man, but then again, he's crashed today, so could backfire, but i doubt it.

Dave, there is no KoM points? even though FW has a KoM. You could have had more points

Rodriguez
Vanendert
Gasparatto (only coz he was cheap)
Valverde
Wegmann
Albasini
M Kreder
Florencio
(Meersmann - ran out of transfers)

Ok night shift done and a weee sleep, now to follow on how badly I'll do today. Maybe I should go back to bed.
Philippe Gilbert
Alejandro Valverde
Arnold Jeannesson (now grey :()
Joaquin Rodriguez
Michael Albasini
Stijn Neirynck (also grey)
Xavier Florencio
Moreno Moser
Arnaud Gerard (grey after Amstel and didn't want to risk the penalty points )

Quote:

And we've got an attack. Andy Schleck has jumped away with a Katusha rider stuck to his wheel.

Quote:

The rider with him is Yury Trofimov

31.8km to go .... my money on Gilbert!

Drat .... Double post there

My money is (in my team) on Gilbert, but Harmon and Backstedt say its his to lose, so that means he'll lose, commentators curse as normal

Vanendert for me, Gilbert sounds like he's been out the back a couple of times, Nibali too might make a move and Valverde and Rodriguez look to have strong teams today.

Needless to say, my ideal outcome would be Nibali or Vanedert with Valverde taking out Rodriguez with 100m to go

Well my transfers have failed! F Schleck out the back and not looking like many of my team are even there

Schleck is still in there, swapped bikes, Gilbert is still in there as well, never been out the back, just sat in the middle of the pack up a couple of climbs

Nordhaug and Hesjedal making a break for home with 7km left

Katusha closing it again like they have been all day - J-Rod would be a good result for me, I just hope its not for Moreno as i couldn't afford him

Well I scrapped my original plan of bringing in Hesjedal and Vanendert and Albasini and went for F Schleck and Vanendert instead and set up my team for my transfers for liege....but I would be happy for these to stay away as I have Nordhaug and many will have ditched him after what happened at Amstel