F1 Rejects Cycling Challenge: Tour de France underway!

[Shadaza]

Alitalia-Parmalat is REALLY PISSED OFF our GC guys didn't try harder. They missed key breaks, failed to show any sort of initative on their own. Extremely disappointing. And now we don't have Montella to try and salvage one more stage win in the ITT.

*shifts uncomfortably* Montella retired from the tour with a fractured Coccyx, he suffered it on 2nd big pile up and retired half way through the next stage.

Is my guy (Mizuhara) still going?

yup, Mizuhara is still plodding along, he was not much use to the team on the last mountain stage though.
He is currently 92nd, 2 hours and 37 minutes off the pace.

[pasta_maldonado]

Seen as others are announcing their line ups for future tours, Foster's would like to announce that all our riders except Ed Kevin and Klaus Fahrrad will be getting the sack after the conclusion of the Tour de France.

I really hope this continues, perhaps we could run seasons with the 3 main tours (Spanish, French, and Italian, I beleive)?

[Pointrox]

If this carries on, I'd love to retain my current squad.

[Aerospeed]

I have to join this. Could I have a list of the Canadian cyclers that are on the Tour currently? (Even those that have dropped out)

[Shadaza]

I have to join this. Could I have a list of the Canadian cyclers that are on the Tour currently? (Even those that have dropped out)

There are 4 Canadian Cyclists on the Tour

Sprinter Barry Firestone currently rides for Battery and won one of the stages, though for the most part has been supporting Ryan Nelson the teams lead sprinter. 83rd in the tour.

John Vonn and Carey Brice are riders for Credit Bancorotta, Vonn is a time trial and rough surface specialist whilst Brice is support team mate good on down hills, Vonn is 94th and Brice is 63rd.

Wesley Duncan is a Twinings Rider and a time trialist, currently 111th in the tour, his performances have not really been that good so far.

Of all of them Firestone is probably the best overall, though none of them are really ideally suited to the Tour de France mountain stages and none of them are even close to team leaders in their respective teams.

[Salamander]

Hell yes, way to go Alex! At least we salvaged something from this disaster!

Twinings is reasonably pleased with the fighting spirit of some of our riders, though others have been overwhelmingly disappointing. Sven Johansson, Craig West, Alex Harris, James Davies, and Ivan Shermetev will all definately remain, though the jury is out on the rest.

By the way Shadaza, will you do a breakdown of each team at the end of the tour?

[DemocalypseNow]

APB will definitely retain Montella and Romano. We'll have to think about the other seven.

[QuickYoda41]

Still two riders in the top 10, not bad at all. I hope Tolano can even gain one or two places on the time trial.

[QuickYoda41]

Wow, is there some major doping controversy going on? Or what's up with the remaining stages?

[Shadaza]

I will post the remaining stages in one big go, watch this space!

Sorry about the wait though, real life has taken over again.

[Shadaza]

*NOTE*
The screen I intended to use to show all the results crashed and no matter how many times I tried refuses to load. So unfortunately in terms of results I can only show the top 16 in each category from the stage snapshots.

Yevegni Yurkov wins the Tour de France!


The Team CIP rider was not even billed as one of the favourites going into the tour but a disaster on stage 2 took out the team leader and Yurkov rode consistently well to win. 2nd place goes to Rafael Verwest who's solo break in the mountains was perhaps the greatest ride on the entire tour whilst 3rd place went too Jari-Matti Valanthi who was a consistent force towards the front the entire race yet never had the chance to break forward. Klaus Fahrrad dropped to 5th after a terrible time trial, beaten by Hitachi's Kamazaki who aced the time trial.



The points standing was dominated by Jackson Bannister with a clear 100 point lead over nearest rival Lorenzo Romano. UBC focussed all of their efforts on pushing Bannister and it really showed. Romano was not bad himself, often working alone after Alitalia lost their support sprinter whilst Lomasson's counter attack came to late to catch the Italian.



