F1 Rejects Cycling Challenge: Tour de France underway!

Bleu · Post by **Bleu** » 03 Nov 2012, 20:21

Shadaza wrote:
Bleu wrote:Team CIP for Paris-Nice
Abruzzo
Corday
Eriksson
Michalek
Tomic
Mota
Gutierrez

you are allowed 8 riders for Paris-Nice, so feel free to enter another.

Perez.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 03 Nov 2012, 20:42

I will close the entry list shortly after Tomorrow's Grand Prix.

If a team has not entered by then they shall enter their Aussie tour team +1 rider at random.

andrew · Post by **andrew** » 03 Nov 2012, 21:26

Who still needs to pick?

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 03 Nov 2012, 21:29

andrew wrote:Who still needs to pick?

Team Firehawk, Battery Energy and Credit Bancorotta

andrew · Post by **andrew** » 03 Nov 2012, 21:29

ok, thanks

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 04 Nov 2012, 15:17

andrew wrote:ok, thanks

If you wish to enter your own team let me know, there is plenty of room for further teams.

I will be closing the Paris-Nice entry list in a few hours.

Benetton · Post by **Benetton** » 04 Nov 2012, 15:56

Bancarotto enters

1. Verwest
2. Vache
3. Accelerara
4. Brice
5. Flugshreiber
6. de Moor
7. Whitcombe
8. Starecase

FMecha · Post by **FMecha** » 04 Nov 2012, 15:58

We will run:

Singh
Edison
Suchayo
Roberts
Iketani
Jung-un
Mechavic
Tenpenny

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 04 Nov 2012, 15:59

Please remove LaRossa and replace him with Melbourne, thank you

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 04 Nov 2012, 16:11

Velonews wrote:Fosters Good Cycle Directeur Sportif arrested in connection to widespread team doping

In a shock turn of events, only days before the start of the Paris-Nice, police in France have arrest Good Cycle's directeur sportif in connection to widespread doping alledged to be going on inside their team.

The team boss is alledged to be the head of a ring supplying EPO to both his own riders and those at rival teams, rumoured to include members of Team CIP, Team Firehawk, Battery Energy Drink and Hitachi Pro Tour.

No-one at Fosters Good Cycle was willing to comment at the time of going to press, and updates will be posted here as soon as more details are uncovered.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 04 Nov 2012, 16:22

kostas22 wrote:
Velonews wrote:Fosters Good Cycle Directeur Sportif arrested in connection to widespread team doping

In a shock turn of events, only days before the start of the Paris-Nice, police in France have arrest Good Cycle's directeur sportif in connection to widespread doping alledged to be going on inside their team.

The team boss is alledged to be the head of a ring supplying EPO to both his own riders and those at rival teams, rumoured to include members of Team CIP, Team Firehawk, Battery Energy Drink and Hitachi Pro Tour.

No-one at Fosters Good Cycle was willing to comment at the time of going to press, and updates will be posted here as soon as more details are uncovered.

Interesting you don't include the two teams that imply they drug cheat in their very titles. :lol:

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 04 Nov 2012, 16:26

kostas22 wrote:
Velonews wrote:Fosters Good Cycle Directeur Sportif arrested in connection to widespread team doping

In a shock turn of events, only days before the start of the Paris-Nice, police in France have arrest Good Cycle's directeur sportif in connection to widespread doping alledged to be going on inside their team.

The team boss is alledged to be the head of a ring supplying EPO to both his own riders and those at rival teams, rumoured to include members of Team CIP, Team Firehawk, Battery Energy Drink and Hitachi Pro Tour.

No-one at Fosters Good Cycle was willing to comment at the time of going to press, and updates will be posted here as soon as more details are uncovered.

Interesting you don't include the two teams that imply they drug cheat in their very titles.

Well, yes, exactly. That would be too easy now wouldn't it.

pasta_maldonado · Post by **pasta_maldonado** » 04 Nov 2012, 17:17

Cycle Sport wrote:LUKE KNIGHT DENIES DRUGS
After recent allegations by Velonews surrounding Foster's Good Cycle and it's Directeur Sportif, Jan van der Maeyede, Plus One CEO Luke Knight has spoken out to set the record straight.

"While it is true our Directeur Sportif did get arrested in France" Knight said at a press conference earlier today (of time of going to print) "and yes, it was for drugs offences, but it was in no way related to the doping of our riders or the sale of sope to other teams. Jan was simply arrested for suspection of posession of heroin, and when the French authorities found van der Maeyede only had weed on him, they let him go. He has already been released"

Welsh FGC cyclist Craig Beic, who is in France as a back-up, said "I have never ever taken dope. Nope." Velonews was unable for comment.

