40 seconds behind Ricco already, that could be tough to make up.

That said, very impressive sprinting so far.

Unfortunately, those 40 seconds may now be the least of Evans' concerns...



Stage 5 and into the mountains: Montevergine.


I wonder if Di Luca is feeling good?


The attacks kick over on the climb, and it is not good news at all. Popovych leads. Cuengo, Cataldo and Barberi are at 23 seconds, then another 20 seconds to Soler, Di Luca and Van den Broeck, 24 more to Capecchi, Ortega, Iglinskiy and Ricco ... and then Evans.


Evans links up with Capecchi, Ortega and Iglinskiy (Ricco has gone up ahead), while Pellizotti makes his way up along with Kirchen. Pellizotti and Evans try to limit the damage


Yaroslav Popovych – the first to attack on the climb – is the somewhat surprising stage winner. He takes the maglia rosa. Cataldo and Barberi also surprisingly strong to be mixing it with Di Luca and Ricco for the next places.


Meanwhile the final kilometre is a horrible won for Evans. Pushing too hard to try to make up for a poor attack, he cracks. Thats right, he is being dropped from a group that includes a rider with something like 70 mountain, Eros Capecchi.


Pellizotti stays with that group, finishing at 2’08 down to Popovych. But Evans is frankly embarrassing. He gets caught by Boasson Hagen and has lost over 3 minutes.


He beats Romandie winner Orozco, but only because the Colombian appears to have sat back with Ricco the designated Barloworld leader.

1 Yaroslav Popovych LAMPRE - FONDITAL 5h07'45
2 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA + 31
3 Dario Cataldo GEROLSTEINER s.t.
4 Stefano Barberi QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 45
5 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD s.t.
6 Danilo Di Luca T-MOBILE TEAM + 59
7 Mauricio Soler DISCOVERY CHANNEL s.t.
8 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 1'13
9 Mauricio Ortega SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR + 2'08
10 Kim Kirchen CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
11 Eros Capecchi LIQUIGAS s.t.
12 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
13 Franco Pellizotti DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
14 Edvald Boasson Hagen DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 3'14
15 Cadel Evans DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
16 Edwin Orozco BARLOWORLD + 3'28
17 Julián Rodas TEAM ASTANA s.t.
18 Rinaldo Nocentini CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
19 Stefan Schumacher AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
20 Pasquale Muto RABOBANK s.t.
21 Juanjo Cobo SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
22 Carlos Sastre SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
23 Joaquim Rodríguez CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
24 Andrea Tonti AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
25 Luca Mazzanti TEAM MILRAM s.t.
44 Rigoberto Urán DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
50 Rafaâ Chtioui DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
62 Alexander Efimkin DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
99 Daniel Lloyd DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 6'22
100 Fabio Sabatini DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 6'56
142 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 8'24

GC:
1 Yaroslav Popovych LAMPRE - FONDITAL 21h35'48
2 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA + 11
3 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD + 25
4 Danilo Di Luca T-MOBILE TEAM + 43
5 Dario Cataldo GEROLSTEINER s.t.
6 Stefano Barberi QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC + 1'05
7 Mauricio Soler DISCOVERY CHANNEL + 1'19
8 Jurgen Van den Broeck PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 1'33
9 Eros Capecchi LIQUIGAS + 1'40
10 Edvald Boasson Hagen DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 2'02
11 Kim Kirchen CAISSE D'EPARGNE + 2'28
12 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
13 Franco Pellizotti DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
14 Mauricio Ortega SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
15 Marco Marcato PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 2'38
16 Ersilio Calogero TEAM MILRAM + 2'50
17 Rinaldo Nocentini CAISSE D'EPARGNE + 3'20
18 Francesco Gavazzi LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
19 Juan Pablo Forero LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
20 Cadel Evans DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 3'34

Ouch, top ten with EBH?

And thus the problem with PCM07 comes to light. Sometimes my rider's red fills up stupidly fast, so to counter that, I set the pace to something more reasonable, but you also have to put the rider on the "dot" rather than the "do a turn" setting, which also means the red goes up stupidly fast if the heart rate is above the limit. Ah the wonders and annoyances of too much red.

Some things in PCM just cant be explained. Cadel Evans, couldnt be in a better shape fitness wise, and stats-wise should be able to cope but, nope.

