diphthong

yah...this be the thread for all twelve eleven of the fantasy stage racing games...from paris-nice to the benelux tour la vuelta and including the gt's: giro d'italia, tour de france and the vuelta á españa.

https://www.velogames.com/index_stage_season_2022.php

league name: bike forums
league code: 539488111

through race #11: monarch of the tours (mott) final standings:
1st Grain Brain: 40923 points
2nd canam73 37570 points
3rd Semroc 35394 points
4th slcbob 34865 points
5th ooga-booga 34689 points

for races also with the "stage hunter" or similar option, using the "classic" game points in tabulating totals.

1. 3.06-13.22 paris-nice 🇫🇷: 1st Semroc/team Pulling Faces--2nd Grain Brain/team Baguettes rapids p/b Voxan--3rd canam73/team the bounty. monarch of the tours: Semroc

2. 3.07-13.22 tirreno-adriatico 🇮🇹: 1st Semroc/team Shut Up Legs--2nd Grain Brain/team Peroni Cataloni--3rd ooga-booga/team slow (s)pokes. monarch of the tours: Semroc

3. 3.21-27.22 volta ciclista á catalunya 🇪🇸: 1st Grain Brain/Team Bon Seny--2nd canam73/team the bounty--3rd slcbob/team X Merckx the Spot. monarch of the tours: Grain Brain

4. 4.04-09.22 itzulia basque country 🇪🇸: 1st Grain Brain/Team ¡Más Txapelas!--2nd Semroc/team pulling Faces--3rd canam73/team the bounty. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

5. 4.26-5.01.22 tour de romandie 🇨🇭: 1st Semroc/team Pulling Faces--2nd Grain Brain/team Swiss Cheeze--3rd slcbob/team X Merckx the Spot. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

6. 5.06-29.22 giro d'italia (gt) 🇭🇺🇮🇹: 1st slcbob/team X Merckx the Spot--2nd ooga-booga/team bruschetta bois--3rd Grain Brain/team Húsleves with Gnocchi. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

7. 6.05-12.22 critérium de dauphiné 🇫🇷: 1st ooga-booga/team slow (s)pokes--slcbob/team X Merckx the Spot--3rd canam73/team the bounty. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

8. 6.12-19.22 tour de suisse🇨🇭:1st slcbob/team X Merckx the Spot--2nd ooga-booga/team slow (s)pokes--3rd Grain Brain/team Cheesy Swiss. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

9. 7.01-24.22 tour de france (gt) 🇩🇰 🇫🇷🇨🇭: 1st canam73/team the bounty--2nd Grain Brain/team Talented Tufts--3rd slcbob/team X Merckx the Spot. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

10. 7.30-8.05.22 tour de pologne 🇵🇱: 1st canam73/team the bounty--2nd ooga-booga/team slow (s)pokes--3rd Semroc/team Pulling Faces. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

11. 8.19-9.11.22 vuelta á españa (gt) 🇳🇱 🇪🇸: 1st Grain Brain/team Buena Vida Tapas & Sol--2nd canam73/team the bounty--3rd ooga-booga/team spanish caravan. monarchofthetours: Grain Brain

12. 8.29-9.04.22 benelux tour 🇧🇪 🇳🇱: cancelled

grand tours:
5.06-5.29.22 giro d'italia (marco pantani/"il pirato" memorial trophy: slcbob


7.01-7.24.22 tour de france (fabio casartelli memorial trophy): canam73


8.19-9.11.22 vuelta á españa (josé maría jimenez/"el chava" memorial trophy): Grain Brain



honorary adam hansen gt (completed 20 consecutive grand tours: 2012 giro-2018 giro) virtual trophy virtually awarded to the virtual participant with the highest overall combined score of all three 2022 virtual gt's: GrainBrain


the most coveted maglia nera/lanterne rouge-honorary lawson craddock trophy awarded to the participant with the lowest combined total score of all three gt's: Semroc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglia_nera
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterne_rouge



honorary marino lejarreta trophy awarded to the monarch of the tours (mott) with the highest point total for the complete stage race championship.
Grain Brain

diphthong

Semroc in the early lead for paris-nice and lookie lookie who(m) is in 2nd currently...stage three looks pretty choppy on the second half. like either gilbert or wva. let's go with gilbert.

Grain Brain goes 1-2 in the first (tt) stage of tirenno-adriatico. nice! going with remco ftw stage two.

GrainBrain

In TA Sagan over performing, Vingegaard's TT didn't stack up! Vingegaard looking for a stage win?

Van Aert bested by Pedersen means a good classics season awaits! Where's Rohan?

Sporadically watching but a ton of great performances already. Ganna one to watch on TA, I think he's looking to the overall but no way he holds it past stage 6 into Carpenga. Look for an incredible performance up that first mountain by him.

slcbob

I will compete in this league with Tirreno-Adriatico tied behind my back, because I was too much of a dummy to enter a teamy'all need a spot.
I was as close to picking LaPorte for the race to the sun as I was to dumping all my stocks in December and buying silver. But didn't do either. So many regrets.

