Total crapshow for me this Tour. I haven't even looked at my team since last week! lol
Nevertheless still enjoying the Tour as always!

I only have 2/3 of a fantasy remaining.

Oh well. My wife doesn't even have half.

I can't believe I"m not last...although looking at the three below me, I understand why. So much can still go wrong...we're only a week in.

Since #87 took a powder early on, I'm going to say #33 tomorrow.

In the annoying Tissot league, I swapped out somebody and took Bouhanni. That was just before Colbrelli, who I almost picked, decided to turn into a mountain goat and hoover up some points in the Alps. That bodes well for any Sonny fans. His beat goes on.

rest day recap!

velogames league:
team the bounty still in the lead with a 200+ point differential over team X Merckx The Spot. Robbie McEwan's Train, Wheelsuckers and Riders On The Storm
are all within striking distance.

flobikes/tissot league:
canam73 and slcbob killing it here as well in true 1-2 fashionista/fashion plate...um...fashion.

that's the good news. the bad news is that with the abandons of mvdp and roglic, the hunger games just got hungrier. some of the first division
teams in both games could come back to the pack-and quickly. por ejemplo, the first four teams in the velogames league all had mvdp and roglic.
second four all had mvdp or roglic. oopsiedoodles...consolidation proclamation. welcome (back) to the party everyone.

been a helluva first 9 stages. total war of attrition...even more than usual.

nailed it. acorn found.

^ not hardly. The real acorn would have been following my momentary inspiration to pick Cav and Sonny before my head and lard ass over-ruled my heart and joie de vivre to put Ewan and MVDP on my team. And then, depression set in.

If Cav racks up #35 on the Champs in front of the world and the legend himself, it will be one for the ages. Heck, today I thought he was going to give Ahlaphilippe a sloppy wet kiss after that bear hug.

Tomorrow, I wonder if Chaves will come out smiling like the Cheshire Cat and do something on Ventoux. I don't think it is steep enough for Woods. If I say anything about our Simon my wife will never forgive me for cursing him.

Velogames now has a contribution thing running. George deserves a pint from me and got one. The "supporting member" thing gives you access to a few other games that I don't really understand. Yet. Or maybe ever.

I see what you may have been keying on. There's a limit to being in 10 ten leagues. There is not, AFAIK, a limit (at least not a small one) as to how many people can be in any single league. Though I've been wrong at least once already this year.

^ guess i misread/misinterpreted the disclaimer. the limit on leagues thing makes sense where the other reading didn't but wanted to cover the bases just in case.

glad to be wrong yet again.

too many moving parts for this simpleton but still pretty cool. thanks for spurring me into a little contribution last year as i made donations to several cycling blogs and the local shop but totally space ghosted
on velogames. will look to slide george another one around vuelta time.

Tissot is a little too much work, and the continual changes detracts some from the satisfaction of prognostication, imo.

Substitution for a rider or two who crashes out or abandons or misses the time cut seems a good feature to keep the unlucky involved, but making changes more than a couple times alters the premise of the exercise.

1. agreed.

2. agreed.


it has warts, but, fbow, the velogames vehicle seems to work best for our group. sure, there are some insanely intensive gt games out there and maybe one or two works

for you. i've done a few of them but still seem to prefer the set it and forget it vs daily maintenance.

Definitely prefer velogames as well, haven't checked back into that PCS $$ game as yet. Would be nice to have a backup rider for when another withdraws - but - the masochist in me can't help but admire the raw brutal beauty of this Tour and my picks. At least there was the satisfaction of watching Uran finish in the top five yesterday.

Hoping Gaudu goes for a stage win now and doesn't withdraw for the Olympics or something. Küng could still pull a win on the final TT. Mørkøv has near equal points as Küng, not too shabby for a four pointer!

I don't think it alters the premise of the game. I think it is a different premise.

The thing I HATE HATE HATE about Tissot is the inability to browse the rider list. You have to view it through a soda straw. Also not a fan of the extra credits from referrals. I'm OK with the quiz credits. It was a hard quiz.

Beyond that, it's OK for me. There are far more finicky ones out there. It's not like you have to have Deep Blue or Whopper chugging in the background there.

I'm not a fan of conditional substitutions, e.g. only if someone crashes out. I like either zero (the standard Velogames model) or constrained only by points / quota / etc. If I'm going to suspend disbelief for a crash replacement, I can suspend disbelief for someone riding lousy but upright.

In Tissot land, I almost put my bonus on Theuns today but stuck with Cav.

With Sagan withdrawing I'm now focused on my unclassified riders, and was glad to see both Küng and Swift in the break. A great win for Politt and I'm pretty sure some one here had him picked? Nice!

yah, some of those questions were pretty offsides. thought i knew a decent amount of tour history but when they start throwing out questions like

"in what year did rider x move into the kom/polka dot jersey for good on stage twelve? 2007? 2008? 2009? 2012?"...it's a total shot in the dark.


chess and fantasy war games...

Sadly, when it rains, it pours for me. :cry:

That's not rain. It's all of us weeping for you.

Relish your time on top. Of the league, or just above ground.

Today is #34 and I'll be pulling faces after getting elbowed by semroc passing through on his way up in the league.

Thanks Bob.

I'm putting out huge watts, stressing on Cavendish making time cuts in mountain stages. Fun league everyone!

Woods on his polka dots mission just put me down at least two places. Props to slcbob featuring cattaneo and Pedro with Fraile.

Ewans train will be a breakaway stage away with Asgreen and Van Moer to leap past
I'll be under threat from dstrong with Cort, Chavez

No way I'm catching Pedro with Colbrelli and Woods

definitely. cattaneo was my last man out. took hirschi instead even tho hirschi hasn’t done much since moving over to uae (but that’s another thread). figured hirschi would pick up cheap assist points defending tadej’s high gc placing (he has) and have maybe 2-3 top ten finshes with all the breakaway & classics-styled stages + some really small points from the two tt stages (he hasn’t).

*edit...hmmm...iphone post showed correct spelling and apostrophes...lost in translation i suppose. or perhaps the bill is overdue...oh! now apostrophes show but spelling error didn't correct. fab.

I'm not sure how I resisted the gravitational pull of the Ineos death star for all its potential assist points. Lucky I did.

Less lucky with Roglic & Ewan, but that's just the way the grand tour cookie crumbles. Better to be lucky than good.

Cav has been both and Tadej plenty of the latter. There is still some interesting racing to come.

Still plenty of time for Colbrelli to make me regret picking Bouhanni instead of him in the Tissot league.

I've been watching mostly on GCN. Just a few NBCSN replays to hear Phil in his dotage, referring to Adam Blythe as Steve Porino and Adam Yates in the space of a short highlight reel. The coverage from Bernie on a bike in the first week+ and Brad on a bike in recent days has been excellent. Brad's choice of a bomber jacket in the heat is questionable, but much better than his capri jeggings for his stint on Orla's sofa.