At this point I tried to improve the graphics on the game due to a new graphics card. These attempts first broke the game, and then when fixed, led to some lovely grey scenery. Enjoy!
Stage 6 of the Giro and we are sprinting into Foggia. Like Stage 3, CSC are the ones with the best leadout.


With just over a kilometre to go, Boasson Hagen looks to make his move to the left of Haedo, although Anderson hasn’t moved far to the right so it could be a bit of a squeeze – while Capecchi is moving up, Sulzberger in his wheel


And by the time Boasson Hagen has broken through the CSC sandwich, Capecchi has jumped into the lead, with just 900 metres to go. He beat Evans in the mountains yesterday, can Capecchi also beat our sprinters today?


But look at the speed of Boasson Hagen! No problem at all.


So its a 3rd stage win for Boasson Hagen! Wes Sulzberger with his best result aswell, in 3rd.


1 Edvald Boasson Hagen DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 3h55'21
2 Eros Capecchi LIQUIGAS s.t.
3 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
4 Marco Marcato PREDICTOR - LOTTO s.t.
5 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD s.t.
6 Allan Davis CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
7 Francesco Gavazzi LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
8 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA s.t.
9 Jonas Aaen Jørgensen CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
10 Paride Grillo CERAMICA PANARIA - NAVIGARE s.t.
11 Pieter Riis Andersen TEAM CSC s.t.
12 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC s.t.
13 Martin Pedersen UNIBET.COM s.t.
14 Juan Pablo Forero LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
15 Ersilio Calogero TEAM MILRAM s.t.
16 Alessandro Proni QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
17 Manuel Cardoso GEROLSTEINER s.t.
18 Mattia Gavazzi TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
19 Diego Milán LIQUIGAS s.t.
20 Antonio Aldegani QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
21 Yaroslav Popovych LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
22 Francesco Failli TEAM MILRAM s.t.
23 Rigoberto Urán DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
24 Giovanni Visconti BARLOWORLD s.t.
25 Rafaâ Chtioui DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
26 Boris Shpilevski TEAM MILRAM s.t.
27 Fabio Gilioli BARLOWORLD s.t.
28 Fabio Sabatini DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
29 Pavel Brutt TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
30 Davide Malacarne CERAMICA PANARIA - NAVIGARE s.t.

Points:
1 Edvald Boasson Hagen DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 117
2 Marco Marcato PREDICTOR - LOTTO 89
3 Eros Capecchi LIQUIGAS 75
4 Ersilio Calogero TEAM MILRAM 65
5 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 51
6 Riccardo Riccò BARLOWORLD 47
7 Danilo Di Luca T-MOBILE TEAM 42
8 Damiano Cunego TEAM ASTANA 40
9 Juan José Haedo TEAM CSC 34
10 Francesco Gavazzi LAMPRE - FONDITAL 33

Thats got to be frustrating. I got a new gfx card a while back, and when I played PCM 08, I couldn't raise my graphics details at all either.
At least you won.

Thing is, I know the graphics card works, because PCM10 looks a lot better. PCM07 just put up a fit when I tried to change anything, and has settled on grey.

But yes, its the results that count at the end of the day!

Too bad that the graphics card didn't work well.

Anyway, very nice win with EBH and a nice third place with Sulzberger.

At least the sprinting is going well. Looks like it'll be tough for Evans to do a good result though, even if he does race at a level more befitting his ability for the rest of the race.

Stage 7 means its time for Rigoberto Uran to sit up and take notice. The World Champion has been looking forward to this!


3 hills towards the end, we wait until the 3rd, and so does everyone else. This is good news, and means we can strike first. Franco Pellizotti leaps off the front, Uran is tucked in.


Cataldo, and Di Luca are quick to follow and with Iglinskiy, Kirchen and Petrov going aswell, Evans realises he better had aswell, and just tags on over the top - where Uran has gotten a gap!


The Colombian presses on, as Pellizotti tries to judge leaving enough space to Uran and still gaining a time gap on the peloton still including the likes of Maglia Rosa Popovych - for the rest of the group have decided to follow Pellizotti.


This is great news for Rigoberto of course, and he takes the downhill run-in in style - victory for the World Champion!


And having eventually led off the sprint for 2nd, Pellizotti holds on for 3rd - passed only by Di Luca.