Post by **Ataxia** » 04 Nov 2012, 17:20

pasta_maldonado wrote:
Cycle Sport wrote:LUKE KNIGHT DENIES DRUGS
After recent allegations by Velonews surrounding Foster's Good Cycle and it's Directeur Sportif, Jan van der Maeyede, Plus One CEO Luke Knight has spoken out to set the record straight.

"While it is true our Directeur Sportif did get arrested in France" Knight said at a press conference earlier today (of time of going to print) "and yes, it was for drugs offences, but it was in no way related to the doping of our riders or the sale of sope to other teams. Jan was simply arrested for suspection of posession of heroin, and when the French authorities found van der Maeyede only had weed on him, they let him go. He has already been released"

Welsh FGC cyclist Craig Beic, who is in France as a back-up, said "I have never ever taken dope. Nope." Velonews was unable for comment.

I once saw a guy get arrested on Traffic Cops for possession of heroin; he complained to the police that he'd been smoking it and "couldn't get high on it", and they took it in for sampling. Turns out this man had been sold...a crushed dog biscuit.

Just thought this was relevant... :lol:

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 04 Nov 2012, 17:21

BaconLettuceNinja wrote:
pasta_maldonado wrote:
Cycle Sport wrote:LUKE KNIGHT DENIES DRUGS
After recent allegations by Velonews surrounding Foster's Good Cycle and it's Directeur Sportif, Jan van der Maeyede, Plus One CEO Luke Knight has spoken out to set the record straight.

"While it is true our Directeur Sportif did get arrested in France" Knight said at a press conference earlier today (of time of going to print) "and yes, it was for drugs offences, but it was in no way related to the doping of our riders or the sale of sope to other teams. Jan was simply arrested for suspection of posession of heroin, and when the French authorities found van der Maeyede only had weed on him, they let him go. He has already been released"

Welsh FGC cyclist Craig Beic, who is in France as a back-up, said "I have never ever taken dope. Nope." Velonews was unable for comment.

I once saw a guy get arrested on Traffic Cops for possession of heroin; he complained to the police that he'd been smoking it and "couldn't get high on it", and they took it in for sampling. Turns out this man had been sold...a crushed dog biscuit.

Just thought this was relevant...

Scooby Snacks are what powered Lance Armstrong to victory :lol:

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 04 Nov 2012, 19:41

NSA's late team change has been accepted along with the entries of Cip, CBR and Firehawk.

Cycling Circus will obviously enter their six riders.

Battery Energy team will enter their Down Under Tour team of:

Barry Firestone
Jan Ahlberg
Ryan Nelson
Simon Hill
Johan Kelstrom
Anthony de Vries
Roberto Vasquez de Silva

and one extra rider, chosen at random as :Takuma Masuhama

Also it appears UBC only picked 7 riders. So Chilserkx Dawson has been added to the team. Let me know if you want to make any last minute changes.

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 04 Nov 2012, 21:32

Can I make some last minute changes to the team.

If so then:
Ahlberg, Hill and Masuhama OUT
Ricard and both Sousas IN

They also do not know about any riders doping in their team.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 04 Nov 2012, 21:59

eurobrun wrote:Can I make some last minute changes to the team.

If so then:
Ahlberg, Hill and Masuhama OUT
Ricard and both Sousas IN

They also do not know about any riders doping in their team.

Ok, I will allow this no problem.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 00:31

The start of the 2013 Paris-Nice is a short <10KM time trial. Clearly the Tour can not be won today, but a few seconds lost on rivals could come to bite you.

Wesley Duncan of the NSA Team pulls a great run out of the bag and denies the Minardi team an incredible 1-2-3 on the first day. Minardi won't be too dissapointed though with 4 riders in the top 10 and with no pressure to protect the leaders jersey coming in to the next stage, that job is given to NSA.

Behind the trio of Awang, Goodspeed and White, Yudi Sucahyo takes the final season point with 5th place. The Paris-Nice is weighted the same as the Tour Down Under in terms of stage and final result. Though the inhouse points table is thankfully much more generous giving points down to the top 20 as opposed to just the top 3!

The entire field was covered by one minute 15 seconds with last place also going to NSA, sprinter Roberto Di Magenta.

It is no surprise to see Minardi leading the standings with 4 riders in the top 10, but the gap between them and second place Fantomette is larger than the gap from 2nd to 16th!

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 05 Nov 2012, 00:36

When the going gets tough, Castiglione and Firenze will eat 'em all up. Although Voeckler was supposed to be a time trial specialist, so where the hell is he?

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 05 Nov 2012, 00:38

Wesley Duncan actually did something? Well I'll be.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 00:45

kostas22 wrote:When the going gets tough, Castiglione and Firenze will eat 'em all up. Although Voeckler was supposed to be a time trial specialist, so where the hell is he?

