Pavé Tour 10h

[sylvainmeteo]

I'll start here, Probably with FL and Alkworld apparently ^^

Lineup :

Hlohovsky, our GC leader (goal is white at least)
Hmiel, Helper and little sprinter
Tverendahl, Helper, maybe GC leader n°2
Vilkovik, Helper
Skvarka, Helper
Bezjak, our pavé leader
Rastorgujevs, Helper
Sarbek, Helper
Mc Bernick, marathon man, Helper too, probably his last tour in his career

All that for 377k

Goals : 1 stage, Win white jersey and top 5 GC

[team fl]

SM is right, Team FL will participate at 9h too. After a successful tour in East Africa, the line-up for the Tour des Pavés changes a bit. Instead of Taverna, Ollé Ollé, Unsinn and Büchel, the Steinsson twins, Hörnö and Henri Bienvenu are new in the team's line-up, that looks like this:

x1 Kari Steinsson, Kiesler-twin No. 1
x2 Arni Steinsson, Kiesler-twin No. 2
x3 Stéphane Antiga, post EATer
x4 Kenny Banzer, post EATer
x5 Stefano Benni, post EATer
x6 Henri Bienvenu, smiling for Ollé Ollé
x7 Victor Fargas, post EATer
x8 Niels Hörnö, Looks for Henri's teeth once
x9 Walter Walch, post EATer

Goals is everything as usual. We just don't know yet who will get it all.

[Alkworld]

Team Alkworld would love to participate at 9am, but will go for the 10am race. Line-Up is easy: Sort Alkworld riders by pave skill, take the first nine riders, sort them alphabetically. Salary turns out to be around 435k, definitely very cheap for a tour like this one.

[team fl]

Team Alkworld would love to participate at 9am, but will go for the 10am race. Line-Up is easy: Sort Alkworld riders by pave skill, take the first nine riders, sort them alphabetically. Salary turns out to be around 435k, definitely very cheap for a tour like this one.

Pavé pavé. After the Pavés de Noel, this is the second race esp. for Pavé riders that is for classic riders with some pavé instead... Anyway, it will be very interesting as we have lots of good 60-80s in the 10h (!) group, by Sportsfreunde, ENEFEL and SM.

[Alkworld]

Team Alkworld would love to participate at 9am, but will go for the 10am race. Line-Up is easy: Sort Alkworld riders by pave skill, take the first nine riders, sort them alphabetically. Salary turns out to be around 435k, definitely very cheap for a tour like this one.

Pavé pavé. After the Pavés de Noel, this is the second race esp. for Pavé riders that is for classic riders with some pavé instead... Anyway, it will be very interesting as we have lots of good 60-80s in the 10h (!) group, by Sportsfreunde, ENEFEL and SM.

Well, two stages for hardcore pave specialists, the rest could go either way. Classics will need a lot of pavé to get out of the first two stages unharmed. Pave riders with < 50 climbing may have problems on the last stage, the other two shouldn't be too bad for them. Otero would easily eat everyone here

[sylvainmeteo]

that's why the GC will be really interesting

[team fl]

Well, two stages for hardcore pave specialists, the rest could go either way.

I see only one stage for hardcore pavé specialists, stage 2. First one ist for every rider over 65 pavé and sprint, third is for classics with pavé, third the same, last one even for pure classics with 70+ pavé. Depends on the teams too, but i really don't see a second stage that is for hardcore pavé specialists.

[Robyklebt]

Depends on what is "hardcore" pavé specialist...
First one GC wise nobody who is protected will lose much of course. For the GC fairly unimportant, it's highly unlikely that a big anti-low-pavé rider coalition is formed.... and alone nobody can afford to kill his team for that. So... no early siebs. Protected guys, GC guys, in the last 2 laps will be much stronger than unprotected helpers with more pavé... Then dropped dropped in the last lap is the most likely, but protected, so don't lose much, and if they get help by strong flat riders after that... the loss will be minimal. See FLs team in your group, if he decides on protecting Benni for example, and gives him the dentist and a strange Steinsson? He'lll lose almost nothing to the tour favorites. That are... mmh, I'm pretty confindent my tipp for the final winner will be correct, but keep it private for the moment
If we talk about the stage win, 65 pavé shouldn't be enough, it's still a 3, I'd have said 72-74 pavé needed most likely to compete for the win. Depending on the group of course too. Haven't analysed your group that much yet, so no prediction for your groups stage winner.