There is a gap achieved between the Pellizotti/Evans group and the peloton - where Edvald Boasson Hagen came a net 2nd (so 10th on the stage) despite hopeless positioning. The gap is 37 seconds. For us, it is a start to the recovery. For Di Luca, it means he takes the race lead!

1 Rigoberto Urán DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED 5h41'02
2 Danilo Di Luca T-MOBILE TEAM + 27
3 Franco Pellizotti DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
4 Dario Cataldo GEROLSTEINER s.t.
5 Maxim Iglinskiy CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
6 Kim Kirchen CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
7 Cadel Evans DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
8 Evgeni Petrov TEAM CSC s.t.
9 Marco Marcato PREDICTOR - LOTTO + 1'04
10 Edvald Boasson Hagen DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.
11 Eros Capecchi LIQUIGAS s.t.
12 Ersilio Calogero TEAM MILRAM s.t.
13 Juan Pablo Forero LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
14 Diego Milán LIQUIGAS s.t.
15 Francesco Gavazzi LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
16 Manuel Cardoso GEROLSTEINER s.t.
17 Allan Davis CRÉDIT AGRICOLE s.t.
18 Giovanni Visconti BARLOWORLD s.t.
19 Paride Grillo CERAMICA PANARIA - NAVIGARE s.t.
20 Stefan Schumacher AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
21 Rinaldo Nocentini CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
22 Yaroslav Popovych LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
23 Alessandro Proni QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC s.t.
24 Francesco Failli TEAM MILRAM s.t.
25 Andrea Tonti AG2R PRÉVOYANCE s.t.
36 Wes Sulzberger DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED s.t.

And you're back!!

Nice win

Great job!

Yep, ManGame stuff took over but Ive got some time to kill at the moment, and I dont have PCM11 yet

And thanks



We raced here back in our Continental days of 2007. Anuar Manan took 3 sprint podiums before winning the final stage, while Dan Lloyd did well enough on the mountain stage to secure 6th overall. Riding for Maxbo Bianchi, a certain Edvald Boasson Hagen took a stage win and 2nd overall.

Why are we here now though? Justo Tenorio wants some good racing legs going into Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, and as mentioned, this race has a mountain stage! Verbist, Henshaw, Martin and Deignan will support Tenorio.

On Stage 1 there was a bunch sprint, but on Stage 2 a break won by 4 and a half minutes. Another break gained 1 and a half minutes on Stage 3, with Brit Kristian House taking 3rd for Volksbank.


So clearly coming into the mountain stage, we need to be aggressive if Tenorio is to contest GC. So on the first of the 3 climbs, with Tenorio on his wheel giving him encouragement, Dan Martin tore into the peloton and reduced it to 8 rdiers over the top - Deignan also just about hanging in there, although generally continuing his dissapointing performances for us.


In the downhill and subsequent flat though, the rest of the peloton regrouped and it all came back together. Climb 2 then, Deignan did some work early on, but despite his stats, he was not as helpful as Dan Martin who took over again to do some damage - this time a group of 20 lead over the top.


After waiting his turn, Justo Tenorio hit the front at the bottom of the 3rd and final climb, and soon only Rob Ruijgh could follow him - Ruijgh must wish we'd leave his CT races alone, he was our closest challenger in Trentino aswell.


Tenorio soon rides away from Ruijgh and takes a minute gap. But the climb is over 10km long, and with 30km of descent and flat to follow, Tenorio was wary of pushing too hard, so Ruijgh had reduced that gap to 45 seconds at the top.


Its worth mentioning though that the next 2 riders: Morabito and Peterson, where 6 minutes down already!

Unfortunately Tenorio's conservation of energy gave Ruijgh hope, and try as Tenorio might, he couldnt hold off the Dutchman, who duly stole victory in the stage and GC.


The next group of 17 finished 7'26 down, and the final stage ended in a sprint.

