Criterium Dauphine

Is Rodriguez down to ride the tour this year? He seems to be the only Giro contender who's riding the Dauphine this year.

Vino's back!

I'd be surprised if J-Rod rode LeTour as there's too much time-trialling for him to challenge the likes of Evans and Wiggo.

My Provisional team

Wiggins
Martin
Millar
Rogers
Durbridge
T.Meyer
Zabriskie
Kelderman
Posthuma

Gonna wait to see the profiles for stages 1 & 3 - I'm assuming they'll be sprinty but best to be sure. I'm on holiday next week so not sure my girlfriend will want me to be checking my transfers every day - maybe I'll do this one purist...

Hmm, just found them on Velowire - maybe not so sprinty...

profiles are up on www.letour.fr now

Yeah, pretty hilly and two TTs (ok, one's a prologue), I reckon you could actually play this purist and not do too badly. I think maybe stages 1 and 2 will be the big days for the fantasy game as getting a decent haul of breakaway KoM points will set you up well for the rest of the race.

Stage one might not be so sprinty, but there is a chance of it, more likely a LONG break reeled in on the last climb and everyone finishing together

Stage 3 is the only real chance of a sprinter winning, but most teams don't send "sprinters" to this race as its well known for being a climbers paradise.

i have the perfect guy for stage 1 just means i cant have Wiggins

I have my team kinda sorted, managed to retain Wiggo at the cost of your guy

My team comes in at 149, with 121.9 being "Stars"

so you think you know my guy then? My stars total 118.something as i cant remember off hand exactly how much one of my stars costs. Also got a potential breakaway guy in for the ITT (forced on by my funds, along with 4 other ITT DS's 2 of which could contend overall i reckon

Well i'll tell you i have

3 Frenchmen
1 Brit (Wiggo)
1 German
2 American's
1 Kazakh
1 Slovenian

A brit
German
Aussie
Yank, might get pts if. Cadel wins
Frog, a expensive ds
Another yank, the one to go for if he has got over calif.
Two aussies
And a dutchman.
Only 107 xpent on stars. Going for ds who can time tria

Looking at the profile i might be tempted to go purist for the first time. As with other comments i cant see many sprinters wanting to have a go at this race as its just climb after climb.

My team at the mo consists of

1 x brit
3 x anzacs
1 x yank
2 x froggies
1 x portugese
1 x dutchman

its far from set in stone but a good base to start with.

well for me then its 2 dutch, 2 french, a german, an american, a norwegian, an aussie and new zealander

Hmmm, currently:

1 Brit
2 Aussies
2 Americans
1 Slovenian
2 French
and a Spaniard

Semi TT weighted but not totally OTT... I think I might end up keeping all four of my stars for most, if not all, of the race.

Well if things work out on the prologue for me i'll probably stay purist, If they go wrong then i'll be chasing break away points

All my guys bar one have a proven track record in this race

Now it is
One brit
Two french
Two yanks
Two aussies
One german
One dutch

My quandary is do I try and squeeze Martin in or stick to cuddles? I could get all three big guns but then I'd have to have Dehaes

Porte or Rogers?... its hard to pick. Im going rogers as a cheap star but think. Lpotre will do better

Prologue stacked...

Some Gerries
Some Yanks
Some Aussies
One Frog

2 from under the Aussie Sky,and another Aussie from the Edge.
Captain America and his sidekick
The best Spanish downhiller
A Great Scot
A Western Dutchie
Borat

No Wiggins,Cuddles or Panzerwagon!!

J-Rod's not doing it anymore - resting up and focusing on the Vuelta...

Lots of good riders taking part in this so on paper it looks like it should be entertaining.

1Brit
1Scot
1Spanish
1Kiwi
3Aussies
1Dutch
1Frog

Hard one this, so many time trialists but not everyone does well on the short ones. Some improve on distance!

.d.a.d .o.s.o.-.a.e.
.r.d.e. .i.g.n.
.i.o. .e.r.n.
.a.e. .r.j.o.i.
.n.r.w .a.a.s.y 1
.e.g. .o.a.d
.i.i .e.p.t.a
.o.a.n .a.d.t
.i.u.e .e.t.a
(well that is half of my squad)

Oooh a puzzle... gimme a minute um...

Not a bad team One rider i don't get is EBH, why him over some of the good climbers, have you looked at stage profile's and with Froome there to help Wiggo, i see EBH just as a goat to drag them so far up the climbs

Edvald Boasson Hagen
Bradley Wiggins
Simon Gerrans
Janez Brajkovic
Andrew Talansky
Leigh Howard
Niki Terpstra
Romain Bardet
Lieuwe Westra

I was tempted by EBH, he rides a good prologue/TT and can climb smaller mountains well enough (most of the big climbs are later in the race), I wouldn't be surprised to see him in a Thor-esque breakaway win in the first few days.

