Giro Stage 11

I had the choice between Cav and Hunter/Bos or Goss and Visconti/Modolo. Went for Cav and Hunter purely because at 10 credits I can leave Hunter in for a couple of days while I move my riders around.

Expecting a Cav win today, SKY know the area, the Brits all lived/trained there for years as part of the academy so it's a no-brainer that they'll go after this one, just hoping that I don't lose out on too many points by not aving Goss/Kristoff or Soupe.

FYI, my girlfriend who knows nothing about cycling (but who's picked two winners already this week) thought I should go for Soupe because she likes his name. If you haven't already used you transfers you should get him

Gone Cav, Goss, Kristoff and Demare will drop Cav tomorrow but bring him back friday and saturday ditch all my sprinters till friday next week

Well I had 2 transfers and went goss and Kristoff, so my team looks like this

J-Rod
Hesjedal
Haeno
Goss

Guardini
Kristoff
Demare
Caruso
Pozzovivo

Maybe not as strong as other teams, but as more stages pass the more im shaping it into how id like it

J-Rod
Hesjedal
Cavendish
Hunter

Caruso
Tiralongo
Pozzovivo
Demare
Guardini

These flat-mountain-flat stage changes are really making it hard to really overhaul my team and get it right for any one particular day. I guess it's all about guaranteed points on both types of stage and making the best use of the two transfers each day.

Really looking forward to the next 10 stages though, this is where the game gets fun for me, in the high mountains.

The transfer deadline's closed already??? I'm sure when I checked last night it was 11:35.

Again, we have the same stars TER - In fact, swap Guardini and Demare for Barta (random pick for a break) and Felline, and we'd have exactly the same team!

Was considering Hunter, but the commentator said that he'd been feeling really ill on Monday, so I'm not sure if he's fully recovered.

At this point in the race anyone with any idea what they're doing will have pretty much the same team, I can't see many top teams not having J-Rod & Hesjedal unless they've dropped them for Cav and Goss today. That's what makes it so hard to catch the leaders, I'm 165 points down but there's no way now for me to catch the top teams unless I completely luck out and pick breakaway stage winners for the next 10 days in a row!

I didn't know about Hunter's illness which is annoying but he was a shot in the dark anyway and Bos has been so crap this last tour that I can't see him getting the nod over Renshaw for today.

Soupe is cooked

And whilst I'm on puns ... BBC website had a story about some sex toys stolen under the headline "Sex toys snatched" .... how do they get away with it?!

Missing out on making my transfers means I'm stuffed if it comes down to a sprint. Demare is my only sprinter but he's exhausted so Soupe will probably be FDJ's man today. I was going to bring in Cav, so expect him to win today.

Mark my words .... Bonnet sprinting for FDJ today

Me too. In fact I couldn't complete my transfers last night due to the site slowing down. Just now I clicked the green button with 19 minutes to go, only to get the closed message.

Maybe there's good reason for this 10.55am cut-off http://www.gazzetta.it/static_images/ciclismo/giroditalia/2012/pdf/doc_c... just a shame I didn't check gazzetta earlier. Didn't the game have the wrong transfer cut-off time just a few days ago, if I recall correctly some one said it wouldn't happen again?

Was intending to swap Cav for JRod and Caruso for Balloni. Would love it if a little discretion could be used.

Thanks for the great game anyway, really enjoying it & not really complaining, as I've not paid for the premium side or anything.

Or, if the peloton ends up sat on their backsides on the floor again you could be on to a winner! Anyway, I was half tempted to give up on today and save my transfers for the big breakaway stage tomorrow so you could still do really well out of it.

Surely we should have some notice though?

I was intending to save 1 transfer for tomorrow anyway, but I might end up taking an extra risk now (depending on the result today of course). It's just frustrating to look at Scarponi in my team knowing that he wont score me any points, while Cav might end up with 40.

Today's breakaway

That man Kaisen is there again!.

Can't seem them making it but at 6 with some serial escapists and Boaro (who can TT) they should make a good fist of it.

Also, Goss isn't doing too well and Tom Leezer of Rabobank is out.

Windows closing after the stage start time was raised a couple of days ago and I think Dave was looking at all the other stages to see if it was likely to happen again, he may have changed the closing time for today's window but not updated all the literature so it might be worth dropping him an email.

I've gone for . . .

Joaquin Rodriguez (KAT)
Ryder Hesjedal (GRM)
Sergio Luis Henao (SKY)
Mark Cavendish (SKY)

Arnaud Demare (FDJ)
Alexander Kristoff (KAT)
Miguel Angel Rubiano (AND)
Elia Favilli (FAR)
Damiano Caruso (LIQ)

I'm super excited about the team today, which means I'm bound to have no luck whatsoever

Cavendish
Goss
J-Rod
Gatto

Guardini
Demare
Rubiano
Pozzovivo
Caruso

Gatto's a good call, I was tempted to pick him up for tomorrow actually seeing as I couldn't fit him in today.

I didn't realise though that today's finish is a mirror of Monday's with a very tight hairpin bend 400m from the finish, plus with the last climb 10km from the finish and maxing out at 8% there's no guarantee that it'll still be together for a sprint finish

Honestly, I sat here thinking about how I could get Cav, Goss and J-Rod in, then who would be left? Obviously not enough points to keep Hesjedal, so I needed somebody sub 15... and thought "Well, I've been burned by every Farnesi-Vini rider so far. Why not try again?"

Didn't Gatto finish 3rd in the Strade Bianche? and I'm sure he was in decent form during the Classics, he's not a bad call at all.

On the final climb, group of 6 in front at the summit, about 10km downhill and flat to go

Bah, once Scarponi got across Liquigas shut the break down, sprint finish for sure now.

Sounds like Schleck has been dropped on the descent.

EDIT:

Crap

Ferrari wins

Which is all good for me as i have 2 of their riders

Ferrari wins

Ferrari
Chicchi
Vaitkus
Cavendish

etc...

pleased i went for cav and not goss

Any idea what happened to Goss?

Ferrari
Chicchi
Vaitkus
Cavdendish
Belletti
Nizzolo
Schorn
Demare

I took Demare out the other day, But i've been playing the tactic that the sprints are not worth transferring in guys for as the routes are shocking, another final corner crash because its FAR to narrow

I think, but unsure, he got dropped on the final little climb when Visconti gave it beans and the speed ramped up

Is it me, or did Modolo nearly get his head cut off by someone's front wheel there?!

Who caused the crash?

Not as bad as it could've been, but 28 points lost thanks to the new random transfer deadline . I'm ****ed off.

Chicchi remembered he's the team sprinter!

Goss finished 10 minutes down, Kristoff and Guardini nowhere either, Schleck managed to lose 46 seconds today. Forget about TTing, that man can't descend for toffee. There's a huge descent to finish a stage in the next week, that could break Schleck long before the TT.

not sure what happened with the transfer deadline, i'm investigating that

No-one was at fault for the crash bar the race organisers. They made the corner to tight, MASSIVE exit (plenty of room to drop you bike and slide) and then into a narrow exit. It was always going to happen.

I think it was Modolo who went down first, but it was just a case of riders going into a tight bend and their wheels going from underneath them rather than anyone causing a mass pile up

What a fail today

I've said before, I like technical sprints more than long straight drags but I admit, three crashes (two down to the organisers) is too many and when they as a race want to attract the top sprinters they need to sort it out for next year. Cav, Goss and the other top sprinters won't keep turning up if theres more chance of a broken collarbone than a couple of stage wins as they build up to the TdF.

Average day, 88 points and gained 4 places, still 171 points behind 1st though, no bike for me