cycling4freaks.com

Time again for some pavés! Very unfortunately, the Tour starts at Tuesday, so Team FL will need a sitter for Saturday for sure and maybe even for Friday. So, if anybody is interested... -> PM. Anyway, so far the TdP has always been a must attend for the Liechtenstein cycling team, and that's not different for 2014. The line-up will maybe be the oldes ever at the TdP with less chances than in other years, but still lots of fun. The Team FL management therefore decided to hand out the numbers alphabetically not to put too much pressures on the pavé cracks:

x1 Kenny Banzer
x2 Victor Fargas
x3 Tomasz Kowalski
x4 Arunas Paulauskas
x5 Martti Rosenblatt
x6 Janis Smedins
x7 Desideriu Vatca
x8 Wilhelm "Vikkelä Ville" Wahlforss
x9 Ariel Weisman

Goal is not to give in before Friday and to find a decent sitter for the remaining stages.

Weee, good first stage, Martti won it. Thanks to CircleCycle for the cooperation and special thanks to nessundorma for behaving very fair in the end. Well, for the GC not much has happened so far but Hamilton having an advantage of 6 seconds now. The decision for White seems also to be broken down to two riders, one each from Falkenbier and Rasmussenbank. Green very open, as well as the team classement.

After seeing the group, the GC fight seems to be decided among CircleCycle, nessundorma and Team FL, all with three or more 80+ pavé riders, while the rest of the group has max. one of them. It will be interesting to see what happens once nessundorma is online and when the other two need a sitter, like Team FL does for Friday (already fixed) and Saturday (still looking for).

Puh, very small group, and even so no chance for anything for the Falkenbeers it seems against this monster 80+ cobble teams
Hoped that maybe a group could have had a chance today so Ochoa went for the escape, by oneself. Solo win so, ha! But then Furpach comes with two riders while in the peloton bad FL and CC starting tempo. So this was over.
In the end no chance for an attack and the final sprint... clear thing for Rosenblatt.

Anyway, the fight for GC looks very open (at least for some of us... bah).

So let's hope for a bit more action the next days

Potzblitz. Janis Smedins with the second Team FL stage win after two stages and now six seconds in front of Hamilton. Not bad. A bit a surprise is nessundorma's result. Pehlivan and Värnik finished 18 secs behind Smedins while Corradino - after serious pacemaking - even lost more than half a minute. While nothing is decided in the GC yet, this could be too much of a burden against Team FL and Cycling Circle. Still in the game are Toffee and Shiryaev, both with nothing to lose, but with small outsider chances at most because of their slightly weaker teams.

Green is still open too, but it looks like Hamilton is the big favorite for that classement already 5 points in front of everybody else and even 7 in front of the most dangerous GC rider, Smedins. Contrary to GC and Green, White should be decided, because of the youth riders, only Dekkers from Rasmussenbank is still "in the game" 18 secs behind the GC leader. Second in the youth classement follows with a gap of more than 23 minutes.

Finally, the team classement is led by CircleCycle at the moment 30 secs in front of Team FL and 38 secs in front of nessundorma. Although this already is a comforable advantage, still a lot can change here during the next three days, especially when groups will arrive with big time gaps in front of the GC favorites.

Already two FL wins, wah. And tomorrow we have the Steinsson stage! Think he'll dominating the rest then...

Well, should have tried an attack myself with Yuri at the 5*** I think, maybe I am a bit closer then to Smedins? And Hamilton couldn't follow there? Don't know it... anyway, 2nd against all the monsters a good place for Yuri. His problem is: No helper with pave, bah.

Smedins with this win in a good position for GC. FL now the controller of the peloton. nessundorma with his mass could make a lot of action the comming days (if he's on...), and CyclingCircle still there with Hamilton. But he needs the bonus secs which on the other hand isn't very cool for escapers, mmmhh... or he goes for Mulqueen? Mmmmh. Let's see, let's see...

Well, thanks to Alkworld today
But no idea, what to do tomorrow and the following days

Stage 3, as expected a group fought about the stage win. In the end, Smedins missed to attack and to distance some GC contestants even further. But well, still looks good. Tomorrow, Team FL will be sitted by the Singe.

Ochoa! 8th race for Falkenbier and already the 1st victory. That's more than the old Eggimann, Aebersold and Ellermaa together!

Good cooperation so far in front. Nobody in peloton who wanted the win. Ok CyclingCircle, but riding alone against 3 with 35 degrees, puuhh. Nothing changed in general classement today. Will be different tomorrow, I'm sure. The ape sitting Team FL, eyeyey...