In general it was prologue specialists that thrived here, but most time trial riders ended up doing fairly well. Voeckler was not one of them as he was either saving energy or on poor form. He is 76th, 59 seconds off the lead and 14 behind his lead team mates for some reason.

There is a much tougher time trial to come where he can prove himself.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » 05 Nov 2012, 00:56

Were any of the Twinings riders particularly good/bad?

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 01:05

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:Were any of the Twinings riders particularly good/bad?

Besides Denver in 14th, Craig West is in 17th also 45 seconds off the lead. This could be useful as his rivals such as Abdulrashid and Jerry Fletcher are all over a minute behind the leaders.

All your riders bar Vasquez are within a minute of the front and inside the top 100 (of 126 riders) and Vasquez (+1:08) is a sprinter so his time is pretty much irrelevant anyway.

Benetton · Post by **Benetton** » 05 Nov 2012, 07:01

I believe it is pretty obvious that Credit Bancarotto is NOT doping. :lol:

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 05 Nov 2012, 12:35

BlindCaveSalamander wrote:Wesley Duncan actually did something? Well I'll be.

Nothing a bit of EPO can't fix.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 14:48

Doping stories aside... Stage 2! Off to Orleans.

The flats of this stage were always going to lead to a mass sprint finish, though Naseef Aqeem, Sergei Grishin, Karl Van Graaf and Matsohiro Mizuhara (for Klon) did try and break, collected some minor points at the mid race mountain and sprint points before being caught within 10km from the finish.

The sprint was won by Katsuko Hondo from the Hitachi team, picking up their first stage win (or indeed noteworthy result) of the season. James Davies seemed to skulk in the shadows before producing a fine 2nd place and Stefan Lomasson is really putting the hammer down in his bid to become the best sprinter of the year, with 3rd after PCR did the lionshare of hard work this stage. Robert Cziczkas takes 4th in a race where Minardi also helped contribute at the front. Barry Firestone takes 5th after a smash and grab run. Roberto Magenta made his run too late, crossing the line at a furious pace, and Marcos Perez made his too early.

Every runner in the field is credited as finishing with the pack so with the exception of the small time bonuses for the stage win (6 seconds for the leader) the times are as you were from the prologue.

The race for the points jersey is on. Yudi Sucahyo of team Firehawk takes a slim lead after being one of only 2 men to score in both stages.

FMecha · Post by **FMecha** » 05 Nov 2012, 14:50

How our riders do? From IIDOTS to an anonyimity...

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 05 Nov 2012, 15:07

Well that was disappointing. No sign of Hooiveld or Le Clercq in the bunch sprint. Haven't done their jobs at all. Looks like Romano is the only sprinter I can rely on...

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 15:31

FMecha wrote:How our riders do? From IIDOTS to an anonyimity...

You shouldn't feel down, all the riders in stage 2 finished on exactly the same time, with Sucahyo actually climbing to 4th overall and head of the points table.
There is no need to panic about results at all after a tiny 10k time trial and a standard flat stage!

Never the less here is how your team is doing:

4th Yudi Sucahyo
13th Thomas Tenpenny
28th Park Jung-Un
46th Anand Singh
51st Nigel Roberts
84th Shuichi Iketani
85th Yorslov Mechavic
95th Jason Edison

Jason Edison in 95th is only 1:02 behind the leader!

kostas22 wrote:Well that was disappointing. No sign of Hooiveld or Le Clercq in the bunch sprint. Haven't done their jobs at all. Looks like Romano is the only sprinter I can rely on...

Le Clercq gave it a go and finished the stage in 18th. Other than that Alitalia looked as if they couldn't care less about the stage and sat at the back of the field the entire distance.

pasta_maldonado · Post by **pasta_maldonado** » 05 Nov 2012, 16:55

How are the Foster's Good Cycle lads doing? Not seent that many mentions of them, they probably stopped by the side of the road at some French farmhouse to sample some French things...

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 17:04

pasta_maldonado wrote:How are the Foster's Good Cycle lads doing? Not seent that many mentions of them, they probably stopped by the side of the road at some French farmhouse to sample some French things...

20th Daniel Sims +48
45th Dave Hedgehog +54
53rd Mitchell Webb +55
75th Thomas Torke +58
83rd Antonio Arena +59
99th Nicola Casella +1:03
100th Matsohiro Mizuhara +1:03
104th Boo Radley-Biggins +1:05

Radley Biggins had an awful run on the prologue whilst Daniel Sims put in an above average run for 20th. Any non-Prologue rider under 50 seconds behind the leader did an excellent job. whilst any over a minute did badly. It is a very narrow band.