GrainBrain

I'm going to give away my seemingly inspired Latour pick by mentioning that I got Pierre Latour and Pierre Roland mixed around in my head ... I had seen Roland practicing in Rwanda and then just blindly selected a French name. The room full of monkeys in my brain aren't banging out Shakespeare on typewriters they're plotting Z scores while using a dart board for p-values.

Fyi Colbrelli's bronchitis came after he personally phoned me and we had quite the heated argument over my selection of him. I watched him chase Gaudu up a mountain last year after my non selection, not making that mistake again I said!

Mental note to watch Biniam Girmay.

diphthong

three stages left in paris-nice but semroc and team Pulling Faces starting to ride hard tempo and drop the rest of us...

slcbob

The cream rises to the top.

Me? #NotCream

I'm pacing myself for Benelux.

GrainBrain

Cycling mole didn't even mention Magnus Cort for today's TA stage win so I'm picking him to secure my over all in TA.

Paris Nice I've lost colbrelli so I'm wondering how Biniam Girmay will do - I noticed he won in trofeo-alcudia against Mathews, Ackerman,nizzolo and that had a cat 2. There's also my meme pick of Vliegen - seems like a stage he could do well in.

^^ Should probably check to see that none of these three have gone home sick...

GrainBrain

It cost me a lot of Euros to have the race volunteers stand aside on that right hand corner. A non win by the Pog today means I enjoy one last day as the leader in TA before the Slovenian selections of Ooga and Semroc send me back to my usual podium spot.

Tomorrow in TA I'm hoping Vingegaard kicks free on the final climb and I give you guys a run for your money!

slcbob

GrainBrain , unless Gaudu wakes up and McNulty crashes into Roglic, I'm going to be hacking up a lung and convulsing on the ground at the foot of the final climb. Be careful when you plough through. Wear your mask, and don't run over me.

diphthong

Semroc and Grain Brain with a clean one-two sweep of both paris-nice and tirreno-adriatico! nice!

diphthong

it’s about to get real busy for 6 weeks starting with milan-san remo on the 19th. mix in tons of one-days, classics and three weeklong tours. check velogames.com daily for roster building/changing/results.

slcbob

Congrats to some, cheers to all.

DFL in P-N and worse in T-A! I'm racing Fabio Aru to the broom wagon. An auspicious start to the season for me. But don't count me out. Borrowing a traditional term from Irish foreplay: "brace yourselves."

diphthong

look to change rosters later today or tomorrow for catalunya starting on the 21st!!

diphthong

catalunya is live!! some excellent riders at wut values. grab you some and register like asap!

GrainBrain

Glad I remembered this! Three sprint stages though?

GrainBrain

Fyi Picasso spent his youth teaching cubism in the Catalunya region ... Dali was round about as well. Would be a wild time

diphthong

any time frame discussing painters and their various "fixes" is always interesting. jack the dripper et al post-modern nonsense wasn't lacking for substance abuse...

slcbob

It looks like GrainBrain and I will be 1-2 with our 1-2 podium picks, but it's a long way to Barcelona. It'll be interesting to see who balanced their sprint vs. GC picks well, or their blind luck, and comes through at the end. I wouldn't put it past any of cunning prognosticators.

This first post recap motif for these threads is awfully reader-friendly, powerful, and ambitious. Part of me commends you. The other part thinks you better knock that off or there will be more competition outside of le Tour. It may totally throw off the blind hedgehog / acorn ratio.

GrainBrain

We might need a Catalunyian lawyer as apparently Colbrelli collapsed and went into cardiac arrest after the line!!

https://www.rtve.es/deportes/2022032.../2319401.shtml

Authorities are looking into recent fantasy league participations and the bad juju imposed upon the riders.

Seriously though this is scary I hope he comes out of it!

slcbob

******************** Wow.
I hear a little red wine is good for the heart, so I will toast him this evening and hope for the best for him. Saluti, Sonny.

The 1-2 punch from us Grim Reapers was too much for him. It seems to have come upon him ~100m before the line. I've become such a humanitarian I won't even curse him for the DNS baggage we'll be carrying for the rest of the week. It was a little rude of you to mention that GrainBrain but I see you've edited the thread out nicely now.

GrainBrain

Yes I thought it was rude to point out I had thought about Woods in his place - in fact the karma is hitting me today; I'm at work with hay fever from all the great riding weather this past weekend and it looks to rain all this week. I'll watch it pour near Andorra and step outside to get that full immersion.

Here's to you Colbrelli and my momentary 50th starting position! Salúd!

GrainBrain

^^ Forgot to point out real champions collapse after the line instead of wandering off during a stage ...

I still pick ya though, Dennis and miggy ... Ok I'll stop now

​​​​​​

slcbob

It's nice to soar with the eagles, however briefly. Top <1.5%, congratulations! I didn't process Higuita when I glanced at your team so I briefly thought I'd have a chance, at least amongst the turkeys.

Let's see what develops and try not to curse anyone else with a voodoo doll mention. Though I will say that my confusion about how Bauhaus and Colbrelli might score on the same team just got a whole lot less confusing. I'm really sad about that. As George said in his VG tweet, Forza Colbrelli. I guess that's a good Italian sentiment.

diphthong

wowzers...today's score really reflected a sincere and dogged determination to start off with a bang on my end.