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It's pavé time again! Yipee! and Team FL joins the fun. At 10h. Hopefully for every day. With these riders:

x1 Valentin Bratoev, happy to be No. 1
x2 Martin Hrast, doesn't care at all
x3 Peter Kasper, rides with Punch (be aware of some pun around!!!)
x4 Royston Lightning, wants to be No. 1
x5 Fran Peterlin, likes to stand in the middle point, litteraly
x6 Dominikos Petrakis, wanted to be nominated as Team FL rider of the year 2014
x7 Ariel Weisman, wants to be Team FL rider of the year 2014
x8 Alain Yoda, jealous of Barton being No. 9
x9 Barton Zwiebach, happy to be No. 9

Possible substitutes:
- Lichtenstein for Zwiebach, but most probably not.

Goal: Win everything. As usual.

CC will also start here.

1) Enzo Lorenzo, Sachsen-Pflaster winner and training hero (not that good at sprint)
2) Charles Hamlon, future Paris-Roubaix winner and alter ego of the great Carl Hamilton
3) Constantin vonJascheroff, unbelievably strong since he joined CC
4) James Bertal, still happy about the 10 days in Thailand
5) Gerry Gratzl, the one and only Gerry Gratzl
6) Camillo Tarocci, Don Camillo
7) Edwin Neugebauer, good friend of Gerry
8) Theodosius Florentini, Swiss guy with reg
9) Lorenzo vonMatterhorn, fake swiss guy without reg

No goals, as TeamFL will win everything, as usual.

Cologne Procycs and Dead And Alive seem to ride at 10h too.

That means so far we have the following interesting riders:

Team FL:
- Bratoev, 62-86-53, 55 Sprint, 84.5 Pavé
- Lightning, 48-85-54, 69 Sprint, 84.1 Pavé
- Peterlin, 76-80-80, 68 Sprint, 78.5 Pavé
- 3 more riders with 77+ Pavé

Most probably the best Pavé team on paper at 10h. With Bratoev and Lightning two of the mein GC and stage favorits (Lightning even for the youth classement). Good support and not too shabby with reg.

CircleCycle:
- Lorenzo, 65-84-78, 46 Sprint, 81.3 Pavé
- Hamlon, 50-83-50, 65 Sprint, 81.2 Pavé
- the eternal Gerry Gratzl...

In general a team that has many strong flat riders and good reg. most probably no rider under 70 Pavé in the line-up. With Lorenzo and Hamlon two riders for GC, with Gratzl and the likes a lot for trying something risky.

Cologne Procycs:
- Weiss, 56-87-67, 47 Sprint, 78.9 Pavé
- Chrisan, 52-88-50, 44 Sprint, 78.4 Pavé
- Mondragon, 50-80-70, 79 Sprint, 71 Pavé
- two more riders with 76+ Pavé (both from FL!!!)

No pavé skill over 80, but a besides that quite a balanced team with strong flat riders and with Mondragon (given good form) a possible candidate for a stage win. Likes riders from FL, NOWADAYS (!).

Dead And Alive:
- Pierre de Format, 47-86-47, 70 Sprint, 79.7 Pavé
- Louis Cauchy, 72-80-50, 60 Sprint, 76.4 Pavé
- two more riders with 76+ Pavé

Good and bad line-up (hihi). Like Cologne with no rider over 80 Pavé in the line-up but with de Format a strong sprinter with decent skills in flat, pavé and sprint. With Cauchy, he has a classic rider with 75+ pavé that could profit from a GC fight in stage 3, maybe. Besides that two more good flat riders with a decent pavé skill. Still, maybe the weakest line-up for the TdP at 10h compared with the other teams (so far), also regarding reg.


Hope there will be more teams that 4 starting tomorrow. Maybe some from the Tour de Guyane at 10h that ends today. Like Mosca (very balanced and good pavé team), Chatreuse (Loup! with good support) or Coroncina (two young and promising pavé riders) .

10:00 pretty sure, even though I dont know if I can be here every day. Shouldnt be the problem as my team is cheap and I really just have some outsider chances (both for stage wins and podium)

Goal is to win one stage what really will be hard looking at the teams already here and a top 5 GK with Cauchy, Format is just not strong enough uphill to really play a role, saw that already in other hilly pave races. maybe he is good for a win in one of the flat stages

First stage over, already an interesting begin, although there are only 5 teams riding at 10h, which is a bit sad.