Post by **DemocalypseNow** » 05 Nov 2012, 18:10

It's a shame we can't set custom tactics in this game, the riders rarely even try to do what I want them to, but I suppose it would be too much time to get every team to do this...sigh. Looks like I will just have to hope my headless chickens sort themselves out, it seems without Artan Karimi on the team there is no organisation in their attacks.

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 18:36

kostas22 wrote:It's a shame we can't set custom tactics in this game, the riders rarely even try to do what I want them to, but I suppose it would be too much time to get every team to do this...sigh. Looks like I will just have to hope my headless chickens sort themselves out, it seems without Artan Karimi on the team there is no organisation in their attacks.

I would be awesome to set custom tactics but I think it is impossible to set what the AI will do, indeed it is only on the most recent patch of the game you can even set the rider start lists for each event.

On the other hand the AI is not stupid and most of the tactics they use are legitimate and are often made with the strengths of the riders in mind. For example hanging back on simple flat stages is seen as a good strategy for saving energy for harder stages. Really you have to hope your team is a good blend and that your riders do what you want them too and for the most part it seems realistic, you won't see a teams lead sprinter try and carry a his team mates up a mountain for example!

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 20:16

Verizon - Le Lac de Vassiviere

Stage 3 is classed as a flat stage but the final 10km of the stage are anything but! The pouring rain and the near 200km distance mark this stage as one of the most difficult "flat" classification races you will see on the tour!

Sid Hatayuki broke at the beginning of the 10km climb along with TDU winner Nasser Abdulrashid, the Qatari rider could not keep up with the blistering pace of the Performance and Cocktails instead slipping back into a gaggle of other late breakaway riders led by UBC.
From that group Iketani, Vasquez de Silva and Raphael Le Clerq gained a small lead. Craig West completing the top 5. The majority of the remainder of the pack came in nearly a minute and a half behind Hatayuki.

Only 2 riders dared break away at the early stage of the tour with mixed fates, Tirger Cyclings, Rafal Piotrowski managed to score a hatfull of mountain and sprint points before finishing safely in the pack. The other rider Boo Radley-Biggins lagged behind Piotrowski in the end and found himself finishing the stage dead last more than 3 minutes behind anyone else.

As you would expect the leader board is turned upside down with Sid Hatayuki taking overall lead as well. Giovanni Abruzzo may have finished the stage 13th but coupled with his time trial efforts now sits 2nd place ahead of Battery Energies, Roberto Vasquez de Silva.

The teams leaderboard has also swapped around. Performance and Cocktails, Team Firehawk and UBC were the teams that lead the last race break and deservedly leap up the table as a result. PCR won the stage but it is now Samsung-Skoda Firehawk that lead the standings.

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 05 Nov 2012, 20:54

Everyone other than SIlva has been dreadful for Battrey so far, where are all the other riders?

TomWazzleshaw · Post by **TomWazzleshaw** » 05 Nov 2012, 20:56

Why are my guys so incapable of stringing more than one stage together?

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 05 Nov 2012, 20:59

I certainly approve of two NSA riders being in the Top 15

Shadaza · Post by **Shadaza** » 05 Nov 2012, 22:02

eurobrun wrote:Everyone other than SIlva has been dreadful for Battrey so far, where are all the other riders?

The trouble with Battery Energy, the same problem that caught out a few teams, was that on the last stage was the majority of the riders were cruising in the back half of the pack when the break started, making it impossible for them to catch up.

Here are your riders:

3.Roberto Vasquez de Silva +30
38.Fernando Sousa +1:33
44.Pedro Sousa +1:34
47.Barry Firestone +1:36 (has a 5th place)
60.Olivier Ricard +1:38
78.Ryan Nelson +1:41
107.Anthony De Vries +1:49
112.Johan Kelstrom +1:51

Other than de Silva, all are pretty much on the same time. Only 16 riders beat the peloton home.

Wizzie wrote:Why are my guys so incapable of stringing more than one stage together?

The trouble with your team is that none of your riders are skilled with hills, which is problematic when trying to win a stage with a 10km hill climb at the end.

JeremyMcClean wrote:I certainly approve of two NSA riders being in the Top 15

Not to cast a downer on what has been a good start to the tour for you but I forgot to mention that Jason Hamilton had to pull out of the last stage with a fractured wrist. He is still classed as race fit so should be able to do the next tour, the Adriatico if you so wish. He is the only race retirement so far.

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 05 Nov 2012, 22:13

Shadaza wrote:Not to cast a downer on what has been a good start to the tour for you but I forgot to mention that Jason Hamilton had to pull out of the last stage with a fractured wrist. He is still classed as race fit so should be able to do the next tour, the Adriatico if you so wish. He is the only race retirement so far.

Thought his name was Jason Melbourne? :?:

Still, Could be worse.