diphthong

riders seriously considered but not taken with the sworn final team:

mas
merlier
higuita
sivakov
pedersen (tried and tried again to squeeze in)
coquard
lutsenko
woods
seppuku
ayuso (but if he'd have been a 6 or 8-pointer...??)
brandon
mader
arensman
dennis
lucas
kaden
polanc
dvb
pacher
bevin
taaramae
oomen
padun

GrainBrain

I'm getting spicy with it! Really wanted Groves but I know this will be the GT Craddock snags a stage

El Patron better be bossin'

slcbob

14 teams present and correct in our little BF league for the morning sign in. Well, at least present.

Good luck to the competitors. Check in here now and then to share your joy and suffering.

Speaking of suffering, let's see how Carapaz does for GrainBrain and whether/when my boy Sivakov comes out from under him to take his time in the spotlight. I went the opposite of GB's three fave$ and budget decimal dust approach, aiming for solid professionals across the board. Though it's easy enough to cross-thread that with mediocrity. We shall see!

I'm pretty sure someone is loaded up with Jumbo Visma domestiques and will be staring down upon us after the TTT.

GrainBrain

I got a lot of faith in Richie but I'm already regretting not having an alaphillipe, higuita, Rodriguez kind of guy. I suppose I have Roglic. Carapaz does have a good punch. Vendrame could do it...

Shadco 

.

USAZorro

"Richie" isn't in the race.

slcbob

This thread is for fantasyland. GrainBrain is either living in his own private Iowa / Wilunga, or he's on cute nicknames terms with his amigo Carapaz. Heck, why not both? !!

A few teams at the top of the VG leaderboard (plus a twitter shout out from George) when all in on TJV for the TTT. I'm kinda disappointed they didn't pick two riders from Ineos to run the table. They'll come back to the pack. Hopefully we're all still in it when they do.

GrainBrain

Yes everyone seems to call Richard "Richie" maybe that's why he's going to EF? Unlike riders who have been confused with my man Richard -- I've deftly descended the leader board like a pro so that Portends my fate most likely.

Props to Shadco and his 231 / 17753 place!

So many riders I probably should've put in ...

I have high hopes for El Patron reliving some of those Giro heroics.

​​​​​

Shadco 

Thanks but it won’t last.

.

diphthong

who was your biggest regret not being able to fit on your vuelta squad? gotta go with sivakov. went with tgh instead. we'll see how that works out.
seppuku was the second regret (went with the rested hugh carthy instead but will miss out on assist points likely) and pedersen was the third one.

slcbob

Regrets? I've had a few...

On this one, I was waffling around with Carapaz vs Sivakov and Ayuso vs Almeida. Chose the latter of each, regrets TBD.

I was seriously considering Lazarusian picks of Louis and Landa.

USAZorro

Would like to have gotten Cippolini, but I didn't have enough budget to get him on the team.

diphthong

looks like the "stage hunter" option involving transfers (up to 9 transfers for the remainder of the game) is up and running.
think we've only had a handful of riders bow out of the proceedings-michael woods the best known and likely the only one
on anyone's squad. if you had woodsie, i'd look to replace him in the stage hunter game. check the rules page first on the
"spain" velogames page so you know what you're getting into (no end of tour points, et al) but some points are better than none
if you fail to swap out a rider. if you're unhappy with a rider's performance on your squad after three stages and just wanna
drop and swap him, that's all you.

and again...looks like if you want/need to swap out a rider (or multiple) for the stage hunter game, double-check to make sure
said rider is still in the race. the "available riders" do not get revised during the contest. woodsie is still available.

slcbob

I'm pleased the original AKA "go down with the ship" game endures. I may rearrange some deck chairs with the stage hunter stuff at some point; heck, I've got two candidates already. But even revisionist excellence doesn't paper over the original decisions.

diphthong

some of us old-timers may even prefer the taste of salt water to fresh water at this point. so much practice...

diphthong

ayuso looking pretty good so far. wanted to take him but didn't, thinking almeida would be the protected rider. probably wrong as usual.

slcbob

Ayuso was in my team v1 but I went with Almeida in the end for the same thinking. Fools seldom differ?

I did go for Sivakov at the risk of him being bottled up behind Carapaz. That worked out OK today for me. Let's see where it goes. There are still too many options at Ineos for any clarity whatsoever.

diphthong

love it when ineos goes quick-step and just carves out stage wins here and there but rodriguez, tgh, sivakov are still right there. carapaz obvs didn't have the day he wanted but neither did roglic. there's a lot of
uphill road left. would love to see ineos throw out all four big guys on stage eight and just attack roglic one-by-one. team jv wouldn't be able to cover all of those attacks. reel one in, another goes.
ain't gonna happen but would love to see it.

USAZorro

That might be one way to try to reel Evenepoel in.

diphthong

lefevre has zero time for that gc nonsense. not saying remco, or mvdp or wva couldn't win a gt gc if they wanted to but it's boring/old fuddy-duddy stuff. the kids wanna rip it up and set it on fire when they want.

slcbob

I'm going to make my predictions in this thread, since it really is fantasyland.

Let's go for Fred part Deux, this time for the win, in today's stage.

Yesterday Covid (and my team pick) put the Hirt on Jan, so he's out and I'm now dabbling in the Stage Hunter arena, without any realistic aspirations. It also seems a flat (and my team pick? hubris!) got the better of O'Connor and impaired him fulfilling his destiny. I'm glad that's out of the system now. Onward!

Shadco 

Hang in there Sam.

.

slcbob

Oh, Jesus.

Shadco 

Oopps, Trek sure burnt a lot of matches for nothing.

.

diphthong

so close!