[MinardiM189]

My team for today –

My team for today –

ROGLIC
NIBALI
DE GENDT
MASNADA
DEMARE
CICCONE
CARTHY
VERVAEKE

Mix of break and GC

Demare my outside pick to win the stage.

[MinardiM189]

stevemarks wrote:

Ewan and Viviani DNS tomorrow imagine Ackermann will do the same.

I expect Ackermann to persevere.

It is his first Grand Tour so he will want to finish and the team will want him to get the experience.

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

MinardiM189 wrote:

Dr Winston wrote:

Possibly….but also possible they attack the pink jersey elect. His nearest serious contender is three minutes behind him and he has a further TT to come.  Three minutes is more than just one good day of beating Roglic. If it isn’t tomorrow then i’d suggest it’s very soon if any of them seriously think they can beat him at this Giro for overall.

I think GC teams will make it hard on the main climb & attack on the final ‘hump’ but there is a long way from that final climb to the finish and the next 2 stages offer a much better chance of making significant time if Roglic struggles.

Oh Aye. Good chances to make significant time on those for sure. My point is that by the time you add the chunk of time he will gain on the final TT to the three minutes he has in hand then they have to make significant time on him on more than one stage. I’d find it hard to believe they’d take much more than a minute out of him at best on any one day…or do you think they could duff him up for more than a minute on one stage between them all?

Nibalis is 1:44 behind Roglic.

Roglic hasn’t got much help in the mountains, only Tolhoek & Kuss. Roglic will find himslef isolated on quite a few stages, he can lose a lot of time quite quickly.

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

Possibly….but also possible they attack the pink jersey elect. His nearest serious contender is three minutes behind him and he has a further TT to come.  Three minutes is more than just one good day of beating Roglic. If it isn’t tomorrow then i’d suggest it’s very soon if any of them seriously think they can beat him at this Giro for overall.

I think GC teams will make it hard on the main climb & attack on the final ‘hump’ but there is a long way from that final climb to the finish and the next 2 stages offer a much better chance of making significant time if Roglic struggles.

[MinardiM189]

Condor Andy wrote:

Which makes it super hard to call. This could end up being a really interesting stage. The climb near the end, whilst short, is really steep, and cobbled. I’d love to see some late attacks go over that one.

I’ve just had a look at 6 transfers I could make that would set me up nicely. Then I would just make a few changes to grab in some KOM chasers and GC men and call it a day. I might limit it to 3 or 4 for tomorrow though just to be on the safe side.

That was Viviani’s last stage along with Ewan, so that frees up 2 places.

I’ll probably make 6 or 7 transfers but then I have a lot remianing.

[MinardiM189]

Condor Andy wrote:

MinardiM189 wrote:

Quite likely we will see someone new in Pink.

But WHO?? That is the question. One of the outside guys who’s in the top 20? Carboni? Madouas? Masnada? How are the peloton going to race it? We saw the same kind of racing at the Vuelta last year on stages 5 and 12. Almost identical to this race. Huge gamble to put someone in who might do well, but what have I got to lose at this point?

I could just make 2 transfers a day for a while, building the best team for the final few days.

It is a pretty flat start, so that goes against smaller riders getting in the break.

Once a break goes away it is difficult to know who will control things.

Unless Conti gets in the break himself I think it will be very difficult for him to stay in Pink. The only way is if GC teams take it really easy on the climb, if anyone goes for it Conti will lose over 2 mins. Based on that I don’t see UAE working that hard to control the break.

Roglic has a good lead so I don’t see Jumbo chasing the break. Other GC teams won’t want to use energy with hard stages on Friday & Saturday.

It could end up with all the teams refusing to chase and the break winning by 10 minutes.

 

[MinardiM189]

Condor Andy wrote:

Dr Winston wrote:

Dear oh dear….missed the deadline again by a distance. Did Ackermann even start?

I’m making a right mess of this one. 

Yeah, he started. Not in a good way though, we’ll see how he fares later on. I judged it wasn’t worth a transfer so I’ve stuck with my team. Moschetti didn’t start though, so that’s one down for me.

No idea what to do for tomorrow. I might wait until Friday to make my changes.

Trek announced Moschetti wasn’t starting yesterday evening, I saw it on their Twitter feed.

Tomorrow could well be another crazy stage, all sorts of riders going for the break. UAE won’t be able to control it again. Quite likely we will see someone new in Pink.

