GrainBrain

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GrainBrain

Get in the break Fortunato!!

slcbob

How about dem "bois." 8 points in front of nobody. Top 10% of the GenPop. Bruschetta all around on the rest day; put it on GrainBrain's tab.

It should be an interesting last week. A little less lucrative for me sans Bardet, but certainly there are still various ups & downs to come for most of us. And that TT looming.

diphthong

**rest day recap** stage fourteen was a barnburner! here's what's shaking down in the last act/six stages of the 2022 giro:

stage 16: absolutely brutal. three monster climbs with a penultimate "bump" that's not exactly something to sneeze at. 5,268 meters/17,000 ft of climbing.
stage 17: respectable amount of climbing. descent off of the penultimate climb looks tailor-made for nibbles. someone could go (full stevie) kruijswijking together (sorry, smokey) into a snowbank on that descent.
stage 18: looks to be a sprinters/breakaway stage. nuff said.
stage 19: another respectable amount of climbing stage. second half of the stage might be the last chance for romance for some given the amount of road curves involved. mountaintop finish.
stage 20: second mountaintop finish in a row. absolutely brutal, part due. 4,718 meters/15,200 ft of climbing. san pellegrino, pordoi and fedaia on the docket. podium chances dismissed-with prejudice.
stage 21: tt. less than 1,000 ft of climbing on a 17.4km course. plenty of sharp corners and curves tho. rain/mist would really up the ante here and make it even more dramatic.

here's what's currently shaking down with the top seven league teams (listed in order of standing and barring more crashes, dns, dnf, etc):

bruschetta bois: missing-girmay. needs-carapaz and almeida to finish 1-2 on the gc (with a carapaz stage win somewhere), mollema to crack the gc top ten and mvdp to win, place or show on stage 18 and finish the race.

Keka 76: missing-girmay, miggylo, bardet. needs-almeida and bilbao to finish 1-2 on the gc, a bilbao tt stage (or mtn stage) win would be huge and bauhaus/mvdp going 1-2 on stage 18 along with finishing the race.

Riders on the Storm: missing-rule #87, morkov. needs-the bora boys to keep on keeping on (another kämna stage win goes a long ways), almeida and buchmann both to finish on the podium, mvdp/air cav going 1-2 on stage 18 along with finishing the race.

X Merckx the Spot: missing-bardet. needs-carapaz and bilbao to finish 1-2 on the gc, démare to win stage 18 and finish the race and the dynamic duo of carthy and ciccone to win a stage apiece and/or both place in the top five much of the last few stages/gc top ten

Giro di Gallo: missing-dumou. needs-wilco and carthy to finish top ten gc along with a stage win (preferably two), mvdp and démare to go 1-2 on stage 18 and finish the race, nibbles, carthy and yatesie to both top 3 placing on multiple stages.

Das Boot: missing-girmay, tratnik. needs-carapaz and buchmann to finish 1-2 on the gc (with a stage win for either), mvdp to take a stage win on stage 18 and finish the race and foss/ciccone(also drop into the top gc ten)/cort and formolo to be results superstars this week.

Húsleves with Gnocchi: missing-girmay, bardet. needs-landa and almeida to finish 1-2 on the gc (with a stage win or two for landa and high placings all mtn stages this week), mvdp to win stage 18 and finish the race, cort and arensman to pull multiple magic days out of the riding cap.

slcbob

Nope. I'm counting on my secret weapon, Atilla Valter.

Could be worse. At least I'm not relying on Landa to do anything except not screw over Bilbao. Well, wait. Maybe that is worse.

Quite the recap. Happy Monday, everyone.

GrainBrain

^^ I resemble that Landa remark! Hopefully Landa paces Bilbao up a climb with a technical descent and Bilbao leads the way down.

I really, really need Craddock to show us what the national ITT champion can do! Along with Fortunato finding himself 8 minutes up the road.

​​​​​​

slcbob

Did you see what Landa did to Bilbao? !! I called it. Kinda.

No one has Hirt or Hindley. Oh well. one4smoke has most of the rest of Bora.

