Giro Stage 14

Raleigh wrote:

Ok.

Poz for the win, got him in.
Scarponi to do well, left him out for a spell.
Basso to fly, gave him a try.
J Rod to suffer, left him in as he's a bluffer.
Because of Schleck's shoulder I've got someone older.

RUJANO'S AMAZING, IT'S HIM I'M PRAISING.

Dear dear dear dear, your meter is queer,
I've tweaked it some though, you'll see down below.
My mistake yes or no though?, leaving out pozzovivo.
But I have no clue, what they're all gonna do.

Poz for the win, so I've got him in.
Scarponi to do well, so left him out for a spell
Basso to fly, gave him a try.
J Rod to suffer, left him in he's a bluffer.
Because of Schleck's shoulder I've got someone older.
RUJANO'S AMAZING, IT'S HIM THAT I'M PRAISING.

I'm over the edge I think.

drheaton wrote:

Also, with Rujano and Gadret 3 minutes down needing a lead of maybe 3 minutes on those who can TT will they go big early on or will they wait till next week?

My high risk/high reward strategy is to pick both and hope for fireworks but I think I might just go for one.

As we have exactly the same DSs we have exactly the same choices.

Gone for Scarponi, (I'm sure he'll do something over the weekend and place high even if the secs difference isn't big, expect him to be top 5 GC by Sunday if his legs are ok as his whole training schedule has been orientated to this one week).
Rujano - bit of a punt - could try and win stage to get some bonus secs and some time back while the GC guys are more cagey. He's not going to win it outright after all and AND have done well so far.
Basso - should put in a solid performance and move up a few places on GC.
Henao - cheap, got 5 points for Cav and is young rider so extra points if he does well. He and Uran will stay close together somewhere in the top 10 on the stage and move up a few places on GC- I hope.

Other options - Kreuzinger but we've already got Tiralongo, who could go for the win to upset things and let Kreuzinger wait.
Gadret - ALM have some wins now so less pressure on him - or this could give him extra confidence, but 2 punts is too much and I've gone for Rujano.
Uran - prob no better than Henao and more expensive.

Purito and Hesjedal, think they will both drop a few places in GC although they'll both be top 10 but prob not top 5 on the stage.

There'll be a few surprises. I've considered De Gendt so I could have Purito and Scarponi with Henao. He might do well today or wait and go for a stage victory in the MM stages next week. Then there's Seeldrayers, Nieve might go for a stage win while the GC guys mark each other.

It's going to be an interesting tactical stage and I think everyone's team is going to be more or less the same with similar points - quite high. It's the MM stages next week that will shake up the Fantasy game with much more chance of unexpected winners.

MM used to be my weakness but now it's more of a strength, so I'm hoping to just not lose too much ground this weekend and be set up for a few interesting transfers next week. Going to need a monster stage win to get up near the top.

Amongst the remaining DSs we haven't got Stetina, who I had at one stage, he could be interesting. Lost some time due to mechanical and could be dangerous. We'll see.

At least Cav finally won for me. When he was boxed in I thought, oh no here we go again, and Goss did well enough to justify keeping him. Even went up the table with a climber heavy team.

livestrongnick wrote:

Ah brilliant! Kept Goss for 4 defo points and he's flippin pulled out this morning

I did point that out for everyone yesterday, he'd give the sprint a go and then leave the tour

The ONLY sprinter who's said he's likely to complete the Giro is Cav, he wants to get the red jersey overall.

Then maybe next year he'll go to the Vuelta and take the points jersey there, making the full set

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

You've pulled a handy little gap on me now Alan, as ive been steadily dropping.

My plan is to see what happens tonight and maybe drop J-Rod and Hesjedal for tomorrow, however tomorrow should suit Pozzovivo/J-Rod I reckon. At least im now in a position where my team is pretty much how I want it making my transfers tactical, rather than needing to switch for sprinters or climbers so I haven't been able to axe climbers i may have wished to.

My only set in stone tactic is to make sure I have 4 transfers going into the last stage

It's not much of a gap and you've closed that before
Been lucky/canny with Rubiano and Golas both scoring good points for me. Most of that gap is Rubiano's win.

Only way I could have Cav and Goss was to drop Purito and bring in Henao for Hesjedal early , which paid off. Didn't seem much point bringing them back in again so went for the big Italian favs to do something today as tomorrow and some of the remaining stages, apart from the last one, still suit Purito who might come back into my team if I think he's still capable of a stage win or two and those bonus secs. His TTing isn't bad after all, although Basso is better and prob. relying on that a bit. If Hesjedal doesn't lose too much time today or next Saturday he's also in with a shout of a podium spot. Kreuzinger is also well-placed as he's a decent TTer. The climbers really need to put some time into the other guys soon. There aren't that many chances.

Raleigh wrote:

But he won the Vuelta one in 2012

So he did, but not in 2012

Interesting to here the interview with Pozzovivo's manager today read out online, what does he fear. The cold, the rain and going downhill