[MinardiM189]

One change for today, Nizzolo

One change for today, Nizzolo in for the injured Moschetti.

VIVIANI
EWAN
CONTI
ACKERMANN
DEMARE
CIMOLAI
NIZZOLO
LONARDI

I did consider bringing Roglic in for Ackermann but I am hoping Bora has some effective pain killers.

[MinardiM189]

stevemarks wrote:

Condor Andy wrote:

Glad it’s not just me Steve, I had a dreadful first week. I should have saved transfers, only 16 left and my team looks like Minardi’s with Rojas instead of Lonardi.

 

Yes I have Minardi’s team with Nibali instead of Lonardi. Was thinking of bringing in Peters but couldn’t really establish if it was worth the extra transfer.

Peters should score 13 in both the next two stages, in stage 12 I think he will drop out of top10 in GC and possibly lose the White Jersey. So he will probably score about 30 points total but you will need to replace him later, so it will cost 2 transfers. Probably not worth it , especially as you haven’t many transfers left.

[MinardiM189]

I’ve still got 27 transfers

I’ve still got 27 transfers left.

Hopefully that will allow me to win out in the long run, the last few stages have been awful for me.

[MinardiM189]

My team for today –

My team for today –

VIVIANI
EWAN
CONTI
ACKERMANN
DEMARE
CIMOLAI
MOSCHETTI
LONARDI

Did consider bringing Mareczko in for Conti but I’m not convinced Mareczko can score sufficient points to justify a transfer.

[MinardiM189]

I picked the wrong sprinters

I picked the wrong sprinters yesterday, went for Ackermann & Demare. Demare was a bad pick as he regularly gets too far back to compete in finishes like that, but making the picks with my heart not my head just now.

Poor team for today only Roglic & Yates likely to do anything. I did consider bringing Nibali in but decided not to use another transfer.

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

Yeah, Madouas is great. I went for Ciccone for leading the KOM pts and got wind that today he was riding through his home town. I thought today was made for him being as he could do with some more pts now Masnada is in the game.

I though about Ciccone for stages 6,7,8 & 9 but he could only ever score a maximum of 43 points from KoM over the 4 stages. So I decided Ulissi & Battaglin were better options.

I need to figure out what will happen tomorrow now.

Thunderstorms possible at the finish, it should be an interesting descent down to the finish.

GC guys and sprinters teams mixing it up on the descent !!!!

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

Seldom ever seen a race like this. Jumbo being naive and Mitchelton Scott going too conservative…they may both pay for it.

Bilbao and Formolo let back in and now around the same time as the other GC boys after having distanced them in the opening TT is a big mistake. Love or loathe them I think it probably true that Team Sky (Inneos) would never have allowed that to happen…the Sky train would surely have shut the door on them…

Roglic and Yates have  thrown away any wiggle room inside two days….a crash, a puncture on the TT and any other number of things could really bite them now.

The race just got real again for some.

I’m not sure Sky are on the ball either, Sky should have been trying to get TGH or Sivakhov in the break today, not Seb Henao.

Dunbar said the aim today was to protect their GC riders, that was an opportunity lost.

Personally I think Mitchelton have become the polar opposite of the team they were last year. They seem to think they won the Vuelta by being ultra-cautious and think they can do the same here. At the Vuelta Yates didn’t have much competition in the mountains and actually made up time on his rivals in the ITT. In this race he will lose time in the ITTs and in the mountains so playing cautious will not work.

I am surprised that teams like Bahrain, Trek, Jumbo, Katusha and others didn’t work together to keep Fromolo & Bilbao closer. Today makes it more difficult for teams aiming for a top5 or top10 to realise the ambition when 2 rivals gain a minute unchallenged.

[MinardiM189]

Dr Winston wrote:

All working out as you said Minardi. Jumbo letting riders back into the race is just a bit naive really. Riders like Formolo and Bilbao can make life difficult.

Formolo messed up there he should have ridden for time not to win the stage. He probably threw away 30s and didn’t win anyway.

Can you see why I picked Madous ? He can go in the break and also has a good finish in tough stages, so less a shot in the dark than others.

Battaglin was a bad pick, the team have him protecting Zakarin so he is only free once Zakarin is safe.

Ulissi turned out to be a bad pick.

I used another transfer today bring Conti in for Lopez, at least he should pick up 10 points for the next 3 or 4 stages. Although Lopez got 10 today

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