Tour de France 2013 15h

[team fl]

Tour is over, life goes on. Finally.

For myself, the Tour was more or less disappointing. I started with a very expensive team not expecting much financially anyway. With my 84/85 duo at least there was the hope to get some action in the mountains. But with all the young guns from Singe (Primorz), Gaurain (Tom Seeldrayers) and the Recien Trio, also this hope was not big. Benni and Joe were the other stage win candidates, besides the escape option. In the end, it's one Eddie and one Joe stage win. Benni missed the chance during the first week and had too bad form at the end of week 2 and in week 3. In the end, 2 is okay, although at least three like last year would have been better, of course. GC wise, it was okay. Eddie 4th, Roy 8th. If I would have been online more often and not via smartphone, maybe even podium could have been possible.

But the biggest downer for this years Tour was - as already hinted in the the last sentence - was the lacking online presence in front of a decent device. And - I really have to tell that - contantly annoying SM. That's almost not bearable, the bullshit that he produces in the chat almost every stage. Another little downer was maybe Saxo-Bank -tinkof, esp. in the first week. Obviously a team that does not have much experience not cooperating in groups and sensless chasing if not present in a group. But this got better until the end of the Tour. Not like SM's outpourings of self-pitty. lol. ^^

In the end something positive. I really liked how Recien and the Singe coexisted during the whole tour without harming each other, although some jokes were made about each other, wa. Another nice experience for me was that esp. with luques a more ore less new player joined C4F who it is nice to ride with for 3 weeks. This is due to his chat behaviour and due to his understanding of the game as such. Consequently, he had a successful tour when it comes to stage wins - at least in my opinion. Another positive thing was Quickstep. Having one of the most annyoing sprint trains, he behaved very aware of that and performed well in sprints and working for them.

Finally, Gaurain was the sovereign winner of the Afternoon Tour 2013. And very gladly, we are not the Tour at 10h where the perverted the very Tour's spirit during the last stage. This credit goes mainly to Red Wine, a rather quiet asset to the Afternoon Tour this year, but nevertheless a very fair and competitive player, who did well esp. on Saturday when Gaurain was off and only had a sitter for the last part of the stage.

Have I forgotten somebody? Well, I hope not, otherwise the team was not important enough. My last words will be about a category we don't honour at C4F that much, about the most combative rider: For me it's Rakhat Momyshuly. With 36 Reg, he tried a lot in the mountain stages, with more or less success. But he tried, he fought. And he won the polka dot classement because of that. He also vicariously representes all the other Singe riders who tried and did not succeed or were only helpers: Bochini, Pellevoisin, etc.

All the other categories may be found ingame.

[Robyklebt]

Finished!
It wasn't a bad tour. But not a good one either.
Reasons:
1. FL!
2. 9 teams
3. Motivation.
4. The sprint system.

Ok, a bit more in depth.
1. He shamelessly insults Primoz by inserting some weird letter into his beautiful name. BASTARD!
3. By not bringing Trapani, I had no real chance in the GC from the start.... so I wasn't all that into the race often. Doesn't often that much, but a few stages I really thought, baaa, would rather do something else than sitting in front of the PC for this stupid TdF. Like sitting in front of the PC for the real TdF.. hehe. My own fault of course, should have brought Trapani (instead of Tasman, but that idea found its way into my beautiful and highly erotic head only the day of the first stage, and being a slow decider I couldn't bring myself to change it.) Like that I was just there... stage outsider, GC outsider etc. Which is ok, just the motivation is not the same. But well, rather this than the parallel program a la Bergwerk!
4. It takes away a lot of the fun of flat stages. With a new system that actually works in a sensible way, ok, good, but the stupid "bugs", actually features probably. Flat counts for getting the wheel at 450 meters, oohhh, so intuitive.... Even SM discovered the bug, which was a very very big problem then that day, no more "lol, mdr, this new system is so great, lol".
2. I think for only 9 we did well enough, but was still only 9. Basically half the teams that could hope to win in the sprint were forced to attack every day to still have something resembling a race. FL, Petit Singe, Luques were in the offensive in almost all sprint stages, which actually didn't excite me all that much, but.... who else is going to attack? Recien was off or passive in the flat. Red Wine passive. Saxo in the attack, but with kind of special ideas on how escapes should work. Mountain and middle mountain stages similar... just not enough players, all predictable, not often different interest that make the race unpredictable, more tactical. It was just pretty straight forward. A attacks, B (mostly Gaurain) has to defend. Bigger groups are just more fun.

