Stage 21 under the lights

TERatcliffe26 wrote:Well

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

Well finished 8th on the stage and ended up 13th overall, 2nd in the forum, not bad. What would have happened had I not gambled on stage 16? Top 10 at least, but nevermind

Ended up 2nd in the forum RCUK game, Alan held me off by 40 points, 59th overall

Yes. Just scrapped home. My only forum win. 42nd overall.

Runner-up in Cycling News mini-league which wins me a prize, (TdF books and some other stuff). 11 points from the win! About 112th overall.

Here, 87th overall and 46th purist. Unusual for my purist to do better than my overall but I wasn’t really concentrating by the last week as I knew I was out of it by 14.

Only 5 weeks to Vuelta although I won’t be playing any other games as too busy with work.

Yeah, a lot of riders
Yeah, a lot of riders exceeded expectations (Quintana, Kittel, Orica as a team) and a few finally met expectations (Bakelandts, Costa) but for me this tour was marked by how many riders failed to live up to expectations.

Contador is clearly not the rider he was two years ago, whether that’s through age or through his ‘doctor’ being banned by USADA we’ll never know but he’s clearly not the rider of old.

Evans I have sympathy for, he rode hard during a very tough Giro (I still think it’s a harder race than the Tour) and just didn’t have anything left. TJVG though was a let down, everyone expected him to build on last year and get a solid top 10.

Pinot, Rolland and Voeckler were all let downs too. Pinot had a bit of a crisis, and illness, which took him out of the race early. Rolland just didn’t seem to know what he wanted, some days it was polka dots, others it was GC, in the end he got neither. Voeckler was injured but it’s still not the same without seeing him win from a long break at least once a year.

On Valverde, I think he’d have podiumed without losing that time in the cross-winds. He started to go backwards in the last week because he was working for the team and for Quintana, he clearly put in some big efforts but still managed to beat Contador/Kreuziger on the Semnoz, he was impressive and went up in my opinion with his willingness to work for Quintana.

Goss though was perhaps the biggest waste of space. Very few decent placings, not featuring on any particular stage and practically non-existent throughout the race. On form he has to be a rider who can challenge for the Green jersey, capable of sprinting and surviving on the tough stages he seems tailor made to threaten Sagan but he never ever looks as good as his potential suggested he would be. I don’t know if it’s mental or physical but I don’t see in him any more the rider who won MSR or who burst onto the sprinting scene.

Well, I think we all expected
Well, I think we all expected Quintana to do very well, but to get polka dots, white and 2nd overall, I think he surpassed every expectation! i was very bullish on him and put some mullah on him getting a podium place, in the hope he wouldnt be too restricted by team tactics for valverde. so the crosswinds day was a real blessing in that respect!

And Kittel to do well, sure, i certainly expected a clutch of podium placings, maybe snatch a win- i didnt see him take 4, putting the cav down!

But yeah in terms of real outliers, there havent been too many. As Ghedebrav said kreuziger stronger than forecast, and van poppel made his mark- not sure i agree re valverde, he finished strong enough but was still going backwards relative to quintana.

some very good perfomances on their day, people like bakelandts for example, strong showing. Interesting to see moser ( what is he, 22/23?) staying out for 3rd place on alpe, worth keeping an eye on him.

What next for BMC though? surely the biggest underperformers of this tour.

Kittel and Quintana were not
Kittel and Quintana were not so much revelations as confirmations of what had been expected from them.

The same probably applies to the likes of Talansky, Kwiatkowski and Bardet who were all expected to do well and did.

For me, nobody stood out as a revelation, nobody came from nowhere to astonish everyone with an amazing performance but that’s probably because so many teams brought their ‘A teams’.

It’s probably also because I’ve been following the smaller races more this year and if I hadn’t then performances from Dan Martin, Quintana and others might have been more of a surprise.

77th for me, my first top 100
77th for me, my first top 100 in a Grand Tour and about 800 places higher than I was in the Dauphine! Choosing Greipel over Cav for those 2 stages after the TT was probably what lost me the most, apart from that I seemed to call most stages OK.

Purists held on to 6th overall which I still can’t quite believe. Most of the top teams would have had Froome, Quintana, Kittel and Cav/Sagan/Greipel, and I had 3 of those. I guess Riblon would’ve turned out to be the best sub-10-credit pick.

Well, came in at a nice,
Well, came in at a nice, round 350th in the end. If I hadn’t fatefully dropped Rolland on stage 19, I’d probably have been around 100 spots higher.

Still, can’t be too disappointed, must still be top 10% at least.

Shame for Cav not to win in Paris, just ended up in the wrong position. Was still sprinting fastest. Fair dos to Kittel, though – what a tour he’s had.

Well finished 8th on the
Well finished 8th on the stage and ended up 13th overall, 2nd in the forum, not bad. What would have happened had I not gambled on stage 16? Top 10 at least, but nevermind

Ended up 2nd in the forum RCUK game, Alan held me off by 40 points, 59th overall