GIRO 2014 Afternoon 15h

[luques]

Luques will start here probably.

Will need a sitter during Sundays, but for the rest should be there 100%

Update:

Surely the team will come with Andrey + Ivan + Dmitrenko + Yngve + Bulloch, other names will be available after

[Alkworld]

Team Alkworld will pretty likely also ride in the afternoon. There's still a small chance that we'll have to go for the morning, but looks good at the moment for afternoon.
The team is also not entirely clear yet, but some riders are already fixed:
- Francisco Goya
- Martin deGüemes
- Luis Chien
- MiguelAngel Asturias
- Manuel Azana
- JoseMiguel Carrera
- Guadalupe Victoria

It's still open who'll fill the remaining seats. Benito Juarez as a GC captain is first on this list, but Sancho Panza and Nicolas RodriguezPena also have good chances of getting in.

[Robyklebt]

The Donkey will be here too

1 Primoz Groselj GC leader and general super star
2 Michael Creek: Sprint leader
3 Jamaluddin Ghazali: Sprint train man, maybe can be leader too at times
4 Tatsuya Hara: flat helper with reg
5 Aodhagan MacBradaigh TTT star
6 Spartaco Poggi star helper and TTT guy
7 Yordan Tabakov: Flat star for sprints
8 Ikhtiyor Tansykbayev: Classic helper for Groselj
9 Gaspard Trenteseaux: weaker classic with some TT for the TTT.

As we can see a sprinters line up with a pretty isolated Groselj for the GC. Pure stupidity of course, with the GIS (Great Intuitive Sprint) and the army of trick sprinters and all that shit we probably will get 0 stages with Creek. But who cares, we just made a team as if we had a sprint system that made sense. GC, we shouldn't lose too much time in the TTT, pretty good team for our standard, then we'll see, without a decent helper want be easy for Groselj, but of course we'll try.

[luques]

Alk and the donkey in so.... mmm ... Need someone who can challenge Alk.

Maybe Black-Star is in too and also Playboys is inscripted... let's see.

[Robyklebt]

What challenge Alk?
Challenge GROSELJ!

[RS Ostfriesland]

Hm, im not sure if i start at 15h or 18h.
Robys sprinter is too strong for me i guess. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Alkworld]

Hm, im not sure if i start at 15h or 18h.
Robys sprinter is too strong for me i guess. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

15h, of course We need more teams in the afternoon and we'll try to be nice.

[Robyklebt]

Yes, 15h
But I won't be nice. I will win all stages. And the GC. And whatever else there is to win.

[luques]

There is only one rule.

Let Luques Win

For the rest you can have all the fun you want

[RS Ostfriesland]

RS Ostfriesland - brave east frisian power cince 2008 starting also at 15h

Lineup:

#1: Oliver Ireland - Sprintleader
#2: Oisin Chisholm - Sprint helper
#3: Collin Dunleavy - Flat helper
#4: Knut Hansen - Hillyflat helper
#5: Henk Houten - GC leader
#6: Noah Keane - Flat helper
#7: Tommy Moroney - Flat helper
#8: Brian OSmith - Sprint helper
#9: Trevor Smith - Flat helper

Target: Win more stages than last year and win green.

Maintarget: Have some fun and thats why i choose the 15h field.

[luques]

Lost the Irish transfer, will be back in Italy in Bari.

Anyway good win to all the winners of this 2 days. And see you tomorrow

[Alkworld]

Now with the Giro d'Italia starting finally, it's time to think about the race. Well, actually it's pretty simple as Allagen said it will be easy for me. So if it's not, please make it easy for me. Anyway, the GC candidates seem to be (roughly in the mentioned order):
- Alkworld: four climbers, the strongest classic rider, Juarez, the possible captain, with good TT skills (67), but only a 81 climber and average reg
- Quickstep: strong leader (Ralf Meier), already 30s ahead, but barely any support of a team, but better TT, climbing and reg than Juarez
- Big Donkey: Lots of apes led by a donkey, nobody knows, if that'll work - strong leader Groselj with low TT and maximum reg, but not much of a team for his support
- Luques: Andrey Vasilyuk, similar to Groselj, good climber, excellent reg, but better TT skills, but also lacking decent helpers in the mountains
- Die Playboys: Already lost lots of time in the TTT, but the only one with strong helpers in the mountains
- Black-Star: Strongest climber in the group, but low reg and TT and no strong helpers

Team ABC-Polsat and RS Ostfriesland are of course the biggest favorites of all, but maybe not for GC without a climber

[RS Ostfriesland]

I will save your ass on the transfer stages

[luques]

BOOM BOOM ARTYOM!

Got my Giro stage win happy for that, now i can also relax

[Robyklebt]

Spartaco! First Italian stage winnner, very good.
2 stages so far for Big Donkey, first Creek, next the great Spartaco, thanks to the great donkey from Liechtenstein, we're not sure if that's Hugo Marxer or FL. Big Donkey is already satisfied with that, really, 1 stage with Creek was the big goal, he has to win sometimes.... and for the rest let's see. Now we'll have an eye on the red jersey with Michael, one on the rosa with Groselj, just to be sure, and in case we have more than 2 eyes will keep them to look out for even more stages.

[Robyklebt]

How insulting, Groselj will ride in YELLOW in Italy tomorrow, yellow. Blaaaaaaaaaaah.
3rd place in the stage, gained minimal time to Alk, but that was always clear, it was going to be minimal anyway. Alk in the meantime showed that for the moment Juarez is indeed his first choice, something I wasn't really sure about until today. And still not sure, could very well be that he still changes to Goya later, Martin seems out though. Unless the rest really plays it strange. Meier 11" behind Juarez now, which is not enough to be safe yet, but well, somehow the distance will come automatically. Just seems Alk wants to have it done and over with fast..

[luques]

Nice two days in the mountain.

Sry for the lack of partecipation, but weekend are always a problem.

Actually they went even better then what i thought, on stage 8 we got an unexpected victory, today we got some time.

Especially today I was almost sure that Alk would close everything till the end, and getting some time + bonisecs looks nice. Not that I really think to win something here, the objective still remains the podium but I would like to have a Giro open till the end.

I hope not to mess up everything at ITT as usual.

Today move of Quickstep didn't pay, but I like to have some actions, although doing it to Alk looks a loooooooooooot difficult.

Have all a good rest day and see you tuesday.

[Alkworld]

From my side, those two days almost went according to the plan. Quickstep's Meier and helpers seem to be too weak to have a real chance in the GC. However Andrey and Primoz are certainly still in the race, mostly because of their high reg, which will give them a big advantage during and after the TT. Any of those two with another climber on its side would be very hard to beat for Benito. But as they don't have good support in the mountains, I still believe that he has a good chance to win this Giro. But some question marks of course will remain for a few more days.