GrainBrain

^^ That move cost me a whole case of Prosecco!

slcbob

Valter, Gall, Carthy, and Ciccone in the break. Maybe my ship is coming in. I might rush out and buy a lottery ticket this afternoon.

GrainBrain

Cort with the GC bunch gives me hope for a raid tomorrow. Nice stage win Bob!

I keep yoyo-ing but fear I'll wind up 4th or 5th. Probably 6th without a sprinter.

GrainBrain

I'll be riding this ship to stage 21

slcbob

I haven't yet given up hope for a worst-to-first Giro for me here. It'll take the edge off the brown jersey that lurks in France.

There are still some twists and turns to come.

one4smoke

Damn Covid. Right up there with cancer as most despised diseases.

and... Bob to the top! Well played, sir.

slcbob

In my little fantasy land without the incident at the final left turn, Atilla came around the outside of Schmid and crushed it.

In the real world, I'm surprised that no one went down.

Hindley is stuck on Carapaz like a limpet. Sunday will be the time trial of their lives.

GrainBrain

How'd that even happen?

slcbob

Bauwman dove into the apex of the corner, squeezing off Schmid on the inside, perhaps clipping his wheel but certainly he braked and lost a little control. That pushed Schmid straight/wide, taking Vendrame and Valter wide. They were winding up to come around the outside and it just kept getting outsider into the motor pen. Schmid bounced off Vendrame and got back on track. Tonelli just sort of slimed through to third.

I thought it was closer to a penalty on Bauwman than Sean Kelly did. If it was Sagan and Cav, they'd probably both be DQd.

GrainBrain

Oh yes I see it now. I watched it live but didn't register what he'd done. Schmid had his back wheel locked up a few times in that corner and drifted around, which was great handling.

I can see why it's a bit of a dirty trick. You assume he was at his limit and just over cooked but ...


... This is my look on stage 21 after overlooking Carapaz and thinking Jai would be a great underdog waaaaay back a few Thursdays before the Giro start.

diphthong

the results are in...slcbob did indeed complete the "worst to first" journey with the 2022 giro d'italia! team X Merckx the Spot
is the big pasta, and by a pretty big margin after finishing in the top 10%! some of those underperformers did indeed kick in
during that last week. Phil Shepherd and team Das Boot takes the second step of the podium while the host/curmudgeon
trips over that bottom podium step. giro was a blast! thanks to everyone that participated and hope to see you for the tour
in a month! ciaofornow!

GrainBrain

That was a good run, Ooga and I tieing on the final TT - happy to achieve 4th and a big nod to ooga's Mollema pick. Maybe more thoughts after this big weekend. Thanks for the organizing Ooga!

This was a good fantasy go, lots of people close.

Bob 45th in Eurosport league, nice! Demare pick was actually pretty rare? Inspired.

Phil Shepard made the most of it without Tratnik! Really didn't want to see Tratnik out like that, would've really changed some dynamics.

Gallo

What a great Giro

Glad I played

Two riders I was close to picking were Landa and Hirt Bini

Hirt was amazing not sure his points but rode really well

Bini looks like the real deal

Jai has redeemed his loss kinda came out of nowhere in the sense I knew he had a second but just never considered him He was off my radar entirely. He rode like a champion and well deserved.

Carapaz left nothing and that was an amazing defense on stage 20. Major kudos to him

So many stories because GC were bunched up the last week it drama as only the Giro delivers

Thanks Oogga for setting this up once again It was a blast

diphthong

my pleasure. this giro seems to ask more questions than it answered tho. bora looks to be a beast. assuming they throw the kitchen sink at the tdf (so maybe 2-3 riders that participated in the giro roll into the tdf??...kamna + kelderman or buchmann??). teams jv, ef, uae, arkea, astana and quick step went relatively low-key. ineos would seem to be the 64k pregunta...gthomas, tgh, pidcock, castroviejo, danny martinez, adam yates, ganna, kwiatkowski and dylan...odd man out? thinking gthomas. team just seems to be in flux. guess things would be less so if carapaz had held on to nab the final maglia rosa. head to head, still woulda taken carapaz over hindley 10 out of 10 times. such is life.