[Other Sport] Cycling geeks

[Woodchip]

[MENTION=12656]Pantani[/MENTION]

Remembering Marco Pantani Nine Years After His Death | Cyclingnews.com

 

[Pantani]

[MENTION=12656]Pantani[/MENTION]

Remembering Marco Pantani Nine Years After His Death | Cyclingnews.com

Thank you, I will have a little read of that shortly.

Before I start the twitter update commentary for today, my tips and transfers. I quite fancy Pozzovivo for today, unfortunately I did not have enough transfers to get him in. I went for the obvious and picked Contador, Froome and Nibali as my three.

 

[Pantani]

Five man break up the road, Rast (RSN), Bookwalter (BMC), Schillinger (TNE), Smukulis (KAT) and Friedemann (CSS) 4'05" ahead afte 50km ish.

1st intermediate sprint: 1. Schillinger; 2. Friedemann; 3. Rast

 

[Pantani]

OOOhh, look at you big boy!

You haven't gone all premium on us have you? Those more money than sensers will have the 3 big hitters and then some in for sure having saved up transfers for this stage. I'm quite chuffed with my 8th on GC so far but watch me slide down tomorrow as I could only manage to take 3 transfers into this stage. As Pantani says, us plebs have no chance of actually competing with Premium players.

Oh, and why did you have to go and put Velits in! That's gone and jinxed it good and proper now.

Have to agree wholeheartedly with your comments re Premium Players. I would have picked a team at the start with sprinters and classics type riders, then left it as is and made five transfers for today. Saving one to go with my two for tomorrow to put three transfers back to a classics style team, keeping the GC leader and one other. Then remaining two transfers to bring back in two sprinters for the final stage. It just is not possible for us 'plebs' to make changes this dramatic to our teams. For example with two extra transfers today I could have added Pozzovivo and Velits to my team. Giving me a Stat Brother style super team, without having to have a Stat Brother style 39 points yesterday.

I'm feeling the Oman love personally because the quality of the field and parcours is pretty bloody good for this stage in the season. Such a shame there's no live TV coverage as the tiny bits of highlights I've seen look spectacular. I'd go so far as to say that were there live tv stage coverage of tomorrows stage it'd be worth one of my booked days off work for. Real shame I had to take today off anyway rather than it falling on tomorrow.

I agree, again, from the highlights this has been great racing so far this week. Although they have been on a bit of a go slow at the start of each day, but once Traksel and his break have been pulled back it has been intense racing. Would love to be watching this today but twitter updates will have to do, I suppose.

 

[Pantani]

After 74.5km the gap is down to 3'45".

 

[Pantani]

60km to go, 3'20" for the break, chances of hanging on 0%.

 

[Pantani]

3'25" now, Sky pulling on the front.

 

[Glanders]

Whoops. Guess who forgot to press 'confirm' after making his changes? Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!

 

[Pantani]

Nocentini and Wetterhall crash, but back on their bikes now. Gap below 3 minutes with less than 40km to go.

30km to go, gap now 2'30".

25km to go 2'55".

Inside 20km to go, lead at 2'15".

1'50" with 13.5km to go.

 

[Sussax]

Tour of Oman - LIVE ‏@TourofOman_live

Gap has fallen below two minutes. 1:50 at 13.5K from Green Mtn summit finish. #TOO13

 

[Pantani]

2nd Sprint; 1. Friedemann; 2. Rast; 3. Smukulis

Gap now 1'05" at the foot of Green Mountain. Now 25 seconds, it is all over for those boys.

Looks like they've lost signal now, so no updates for a while.

 

[Pantani]

Contador atacks, Nibali gets on to him after Contador waits for him.

Froome, Pozzovivo and Evans chasing.

Boonen, Sagan, Wiggins, Goss all dropped. 1km to go.

Riders all over the place, they will be coming in ones and twos.

 

[Pantani]

Four leaders now Contador, Froome, Nibali and Purito.

Rodriguez attacks, leads alone, Froome behind. Nibali and Contador together behind that (I think).

 

[Pantani]

At the line: Now with added time gaps and (bonus seconds)

1. Rodriguez (+10)
2. Froome @ 4 seconds (+6)
3. Evans @ 22 seconds (+4)
4. Contador @ 27.5
5. Nibali @ 36

Froome should be the new race leader, I think, unless Rodriguez beat him by 50 seconds plus. Next tweet confirms him 25m behind so he is certain to be in the lead.
With now added time gaps, Froome has a fair old lead on Contador about 30 seconds by my reckoning.

 

[Indurain's Lungs]

At the line:

1. Rodriguez
2. Froome
3. Evans
4. Contador
5. Nibali

2 and 4 for me. Could all come down to the minor placings.

 

[Pantani]

2 and 4 for me. Could all come down to the minor placings.

2, 4 and 5 for me. Not expecting any minor placings though, don't think Kittel will have made it up there

GC 1. Froome; 2. Evans @ 24.3; 3. Contador @ 25

 

[Pantani]

New top ten in GC:

1. Froome
2. Evans
3. Contador
4. Nibali
5. Rodriguez
6. Elissonde
7. Nocentini
8. Schopp
9. Bouet
10. Jeannesson

Looks like 1066 has some decent minor placings from Nocentini and Jeannesson.

 

[Pantani]

Piecing together tweets at present we have for the stage: Edit from some Spanish website, the top 20:

1. Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha) Palmarés completo
2. Chris Froome (Sky) a 4
3. Cadel Evans (BMC) a 22
4. Alberto Contador (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) a 27
5. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) a 35
6. Kenny Elissonde (FDJ) a 43
7. Johann Tschopp (IAM) a 52
8. Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R) a 57
9. Arnold Jeannesson (FDJ) a 1:01
10. Yannick Eijssen (BMC) a 1:09
11. Maxime Bouet (AG2R) m.t.
12. Domenico Pozzovivo (AG2R) a 1:12
13. Stephen Cummings (BMC) a 1:18
14. Paul Voss (NetApp-Endura) a 1:30
15. Matthew Busche (RadioShack-Leopard) a 1:40
16. Daryl Impey (Orica-GreenEDGE) m.t.
17. Geoffrey Soupe (FDJ) a 1:52
18. Michael Schar (BMC) a 1:54
19. Zdenek Stybar (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) m.t.
20. Martin Elmiger (IAM) m.t.

 

[Stat Brother]

without having to have a Stat Brother style 39 points yesterday.

Hey I'm pretty chuffed with my 39 points yesterday.

It was 39 more than I thought I'd get!


I feel a few more coming my way, today.

 

[Sussax]

League has been updated.

Another bad day, dropping down the table.