Purist Vuelta
Just thought I'd start a topic for discussing the options for purists ahead of the year's final grand tour.
Going by the Giro the top scorers were J-Rod and Hesjedal by a mile who went after the Maglia Rosa early and kept up the fight till the very end, the likes of De Gendt only got going towards the end and didn't score nearly as heavily. Other than Cavendish it wasn't worth having any sprinter as they were all outscored by the likes of Uran and Henao with solid, but unspectacular, totals. Pozzovivo came out on top in the DS stakes through sticking with the GC guys for most of the race although Tiralongo was worth a pick early on.
For the Tour the sprinter's scored more heavily and Sagan in particular was a must have with 550 points. Gripel and Goss also scored well but the real stars were Froome and Wiggins who's time trial heroics got them a tidy haul of points backed up by solid mountain finishes to see them finish on 367 and 475 respectively, well ahead of Evans, Nibali and TJvG who all came out with roughly 300 points a piece. Voeckler also scored in the same region and Pinot was by far and away the highest scoring DS.
Plans for the Vuelta? Stick to the climbers, there are less flat stages for sprinters and more summit finishes for the big climbers. I think like the Giro a couple of contenders will go for the lead early, Rodriguez and Cobo maybe, and look to hold off Contador and Froome. Contador is an enigma as he may be anonymous over the first week or two and look to ride into some form, that might work for the win but won't bag lots of fantasy points.
So, who do you think are the must have's? Who's going to get points on the board early and try to keep it up and who's going to coast under the radar before making a late, De Gendt-esque, charge for the line?
Also, will you be picking Uran/Henao for your team given that Froome is clearly the favoured rider or is Henao worth a punt as a cheap rider with the potential to keep up with the lead group?
Well ive just picked a Giro team and 3 of my star DS's are on the climbing side, with just 1 sprinter. As for my DS's ive gone for two that could be GC contendors, a breakaway guy, another sprinter and a guy who could do well or could do nothing
I think it may be a bit late to be picking your Giro team... 
Cards on the table, my current team looks like
Contador
Rodriguez
Froome
De Gendt
Bouhanni
Cheng
Quintana
Rasilla
Landa
Lobato
Basically, climbing stars and breakaway DSs. I'm not happy with it though and will probably make some changes before the deadline. May bring in Viviani for De Gendt (as Viviani is cheap and could go well in the sprints wheareas De Gendt may not score well consistently) and bump up DSs to proper climbers.
I meant Vuelta, it was after reading your post I got Giro into my head
Your purist team has 5 the same as mine
OK mine was here
you've all had time to see it now
now i may make changes, i may not, who knows
Cataldo, Tiralongo, Machado and Talanksky are the four expensive climbers I want in my team but can't afford unless I juggle some things around. Even then if I want Conta-dope I can only have one of them.
Swift is an interesting call, you hoping for stage wins or bonus points from Froome?
Also, I lied, I have Bouhanni too
Well based on swifts sprinting at the TdP im hoping he can do well and get some stage wins. In effect i decided to go with swift and then 2 expensive DS contendors rather than have another expensive star and a couple of cheap DS's
I have 5 of drheaton's but only 3 of TER's on my transfer team.
But pursuit team is surprising. Its quite balanced, no-one above 30 or below 9 
I nearly went that way Gkam but was worried about losing out on the points of Froome/Rodriguez/Contador... In this year's grand tours the top scorers overall have all been really high value riders, J-Rod in the Giro, Sagan and Wiggins in the Tour.
With going away on sat i will be starting on purist and see how it goes. The first week is lacking in any real sprints with a couple of hefty climbs and uphill finishes so picked my team accordingly.
Decided not to go for Swift as it meant missing out on either Froome or Henao.
Christopher Froome
Joaquin Rodriguez
Sergio Luis Henao
Thomas de Gendt
Jonathan Castroviejo
Rinaldo Nocentini
Nairo Quintana
Stef Clement
Dario Cataldo
I will no doubt tinker with it prior to going away.