What turned into a 3 way scrap for the teams title was won by Battery Energy by just over a minute from Hitachi. Battery were fortunate enough not to suffer any losses on the tour and were really strong across the mountain stages. Hitachi will probably feel unfortunate not to win as they spent too much time trying to build leader Hernandez up to speed after a minor injury rather than fight at the front. Over the last few mountain stages and then the time trial Hitachi took huge chunks of time out of the lead but Battery held on to win. Tiger cycling were somewhat surprise contenders considering none of their riders came close to individual glory, they worked well as a team and the backwards and forwards between them and battery was very entertaining.

Minardi came home 4th a long way ahead of the rest of the field but just missed out on the podium. Team CIP spent most of the tour with only 6 riders so to come out with the overall winner of the tour and 5th place is a great result. Alitalia took some unfortunately lost a mountain specialist early on and with only 2 of them completely lost track of the leaders, though the team had some promise and dominated on the smaller hills. Bancarrota spent the early part of the tour in last so to shoot up to 7th is not bad at all, largely assisted by Verwest's excellent performance.
Performance and Cocktails racing and Freaky Styley racing will probably leave the tour a little disappointed, they were by no means terrible but they did not excell anywhere either.

Fosters Good Cycle very quickly became a one man team with Klaus Fahrrad the undisputed leader, however the strain of consistently leading the peloton took it's toll and they collapsed on themselves, Craig Beic managed 2nd place in both time trials whilst the trials are where Fahrrad faltered the most, it shows how much the team were helping him! Equipe Fantomette were seriously unlucky towards the later half of the tour, they kept losing riders in crashes and finished with only 5 men, a couple of stage wins were a good bonus for the team who are desperate to show what they can do. Cycling Circus are perhaps one of the crowd favourite underdogs, they only entered with 6 men but their bright jester like outfits really stood out and they fought for quite a few stages, Popiel did well in GC and Metharom did well in the points.

Twinings Earl Grey tumbled down the leaderboard towards the end of the tour, mainly because of a divide in level at the team, some riders like Craig West did really well whilst others faltered. The West/Fletcher(Hitachi) rivalry was one of the most interesting on the tour, both of them hill riders who punched well above their weight in the mountains. UBC is a team of sprinters and time trialists based in the Netherlands flats, there is no way they would win the tour and they knew this, instead they turned themselves in to a points scoring machine with Bannister at the lead and dominated the points board, a very interesting team. Samsung Skoda only entered 5 riders and they tried very hard as most race breaks usually found themselves with a Skoda rider in them, unfortunately more often than not these breaks were caught.


Whilst Yurkov also wins the young rider class along with his general classification honours. He is joined on the podium by Klaus Fahrrad and Stefan Popiel.

[Shadaza]

Feel free to enter more teams and riders, it is recommended all teams have more than 9 riders.


Teams+ Their Riders
1.Foster's Good Cycle
Klaus Fahrrad
Ed Kevin
Craig Beic
Jaap van Riebek
Nathan Benson
Thomas Yorke
Boo Radley-Biggins
Daniel Sims
Dave Hedgehog
Terry Skiverton
David O'Reilly
Mitchell Webb
Matsohiro Mizuhara

2.Twinings Earl Grey World Cycling Team
Confirmed:
Sven Johansson
Craig West
Alex Harris
James Davies
Ivan Shermetev
Jean Gauthier
Jacob Denver
Shinji Myamoto
Jose Vasquez

3.Performance and Cocktails Racing Team
Bernard Jones
Tomas Wojtyra
Jaime Carling
Stefan Lomassonn
Kenta Nakimaka
John Jaywick
Daniel Martins
Brandon Plant
Wilson RIcky
Hugh Englemann
Nelson Burbridge

4.United Boxtel Cycling Team
Preston Senerson
Karl van de Graaf
Quinton Voss
Istvan Feher
Leonel Canfora
Jackson Bannister
Arnold Abil
Chilserk Dawson
Frank Motarhouse
Brock Carson
Leandro Carabon

