STW Tour de France

yay! up to first place.
(Rorsocks doesn’t count because he joined too late).

Got an update. Rorschach still in first place. Brakes still bitter (probably). What happened today hasn’t thrown me back too much..

Quite exciting…I’ve risen every day just reached the dizzy heights of 82nd…my climbers are waiting patiently to do their thing though.

grumble

(fingers round neck version ;o) )

Rojas out & Voeckler’s got a dodgy knee.

Not looking good for team En Masse 🙁

Edit: or for Rojas for that matter

Kittel’s gone home now 🙁

Yeah, felt sorry for Kittel. No one wants to ride with a stomach bug in white bib shorts.

paaaarrrrp.

Hmm, today’s stage was really not good for team hoppy. Cav held up and out of the sprint, Ryder losing 13 minutes and not sure to start tomorrow. Balls.

has it updated yet? don’t think it has…

No but I don’t need it to know it’s going to be desperate.

I’ve got Greipel and Sagan. after my 0 points in the prologue things have been getting better steadily! I’ve essentially picked a climbing team too…

Holding steady in the front half of the pack in 20th.
@TweeterSagan doing me proud, but lost Danielson today 🙁

I’ve got Greipel and Sagan.

Hmmm I went for Greipel but chose Schleck over Sagan after a lot of arguing with myself…oh well will see but I got a some good climbers and the two GC faves.

top half…

Hmmm, found myself in the top 20 by the end of week 1 without Greipel, EBH, or Cancellara. Looking good so far.

Looks like I’m 3 men down with Brice Feliu in the doldrums too.

I’ll be lucky to finish the tour at this rate!

Ryder Hesjedal has pulled out, leaving my slip from 6th place imminent.

I can hear the broom wagon revving up behind me. That early breakaway that saw me in 3rd place after day 1 is now looking like foolhardy showboating. 😥

My boys are doing well. But looking forward to seeing cancellara losing the yellow as we move into the mountains, where hopefully the frenchmen l put in my team will start pulling their weight.

I fear this will be my final day in yellow :0(

FFS Hubert Dupont pulling out before we even get to the hills. Didn’t get me a single point.

I picked him too but he’s quite hurt – I think a broken wrist and vertebra.

Waiting for the victory dance from Team Hoppy..

Jumped about 20 places, finally my climbers get some points!

slowly slowly, if i understand the ranking 6th overall today.

Despite having Taaramae and Wiggo I dropped a position to 35th! Humbug 😕

Hesjedal out, Moncoutie and Hoogerland invisible and Van Garederen dropped like a stone from the goup. Scaredyfrance not as great as I’d imagined 😥

(no idea which of my lot is badly hurt other than Hesjedal but I need to bang their heads together and tell ’em to MTFU !)

Today went well, 1st, 3rd & 7th on stage. Yellow and polka jerseys, Froome and wiggo picked up cat 1 places. After yesterday’s poor showing and Ryder pulling out that has given team Hoppy a decent boost. I always planned a climbing type team, wasn’t expecting a good showing early.

Not too worried, Cadel and Wiggins will be scoring me loads of points in mountains and tts. Cav is going to pull his act together and I think Tejay may be able to take back the white jersey – he just had a bad day.

Also there’s still plenty more chances for Sagan to drop some hammers.

All to play for.

just bothered to look at the results, 1,2,3,5 and 12th.

Made it into the top 10 by the rest day. Relatively happy, although I am relying on Evans and Cav to do some solid work.

Top 4 riders today, 1st, 3rd & 8th on gc. Go team hoppy, a couple of big mountain days should help as well, catching up with Rorshach.

Well a few top teams are a little weaker now due to the large number of withdrawals including some top riders. The RCUK fantasy league that I’m also doing allows limited rider changes between stages so you don’t get stuck with riders who have dropped out.

The RCUK fantasy league that I’m also doing allows limited rider changes between stages so you don’t get stuck with riders who have dropped out.

Don’t like that, it’s unrealistic. Got to pick wisely the first time, and bad luck is part of racing.

Actually it’s great. You have 20 changes you can make over the Tour and 3 max per stage. So you have to plan when to make your changes to make best use of your change and money limits. Indeed one of my guys has dropped out but I’ve decided to keep him as changing him would be a bad use of my remaining changes.

Granny’s Rings back into top 30, and I guess it’ll help now Cancellara has pulled out as I don’t have him, but it generally isn’t going well. Wiggins, Sagan and Greipel have done me proud, but every other rider I’ve picked has less than 200 points. Hoogerland on zero, Schleck an expensive mistake on just 187… Oh well. Next year!

Things getting close at the top between Rorschach and Hudson. Hudson doesn’t have Sagan though – could be decisive?

Team Hoppy in the lead..

not been updated yet has it?
As long as Arscratch doesn’t win… I’ll be happy* with a top ten

*not that happy though