JohnMalcolmson said:

Good call on the Aranburu pick Patrick. If only he got more time bonuses! 

Not such good luck on ,Schachmann ,Yates & Carthy

I was wondering the same thing. He got criticized for nipping Mader at the line last year…

Either way the finish was thrilling

JohnMalcolmson said:

Did Roglic hand Nielsen the W or just mess up the last corner? Would love to see the overhead. 

Yeah kinda looked like Roglic let it happen, but I am also guessing he did not expect that corner to be so sharp, highly likely that it was one of those lines before the line, whoever was ahead by the corner would win.

Mark - nice pick with Storer! Today’s stage winner!

^ Second that -- incredible ride by the destroyer. The other aussi, Jack Haig had a good day as well.

Craddock was looking good for a hot second. He has such a Fredly riding style for someone that talented, I kept expecting him to pull a Budweiser out of his back pocket.

Yeah Haig and Storer jumped me up to 3rd👍

Pretty close race for the top three spots in our league! Truly banking on Guillaume Martin to have a cracking time trial and take it home for me. 

Was really hoping Bernal was going to pull it off today 

A belated congratulations to Mark for his Vuelta team. Picking Storer, Jakobson, and Haig along with Roglic and Bernal was inspired. Even though Padun and Pidcock under performed, he easily won our league and was around the top 7% of all teams. 

Yeah, too bad Padun was tied up as a super-domestique, but he certainly shaped the race for Haig.  

Congrats to @PatrickGrehan for his win at super classico 
with 2 races left after 27 races our podium places had a spread of 7 points , but Patrick pulled away to win by a couple of wheel lengths

It's crazy that a TWENTY SEVEN race series came down to a handful of points. It definitely made the races more fun to watch and gave us a way to compete with each other without lining up with numbers pinned

It's Back!

Do you want to follow the whole season of classic races and pick a team of 6 riders for 37 separate races just so you can have bragging rights amongst our friends? You don't think so, but you'd be surprised at how much more fun it makes following the races. Last year we had 27 races (covid) and the Kissena podium came down to a photo finish. 

If you want to take a stab and picking the winners this season head over to the Velogames site a create a free account. You'll need to pick a team before this weekend's Strade Bianche race. 

Kissena Mini-league code is: 32701357

While a few of us were able to pick the eventual Strada winner in Pog, and even Simmons' winning beard, Jeff was best of the day picking Wellens. Nice done

The Tour is starting Friday!

Pick a velogames team and compete thousands of others as well as in the Kissena min league for bragging rights. 

Kissena Mini-league code is: 32701357

https://www.velogames.com

Mark T, Jim N, Jeff C and I have been playing Velogames in other races all year and well, a few years now and I can provide a few tips. 

TIPS: You don't need to pick the overall yellow jersey winner (although it helps). You get points primarily by having racers who rack up points by consistently finishing near the front and who get extra points by being in the mix for jersey competitions. Winning a stage or two is also worth plenty of points.

Racers who are likely to do so (e.g. Pog, Roglic, Wout) are expensive, so the challenge is in finding the lower cost racers who can bring in lots of points. Will Pederson crush it on the cobbles? Ganna on the TTs? Pinot in the mountains?

One strategy is to pick a couple of expensive riders with a high likelihood of winning and lots of cheap options. Another strategy is avoiding the expensive options and and picking strong racers who are likely to be in top 5-10 on stages and GC (e.g. Vlasov, Thomas for GC). Amongst sprinters that may mean picking Ewen who is a little cheaper than Jacobson. 

Note that this year Velogames has added a stage hunters competition. I don't understand it enough to describe it other than to say that it will give you an opportunity to pick alternates if your picks get injured or get covid. 

Join us and let the trash talking begin!

Joined in. 

Looking at my team, it is a pretty obvious combo of Gorka Izaguirre (no idea why I picked him) and a ton of riders who I would love do well instead of the riders who I expect will do well. haha.

If anyone sees this in time and has a suggestion for a good 6 point rider lmk (I'll might give Gorka the boot)

update: the window for editing has passed, GORKA here we go!!!

Should have picked Lampert! Who saw that coming?

Gorka is in the top 30! 

already dead last

eloy said:

already dead last

3 weeks lad , Gorka won’t let you down

checked just now, and somehow I am fighting for a podium spot -- I think that will quickly disappear tho

How’s your fantasy team doing? Anyone underperforming or drop out? 

Patrick is killing this , 23rd overall

Congrats to @PatrickGrehan wining the TDF fantasy mini league ,with an impressive17th in the overall !
@eloy had his hopes dashed on the last day when Gorka dropped out to go race in the Basque country 

Today I wish there was money in this. 17 out of 26 thousand has to be worth something! Then again, my giro team was a bunch of duds. My wife probably appreciates that I don’t gamble on cycling 

You should start placing bets like Dan Lloyd's father in law. He'll put a pound or two on some random outside winner like Hugo Houle on stage 16 and will be rewarded every now and then with a few hundred pound payout

Friday is the Vuelta start 
https://www.velogames.com/
Try your luck and see if we can't knock @PatrickGrehan off his high horse

Is there a kissena league code?