Andes 2013 afternoon

[Robyklebt]

Groselj!
Third Andes win in a row for the apes, Petit Singe is happy.
In the end it was decided by the TTT. After that the apes only had to defend. And having a pretty good team, that finally turned out to be pretty easy. The team though wasn't that strong, in a way the high mountain skills hid a few weaknesses. Nothing to complain about Zhores. Except that he only trained up once this month. Rakhat Momyshuly with his 36 or so reg works one day, then he's pretty much useless for the rest of the tour. Nobody made him do that for a long time though, nessundorma in the third last stage. Too late for Abarth. Then Tasman... good mountain, not much flat, no downhill. He's more an overpaid battery than a good helper in races like this. Especially as nr 4, so most of the time wasn't really helped either. Next the biggest weakness. Ikhtiyor and Gaspard. 67 mountain. My 2 flat stars with mountain actually just don't have enough mountain. Get rid of those and on a stage like the one to Cotopaxi I'm potentially in huge trouble. Tire them out a bit, with their reg not difficult. And then try to take advantage of it with your own classics or benefit from other classics to send yours ahead. That's how Trapani won the Andes in 12, thanks to Legrand. Ok, here for Abarth difficult, his team was pretty horrible. 4 riders left early... But here it was the riding by Abarth that was horrible. He simply didn't even try in the Gruppetto. Never really. He just hoped others would do the job, late in the race then he usually proposed that everybody works. Why not just start yourself and then ask around if others are interested. And start early.... ok, he would have lost lots of riders anyway, but all a bit later. The 4 left.. Maille never used, he was the guy with reg that could at least try to kill Ikthiyor and Gaspard. since nobody else did that for him. But he was just there... for nothing really. But ok, with this team it was difficult to do much for Abarth, still, he never even tried. And got no help from others trying to make me suffer. nessundorma offline, Black Stars isolated too and with no reg himself much less likely to profit from an ape defaillance than Abarth. St Etienne another guy with a team that can make me suffer, but he only attacked with Witschge, never attempting to bridge with Nguyen. Or never really trying just to go for stages with some of his countless 68+ mountain guys. So really in the end was pretty easy. 3 stages for Groselj as a nice + too.

Tour was fun enough, 10 teams, pretty good online presence to generally. Last year with 7 teams the group was stronger though I think. But ok, can't have everything.
Fun enough Andes.