Well, I guess I've now got a handy climbing base. Was so tempted to pick a cobbled classics rider (or even a sprinter, there's one left who I think is marginally better than the rest but I think he might slide a few picks) but I reckon Vimes & I will go cat and mouse for them over the next few rounds before feasting on them. Confident I can still assemble a good enough cobble lineup in the later rounds, I guess. Picking them now would be a little silly anyway given they're good for what? 3 races. Hurt me so bad to skip over my fave rider ever though. Too old
Okay so that's Moser and Evans gone who I'd planned to pick Need some time to re-assess. Sorry fellas.
Yeah, good pick in Spilak. Tossed up him or Pinot but went with the youth. I'm always a little :/ with blokes who dominate 7-10 day tours but not the longer ones.
More 7-10 day tours on the calendar though Happy with my team so far: Sagan Valverde Costa Sánchez Betancur Phinney Intxausti Westra Van Avermaet Špilak
Yeah, you've got a gun team for those. Mine: Cancellara Nibali Kittel Wiggins Kwiatkowski Majka Van Den Broeck Gerrans De Gendt Pinot Handy climbing base with most of the climbers offering something different - Wiggo the elite TT, Nibali the descent, Kwiatkowski the accelleration/sprinting, De Gendt the aggression, Pinot the raw climbing ability and then Jurgen and Majka who are just jacks of most trades. All bar Pinot and I guess Majka are excellent TTers and I've got Gerrans for the hills and Cancellara for the cobbles as well as Kittel for the sprints Just need to work around Kittel and Cancellara now, the climbing base is sorted. Perhaps a few more punchers would be nice, Vimes really got me with the Weening pick as I'd planned to pick him.
Cavendish Rodriguez Kreuziger Kristoff van Garderen Degenkolb Gesink Renshaw Thomas Terpstra Shouldn't go too badly. Will have a decent sprint train at least I think.
Sylvain Chavanel Michele Scarponi Daniel Martin Jakob Fuglsang Andrew Talansky Fränk Schleck Thomas Voeckler JJ Rojas Thor Hushovd Giovanni Visconti Romain Bardet No idea what direction my team is heading XD
It's about time these 'capable of finishing 6-15th in a GT but never much more' riders began to go. Decided to wait up on them personally as there's about 25-30 of them all in the same bracket and it's a matter of personal choice which of them you want, really. All a much of a much so unlikely to be snaked. Knowing my luck though all of them will be gone by the time it's my pick
With a few exceptions, I'm generally trying to go for riders I like or have seen, rather than people I have heard are good. Team so far: Froome Uran Gilbert Tony Martin Pierre Rolland Daniel Moreno Matty Goss David Millar Rein Taaramäe (mainly picked because I'm pretty sure Skippos likes him) Michael Rogers Marco Marcato Nicholas Roche
I like Taaramae but that's partly because - His name - He comes from an obscure country - I love young riders who can both climb and time trial Taaramae is/has lost his climbing ability since 2-3 years ago which is awfully surprising for a bloke of his age. He just never seems like he'll get back to his best which is disappointing. Since La Planche de Belles Filles last year I haven't seen him at all perform and even then that stage was almost an outlier. I think Vimes likes him too. You probably went a little early on him but I'll always like the pick
Unfortunate that of your 'leaders' three of them (Uran, Rolland & Moreno) are some of the worst time triallists to ever be a 'contender' To be fair Uran's improving but still. Moreno and Rolland are awful
I don't need everyone in my team to be a triallist, can't have a team just made up of Tony Martins :ninja:
You'll be fine in the TTTs anyway, one tony martin can cover for three pierre rollands in a TTT anyway
Rolland came 27th and 32nd in the two ITT at the TdF this year. That's not awful is it? I mean, obviously it's not great.
I can't really see what the problem is with filling up with mountain guys who can't TT around Froome. No GC aspirations to confuse the pecking order.
Yeah, agreed. I was just commenting on how his core of his team really isn't brilliantly deep at the TTs
Go for GC in stage races Froome enters, classics in the ones Gilbert enters. And then just KotM and ITT in the other races.
I think you've got mixed up. He came 91st in the flat one over 33kms, 4 minutes aback and 139th in the 2nd one 7 minutes behind over 32 kms (2 climbs, though) Truly awful.
Oh, I was looking at overall classification rather than stage classification. I did wonder why it said he was 44 minutes slower over the mountain TT.