The race:
Sprints: As I said, mostly FL, Luques and Petit Singe attacking... in the start though quickstep as well, or at least not really working in the back, only in the second half he started that. IMO actually Gaurain would have deserved the green jersey more than SM, he actually did more than SM for the sprint. SM panicking and whining even though he had pretty easy groups to catch, while Gaurain just worked. But Gaurain not interested in it, he wanted yellow, got that, fully deserved too. Never was in the green fight, didn't do the intermediates. Good man, should have lost white too though, grrrr! Then De Roy 2, the SM guy 2, the stupid name 1, Gao 1, Friesenbichler 1, pretty well distributed, my win extremely lucky have to admit, but take it. Sprints though just stupid with that stupid flat stuff etc.

GC: Not much to do for Gaurain really. He had everything under control, and with his reg many of the possible opponents were out anyway, the 3 days in the alpes very hard for them. My original plan actually was to ride for Groselj more than Rakhat, exactly for this reason, but ok, managed to win way too much time with Groselj already in the pyrenees.. with a real boredom attack. Recien tried a bit too, once when Gaurain was off, big +++ for Red Wine there as FL already said. Petit Singe "tried" too. Wasn't even real tries though somehow, was just too clear it would go nowhere... the Alpes try ok, that one was ok I thought, try to make Gaurain have to decide between chasing the apes hard and risk somethign the next day from others, or let the duo go and maybe lose some time... Problem there was I should have sent 2 fit guys. And Pompiliu, not Tasman, wanted to save Pompiliu for the attack a day later, the attack that never happened because Gaurain was offline, which actually really pissed me off... he kind of blocked our possible attacks with that. Anyway, on the Grand Bornand day Gaurain defend very well, left us a big advantage, knowing that Luques and Ape had no reg and not enough firepower ahead to really pose a problem. Fully deserved win by Preidler. The rest... we really were just statist, again, here maybe a bigger group would have made it more interesting. And I wouldn't have won 2 mountain stages.. hehe. Ah yes, very stupid ape sprint on Ventoux.... argh.. should have won. but ok.

Votes.. mmh maybe later, wife says we have to go shopping!

[team fl]

Who calls a rider like that anyway. And no, I am not born outside marriage. pfff...

[gaurain rx]

Cool... As I have no real clue what exactly happened, lets talk about form!

Preidler : Topform on the second TT. Actually, strategic choice! Wanted to have a long term advantage on the other climbers (I bet most of them had Alpe d'Huez Topform) during the Pyrénées and Ventoux stage (and TT too);

Seeldrayers : Ventoux Topform... maybe the best choice I made! Covering the Pyrénées and then hoping he trains a bit (what he did actually)! And ok, also get white like that, being able to sieb Primosz in the Ventoux!

Lemebré : Second Pyrénées Stage Topform! The classic for the first week. Others 2 for the last one!

Timonier : Gap Stage Topform... A master choice again! H won that stage... Which I was a bit fearfull about!

Ledigé : Grand Bornand Topform! Most difficult stage to controll IMO (with the second pyrénées one) so decicded to have 4 main guy in really good shape for that one!

Rest, Irrelevant!

[Robyklebt]

Seeldrayers : Ventoux Topform... maybe the best choice I made! Covering the Pyrénées and then hoping he trains a bit (what he did actually)! And ok, also get white like that, being able to sieb Primosz in the Ventoux!

Grrr... Seeldrayers didn't sieb Groselj, I know you know, but people who don't know might misunderstand!
And IMO more important was the ape helper mistake that day... Groseljs helper in the escape.. otherwise he stays longer and doesn't lose much. Grrr. But he won a stage the great Groselj!