Stumpy
2 high value top riders,
2 low-mid value top riders
and lots of high value domestiques.
can't justify sacrificing the whole team for incorporating J-Rod, Froome, and Cont for a purist, if one gets injured or, shock horror, drug allegations, it's over.
need a plan B.
I'm torn, having a backup plan sounds great but if I want to go for the win I kind of think I need to take the risk on three high priced stars who 'may' score heavily.
Assuming Rodriguez and Froome go for stage wins early, and Contador rides into some form towards the end of the race, the three of them could be worth 1200-1500 points between them.
If any of them are busted for drugs, crash, are out of form or are injured then I guess that's the risk I have to take and I'll lose out massively.
The question is do you think that the likes of Tiralongo, Talansky, Cataldo etc together in your team can outscore Contador, Froome or Rodriguez?
Right, my two teams
Team One
Decided its too early to show my hands
Team Two
Depending on how the TTT and Stage Two go, I'll decide which is my purist and which is my transfer team
This one is giving me fits. 
J-Rod has looked good all year, but how long can he keep that up? 
Same with Froome--he's in great form now, but two weeks from now will he still hold up?
Contador's form is a big unknown, but he also has a tremendous poker face... remember the 2011 Giro? He absolutely DESTROYED everyone, even though he didn't look good in the first few days. Will he start "dancing" away with this tour after the first few high mountain stages?
Mathematically speaking, if you go for all three, and throw in Viviani (cheapest star rider) to round out your 4 star riders, you are left with only 24.5 points for your 5 domestiques. And the list of riders under 5 points or so doesn't offer too many hidden gems. It seems like a lot of the good bang-for-your-buck DSes are going to be in the 7-10 point range, eh?
How do you get two teams?
MattT
Not going for Bertie, he's to much of a risk. There is no doubting his ability but after so long out can he hold it together for a 3 week race and when will he show his hand if he can ?
There are safer choices and by not using him it free's up a lot of points towards ds'
Stumpy
How do you get two teams?
You need to be special, premium and only use one for transfers. One HAS to stay purist, else you are cheating the system 
No-one mentioning reigning champion Cobo.....perhaps we all think it was a fluke last season?
No-one mentioning reigning champion Cobo.....perhaps we all think it was a fluke last season?
I wouldnt say a fluke, however what i would say is he has give no indication of any form in any race whatsoever this season
J-Rod - Giro
Froome - TdF
Contador - At least showed something last week
Talansky - Showed in smaller races as well as romandie
you could go on, however i cant think of anything at all for Cobo
Cobo was anonymous at the Tour but he was working as a domestique for Valverde so he was never going to compete. Last year's win came out of nowhere but then again so did Froome's 2nd place, but Froome has backed that up this year while Cobo seems to have gone backwards.
That being said, maybe he just prefers riding the Vuelta and with a decent Movistar team there to support him there's no reason he won't be there or thereabouts.
I'm going Purist for the very first time, due to my being away for most of the time. It's proving much more torturous than I thought. For some reason I cannot seem to squeeze in Mollema. Quite fancy his chances: he's explosive on the eagle nest sort of finishes, he's learned to TT fairly well and should be rested after crashing out of the Tour. Plus his performance in San Sebastian was very encouraging.
So, should I gazump the white Kenyan or Bertie? All logic dictates that Froome should run out of steam by the end of the Vuelta, but SKY has found ways to refute logic this year by "marginal gains". As for Bertie, I expect him to fly actually. He is one of those riders who delivers when it is expected the most...and he's fuelled by that powerful combustion called revenge.
No money left for J-Rod, so I'm hoping Daniel Moreno with outshine his master.
As for DS: Talentski and Quintana are must-haves, plus two fast guys and a small team rider who used to be good. The Vuelta is his time to get his career out of the slums, or so I keep telling him.
