Only a few days to go till La Vuelta 2023 kicks off with a team time trial in Barcelona, and Velogame Spain 2023 is now open.

https://www.velogames.com/spain/2023/

https://www.lavuelta.es/en/overall-route

Will update the thread as time goes on but there are some interesting choices this time – frankly, some of the teans seem to be saying “well we’re not as botherad about this one so we’ll let the little guys have a chance”

The obvious exception is Jumbo Visma who are sending Vingegaard, Roglic and Kuss, and are obviously aimin to regain the title. Remco Evenepoel is back to try to defend it

G is racing for the Ineos Grenadiers as the nominal team lead, but I have my eye on Thymen Arensman. He’s been on the berge of a break foir a while, and Ineos recently had a clear out with Dani Martinez, Tao Geoghan Hart and Pavel Sivakov all heading to pastures new for next season, so they must rate Thymen if they’re keeping him

Anyone else caught your eye? Preferably someone racing, but any obvious names omitted?

Have any staged piqued your interest as “I MUST make sure I watch that”? Saldy there will be no coverage on ITV4, but it will be covered live on GCN and the highlights show is often broadcast on Quest – will try to confirm when I find out if that’s happening

EDIT – Cycling News haev a preview here which says that ITV4 are going to show highlights

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/how-to-watch-the-vuelta-a-espana-live-tv-and-streaming/

but ITV4 don’t mention it

https://www.itv.com/itvcycling/articles/2023-cycling-on-itv4

You can enter the STW Grand Tours League here : https://www.velogames.com/

The League code is 727626827

Anyone who entered the Giro or TDF version will already be entered into this one

Post up your thoughts, or any interesting articles you find

Not studied the parcours properly but I seem to remember it being extremely climby. Judging by the D-list sprinters on Velogames there aren’t many bunch finishes on the cards.

Would be great to see Ayuso kick on from last year’s 3rd and enter the top bracket of riders but going to be difficult to even repeat that with Jonas, Rog and Remco there.

Quite a lot of competition for the GC top ten – as well as the 3 favourites & Ayuso you have Thomas, Almeida,  Mas, Bardet, Carthy, Dunbar, Vlasov, Caruso and then lots of younger prospects too like Lenny Martinez, Poole, Onley, Uijtdebroeks (had to check spelling of that one!).

It’s hard to pick a velogames team with sprinters I’ve not really heard of, just had to choose the rider I could afford.

Have Ineos “had a clearout” or have riders been moving to greener pastures?

<p style=”padding-left: 40px;”>Thanks – team “My Pie Is Class” (poor linguistic nod to a favourite team of the 90s) are in…</p>

I picked Pog for the tdf, but I’m picking ving for this one, second and third is anyone’s guess.

I’m off for 2 weeks starting Saturday, so I’ve entered a team to keep me more interested in watching. Team BikeyGood (I really couldn’t think of anything clever).

Have Ineos “had a clearout” or have riders been moving to greener pastures?

Bit of both I expect. I think max squad sizes are smaller next year

Have Ineos “had a clearout” or have riders been moving to greener pastures?

My thoughts too. Decent riders not willing to ride in Brexit Bombardiers train to nowhere.

Brexit Bombardiers train to nowhere.

Why the stupid names and bringing politics into it ? If you don’t like INEOS then just call them INEOS still, it’s riidculously childish, don’t you see that ? It’s a decent discussion about bikes/racing and people STILL drag agendas into it. Sad sad sad.

“Keep politics out of sport”. Yes. Rings a bell.

However, my point was not that – it was that (with some notable exceptions, Tom Pidcock) INEOS seem to ride in a very un-exciting way that is not much fun for the public and is probably not much fun for an attack-oriented rider. I can imagine that TGH will flourish elsewhere.

There’s a bit of a danger that the strength of Jumbo will suffocate the GC race a bit. That said with the parcours it looks like there’ll be good racing for stage wins at the very least.

DSM and FDJ are both fielding teams full of youngsters – it’ll be interesting to see how they fare.

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBcjzRf3xsM –

it was that (with some notable exceptions, Tom Pidcock) INEOS seem to ride in a very un-exciting way that is not much fun for the public and is probably not much fun for an attack-oriented rider. I can imagine that TGH will flourish elsewhere.

That’s more like it… 🙂

However, i only half agree… in simple terms, they ride now in the only way possible for the team they have available… which is mostly decided by Jumbo and UAE being incredibly dominant. So they’re mostly just ‘hanging on’

The one thing i don’t get though is partly your point here yes…
Is it better to try and win 4-5 stages in a race, or try for 3rd overall…

Personally i think the 4-5 stages is the better plan… but they seem happy trying to hang on for 3rd in GC.

I don’t mind Ineos riding in an unexciting way, it’s no different to what the other teams do when the boot’s on the other foot, and I expect the riders feel much the same.

Where I do think the riders are having second thoughts is the apparent lack of direction and ambition within the team.

Where I do think the riders are having second thoughts is the apparent lack of direction and ambition within the team.

There was a lot of discussion on another place that Remco is the plan… getting rid of TGH and getting Remco in as the GC contender. It’s been a weird few seasons for INEOS as they were the superstars for ages, but now, you don’t see them at the battles at all. Even with Thomas being flying at times, the rest of the team were a bit, well, meh.