5.Equipe Fantomette
Arthur Vergamet
Francois Ndiekele
Rui Miranda
Bernard Roullaint
Alexandre Charpantier
Demetrio Molina
Ingo Voeller
Hiroshi Kekami
Piercarlo Balder
Jonson Edderly
Alexandre Cadinho
Siggi Judsen

6.Hitachi ProTour Cycling
Confirmed
Hirohito Kamizaki
Jorge Luis Hernandez
Jerry Fletcher

UnConfirmed
Katsuko Hondo
Yuki Shizzuno
Taki Takashita
Claudio Bonotellio
Franceso Rossi
Kozuke Okada

7.Team Cip
Confirmed:
Ravil Yegorov
Yevgeni Yurkov
Olivier Corday
Albert Oosterling
Giovanni Abruzzo
Santxo Aizkibel

Unconfirmed:
Jesper Sand
Quizo Quintana
Gaitjil Goolagong

8.Credit Bancarotto
Confirmed.
Rafael Verwest
Alexandre Vache
Fabiano Accelerara
Carey Brice

9.Cycling Circus
Zsolt Gaumbartner
Stefan Popiel
Tomas Knutsen
Nasser Abdulrashid
Abraham Simon
Thaksin Metharom

10.Samsung/Skoda Firehawk Cycling Team
Anand Singh
Jason Edison
Yudi Sucahyo
Nigel Roberts
Shuichi Iketani
Mauricio Sassetti
Pedro Massini
Jack Andrews
Joji Yazaki

11.Minardi Cycling Team
Vincenzo Tolano
Walt Beerrider
Daniele Rampazza
Alex Awang
Robert Cziczkas
Thor Tromsen
Raul Julandro Jimenez
Gianluigi Ricchi

12.Tiger Cycling Team
Salimgirey Rasulov
Janne Nordman
Pavel Gafu
Andrei Garasimchuk
Yusuke Tanaka
Nikolay Borsukov
Aleksandr Stefanovic
Yevegni Dus

13.Battery Energy Drink Cycling Team
Jari-Matti Valanthi
Franco Rimolta
Barry Firestone
Stefan Muller
Olivier Ricard
Jan Ahlberg
Ryan Nelson
Joakim Larrson
Takuma Masuhama
Fernando Sousa
Pedro Sousa
Simon Hill

14.Alitalia-Parmalat Bianchi
Lorenzo Romano
Emanuele Montella
Timothee Voeckler
Alessio Monteverdi
Stefano Firenze
Claudio Castiglione
Artan Karimi
Xavier De Vos
Vincenzo Mazzola
Pierro Saltamachhia
Heidar Helguson
Mika Pyora

15.Lansvale Smash Repairs Racing

Naseef Aqeem
Kang Xian Bin
Michael Chow
Tamak Bisiklet
Jean-Marie Van Fiets
Jean Velo
Giovani Bicicletta
Jizdni Kolo
Roberto Di Magneta
David Lee
Peiter Briggs
Nicolas Pedersen

16.National Steroid Association Racing Team (NSA Racing Team)
Wesley Duncan
Randall Clarks
John Vonn
Jacques LaRossa
Alexey Volkov
Janice Edwards

Unattached Riders:
Roger Alfonse
Laurens Buivart
Kevin Frederickson
Martin Jaeger
Antonio Arena
Ragnar Solmundsson
Nicola Casella
John Vonn
Piero Riccone


I will now repeat the sign up information that is available on the first post.

Team Name:
3 Letter Abbreviation:
Nationality:
Jersey Colours:

Player Creation Template
Name:
Birthdate (or just age):
Nationality:
Primary Skills: (Pick 3 of, Flat, Mountain, Hills, Downhill, Time Trial, Endurance, Prologue, Resistance, Recovery, Cobbles, Fighting Spirit, Sprint, Acceleration)

-----------------------------------------
This is not dead. at least I hope not.