In the end, it was Tulpengeneral's Martinez who won the first stage and is now wearing yellow over green. But before that, a lot happened. At the beginning, it was Cologne Procycs who attacked with two riders. At km 49 Tulpengeneral and CircleCycle took over when Royston Lightning, Pierre de Format and Cristina Crisan couldn't keep up the fast tempo at km 48, a 6% climb. The two interested teams in the front worked together very well and so they had an advantage of almost 3 min in the end, as mainly Team FL was looking to manage the gap and handling with the riders' energy. The decicive move in the end came again from Tulpengeneral, when Quaderer attacked. Most of the GC riders were able to follow, only Lorenzo was too busy to get what's going on it seemed. In the final sprint, it was Martinez with the best tactic and the best train while Fran Peterlin's timing could be improved. Finally, after stage 1, Martinez is leading in front of Peterlin and Hamlon, while 5 other riders also finished in this group. Now, it's time for the favorite check:

General classement:

***** Valentin Bratoev (Team FL)
Still the main favorite with arguably the best skill set for this tour. Best pavé skill, 62 mountain and 55 sprint. And a good pavé team.

**** Enzo Lorenzo (CircleCycle)
Lost four secs today against Valentin, but from the skill set still his main opponent. Also with a good team, but his weakness is his sprint skill.

*** Fran Peterlin (Team FL)
"Only" 78.5 Pavé, but 1.7 more than Martinez. and with 76-80 and 68 Sprint well prepared for stages 2 and 3.

** Lukas Quaderer (Tulpengeneral), Fidel Martinez (Tulpengeneral)
Tulpengeneral with the first exclamation mark at his years TdP. Martinez in yellow and with Quaderer and Carter as helpers not likely to lose time against stronger pavé rider until Saturday. Quaderer sacrificed himself for Martinez today but still a threat with 89 flat and 69 Sprint. His question mark will be stage 3.

* a surprise rider
Hamlon from CircleCyle or Weiss from Cologne are not far behind and could end as the laughing third (or fourth, whatever). And there is still the chance of a succesful attack with too much time gain, although that chance is not the biggest.

Points classement:

*** Fidel Martinez (Tulpengeneral), Fran Peterlin (Team FL)
Depending on GC riding or stage riding, those two could be with the best chances for it.

** Charles Hamlon (Circle Cycle)
Hamlon has nothing to lose, good reg, a nice team AND might profit from GC riding.

* Lukas Quaderer (Tulpengeneral)
He's here because he's not from Lichtenstein. And because of his skill set.

Youth classement:
After Lighting lost 2:46 today against his white opponents, it's questionable if he can get that time back. Especially if a team decides to work and ride for that jersey. Thus, I leave this section open wide, as from the remaining youth riders, it's quite hard to tell who will be chose by his team to be worthy of it. Schoissengeier (if he has still enough power left)? Tarocci or Florentini?

*** ???
** ???
* ???

Team classement:
Might be one of these three teams. On paper, I think it's the following placement in this category, but depending on who rides for what, that might change.

*** Team FL
** Circle Cycle
* Tulpengeneral

Die letzte Etappe wird die entscheidende sein und da werde ich wohl nicht 100% da sein. Aber sehe es mit der Analyse recht ähnlich wie du FL. Gk müsstest du gewinnen mit dem Team, aber man wird sehen, ob du mehr Fehler einbaust für uns

Eagle wrote:Die letzte Etappe wird die entscheidende sein und da werde ich wohl nicht 100% da sein. Aber sehe es mit der Analyse recht ähnlich wie du FL. Gk müsstest du gewinnen mit dem Team, aber man wird sehen, ob du mehr Fehler einbaust für uns

Samstag weiss ich leider auch noch nicht, ob ich die Etappe selber fahren kann. Falls nicht, können sich die möglichen Sitte ja schonmal melden. höhö.