Well ive gone EBH over wiggo, as i was looking back at last years stage 4 results (its almost the same kinda profile) and it seems that of the sprinters that are here, they will be there at the end....so i have changed my strategy slightly on this one. (also look who placed highly in the prolouge and you will see the main man of my team)

Purist on this one...

Wiggins
Sanchez
T Martin
Rogers

Haedo
Zabriskie
Terpstra
Kelderman
Howard

Honestly, really hard to weight purist for this one, because the TTs could play a huge role in points for the first few stages and it's much easier to pick TT winners than overall winners at this race. Seriously, I have no idea who is going to win the GC, figured Sanchez was as good a bet as anybody... well, and Wiggins.

Terpstra is currently listed (on Cycling Fever) on both the Dauphine and Tour de Suisse start lists, so keep an eye out for confirmation people...

another startlist update due tomorrow...

Oh here we go again,

A cyclist
an other cyclist
A cyclist
a cyclist
professional bike rider
a cyclist again
on no not a cyclist
where did all those cyclists come from
yet another cyclist

Seriously, my first cut team looks a lot like my TOC team.

Terpstra still appears in both game startlists, as do a couple of other riders

riders do sometimes start one and then drop out to do the other

Jos van Emden to ride DL instead of Laurens ten Dam. Prologue-wise, that's interesting (if road.cc updates the roster in the fantasy game) .

Yes that is true, now throws in a curve ball of TdS

I thought that wasn't allowed? Didn't Cav quit the Vuelta last year and wasn't allowed to ride the Tour of Britain because it overlapped? I'm sure in the past you can't compete in two races that overlap you always run the risk of the first race losing half it's riders in order to compete in the second.

i'm sure i've seen people do it recently. i might be mistaken though

Cav actually got cleared to ride the Tour of Britain last year and won 2 stages, but you're right on the rules, I remember the story being that he shouldn't be allowed because they overlapped, although they ended up making a special rule for him I guess...

Anyhoo - Terpstra is no longer on the start list for the Dauphine according to Cycling Fever...

Exit Zabriskie and Talansky. Vino is now confirmed.

Dave, why don't you start a thread for each race where you let us know who you're taking off the start list and who's being put in?...

because by far the simplest way to update the squads is to get rid of all the riders and put them back off the new list, so i don't necessarily know who's moved

however, we're working on a system that'll post to an automated forum topic. not ready yet though

Bold strategy is the way forward for this race, gone a 50/50 split in mind for potential sprint guys at the end of stage 1, but those that could also top 20 in the prologue

Strategy for TdS is very much weighted towards stage 1, as its a HC summit finish....

Wait, you're gonna love this one.

There's an Englishman, a Scotsman, a Frenchman, a German, a Spaniard, a Dutchman, an American, a Belgian and an Italian. They all go on a bike ride in France and.....

If you're going to name your squad, just put the bloody guys names up. And if you don't want to, then just don't say. This veiled naming of riders is getting pretty fucking boring for all concerned!

Londonplayer, dont beat around the bush, just tell us what you think

Your right though, the first couple of times it had people guessing but it seems its part and parcel of the forum now. I have to admit though i'm part of the problem as i listed my team countrywise as well

This is where I was at with my "a cyclist a cylist" post. It was fine banter to start with, but serves no purpose now. It also means useful info like Talansky and Zabriskie are out, both of whom were in my team, can be missed because you think "oh not this again", i'm not trawling through all this. No offence intended guys.

Changed my German (won might win the opening prologue) for a Spaniard who will do better overall and YES, its my guy I always pick

The guy you always pick/ I thought id got him in my TdS team

I'm lost, I had to go check startlist But he's riding CD

Then I realised that I constantly pick three Spaniard's when they are racing. So did you mean Rojas or Izaguirre

I woujld pick the werlshman but hes not riding. Lol. Bet you cant work out who im talking about.

Done!

2 French
2 Germans
2 Aussies
a Brit
a Yank
a Spaniard

Go...

My Spaniard is almost an anagram of the Spaniard you always pick!

Woops I was reading the posts in reverse order, didn'y realise I'd made a faux pas

Also having 3 posts in a row, basically saying nothing might be irritating to some folk, sorry about that.

If you changed the M to an I and the A to an O??

8 humans
1 cyborg

There's some really crap clues on here - I blame Gkam

Tony
Bradley
Tejay
Juany
Jery
Jony
Lukey
Wilcy
Toshy

Easy