[tristan1117]

Alright, United Boxtel would like to keep Senerson, van de Graaf, Voss, Feher, Canfora, Bannister and Abil. Roger Alfonse and David Lee have been sacked. To replace them, we would like to hire Chilserkx Dawson and a new rider:

Name: Frank Mortarhouse
Age: 21
Nationality: American
Primary Skills: Endurance, Recovery, Hills

[TomWazzleshaw]

Meh, might as well enter this:

Team Name: Lansvale Smash Repairs Racing
3 Letter Abbreviation: LSR
Nationality: Australian
Jersey Colours: Red, Blue, Yellow
Team Members:
Naseef Aqeem
Chilserkx Dawson
Kang Xian Bin
Michael Chow
Tamak Bisiklet
Jean-Marie Van Fiets
Jean Velo
Giovani Bicicletta
Jizdni Kolo

Reject Status, here we come

EDIT: Turns out that ten does not equal nine and I had to drop a team member. It's going well already

[Salamander]

Shadaza, could you give me a run-down on what exactly Gauthier, Frederickson, Jaeger, and Duncan were doing? I really didn't hear much from them in the tour.

[DemocalypseNow]

Alitalia Parmalat Bianchi will retain all riders with the exception of Piermario Saltalamacchia. He will be replaced by;

VINCENZO MAZZOLA [ITA]
27 years old
Acceleration, Sprint, Endurance

Finally Romano will be given a lead-out man to try and take the green jersey away from Jack Bannister at next year's Tour de France. Saltalamacchia has been sacrified but for good reason, he spent most of the previous tour hopelessly breaking for himself rather than helping the team leaders in the mountains. Hopefully Monteverdi isn't eliminated so early and can help Voeckler up the mountains.

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Meh, might as well enter this:

Team Name: Lansvale Smash Repairs Racing
3 Letter Abbreviation: LSR
Nationality: Australian
Jersey Colours: Red, Blue, Yellow
Team Members:
Naseef Aqeem
Chilserkx Dawson
Kang Xian Bin
Michael Chow
Tamak Bisiklet
Jean-Marie Van Fiets
Jean Velo
Giovani Bicicletta
Jizdni Kolo

Reject Status, here we come

EDIT: Turns out that ten does not equal nine and I had to drop a team member. It's going well already

This is automatically my favourite team. Ashby and Reed FTW

New Battery lineup:
Jari-Matti Valanthi
Franco Rimolta
Barry Firestone
Stefan Muller
Olivier Ricard
Jan Ahlberg
Ryan Nelson
Joakim Larsson (Sweedish 29. hills, downhill, fighting spirit)
Takuma Masuhama (Japanese 24. hills, time trial, endurance)

[Bleu]

From the my TdF team these six will stay:
Yegorov
Yurkov
Corday
Oosterling
Abruzzo
Aizkibel

I will think rest of my line-up later.

[QuickYoda41]

Minardi Cycling Team

Tolano, Beerrider, Rampazza, Awang, Cziczkas, Tromsen and Julandro Jimenez remain at the team. Buivart and Pedersen are free to go if any team wants them.

Italian youngster Gianluigi Ricchi (22, Mountain, Hills, Cobbles) is confirmed to the team.

[Shadaza]

Meh, might as well enter this:

Team Name: Lansvale Smash Repairs Racing
3 Letter Abbreviation: LSR
Nationality: Australian
Jersey Colours: Red, Blue, Yellow
Team Members:
Naseef Aqeem
Chilserkx Dawson
Kang Xian Bin
Michael Chow
Tamak Bisiklet
Jean-Marie Van Fiets
Jean Velo
Giovani Bicicletta
Jizdni Kolo

Reject Status, here we come

EDIT: Turns out that ten does not equal nine and I had to drop a team member. It's going well already

Welcome!
Interesting approach going for all the unsigned riders.
There is nothing wrong with having more than 9 riders, it is actually better to have more.

I don't follow V8's as it appears this team is based from a team there so I will have another look for jerseys that are closer later.
Right now I have your team in this:


Also Chilserx Dawson was just signed by UBC so you currently have 8 riders.

