ToB stage 4

Now over 6 mins as they approach Penrith

Yeah, that one looks pretty set in. House to consolidate his KoM lead?

I've only got House which is great, except I reckon everyone else will today too.

Sprint 1 result; 1)Gustavvson 2)Cronshaw 3) McLaughlin 4) Lalay

Sprint 1 result; 1)Gustavvson 2)Cronshaw 3) McLaughlin 4) Lalay #tob2012

KOM 1 at Shap; 1) House. 2) McLaughlin. 3) Gustavvson. 4) Craven. 5) Cronshaw 6) Lelay. #tob2012

Sprint 2 Kendal result; 1) Cronshaw 2) Gustavvson 3) McLaughlin 4) Craven #tob2012

KOM 2 result; 1. House. 2. McLaughlin 3. Craven. 4. Gustavvson. 5. Lelay. 6. Cronshaw

Just the one change today

Howard(For Forster)
Urtasun
House even if everyone's got him
Sabatini & Basso(surely Liquigas came for a reason?)
Van Poppel
Downing(outsider for the stage win today)
Cavendish
Rowe

It was nice of them to all wear black today....Even Greenedge. Hows Hugh's commentary holding up?

Final KOM; 1) Craven of @IGSigmaSport 2) House of @raphacondor 3) McLaughlin of An Post 4) Lelay of Saur Sojasun

I have:
Cavendish
Rowe
Urtasun
House
Martias
Downing
Kruopis
Howard
van Poppel

I'm pretty sure House took the final one aswell. I saw him go across before Craven....

Belatedly brought in House( ) and Urtasun( ) for Wytinck and Konig

House
Urtasun
Cavendish
Rowe
Van Poppel
Handley
JTL
Haas
Howard

I think the key to this will be the assessment of stages 6-7 and the rights/wrongs of bringing in say Wiggins/Sanchez/Basso etc over the pure sprinters.

I got rid of Wiggo and Sanchez yesterday for Rowe and Howard. I'm glad for the split as most of my riders are there

Pablo Urtasun
Luke Rowe
Leigh Howard
Aidis Kruopis
Mark Cavendish
Jon Tiernan-Locke
Kristian House
Russell Downing
Boy van Poppel

Yeah, today could be a good or bad day depending on where your riders are in relation to the split. Not many in the front group:

I think 7/9 of my riders are there, Just House and Urtasun not there and they have KoM to give me points

In fact, I think I just saw House at the back of the lead group aswell

Im hoping the Netapp rider was Schorn and liquigas rider was caruso

As this is my team

Cav
Rowe
Howard
Caruso
Schorn
JTL
Downing
Martias
Van Poppel

Results

Cav
Vonhoff
Howard
Van Poppel
Schorn
Downing
MAGNUS BACKSTEDT.....WTF
Vanmarcke
Martias
Rowe

If the liquigas rider in 11th was Caruso then I will have 8 of the top 11

Mclaughlin gets the combativity cheese

If that's right, I got 1,2,3,4,5,6,8 plus house and Caruso. Woop!

1,3,4,5,6,9,10 then caruso and JTL for me, hoping i would have done decent but then you go and blow me out of the water Chris!!!

Yeah! And Surely nobody will have backstedt, right...??

1 2 Mark Cavendish Sky Procycling 3h 51' 33''
2 146 Steele Von Hoff Garmin - Sharp st
3 54 Leigh Howard Orica - GreenEDGE st
4 36 Boy Van Poppel UnitedHealthcare st
5 106 Daniel Schorn Team NetApp st
6 13 Russell Downing Endura Racing st
7 152 Magnus Backstedt UK Youth Cycling st
8 145 Sep Vanmarcke Garmin - Sharp st
9 76 Rony Martias Saur Sojasun st
10 6 Luke Rowe Sky Procycling st
11 26 Peter Williams Node 4 - Giordana st
12 64 Damiano Caruso Liquigas - Cannondale st
13 142 Nathan Haas Garmin - Sharp st
14 11 Jonathan Tiernan-Locke Endura Racing st
15 151 Yanto Barker UK Youth Cycling st
16 52 Brett Lancaster Orica - GreenEDGE st
17 33 Christopher Jones UnitedHealthcare st
18 5 Christian Knees Sky Procycling st
19 103 Bartosz Huzarski Team NetApp st
20 15 Zak Dempster Endura Racing at 0' 9''

GC :-
1 2 Mark Cavendish Sky Procycling 17h 7' 51''
2 54 Leigh Howard Orica - GreenEDGE at 0' 6''
3 36 Boy Van Poppel UnitedHealthcare at 0' 14''
4 6 Luke Rowe Sky Procycling st
5 76 Rony Martias Saur Sojasun at 0' 20''
6 146 Steele Von Hoff Garmin - Sharp st
7 13 Russell Downing Endura Racing at 0' 22''
8 145 Sep Vanmarcke Garmin - Sharp at 0' 26''
9 142 Nathan Haas Garmin - Sharp st
10 151 Yanto Barker UK Youth Cycling at 0' 27''

Sprints :-
1 26 Peter Williams Node 4 - Giordana 27
2 23 Mathew Cronshaw Node 4 - Giordana 13
3 76 Rony Martias Saur Sojasun 12
4 111 Kristian House Rapha Condor 10
5 153 Niklas Gustavsson UK Youth Cycling 8

KoM :-
1 111 Kristian House Rapha Condor 62
2 46 Pablo Urtasun Euskaltel Euskadi 41
3 114 Richard Handley Rapha Condor 32
4 26 Peter Williams Node 4 - Giordana 32
5 132 Russell Hampton Raleigh - GAC 28

Points :-
1 36 Boy Van Poppel UnitedHealthcare 48
2 2 Mark Cavendish Sky Procycling 44
3 13 Russell Downing Endura Racing 44
4 54 Leigh Howard Orica - GreenEDGE 42
5 6 Luke Rowe Sky Procycling 39

Last man :-
94 24 Rico Rogers Node 4 - Giordana at 13' 12''

I thought I'd done OK today til I saw some of those teams above
184 pts and only 82nd on the stage

4th on the stage - Men in Black had Martias and Rowe instead of my Caruso and Schorn. Chuffed to be into the top 20 overall though.

Have 4 transfers in hand for tomorrow, have to decide how many to use now...

Sat and watched the race today and tv coverage, as mentioned previously, was crap.

The coverage at the finish was worse than crap, we had a helicopter trying to follow through a narrow street and lost the riders completely and then no motorcycle coverage

So in the end we saw about 200 metres of the finish run. Not impressed at all.

Hi guys just noticed that the points classification hasn't been added to the riders scores!

Its not being used, Even though its listed in the stage score. Dave is using the Yodel sprints

Yeah like a dumb ass i remembered it was discussed in a previous thread

Not that it matters if its used or not as everyone has basically the same team.

I started with most of the riders I still have, but everyone else has them now

Maybe tomorrows stage will shake things up abit?

Doubtful. Nothing is that bad. I think Cav might even manage over it. Friday could be different though

Friday is a poser, the mountains are not that high or steep enough to trouble the likes of Sky and Euskatel so will they put the hammer down and drop the multitude like today

If they do i can only see Wiggins as the winner of the whole race. Will be interesting to see what happens.

Snap!