Paris Nimes 11am

[CircleCycle]

CC starts here, hoping for a few stagewins....

1) Jeff Talley
2) Giuseppe Bottazzi
3) James Bertal
4) Franz Oberhauser
5) Edmund Sackbauer
6) Theodosius Florentini
7) Bruno Buttino
8) Constantin vonJascheroff
9) Edwin Neugebauer

Franz already won the Prolog, now hoping that Sackbauer gets one stage too.

[kunske]

Big mistake by me. The trekken train didn't worked. Forgot to follow otherwise good chance with zabel in form.
Tomorrow another chance

[CircleCycle]

At least the stages weren't as boring as the Race-thread.
3 sprints, with Shadow(SV Furpach), Zabel (trekken) and Sackbauer (CC) as winners, in the fight for green Sackbauer took Boni at the first GC-Stage which put him 6 points in front of Zabel. Only difficult thing thereafter was not to let him drop out of the peloton on the saturday mountain stage.
In the first GC-stage nobody really tried to attack Furpach, he brought Mount to the last kms with hard controlling, giving numerous group not even 3mins which made the fight for red very interesting.
Next stage the fight for red continues with Peppone (CC) taking advantage over the riders of Idefix and trekken. Sprinters weren't interested and got dropped anyway. At the last hill, Mount, Martin and Talley attacked and when everything looked like the 3 could gain time against other climbers, Cologne decides to go for an easy stagewin and attacks with a flatrider. In the sprint of the remaining riders in front, surprisingly Talley was first, because the two 65 sprinters started far too early.
King stage saw a large group attacking as early as km5 with the riders fighting for red and some others. A few km later the group increases with 2 more helpers for Peppone posing early problems for Cologne, who unfortunately was offline the first 10km. Furpach and CC used their pullers perfectly until the decisive situation at km123 arose. Talley attacking, trying to join the group in front, next km Martin and Mount following, trying to do the same, but Mount siebed Martin at the 12, while Talley was still in front and couldn't be dropped. Good cooperation between SV Furpach and CC until the next hill, where I tried to keep Bottazzi in front and not to let the climber of Mapei join this escape. Only 4" divided Herklotz from the leading group with Mount, Talley and Bottazzi at the last gpm, with the result, that Bottazzi now, with the help of Mount in the downhill parts, carried the group to the finishline, where Talley was the only one to sprint. GC was decided, like all the other jerseys as well.
The last TT saw the expected win of Martin (Cologne), which secured him 3rd place in the GC.

CC says thx for an interesting tour, altough there could have been more action from teams like Mapei