[Salamander]

Twinings will re-sign Jean Gauthier. The others are all dropped. Their replacements will be:

Jacob Denver (American, 21, Time Trial, Acceleration, Hills)
Shinji Miyamoto (Japanese, 22, Acceleration, Resistance, Sprint)
Jose Vasquez (Mexican, 28, Flat, Sprint, Fighting Spirit)

[pasta_maldonado]

FGC will resign Craig Beic. Other replacements will be announced later

[Shadaza]

Standings updated.

[Londoner]

Having done nothing of note in the tour, Randall Clarks and Roberto Di Magenta have been sacked with immediate effect.

Replacements will be announced forthwith.

[FMecha]

Mauricio Sassetti, Italy, 25 and Pedro Massini, Italy, 28, as well as Jack Andrews, Canada, 22, will join Samsung/Skoda fleet. Just throw a dice on their skills.

Also, 28-year old Japanese downhiller Joji Yazaki (also skilled in time-trials and fighting spirit) will also join Team Firehawk (the true name of Samsung/Skoda team).

[andrew]

Joel Janz Marquez 18 (Argentina) Gimmi Tanatacci 19(Italy) yorslov Mechavic 17 (Russia) Claudi Gusto 24 (Chile) Throw dice on skills

mega mice is the team name

[QuickYoda41]

Shadaza, please enter Gianluigi Ricchi (Italian, 22, Mountain, Hills, Cobbles) to my team, Minardi. Also, Minardi would like to have Phillipe Viruolien from the currently unattached riders to race for the team.

[pasta_maldonado]

FGC have hired South African cyclist Jaap van Riebeck (Resistance, Acceleration, Mountain) and British cyclist Nathan Benson (Mountain, Recovery, Downhill)

[Aerospeed]

Here is my attempt at a "team"
Team Name: National Steroid Association Racing Team (NSA Racing Team)
3 Letter Abbreviation: NSA
Nationality: Unknown
Jersey Colours: Black, Grey and White

Cyclists Who have been sought:
Wesley Duncan
Randall Clarks
John Vonn

Also some new riders:

Name: Jacques LaRossa
Age: 24
Nationality: French
Primary Skills: Acceleration, Time Trial, Sprint

Name: Alexey Volkov
Age: 23
Nationality: Russian
Primary Skills: Mountain, Endurance, Hills

Name: Janice Edwards (female!)
Age: 23
Nationality: British
Primary Skills: Recovery, Endurance, Acceleration

Anyone else who wants to join the team is welcome. If not, I will add more people later.

[Salamander]

Cyclists Who have been sought:
Wesley Duncan

Do yourself a favour and avoid Duncan like the plague. He is completely useless.

[QuickYoda41]

I see, it's advised to have more than 9 riders. Do you plan to run a full season?

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Also, Minardi would like to have Phillipe Viruolien from the currently unattached riders to race for the team.

You can have him if you want

[TomWazzleshaw]

Lansvale will sign Randall Clarks and Roberto Di Magenta to take our contingent up to 11. Can someone give me the stats of my team's riders so I can figure out the starting nine of each event? (Assuming that Shadaza is doing a full season)

[RonDenisDeletraz]

Battery will sign some reserve riders
Fernando Sousa
Pedro Sousa
Simon Hill

[tristan1117]

Boxtel will sign two more reserve riders, Brock Carson and Leandro Carabon.

Name: Brock Carson
Birthdate: 24
Nationality: Australian
Primary Skills: Flat, Fighting Spirit, Spring

Name: Leandro Carabon
Birthdate: 28
Nationality: Philippines
Primary Skills: Time Trial, Endurance, Mountain

[Shadaza]

Mauricio Sassetti, Italy, 25 and Pedro Massini, Italy, 28, as well as Jack Andrews, Canada, 22, will join Samsung/Skoda fleet. Just throw a dice on their skills.

Also, 28-year old Japanese downhiller Joji Yazaki (also skilled in time-trials and fighting spirit) will also join Team Firehawk (the true name of Samsung/Skoda team).

Ok, Team Firehawk new recruits:
Mauricio Sassetti = Cobbles, Fighting Spirit, Time Trial
Pedro Massini = Prologue, Sprint, Acceleration
Jack Andrews = Sprint, Resistance, Recovery
Joji Yazaki = Downhill, Time Trial, Fighting Spirit.

