Tour of Oman - Stage 2

Ive took out Ellisonde and GVA for Phinney and Danny Van Poppel. Don't think its gonna be that tough, but I think its gonna be a sprint for Sagan and Boonen rather than a Viviani or Bouhanni

4 transfers for stage 4 for me it will be

Hmmm, now is the point at which I regret not forcing Sagan into my team but I guess if I leave things as they are I'm set for tomorrow. And I have a couple of people who may compete, decision made, no transfers, my team is:

Bouhanni
Kristoff
Kittel
Boonen
Gallopin
Appollonio
Fortin
Iglinsky
Breschel

I think it'll be a Sagan/Gilbert/Meersman day.

I think I may have made an error with my team

I can't see too many having Meersman though, he's bloody expensive at 22 credits.

Haha, I may live to regret putting him in. My 133 yesterday wasn't as good as I'd hoped, after playing safe with selections. Time for a risk...!

Traksel again in a break.

I'm clueless on this - I've worked on the assumption that today/tomorrow may be fairly tough finishes, so if they are full bunch sprints I won't be scoring very high.

I brought in Boonen for Degenkolb but it was more a trigger-happy transfer than something that I can even retrospectively apply any logic to...

So, Degenkolb to win?

Summary of yesterdays stage is on eurosport 2 now

Correction

so

My Team
Peter Sagan
Philippe Gilbert
Nacer Bouhanni
Danny Van Poppel
Joseph Dombrowski
Nikias Arndt
Greg van Avermaet
Davide Appollonio
Dario Cataldo

Taken 10 point penalty dropping Goss, Bewley & Fortin!

tricky stage today i dumepd goss for sagan my gues its to hard for goss
but he did well in TDU so it could be a bad move
boonen has been injuried so i don't think he will be up to it today
as for BMC my gues is they will go for gilbert or greg
degenkolb could even win here or not even be top 10

In the end, that was the decidiing factor for me in not making transfers, it's just too unpredictable.

There's no guarantee that making transfers would put me in a better position today whereas not making them puts me in a solid position for tomorrow and a much better position for the stage to Green Mountain.

Should come back together but it's been slow so far today, does that mean sprinters have a chance or that the climbers and stronger riders will just blast away on the climb with fresh legs?

I made 4 transfers . I couldn't leave Kittel, Kristoff, and Viviani in my team knowing they almost certainly won't be fighting for the win today. I also reluctantly got rid of Bouhanni because otherwise I couldn't afford Sagan. I know it's a risk, but it felt like the right decision last night...

Everyone is buying Sagan for today, I guess I'm the only person to cut him after the first stage. Will I look like a fool in an hour's time? Possibly.

Twitter says Sagan was first and Gallopin 2nd in a leading group of 10 that had 19 seconds on the bunch

1 Sagan
2 Gallopin
3 Elmiger
4 Nibali
5 Stybar
6 Froome
7 Bandiera
8 Marcato
9 Impey
10 Bouhanni

1 and 2 this time. I just don't seem to be able to get my Podium badge.

Well, at least I got Sagan right. Now attention switches to Volta ao Algarve.

11. Gianni Meersman.
12. Stijn Vandenbergh.
13. Geoffrey Soupe.
14. Sergey Lagutin.
15. Maciej Bodnar.
16. Rinaldo Nocentini

I think my transfers just about paid off, but it could've been better.

My transfers cost me 2 points. Brought in Meersman for Impey

Ouch, had a shocker today (Sagan aside). Clearly the Middle East disagrees with me.

Got 1 and 2 but made a mistake swapping Bouhanni for Boonen. Gilbert nowhere! Still got an extra transfer though!

2 and 10, glad I didn't make any transfers now! Wouldn't have been able to bring in Sagan and anyone else I considered was nowhere.