[team fl]

Ha, it's as usual nothing of the above but answer d, a group won in front of the hardcore pave specialists. I think all of us were a bit surprised how hard the split was at the last pave km. So even Benni lost some seconds. The classics are still in the fight for the GC although tomoorrow will be even more selective.

[sylvainmeteo]

The escape won today, bit big sieb behind...

GC :
*** : I want to put Nobody
** : Valuev, Kari Steinsson, Eloy Alfaro, Tcherkov
* : Hlohovsky, Arni Steinsson, Kyang Kim, Oscar Romero

Green :
*** : Kari Steinsson, Eloy Alfaro
** : Valuev
* : The others good GC contenders

White :
*** : Hlohovsky
** : Antiga
* : Hmiel, Skvarka

Red :

Nothing ^^

I think the podium will be Valuev, Kari Steinsson and Eloy Alfaro, but I don't know in which order ^^

[Alkworld]

My version looks a lot different:

GC:
***** Kari or Arni Steinsson (both Team FL)
**** Eloy Alfaro (Alkworld)
***
**
* Valuev (Sportsfreunde), Bezjak, Hlohovsky (both SM Team), Beletti (UC Ponte Vecchio)

The twins have the big advantage over Eloy of having four arms, four legs and two bicycles. The riders itself are pretty similar, Kari being the best flat and pavé rider, Eloy the best climber and sprinter and Arni the best in downhill while all have bad reg. But Team FL has two options and the better team. However, if the twins never get rid of Eloy, he'll be hard to beat.

Green: like GC

Team:
*** Team FL
** Alkworld
* SM Team, Sportsfreunde

Sportsfreunde is far ahead right now, but may lose a lot of time today and might even lose some riders early.

[team fl]

Funny that SM mentions Antiga as second best rated rider for white, a rider that already has a gap of 6 min to the favorites... I guess Hlohosky will win that classement without a big fight, as all his opponents seem to be helpers for the real GC contenders. Even a double victory in the youth classement together with Skvarka is possible.

After the result yesterday, I also think that the GC victory will be decided among the Steinsson twins and Alfaro. Depending on the development of the stages, Sportsfreunde with Valuev or even Kim might have chances too together with Hlohovsky from SM. Bezjak in my eyes really has to less mountain to be dangerous in the GC. Beletti from UC PonteVecchio though might be an interesting opponent. The rest of the classics union is already too far behind the mentioned riders to be a serious threat, esp as they will lose a lot of time today too, very likely.

Rest of the classements, meaning green and team, seems to be wide open, although in the team classement, Sportsfreunde has a little advantage after the stage win yesterday. But in a pavé stage race, this may change quickly. On paper we, Team FL seem to have the best chances to win it. Green is even harder to tell. I say, the one of the three main GC favorites (Arni, Kari or Eloy) wins it, this one will also win the GC. Besides that, almost everything is possible, depending on the situations in the GC and esp. among the three of them.

Btw, maybe SM could change the title of the race thread to "Pavé Tour 10h"?

[team fl]

Ah, stupid me. Two big mistakes. 1st, not making tempo with Fargas after Hörnö was gone, 2nd the attack with Kari. Solution would have been either to make tempo with Fargas (obviously) or not to hang or just tempo on the last 0**** with Kari as he had the most power for the finish anyway and then ride on with Fargas. But no, I have to attack and jeopardise all the efforts the team made during the stage. Grmpf. Anyway, nothing won, but also nothing lost. Although one result of the fight on the last km was that the classic riders did not lose much time. This could be a disadvantage for Kari and Eloy. Arni is out of the GC fight now, another bad result of the day. Fargas still in, but the next days will be hard. Anyway, as Eloy has now more points than Kari and his team will be fitter the next days, he has all advantages. Team FL just fucked it up today. Not completely but enough.

[sylvainmeteo]

Surprised that you and Alk didn't sprint, but I didn't have to ride with Bezjak, my leader is behind and Erik did a great job to avoid to lose too much time, could be good tomorrow with Sportfreunde, I'm not bad in mountains, but my team need reg for such a tour, I'm happy that no escape today, and no hard tempo in the first 130 kms

Happy with the win, but I'll lost green tomorrow ^^

[team fl]

Surprised that you and Alk didn't sprint, but I didn't have to ride with Bezjak, my leader is behind and Erik did a great job to avoid to lose too much time, could be good tomorrow with Sportfreunde, I'm not bad in mountains, but my team need reg for such a tour, I'm happy that no escape today, and no hard tempo in the first 130 kms

Happy with the win, but I'll lost green tomorrow ^^

Not surprising at all, it's about Reg.

