diphthong

s'up. qué paso....this is the 2021 vuelta fantasy thread where absolutely nothing of substance or seriousness is discussed. not to be confused
with the "straight, no chaser" thread where it is all business all the time.

vuelta start on sat, august 14th. our usual velogames host is up and running.
if you've been bitten/smitten recently before, your team (fbow) should be automatically entered into the bike forums league.
if you've somehow resisted the awesome gravitational pull/tractor beam all this time and still want to enter:

https://www.velogames.com/spain/2021/
league name is: bike forums.
league code should be: 398952811
deadline to register a team is 17:00 cest (central european summer time) on saturday, august 14th, 2021. that is 16:00 in the uk and 11:00 on us east coast/8:00 on us west coast.

a bunch of crazy bleeping riders and values. don't try to make heads or tails out of it. just let it ride.

a long year, a sweet year, a fantastic year...all for cycling. vuelta is the last big chance for many...especially those that have been on the shelf, injured, underperformed or doghaused.
the dogs will be hungry. oodles of big riders but where does their form lie? will they be pulling super-domestique duties by choice or otherwise? we'll find out.

same rules apply. in case of race cancellation, the winners will be the team in the lead after the last points are awarded/the vuelta game ceases for 2021.
if a team isn't entered by the start of stage four in our bike forums league, not recognizing that team as a valid participant eligible for the gigante podium no-prizes and bragging rights.

with apologies in advance to GrainBrain:
]

diphthong

MTBrider won the giro.

canam73 won the flobikes tdf

USAZorro won the velogames tdf.

all the resta y'all needta step it up. yes...including myself and those varied, humdrum showings.

who(m) will win the vueltapalooza?

slcbob

After the dog-eat-dog high stakes viciousness of the VG Tour de Pologne, it will be good to relax a bit with a friendly lap of Spain. Glad to see no one is keeping score.

Team v1 is entered with all of 4 minutes of thought to have something there. Probably not vLast but it could be vBest so I'll only have myself to blame.

USAZorro

I admit that I'm not especially flashy, and what little humor I exhibit tends to be rather dry. Can you forgive me?

I was inspired from watching Olympic Channel rebroadcasts of the 2020 Vuelta (while I was donating platelets), and slightly bummed that my GC pick, Sam Bennett, seems to not be riding. Thanks a LOT, Patrick.

diphthong

yah bummer s. bennett is not riding. looks like he’ll have his hands full with bora next year as their top sprint dog so he’ll make up for lost time right quick.

USAZorro

I was teasing about Bennett. First-off, he looked like Ewan (and not in the good way) on a couple stages that had been considered potential sprint finishes in last year's Vuelta. Also, the value of a Sprinter in the Vuelta is considerably less than in the Giro or the Tour.

It will be entertaining to see how he does next year though.

slcbob

May his fake surgery on his fake knee injury go well. And the psychotherapy Patrick seems to think he needs. There should be a whole stack of folks standing between Cav and 35 next year, making it all the sweeter if he pulls it off; 34 is nothing to sneeze at if he doesn't.

I guess there are some sprints in Spain and we have to pick someone. I wonder if Jakobsen will sink his tooth into victory now that he's the main man in DQS. I still have plenty of time to waffle between him and Phillipsen.

diphthong

the vuelta team hasn't really changed, despite tinkering. a total living on a prayer. sorry, jon bon...

slcbob

Woah, we're more than half way there.
Hold on, ready or not.
We live for la Vuelta when our Tour teams did squat.

slcbob

OK. v3 of the team is my vLast. I hope I didn't squander my limited luck in the Tour of Pologne. I expect Molano, Senechal, and Padun to tear it up since I just took the pins out of their voodoo dolls.

Second best of luck to all as we venture into el ultimo y mejor, quizas, grand tour of the year.

May it be decided by the riders and not the fickle winds of fate pouring across la mesa, calle, y camino in some fickle Daliesque fashion. Fat chance. But we can hope.

USAZorro

Going way out on a limb here and predicting the Vuelta will have an incident with an electronic shifter.

diphthong

i'll gladly take that vs an incident with a motorcycle, loose dog or a "hi mom! hi dad!" sign holder that impacts the race.

diphthong

almost took padun... some of the basque boyz looked pretty quality to price ratio (qpr) good as well.

USAZorro

Looks like everyone in the league has Roglic.

diphthong

except one diphthong...no name mentioned...what the bleep is that snarfargler on/off/(not)thinking?!?!

diphthong

we both scored a tdf bronze medal which is several placings above our usual and respective zip codes. digital epo indeed...

diphthong

ain't too proud to beg...er...take those unexpected points from aranburu. sweet darling...

slcbob

Both?

slcbob

I see a lot of love for Mas amongst the protagonists.

GrainBrain

Solid pick, I suspect you'll nab some more on today's stage two. My unclassified Spaniard has me Ion'ing with the lack of results. Didn't put much thought into these picks, went with Molano and Vine from YouTube recommendations - I had thought Piddock at 10 points was a solid value... maybe it's the heat? Wasn't it something like 104° F for that prologue? Hugh shedding half a minute not a great way to start.

slcbob

The good thing about the Demare pick is that there are only a few sprints to lament it.

I'm sad to see Jakobsen get miss first by the skin of his tooth, but glad to see a little action at the intermediate sprint point. Perhaps he's going for the points jersey. I was torn and almost picked Bling for that reason. If the Vuelta's points jersey reliably went to a sprinter, I may have stuck with Down Under. I didn't analyze this edition to see where it may fall this year, I just went with a hand wave, a Belgian shrug, and picked some climber types with my wild card and unclass stragglers.

slcbob

So now we enter a brief period where I will regret not picking both Jakobsen and Molano. Phillipsen was to many velobucks at 14.

I'm pretty sure avoiding two sprinters will pay off in the end, but there's a good chance I avoided them poorly with the wrong GC guys. I hope Hugh sorts himself out.

Jakobsen for the win in stage 4.

slcbob

It looks like a lot of us are suffering with a Carthyesque pink anchor in our rosters. I hope Hugh snaps out of it and breakaways himself back into GC things or re-finds his form and a stage win or three.

You Movistar aficionados are racking up some GC placings and misc slop points. Unlike my goose egg to date from a 6 point investment in Ineos nickel grabbing.

It's still a long way to Santiago de Compostela, and the race changes dramatically tomorrow. Que vamos.

2cam16

Sheesh! Tough race. At least I'm out of the basement, for now.

slcbob

Where are the horrible predictions?

Two ridiculous darts thrown at the wall for the longshot breakaway win: Majka and Simmons.

For my team, I'd like to see Bouchard and Martin score some mountain points. They're a little further back than Padun so maybe. But I picked them so maybe not.

Bardet is a lot further back, has a clear run at it, but might be a little banged up still. Perhaps he'll get a shot at some later stages.