diphthong

no, because bernal is not your captain. i’ve got you down as having roglic as your captain. he’s still in it. we were not replacing riders in the event they couldn’t/didn’t remain in the race. the lone exception was if the captain you had selected at the start of stage one couldn’t/didn’t remain in the race. you could designate one of your other original riders as captain until they couldn’t/didn’t remain in the race (then repeat) or the race finishes. maybe better explained in posts #4 and #8.

time for flip flop to pick a new captain since bernal was the chosen one for that team.

dstrong 

Ah...thanks.

slcbob

I'm wallowing along in the pack in Tissot land, but I've been spit out the back in VG. I'm on my way to the laughing bunch with Caleb and the Covid Kid.

Flip Flop Rider

like it will help you guys know cycling too well!!

Wout it is

diphthong

heckuva stage on stage seventeen. nice to see lopez make an attack that stuck and an important one at that. congrats to him.

bummer about the nieve abandon. first time abandoning a grand tour. he's ridden nineteen of them. 19. dayum. amazing. warrior.
keep scrolling down to read the nieve section.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/deb...e-news-shorts/

slcbob

Pretty sure this was the first time he was on one of my teams. Sorry, Mikel. The curse.

diphthong

stage eighteen looked to be my fave stage before the start of the race. the multiple classified climbs plus that little, unclassified one near the end that will hurt some tired legs.
the route with the curves and coming after a massive, alpine stage all make me believe it's gonna be a breakaway day. there are a few teams wanting to save their tour and
a few looking to expand on their spoils. i think the big boys manage things and let their teams do the work . some names popping into the empty noggin for the win included
sivakov, hirschi, herrada, guillaume martin, barguil, madouas, and pinot. i'll take guillaume martin to break the cofidis curse for the win. he had pretty good form before the
tour and he's far enough off the lead that he may get a little wiggle room to fly. barguil is my second choice.

gpsblake

Poor Bernal, getting bashed by everyone.... He's only 23 years of age and a 1 time TDF winner. He still has the potential to win again, if not multiple times.
Don't know if he had a sore back, or whatever.. Maybe we will see him again in the Vuelta.

slcbob

We'll see a lot of the Panzer Wagen grinding out tempo between just after the early sprint and he moment they stick a fork in him after a few thousand meters of climbing. He has a day ahead of him. Other than for the 20 pts, what team is going to help him after the break is established?

My pick is Dani Martinez. Fueled mainly by a last shred of Velogames hope but uplifted slightly by him missing the cut on ooga-booga's noggin dump.

Perhaps we'll see an unholy alliance of EF & Ineos. And maybe toss in a little Movistar, particularly if Bala throws his hat into the ring today.

slcbob

I wonder if Bizarro Rule 87 kicks in today and Caleb joins the Gorilla in the broom wagon.

I tuned in just after the sprint points went against Sagan. His only chance now is if Sam winds up keeping Caleb company. I don't think that will happen, but it could be very close.

diphthong

good for kwiatkowski. nice to see him pull off an unexpected win. was thinking stage 19 would be more to his liking and a heckuva day out for carapaz.

sagan needs to win the sprint and the stage tomorrow, along with dropping morkov, trentin and sam bennett. otherwise, his only realistically viable path to green glory is for s. bennett to crash out or miss the time cut on the stage 20 mtn tt.

chadtrent

Apologies if this has been discussed earlier...

For stage 20, will they be riding TT bikes or regular bikes?

GrainBrain

Glad I caught the last 65km of stage 18 today, great racing by Porte to stay in after getting distanced on the gravel from a puncture. Pretty neat to watch Kwiatkowski and carapaz roll in together. Sigh, Rigo was distanced some more by a great setup again by Bahrain McLaren. I see a top ten finish still, 7th would be really great. Uran did really well at the 2019 Vuelta TdF ITT hopefully he'll gain a little.

Looking forward to Sagan's hail mary tomorrow along with the classics specialists. I'll go with van Avermaet.

gpsblake

Both probably. Start off with TT bike, switch to regular bike for climb.

USAZorro

I was hoping that Caleb would get bounced. He's a great sprinter for sure, but he's a joke when there's a gradient added.

GrainBrain

So weird, at 148lbs you'd think he'd be better?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, nobody's mentioned how awesome Kuss looked on stage 17. 4th place and he admitted to backing off because he went into the red following lopez, but geeze! Will Team JV give him a lead role in GC anytime soon?

diphthong

he's behind dumou and stevie k. in the pecking order. thinking he rides as second in command in either the giro or vuelta and tries to stay close in case dumou, stevie k or primoz bounces.
2021? dunno what contracts are up but possibly, kuss goes into the giro or vuelta as lead dog. there's also that wout kid on team jv that seems to have a bit of a future...

USAZorro

Wish I could go way back in time and see how 20 year old 122 lb me would have fared. I used to get irritated when I had to drop below 52/15 for a hill, but never once entered an organized race.

I suspect Sepp will go one more year before getting to be team leader for a Grand Tour. (2022).

How many minutes back will Caleb be tomorrow?

slcbob

Yes.

Player's choice.

I would not be surprised to see some swap out on the lower slopes of the hill.

2cam16

I heard some riders will be swapping.

2cam16

Yeah basically that's all he is,pure sprinter. Take him to the climbs and he's done. I was hoping Bennett wouldn't make the cut-off today. Oh well.

slcbob

Kudos to my boy Landa and Bahrain McLaren for animating the race. All for nought, but certainly made it interesting. Echoes of my whole team's participation in the league this year?

I loved seeing the remnants of Ineos in full rage turned glory, over the mountains like lions and across the line like a couple of happy little lambs. Epic.

I'm not an Ineos hater or lover. I try not to be a hypocrite (no, really!) and don't understand those who have Ineos for their style of racing then applaud TJV for attempting the same thing. Oh well. The wheels fell off their vision so they came up with a plan C. Preparations A through G were abysmal failures but they can feel good about Preparation H on the whole. So far, TJV's vision is 20/20.

No prediction here for 19 other than a hot mess of a break that lasts, but I do love me the idea of some Mads in the waning rainbow taking a stage win.

USAZorro

Yet this year's tour has been less boring despite the tactic being employed.

For me, I think a lot has to do with the rider - and the Director. I happen to think Brailsford is the most arrogant, pompous turd to ever be a DS - blathering smugly about "marginal gains" and defending Moscon, and trying to cover up "special deliveries" and excessive inhaler puffing (I think he's even worse than LeFevere - who technically isn't the DS). Add to that the miraculous transformation of Wiggins as a GC champion, and Froome from a run of the mill rider to the power-meter hypnotized machine who floated up hills and crushed rivals in Time Trials. and this layered over the history of after-the-race result reversals. So yes, I have never cheered for that team.

Despite this, I actually have quite a bit of respect for most of their team that they brought this year, and for Thomas. Luke Rowe... he gets too dumb for me from time to time.

So to bring this back to Fantasy... I think it's either going to be Lutsenko in a breakaway, or Bennett in the sprint.

gpsblake

I know this was brought up years ago, but would banning team radios from the TDF lead to more exciting racing and less "Team Sky" tactics? Seems in this modern era, a minute lead is like a 10 minute lead of 10 years ago.

BritishV8

+1!