Looks like you rolled a fighter and 2 sprinters with your random stat guys.

Joel Janz Marquez 18 (Argentina) Gimmi Tanatacci 19(Italy) yorslov Mechavic 17 (Russia) Claudi Gusto 24 (Chile) Throw dice on skills

Are these unemployed riders or do you want a team? I will get to them later.

FGC have hired South African cyclist Jaap van Riebeck (Resistance, Acceleration, Mountain) and British cyclist Nathan Benson (Mountain, Recovery, Downhill)

I have both of their ages set to 27 for now, let me know if you wish for it to be changed.

Here is my attempt at a "team"
Team Name: National Steroid Association Racing Team (NSA Racing Team)
3 Letter Abbreviation: NSA
Nationality: Unknown
Jersey Colours: Black, Grey and White

Cyclists Who have been sought:
Wesley Duncan
Randall Clarks
John Vonn

Also some new riders:

Name: Jacques LaRossa
Age: 24
Nationality: French
Primary Skills: Acceleration, Time Trial, Sprint

Name: Alexey Volkov
Age: 23
Nationality: Russian
Primary Skills: Mountain, Endurance, Hills

Name: Janice Edwards (female!)
Age: 23
Nationality: British
Primary Skills: Recovery, Endurance, Acceleration

Anyone else who wants to join the team is welcome. If not, I will add more people later.

Nothing wrong with this team. (Well the UCI may have a problem with Janice Edwards!!!) Welcome aboard.

[AndreaModa]

Hitachi are currently reviewing their line-up and situation, a more detailed announcement will follow sometime this week if that's okay! They are in advanced talks with a secondary sponsor to join the team, and the three already confirmed riders will be staying.

[DemocalypseNow]

After some consideration, APB have decided to renew Piermario Saltalamacchia's contract. Whether he makes the TdF team however is another matter...

[Shadaza]

I see, it's advised to have more than 9 riders. Do you plan to run a full season?

Yes, I won't do a full stage by stage review for most of the season (takes too much time) But I will report on the results of each. Obviously the 3 big tours are in but as of that I have yet to come up with a full calender. I wish to include Time Trials, Team Time Trials, Classics and of course Stage Races and a variety of flat, hilly, mountain and cobble stages to cover all areas.

Lansvale will sign Randall Clarks and Roberto Di Magenta to take our contingent up to 11. Can someone give me the stats of my team's riders so I can figure out the starting nine of each event? (Assuming that Shadaza is doing a full season)

Actually you are on 9 riders, Chilserx Dawson and Randall Clarks were taken shortly before you claimed them but beforeI could update the free agent list, sorry about that.

But here are your rider stats:

Naseef Aqeem: Flat, Cobbles, Fighting Spirit
Giovani Biicicletta: Mountains, Resistance, Acceleration
Tamak Bisiklet: Time Tiral, Acceleration, Mountains
Michael Chow: Flat, Sprint, Acceleration
Roberto Di Magenta: Flat, Sprint, Cobbles
Jizdni Kolo: Time Trial, Acceleration, Endurance
Jean-Marie Van Fiets: Endurance, Fighting Spirit, Recovery
Jean Velo: Flat, Fighting Spirit, Endurance
Kang Xian Bin: Mountains, Resistance, Cobbles

Battery will sign some reserve riders
Fernando Sousa
Pedro Sousa
Simon Hill

Do you want me to give them random stats?

[DemocalypseNow]

Full season? Gotta have these races in them;

Tour Down Under
Paris-Nice
Milan – San Remo
Tour of Flanders
Paris-Roubaix
Tour of the Basque Country
La Flèche Wallonne
Liège–Bastogne–Liège
Tour de Romandie
Critérium du Dauphiné
Tour de Suisse
Eneco Tour
Clásica de San Sebastián
GP Ouest-France
Giro di Lombardia

There. Calendar sorted. Next question?

Also, what are Mika Pyora and Roberto di Magneta's stats?