Final GC:
1 Rob Ruijgh ELK HAUS - SIMPLON 21h53'41
2 Justo Tenorio DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED + 4
3 Johan Coenen THÃœRINGER ENERGIE TEAM + 4'39
4 Kristian House TEAM VORARLBERG - VOLKSBANK + 6'00
5 Sebastian Schwager SKIL - SHIMANO + 7'33
6 Karl Menzies TEAM LPR + 7'34
7 Aleksandr Kuschynski ELK HAUS - SIMPLON + 7'35
8 Marcus Ljungqvist TEAM VORARLBERG - VOLKSBANK s.t.
9 Sebastian Frey TEAM SPARKASSE + 7'37
10 Andreas Schillinger TEAM SPARKASSE s.t.
11 Javier Etxarri ELK HAUS - SIMPLON s.t.
12 Antonio D'Aniello TEAM LPR s.t.
13 Steve Morabito T-MOBILE TEAM s.t.
14 Alex Howes TEAM MAXBO BIANCHI s.t.
15 Stefan Denifl TEAM LPR s.t.
16 Jesús Ramírez CHOCOLADE JACQUES - TOPSPORT VLAANDEREN s.t.
17 Marc De Maar TEAM VORARLBERG - VOLKSBANK s.t.
18 Thomas Peterson NAVIGATORS INSURANCE s.t.
19 Olmedo Capacho TEAM WIESENHOF FELT s.t.
20 Matthias Hahn THÃœRINGER ENERGIE TEAM + 8'26

Good to see the story back, at least in the short term

Shame your graphics card is still causing you problems

Thanks, and I believe its more computer than graphics card.

Now that the graphics card is in a new computer with much better other parts, I can play PCM07 on maximum settings and it looks great. The Grey however, will be here for the rest of the Giro, plus Catalunya, Dauphine and Tour de Suisse - as Ive already raced them.

Leaving it all clear for the National Champs and Le Tour to bounce back (Alan Partridge style) in glorious colour?! Nice! To be honest, it's pretty awesome to hear you've managed to race that far ahead. Looking forward to the reports as and when they're posted

After a 'brief' break, it is time for some more DFL action. The Giro d'Italia continues shortly, and here are the stats of some of the key riders to look out for, both within DFL and across the peloton.

There's a more detailed preview of the race, written in 2011, at https://www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthr...ost_388739

Meanwhile there's a detailed preview of the stats of all teams on Page 101. https://www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthr...start=2000 Written in 2009 that one. Long season this, eh!

Back to the Giro: 9 of the overall GC contenders.





The current GC is:

1	Danilo Di Luca	T-MOBILE TEAM	31h13'09
2	Yaroslav Popovych	LAMPRE - FONDITAL	+ 6
3	Dario Cataldo	GEROLSTEINER	+ 12
4	Damiano Cunego	TEAM ASTANA	+ 17
5	Riccardo Riccò	BARLOWORLD	+ 31
6	Stefano Barberi	QUICKSTEP - INNERGETIC	+ 1'11
7	Mauricio Soler	DISCOVERY CHANNEL	+ 1'25
8	Eros Capecchi	LIQUIGAS	+ 1'34
9	Jurgen Van den Broeck	PREDICTOR - LOTTO	+ 1'39
10	Edvald Boasson Hagen	DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED	+ 1'48
11	Franco Pellizotti	DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED	+ 1'49
12	Kim Kirchen	CAISSE D'EPARGNE	+ 1'57
13	Maxim Iglinskiy	CRÉDIT AGRICOLE	s.t.
14	Rigoberto Urán	DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED	+ 2'30
15	Mauricio Ortega	SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR	+ 2'34
18	Cadel Evans	DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED	+ 3'03

Evans is our team leader and in top form, but the race has not gone to plan so far. Pellizotti is his main support, while World Champion Rigoberto Uran is stronger on the hills - as evidenced by the Stage 7 win.



And now the sprinters. Edvald Boasson Hagen is up there as one of the best in the world with 4 Vuelta wins in 2008, 3 TDF wins in 2009 and already 3 Giro wins this race. He is going for the Grand Tour Points classification set and is leading that so far.

1	Edvald Boasson Hagen	DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED	123
2	Marco Marcato	PREDICTOR - LOTTO	96
3	Eros Capecchi	LIQUIGAS	80
4	Ersilio Calogero	TEAM MILRAM	71
5	Danilo Di Luca	T-MOBILE TEAM	62
6	Wes Sulzberger	DFL - CYCLINGNEWS - LITESPEED	51
7	Riccardo Riccò	BARLOWORLD	47
8	Damiano Cunego	TEAM ASTANA	40
9	Francesco Gavazzi	LAMPRE - FONDITAL	34
10	Juan José Haedo	TEAM CSC	34

Oh my god...

Now, this was unexpected.