[Alkworld]

Exciting race today. This was the stage I feared most and I'm therefore very happy with the result. Sprinting by the way would have been a big surprise and awfully stupid, so SM might guess how the energy of the two monsters looked like In the GC, it looks like Eloy has a minor advantage now, being ahead in sprint points and being the better sprinter. But the fight is still far from being over. And the classic riders also still have to be kept in mind. Teams FL or Alkworld could control them easily, if they wouldn't have to watch out for each other. But like this, it's at least more interesting.

[Sportsfreunde]

So thanks for the link.

His team "Sportsfreunde" would like to write something for the tour.

My team unfortunately had to take Costa as we would otherwise have been too expensive.
The 1st Stage was great that we got through with the group. Great result yesterday Iniesta defends yellow.

Tomorrow is going to sausages. Valuev has not yet written off the GC and would like to have yellow from Iniesta.

Alfaro or Kari Steinson but the favorites in the GC. It will be interesting what they will lose today and tomorrow. The man in the white team SM has a good shape and I think will stick to Valuev.

I'm looking forward to the outcome.

LG Sportsfreunde

[team fl]

Cosy stage for Team FL today. Although Kari is now 3 points behind Eloy, still everything seems possible. Eloy also took over the green jersey from Bezjak while LeWise's rider Tcherkov won the stage with a great attack 2km before the finish line. In the back, it was Romero who won the sprint out of the main group, in which the Steinsson twins together with Fargas rode over the finish line. While the general and the points classement are still open to a certain degree, white seems to be sealed for Hlohovsky. In the GC, it's still Kari fighting against Eloy with Bezjak in same time and Belletti, Fargas and Hlohovsky waiting in striking distance. The rest is already more than one minute in the back. Anyway, so far it's still Iniesta with the yellow jersey, 5' in front of the chasers, losing 41' today.

[AlmavivaItalia]

Cosy stage for Team FL today. Although Kari is now 3 points behind Eloy, still everything seems possible. Eloy also took over the green jersey from Bezjak while LeWise's rider Tcherkov won the stage with a great attack 2km before the finish line. In the back, it was Romero who won the sprint out of the main group, in which the Steinsson twins together with Fargas rode over the finish line. While the general and the points classement are still open to a certain degree, white seems to be sealed for Hlohovsky. In the GC, it's still Kari fighting against Eloy with Bezjak in same time and Belletti, Fargas and Hlohovsky waiting in striking distance. The rest is already more than one minute in the back. Anyway, so far it's still Iniesta with the yellow jersey, 5' in front of the chasers, losing 41' today.

Bolded: i hope 5'' and 41''....

[team fl]

of courso.

[Sportsfreunde]

After yesterday, I made ​​a mistake and Valuev is not driven for Iniesta I will lose the yellow jersey today. It is very annoying because I thought Valuev would be stronger on the mountain with Pave. The specialist showed me but how to win. Now I have nothing to lose and I will also ride.

Good luck to all ...

[Alkworld]

After yesterday, I made ​​a mistake and Valuev is not driven for Iniesta I will lose the yellow jersey today. It is very annoying because I thought Valuev would be stronger on the mountain with Pave. The specialist showed me but how to win. Now I have nothing to lose and I will also ride.

Good luck to all ...

Well observed. Like I wrote in the votes, in a tight race like this, you have to decide for one captain and ride 100% (or at least 95%) for that one (of course, I would have helped FL on Tuesday, if you would have done everything for yellow ). In pavé, especially in a tough fight like here, every single helper can make a difference. But the good outcome of this situation is: Next time you have more experience!
And by the way, Valuev was weakened a lot, when he was without a helper for a long time. SM Team almost got you back early, but in the end he could be convinced not to

[team fl]

SM Team almost got you back early, but in the end he could be convinced not to

That was an akward situation for me as SM did not understand that. For fairplay, I did not want to say something, but in the end it went well anyway

[team fl]

Again a group that decided the stage. Not good for Team FL this time as Kari would have won it and gained two instead of only one sprint point compared with Eloy. But well, so tomorrow is the deciding stage. While Alk can ride defensively, it seem the rest have to challenge the man in yellow, now Eloy Alfaro who took it from Iniesta finally.

So we just keep on hoping that somehow Kari can decide this duell...

[sylvainmeteo]

Erik!