There was a lot of discussion on another place that Remco is the plan… getting rid of TGH and getting Remco in as the GC contender.

That’s out of the the window though as Remco has now stated he’ll honour the contract he signed till 2026.

However there are (admittedly quite farfetched) rumours of a possible merger between Ineos and Soudal-Quickstep…

have my eye on Thymen Arensman. He’s been on the berge of a break foir

Sixth in last year’s Vuelta, sixth in this year’s Giro, so I think he may already have ganaged a break foir of sorts, but yeah, flying a little under the wadar I guess.

I’m gutted as they aren’t coming down my way as I always liked catching a live stage 🙁

Where I do think the riders are having second thoughts is the apparent lack of direction and ambition within the team.

I’m not sure it’s lack of ambition. I’d agree they don’t have the edge they did over some other teams, but mostly it feels like there’s a limited supply of super-human GC contenders and the closest they have to that, Egan Bernal, rode into the back of a bus at 60kph and it still getting back to something hopefully closer to his best. That said, he’d still lose out to Pog or Vin in a time trial.

I guess you could say that’s a recruitment failure, but realistically there are only so many physiologically super-gifted options out there. If you think about it, the whole Team Sky / INEOS era of dominance essentially came down to Chris Froome being stronger than anyone else. You can do so much with super strong support riders, but ultimately you need a leader to finish things off.

Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see where Tom Pidcock focuses next and I’ve got my fingers crossed for Egan. When you consider how smashed up he was, it’s incredible that he’s still riding at that level and still improving too.

I’m not sure it’s lack of ambition. I’d agree they don’t have the edge they did over some other teams, but mostly it feels like there’s a limited supply of super-human GC contenders

I can’t help thinking that if they’d had ambition to attack, G might have been able to win the G-ro. As it was they let Roglic stay within striking distance for a stage he was ideally suited to.

I’m gutted as they aren’t coming down my way as I always liked catching a live stage

Where’s that?

Got ‘Team tutti frutti into our STW league (thanks nbt for organising).

Vingegogo – is probably the favourite to win, however one never knows if he’s completely ‘overdone’ it this season and Evenepoel is going to come up with the goods. But ‘G’ hopefully still has a great opportunity and with a decent team I’m not ruling him out.

The wonderful Thomas DeGendt is a favourite of mine and hopefully he will entertain us as usual (remember Belgium day?).

Lots of youngsters coming up through the ranks, wanting to show what they’re made of. It’s going to be an interesting race.

Why the stupid names and bringing politics into it ? If you don’t like INEOS then just call them INEOS still, it’s riidculously childish, don’t you see that ? It’s a decent discussion about bikes/racing and people STILL drag agendas into it. Sad sad sad.

Well I think Oily Jim’s Greenwash Bombardier’s are going to struggle. Don’t think the old diesel Thomas has it in him unfortunately.

I hope Remco can give the Jumbo pair a run for their money. Not sure he’ll hang on up the big climbs though.

Check your velogames teams, I’ve just noticed Simon Carr is now not riding.

An article considering the contenders…

VELOGAMES SPAIN 2023 PREVIEW

Bump, if you’re bored and browsing on a Friday evening why not put a team roster together on velogames? You have till 17:45 on Saturday: an evening kick off with a team time trial of just over 14km

Done. Back with “Ride to the Hills” heading for mid field mediocrity.

Just built a team inspired by this tweet:

https://twitter.com/friebos/status/1694989748882813013?s=20

Not possible to use only riders from that list so made a few educated guesses to try and have highest elevation possible for my team.

The weather is abysmal! Jayco-Alula have crashed as an entire team. It’s pitch bloody dark, spray going everywhere.

Jumbo Visma are 30+ seconds down at the half way mark.

Pouring rain – I think it was hoped there’d be a nice sunset, dusk light etc but it’s just **** miserable. 😳

Got sent that off Twitter earlier!

Are they ever going to finish Sagrada Familia?
There were cranes around it when I was there in 2009, still cranes around it now.

Also, I’m going to say again how shit that weather looks.

It’s mildly moist. And dark. Great ride by the movie stars, conditions have got worse and worse.

When the bikes need lights you know it’s grotty.

Team DSM?! Wow.
Movistar did well especially the near pitch dark as they finished.

Ooo, I have a DSM rider in my team! And two EF-EP.

Ineos confirm that Laurens de Plus is out following his crash in the TTT.

That was visually quite different to your normal Vuelta stage

If you want to watch the Vuelta on GCN this year you have to unlock the riders first for 5$ each pic.twitter.com/5ALZ7sU8aG

— killow (@killow_) August 26, 2023

Not surprising to see Scotland’s first Vuelta stage win for a while.

That was **** shit. I agree with Remco.

Pictures and a few quotes from riders here:
https://road.cc/content/news/remco-evenepoel-slams-ridiculous-vuelta-time-trial-303491?fbclid=IwAR2qRAlhnx7kYVKy8a-YlhY3yOJWF2kzFi0McxZTLO23FNJ0NUnP5QIHTgg