diphthong

looking to get some licks in before that little tour in july? the dauphine covers some of the same ground and has many of the same riders
participating for those three weeks in france. a good primer to (re)familiarize yourself with the peleton. forgot about some of these guys.

https://www.velogames.com/dauphine/2019/

league name: bike forums

league code: if you've played and participated in this league before, you should be automatically added. if not, try code 113691711

deadline to enter is 10:30 cest sunday, june 9th.

good luck!

slcbob

Almost nowhere to go but up!

one4smoke

I'm in!

Take it easy on me, Bob...

diphthong

i like the mix of riders. some young guns. some old-timers. the always (fisticuffs) engaging and napalmesque bou-bou, spring classics/giro flotsam and jetsam, übernewbs, wannabe gt podium finishers, gt podium finishers...should be a hoot.

diphthong

and then there were four...questioning why we all took fuglsang and 3 of 4 took bennett. happy to say i'm the only one
stupid/brilliant/confused enuff to take bou-bou.

diphthong

stage one. names that immed came to mind in lieu of a breakaway: lutsenko. alaphilippe. stybar. naesen. gilbert. kwiatkowski. going with kwiatkowski but hoping i'm wrong as usual and it's actually lutsenko that's on my team.
ebh has been awfully awfully quiet lately tho...

diphthong

no one was silly enuff to take the majority of tejay and bou-bou and richie and moscon and froomie and quintana and pinot in a kinda ride of shame homage tribute kinda way. i thought about it for like...10 seconds.
couldn't work all of them under the point system but could have done 6 of 7. pinot might actually just win the whole shebang.

diphthong

who's the rider not on your team that you'd pick to win the dauphine? i'm going with bardet.

one4smoke

Froomie.

Btw.... I thought you could only see who picked who AFTER the race starts and teams are locked in.

diphthong

*shrugs* a high-level security breach to be sure.

diphthong

stage two-pretty much the same guesses as stage one but nigel turns it up to eleven with this classics-styled stage.
picking alaphilippe as he along with gilbert and stybar are a formidable trio but kwiatkowski could steal it.

slcbob

I figured Richie deserves to finish a race, so I didn't curse with my pick.

Surprise me, Thibaut.

Non-team: Bardet would be the "darn it, almost picked him" winner (similar to Eddie the Boss). Froome, sure, but conscious economic decision. Ahlaphillippe's price tag, wow. Let's see how he rolls. Perhaps today.

diphthong

ebh had been awfully awfully quiet until yday. glad to see he's still got it. came on initially like a hurricane and kinda went
roll another number for the road (sorry, neil y.) for the last few years.

diphthong

richie is solidly in the talansky, tejay, aru and menchov pantheon currently. nairo needs to bring it-hard-this year or he'll
fit right in to this exclusive company. landa the panda pulled himself out of the running with his giro performance.
next one in? louis meintjes or pinot. we'll know by the end of the tdf.

slcbob

So I've got that going for me.

slcbob

diphthong

not even a decent one-two combo, flurry of jabs or an uppercut...bou-bou is bye-bye. oh, such a love/hate relation with the whole two sprinter approach. hopefully, he’s saving his best behavior for juillet.

slcbob

From almost worst to at least briefly first! I'm going to be unbearable if this continues. I mean, WHEN this continues.

I think 3/4 of us will be toasting Sam Bennett after tomorrow's stage. Let's save a glass for canam73 when he rolls across the line during the best young rider presentation. I was a little worried seeing Bardet, Fuglsgang, and Barguil in that line up. I have a soft spot for Warren, but it looks like he is not going to be all present and accounted for this go-around. That's a happy "almost picked him" for me. Sad for Barguil. Sad for Arkea Samsic if Greipel doesn't show up tomorrow. He's not on my list.

Prediction time:
Can we put two from our little league into the top 1000 (20-ish%)?
Can we all stay above 50th percentile? I'd love to be able to say all of the children are above average.

Dumo gave me a bit of a scare yesterday but it seems he was just turning his (s)pokes for training, so sigh of relief. Though I wouldn't put it past him to tear up some TT and maybe another break.

I'm pretty sure there is footage of Bouhani slapping a soigneur as he got into the car, and spitting on a roadside kid through the open window as he drove away. That will have to tide us over.

diphthong

was stoked to see fuglsang get that high placing today, then realized about 2 seconds later that we all have fuglsang so it didn’t matter. haha.

diphthong

was it the dauphine last year or the year before that I was dfl? not just in our little league but in the entire competition. that took talent. i only selected riders in the 8-12 points range as an experiment. went really really well.

diphthong

and yah...stage three-bennett. second? colbrelli. boy, would slcbob be pleased.

slcbob

With the new velogames, it seems the ability to creep on history by guessing URLs has gone away. The details of that remarkable performance appear lost from the annals of history. Really conflicted about the second n there -- deserved for being so remarkable, or undeserved for being so, well, you know? In the end, my magnanimity won out.

I would not be disappointed to see Sonny follow Sam in, but for some reason, I feel unable to predict it. Perhaps that pesky blue wolf pack will get in the mix.

slcbob

Well done, Bora, as expected.

And Wout Wout Wout!!

slcbob

There seem to be some e-hiccups in the velogames world. I haven't been able to get to the site to check in on my bone crushing performance. Oh, the antici........pation.

For tomorrow, I think the only question is how much does Froome lead by at the end of the day. My pick: about 42s, to Adam Yates & Fuglsgang in second and third, no, third and second, uh, I dunno. Pinot in the top 5. I don't know who the 5th man is to round it out. I'd say Poels, but I think he may take it easy for the stages ahead.

P.S. I'm talking GC, not stage results.

canam73

I was in last, so I virused them.