one4smoke

Glad to see Woods win. Very emotional interview. Won me over.

one4smoke

I think tomorrow is Sagan's last shot. Probably needs some bad luck out of Viviani though.

diphthong

yah. stage 18. viviani.

i've got woods on my team but didn't expect him to pull off an actual win. his strength seems to be following wheels and always finishing in the top 20 on the mountain(top) stages.
stage 17 looked tailor made for dan martin but he'd already bounced. woulda picked him twere he still in the race.

frankly surprised sagan, trentin, et al still at the race.

so which of our boys are gonna have a run at (s) yatesie on stage(s) 19 and/or 20? valverde? probably. quintana? surprised he's still within striking distance. maybe he goes
and rips the red jersey away from yatesie (and valverde) but i doubt it. mas? too young to know his limitations and maybe too young to have any. lopez? he's made it this far w/o
pulling his usual wipeout + withdrawal. i think he makes it onto the podium. kruijsin? looking the best he's looked since that giro. you know the one.

going for the final podium prediction here:
1. valverde.
2. s yates.
3. lopez.

one4smoke

Valverde has been really impressive, but Simon Yates shouldn't break. Should be interesting.

It's amazing how Valverde is so strong in the climbs, yet also in most of the sprints. He's definitely a versatile racer.

Viviani will easily win today if not for something unusual happening.

one4smoke

Wow! What an exciting finish! Can't believe the breakaway held on. Kudos to them.

Well, at least Sagan showed who is faster between him and Viviana when they have to go all-out for a longer distance. Viviana is quicker, but Sagan is stronger.

slcbob

NAILED IT!

I don't think I see Simon cracking [again]. I would not put it past Nairo to take a flyer, perhaps with someone like Pinot or Izaguirre, at some point in the next few days. Lopez may try but the rest won't let him go. Mas is the wildcard to me.

diphthong

stage19-valverde. i think the flattish few km's at the finish will find him the fastest finisher of the contenders. he wins it by a second or two unless
uran or de la cruz (or a few others fallen off the potential podium) have a go from farther out. s. yatesie loses a handful of seconds to valverde, setting
up stage 20 as the throwdown at the showdown.

slcbob

My spider senses say:
50% just what ^ he said, Bala grabs a bonus and a small gap to make it tighter on the overall.
30% he pips Yates for a few seconds but the bonuses are gone by the time they get there.
20% Yates by 10 or 20 sec. I'd feel better about that if the climb didn't shallow out toward the end. So maybe save that for stage 20.

diphthong

dstrong 

I just looked at my Velogames and Eurosport teams for the first time in two weeks. I've been highly distracted and put no care into my choices...and I've not done any transfers (maybe I should use them for tomorrow's stage!).

Anyway...I'm leading the BF league in Velogames (with only MTBer as my competition) and I'm next to last in the Eurosport BF league (only 5 points behind MTBer!). A lackluster end to my fantasy season but I've been able to watch the last 20k of most stages. With Yates all but certain for the win, the exciting battle will be for the other two steps on the podium!

***EDIT*** Well crap! It seems I can't make transfers after Stage 15??? I guess I'll "let 'em ride"...so to speak.

slcbob

dstrong, ^ you can change the B classed and the All Rounders in the fussy Eurogame.

Which BF league? I see two of them: "bike forums" and "bikeforums!" with Eddie Pliers crushing us all in both of them,and not an anyone-strong to be seen. There is an MTBrider in each with a decent gap on two different lantern rouges.

As for stage 20, chapeau to Simon in stage 19. I say he marks Valverde and Kruijswick, gets in a dig on them in the end, and there is some fireworks involving the rest of the top 10 with a bit of a shuffle in the minor placings, partially facilitated by Nairo again being the good team mate and shell of the man he could have been.

2cam16

Lol, that would be me in Velogames. I haven't even visited either since the first week of the race!

slcbob

The Vuelta has been crazy. I need to remove ALL conservative, pragmatic thoughts when making predictions next year. Predictions for Le Tour are to Prozac as La Vuelta to meth & red bull.

I had been thinking perhaps floating the prediction that Pinot & Uran would get away then Yates would bridge, but I didn't think Valverde and Kruijwijk would let it go. No, that's crazy, the non-meth me thought.

Where is Walter White? I want some of that baby blue for next year.

Topsy turvy race. Rock on, Vuelta.

Caretaker

Enric Mas is the future, Valverde the past. The future looks bright, the past murky.

diphthong

diphthong

slcbob

Well done by The Bounty on VG. Canam / Mr. Christian nails that butt wipe (papel higenico) Mr. Pliers in the end.

Nice surge at the end on Eurosport land by ooga booga but I held on by a thread.

i was feeling a bit down abput my VG "season championship" score until i looked and saw how many games it includes. Much more than just the 2 or 3 Grand Tours. Maybe next year.

canam73

Well thank you.

After using the same team building strategy for ~3 years without a Grand Tour win I finally get the justification to use it for another three years.

But for purely spectating, I did find this Vuelta as interesting as any GT in quite a while.

Canam73

diphthong

congrats to canam73 for winning the velogames league on the last day! eddie p got such a huge jump and almost went wire to wire. both great rosters.

and in the newish eurosport league, slcbob triumphed! all hail the master of transfers and trash talking!

looks like velogames may have recovered from the gut punch it got in july. hoping that, going forward, the gt's are available to run as fantasy cycling leagues.
if so, gonna dump eurosport. there's enough effort involved creating a team, much less modifying it on the fly for the better part of two weeks. i wish i had that
kinda free time. thank you to everyone for participating and hanging in there through a really weird time. retire now to your tents and to your dreams for the upcoming winter.
hoping to see y'all in april for the giro. did or did not the vuelta live up to expectations???

diphthong

gawd these winters are interminable. the vuelta was...as usual...fantastic. enjoyed rolling thru this thread. the giro can't get here quickly enough.

diphthong

oh yeah (in the kool-aid man's voice). gonna be another barnburner.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/2019...goes-off-road/