I'm pretty happy

Edit: 74 points, should keep me up there somewhere and hopefully I might even be top ten in the purist comp.

http://www.letour.com/2013/TOO/LIVE/us/200/classement/index.html

Traksel got Lanterne Rouge! That man must have a fantasy team, why else would be racking up so many points?!

i was afraid for that to happen when he stopt riding
at the KOM numer 1 GC did a real good pick by taking him:)

Scores are up

Hurray! High Roller badge (currently 6th in purist comp on my standard team) and sitting 20th in the ToO overall. I'm enjoying this one!

Stage 4/5 is my great hopes as both my teams are based around that, Saving my transfers so I'll have 6

Ditto, made no transfers for today, planning on none for tomorrow so I've got 6 for Green Mountain. Nice to see some of the big guys coming to the fore today though, gives an inclination as to who's up for it.

Rubbish for my standard team

Having 1st and 2nd was solid for my Purist team at least

Bad times for me red arrows all over my league page
Gone sprint heavy to try and get my 180 badge! If that fails only need 133 for my 2000 badge.....

Nice one, hope you get that badge soon.

I thought it was for 2000 in a tour

Nah, it's 'a season score of 2000 or more' otherwise who's going to get 10k points in a single race

If things keep going well then I should hit 2k during the Oman/Algarve cross over.

Season score of 2k or more.
Wig_Billy and Alan Tullet are 2 of 12 to have it already.
As for the 180. only went over 180 4 times last season, so fingers crossed!
7maybe we could get a 200 point badge?

The one that's bugging me is the podium badge. It's the only one I haven't got apart from the season-long score badges. I can see me going all season and not getting it.

I finally got the podium badge on stage one of Oman, before that I'd picked two of the first three about 7 times including a couple of occasions with three of the top four. Its hard to get but if you're getting close then you're bound to get it sooner or later.

The ones that worry me are the top ten in a comp and podium on a stage. As the season goes on and more people start to play its only going to get harder to get those.

Pretty much the same as me with the exception that you've finally succeeded.

I know what you mean, I was just lucky with the ToQ. That and the Tour of California were my two best results last season as well, It seems to come down to whether you're lucky enough or knowledgeable enough to get a good start in a shorter race where it's harder for anyone to catch up. More luck then judgement in my case I think.

Got 9/12 badges now. Podium on a stage is going to be tricky but I've won one stage a year in the TdF for the last two years, which is usually my best comp apart from TDU. Last year ToQ and ToO were a bit of a disaster so I'm very pleased to be 5th overall and doing ok in Oman so far, although I'm not keeping back as many transfers for green mountain as I intended to. I never can resist the siren call of a transfer that's just begging to be done.

I remember this stage was quite a tough one last year and broke up near the end so who knows what will happen.

Will Sagan have a go on green mountain; he can climb but will he be bothered? What do you think?

Sagan is an enigma, there's no knowing what he might do. If he's after the classics then a bit of climbing might be good prep for MSR but he may be happy with today and take it easy, it could go either way.

Viviani might be the lead sprinter tomorrow but I'm not going to change Sagan at the mo as it would be too risky. But if he got bonus secs tomorrow he'd have something to defend with the possibility of more bonus secs to come. But I expect him to sit up or at least not try too hard. on Thurs.

My races so far this season have been nothing short of crap. Way down in all the leagues and only 1 badge.

But as the song goes "things can only get better".

Well, I think I'll stick with these guys again tomorrow...they did quite well today.

Peter Sagan (LIQ)
Tony Gallopin (RSN)
Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ)
Filippo Fortin (COG)
Marcel Kittel (ARG)
Kenny van Hummel (VCD)
Marko Kump (SAX)
Davide Appollonio (ALM)
Danny Van Poppel (VCD)

And then froome can join the fray for ther green mountain thingy thang

Is it a sprint tommorow or climbing?

A little lumpy rather thsn an uphill finish...

Ah ok, the sprinters might prefer that then, and the green mont' is tommorow is it?

Green Mountain is stage 4 I think which is Thursday. Tomorrow will likely be a sprint finish but perhaps a slightly tougher one than the first stage.