Debarrio
Decided I couldn't fit Froome, Contador and Rodriguez in my team. So left out Rodriguez and put dosh on Rodriguez at 10-1 (each way) at the bookies.
last time I checked he was still on similar odds. nice way for purists to cover their bases whilst staying in the purist competition
Decided I couldn't fit Froome, Contador and Rodriguez in my team. So left out Rodriguez and put dosh on Rodriguez at 10-1 (each way) at the bookies.last time I checked he was still on similar odds. nice way for purists to cover their bases whilst staying in the purist competition
Yeah, I've done that a few times on stages - if I have a hunch about someone but can't fit them into my team. Hasn't worked yet tho!
Here's my team:
Contador
Valverde
Anton
Capecchi
Talansky
Morabito
Bouhanni
C.Meyer
Quintana
So at least 3rd,4th,5th,13th,20th and 27th today although I missed out on Purito and Froome.
Thought Anton could make the difference for me, but really disappointing so far.
Nonetheless decent output, but as the defending champion I still expect a lot for the coming stages.
Alberto Contador
Christopher Froome
Joaquin Rodriguez
Thomas de Gendt
Stef Clement
Aitor Galdos
Mauro Santambrogio
Mikel Landa
Sergio Carrasco Garcia
Forgot to come back and post my team here the other day
What i've lost to people who has some sprinters will be made up shortly
it's a good team, but I think the dude who is in 2nd now is gonna be top or very close
Alberto Contador
Joaquin Rodriguez
Christopher Froome
Elia Viviani PC
Andrew Talansky
Nairo Quintana
Nacer Bouhanni
Gianni Meersman
Tomasz Marczynski
not regretting my last minute decision to put in boom instead of degenkolb.
nope
not at all
not regretting my last minute decision to put in boom instead of degenkolb.nope
not at all
Same here. Boom is the undisputed leader of the Invisibility Competition. Just as soon as Dave gets around to applying all those points, I will shoot up in the rankings!
All that sitting around in the bull-ring in Pamplona must have melted him away!!
1st,3rd,7th,11th,15,19th and 20th today. 
Anton was decent but still could be better.
Capecchi and Morabito slightly worse than I expected.
C.Meyer with a good breakaway attempt.
Valverde and Contador sharp as always.
Meersman and Marczynski are both doing well for me, not picking Valverde might come back to bite me in the arse but I'm hoping all of Rodriguez/Contador/Froome outscore him by the end. Same applies to Degenkolb, if he continues like this I can see him doing a Sagan and getting a massive haul of points compararable to the top GC guys.
1st place 
Not sure I can keep this up to the end though
I won!
Overall table has me 6 points up on the second place team, Numbers Don't Lie.
It was a tense fight down to the finish and I thought Valverde contesting the final finish might spoil things but it looks like I just managed to squeak over the line in first!
Got to.say, both the Giro and Vuelta have put the TdF to shame for exciting racing (and fantasy racing) this year.
Congrats Drheaton!
Debarrio
Dr Heaton......You better just have a look again
Valverde's score was wrong on stage 20 and has just been edited 
Wait... what?! ... Nooo!
I've been robbed!
Absolutely gutted 
I demand a recount 
Aww...that must have hurt!
On a side note: I did my first purist competition at the vuelta, but for some reason is my name not listed in the overall purist score. Does anybody have an explanation for this?
Debarrio
Overall Purist league is if you've played purist all year, if you used a team that had previously made transfers during races then you wouldn't be eligible for the overall purist comp.
And yes, it's hurts...
I'm pleased with coming second, or I would have been, but when I thought I'd won I was dead chuffed so I'm a bit gutted. But well played to statour (or whoever you are as it seems to be a second purist account set up for the TdF), it was a great fight right to the line.
Thanks drheaton! And fair play to you. The World Championships are yours...
Debarrio
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