Second stage, first Team FL win. Fran Peterlin crossed the finish line in front of a four rider group also including his team mate Valentin Bratoev, Enzo Lorenzo from Dead And Alive and current GC leader Fidel Martinez from Tulpengeneral. In the meantime, Royston Lightning is back in the fight for the youth classement after losing almost 3 min yesterday. In the GC, Peterlin and Martinez are with the same time on place 2 and 1, followed by Lorenzo and Bratoev, both equally with 14 secs behind the former two. While Lighting and de Format have already been kicked out of the GC fight yesterday, today the rest lost at least another 8 to 18 secs (depending on bonifications) before the third stage. The other classements stay open too. Green is also a fight between Peterlin and Martinez at the moment and the team classement stays close as the top three teams are only seperated by 16 secs. White has been mentioned already, and mountain classement does not have to be mentioned as there is none.

For the third stage, the outcome may be the same as today, although there is a longer flat part in end for riders to come back again after a Sieb. Again, it won't be the best pavé riders with the advantage but the RVV specialists as the stage is quite hilly and the harder pavé parts are exclusively only in climbs. Looks nice again for Bratoev and Peterlin, but also for Lorenzo and Martinez. And as mentioned, the long flat part in the end might bring back some interesting riders as well.

thx that you mention my team name but I wasn't in the top group

flockmastoR wrote:thx that you mention my team name but I wasn't in the top group

Sausage!

Third stage, third winner (rom the third team that wins a stage). Alexander Sergenov won out of a three rider group while Leo Euler got second and Sergenov's team mate Voosen third. They arrived with a time advantage of exact 11 min in front of the group with the main GC favorits, in which it was Fran Peterlin who won the sprint for place and took over green and yellow from Martinez. Also in the youth classement the leading position changed to a Team FL riders as Royston Lightning could overcome his time loss from stage 1. Tomorrow then might be another quiet stage as Saturday looks a lot heavier than the stages so far.

boring

Das alte Mädchen darf glatt noch mal ganz oben stehen und der staunenden Männerwelt zeigen, was sie zu bieten hat

Eagle wrote:Das alte Mädchen darf glatt noch mal ganz oben stehen und der staunenden Männerwelt zeigen, was sie zu bieten hat

Also der Flocke findets wohl langweilig

Besides that, it's just sad that such a prestigious fantasy tour doesn't have more participants, even if it's the morning edition. The whole tour, the fight for the stage wins, etc. would be much more interesting with more teams. And even more, when planning the tour, a lot of traditional Tour des Pavés stuff seem to have been forgotten, like naming the stages according to great pavé riders in the past year or not having any time bonifications at the end of the stage. Also putting the tour form monday to friday has always been a great thing for this tour, which is not the case this time. But still, we have 5 active teams and a GC, that is still interesing with the last stage to decide it. But I completely agree with flocke that the last two stages have not been the most thrilling so far.

team fl wrote:

Eagle wrote:Das alte Mädchen darf glatt noch mal ganz oben stehen und der staunenden Männerwelt zeigen, was sie zu bieten hat

Also der Flocke findets wohl langweilig

Besides that, it's just sad that such a prestigious fantasy tour doesn't have more participants, even if it's the morning edition. The whole tour, the fight for the stage wins, etc. would be much more interesting with more teams. And even more, when planning the tour, a lot of traditional Tour des Pavés stuff seem to have been forgotten, like naming the stages according to great pavé riders in the past year or not having any time bonifications at the end of the stage. Also putting the tour form monday to friday has always been a great thing for this tour, which is not the case this time. But still, we have 5 active teams and a GC, that is still interesing with the last stage to decide it. But I completely agree with flocke that the last two stages have not been the most thrilling so far.

Agree with most. But the time bonification thing is Buhmann's issue. As all kinds of stages now have 10-6-4, there's no way to distinguish any longer. At least not without Buhmann doing some extra adjustments. And about the naming, I guess you just have to be the first to design a pavé tour, then it's up to you to choose proper names. I'll do everything from my side, so we have a Newton Mendonca stage next year
And by the way, pave tours with five teams are at least still the best tours with few teams only. But that might be related to the usual participants as well.

In the end it was quite a simple GC win for TeamFL. Bratoev simply stronger than Enzo.

Best Pave Team .... DEAD AND ALIVE