Tour De Romandie

Finally settled on...

Standard.
TONY MARTIN
RUI COSTA
PETER VELITS
SIMON SPILAK
SVEIN TUFT
J-C PERAUD
TIAGO MACHADO
MARCEL WYSS
ROHAN DENNIS

Purist.
DAN MORENO
ANDREW TALANSKY
PETER VELITS
ENRICO GASPAROTTO
SIMON SPILAK
J-C PERAUD
MIKEL ASTERLOZA
MARCEL WYSS
GABRIEL RASCH

My purist squad for Romandie:

Froome
Moreno
Rui Costa
Spilak
Gavazzi
Vichot
Sicard
M.Wyss
Ludvigsson

Excellent, I like it when everyone's teams are nice and varied. I think its just a case of go with your gut for the first two days and hope for the best!

STANDARD
T Martin
Grivko (looked very strong in the Ardennes)
Albasini
Gruzdev
Westra (never scores when I pick him...)
Kelderman
Nizzolo
Wyss (both of them)

PURIST
Martin
Albasini
Porte
Rui Costa
Meersman
Gavazzi
Fumeaux
M Wyss
Ludvigsson

Standard

Porte
Talansky
Spilak
Westra
Tuft
Kreuziger
Grabsch
M Wyss
Astarloza

Purist

Froome
Talansky
Betancur
T Meyer
Landa
Tschopp
Rolland
Dehaes
Kozontchuk

few randoms for breaks

I really don't know what Ive done

Talanksy
Spilak
Martin
Kelderman
Dumoulin
Gavazzi
Bouet
Dennis
Dehaes

Purist

Dehaes
Ludvigsson
Lobato
Meersman
Capecchi
Spilak
Betancur
Talansky
Froome

difficult to choose indeed!
But nice to see so much difference in approach...

ive gone with:

standard:

froome
martin
porte
spilak
westra
machado
m wyss
van rensburg
r dennis

purist:

froome
talansky
porte
spilak
westra
machado
m wyss
van rensburg
r dennis

I see froome winning prologue and GC, porte podium on both, martin top 5 prologue and win on final day.

Grivko is an interesting one, he looks good and does well in prologues but seemed a bit expensive so I was wary.

I'm surprised more people haven't gone for Morabito in their purists. At 8.5 credits he's cheap and apparently he's designated BMC leader so I'm hoping for good things!

From a point of view of picking a team this race has been awful but I think from a fantasy cycling point of view once it gets under way it's going to be great, lots of different teams, lots of potential riders, no obvious results to the first three road stages (is it a sprint, is it a small bunch sprint, is it a GC day, is it a breakaway?!) and then a ma-hoosive mountain stage running into a final TT makes it very difficult to plan.

I'd got in mind to make two changes after today picking either people who've done well in the prologue and are cheap or people who've done poorly in the prologue as a pre-cursor to going on a break, then leave my team as it is before making 3/4 changes before the mountains and as many as I've got left for the TT but I get the feeling I'm going to be chasing my tail over the next few days trying to keep up with however the race plays out.

I had Morabito at one point, but then I didn't know what to do with the credits I saved, so went Capecchi instead. I really don't know what Im doing with this tbh. My standard team no looks a mess and my purist an even bigger mess

This one is a bit of a lottery.....but for fantasy purposes I think thats its just what we need to get the pulses racing....Not many safe option picks in this one,as we all know from our pre-race tinkering....Good luck to all...

The race could go any number of ways and I don't think that we'll really know who's a contender until the end of today.

Hesjedal/Betancur are both racing the Giro so likely won't go hard for the full race, Gesink too (although he perhaps has more to prove) and then there's the likes of Moreno who might feel he needs time in the hills before the final time trial so the race could really break up.

Add on top of that the fact that three of six days are 'transitional' stages and it may be that picking obvious single stage point scorers (Martin for the TT, Pinot/Rolland for the queen stage) might not be the best tactic. A team with Gavazzi, Dumoulin or Meersman might take three stages and a raft of top 10s and put us all to shame but I was afraid of how unpredictable that may be and stuck to the safer option of climbers.

Also, my biggest concern for this week is not picking Albasini...

I think Dumoulin could top 10 in the prologue...
Then i went Gavazzi and Bouet for tomorrow in my standard and just Meersman in my purist. but I plan on bringing Meersman into my standard after today.

Meersman, Nizzollo, Dumoulin, those are the riders I'm looking at for later in the week.

Probably will avoid Matthews if he's working for Goss, and no idea how Cav will do on the 'flat' stages. But there's plenty of sprinting options in the race with Viviani, Bookwalter, Blythe and Ferrari all racing.

Que Sera, Sera......Whatever will be, will be.....

Live leaderboard here - Brajkovic the early leader!

http://www.matsport.fr.php53-23.ord1-1.websitetestlink.com/Tribune/index...

We all fell in love with Johnny as a result of some shi*e driving and a barbed wire fence...sadly his legs dont match his heart at this level....

1 122 BOARO M. TST 13:44.740
2 101 BRAJKOVIC J. AST 01
3 81 GESINK R. BLA 06
4 53 DENNIS R.* GRS 21
5 15 IGNATENKO P. KAT 24
6 172 BILLE G. LTB 36
7 22 BAKELANTS J. RLT 44
8 42 BRAMBILLA G. OPQ ST
9 92 BÉRARD J. ALM 45
10 155 MOUREY F. FDJ 46

So far...

Gesink showing well

Early days, but Kelderman has just topped the above!

Adam Blythe's had a bit of a mare - 24 secs slower than anyone else at the mo, and 3:27 behind Kelderman. Could be a good shout for last man home which might be good news for anyone that picked him with tomorrow in mind...

Depends, that's some 30% over Kelderman's time so could he be out of the time limit?

Blimey, you're right - maybe he crashed?

Ruben Plaza just gone 2nd - continuing his good form...

Avoided the big names and packed my team with cheaper GC riders and watched them all fail:

Spilak-rubbish
Peraud- Who?
Martin-surely should have done better?

The Talansky/Porte double did okay.

I was just wondering how Froome gets to TT better than Talansky and Porte and Martin given past results? Is it just me or does it seem a little odd? Just thinking out loud, and I know I probably shouldn't doubt so much, but to be honest I am a bit worried by performances like that.....

For me, there's a line between believable and questionable. Froome and Quintana's performances were well on the right side of believable given recent form and their respectively solid TT results.

It's hard to find the line sometimes. When Gaudin won the Paris-Nice prologue I had no idea who he was but as a track cyclist a strong prologue shouldn't have been a shock.

If you had been following Froome's career for the past 5 or 6 six years from his Barloworld days you would have seen a steady improvement in both his climbing and his TTs. His performances are in line with his age. he couldn't stay with the podium winners in last years Vuelta day after day in the mountains, that's where I would be asking questions.

I think Froome and various Colombians have come to the fore because their natural advantages due to their birth/upbringing at high altitudes are now NOT being negated by widespread doping.

Not sure altitude plays as large a part as you may think, read this:

http://inrng.com/2013/04/colombia-cycling-altitude/