Ripley wrote:
I had an inkling about this when you announced a 9-parter. But wow, what a stage, and nothing decided yet, Adam Yates is looking really strong.
Can't surprise a fellow story writer now, can you? Adam's uprising has been remarkable indeed. A very interesting situation to have three contenders that only have themselves and each other to reckon with given the great time gaps.
The infamous Skyneos train bossed the pace all day long. As a result, everything came back together with 30 kilometers to go. The only notable name missing from the group of 39 was Groupama's Benjamin Brkic, current wearer of the white jersey.
Instead, Adam Yates and Pardo bridged. While Ruben kept pacing to catch up again, Pardo attacked the twin brothers.
Pardo couldn't resist Simon Yates' acceleration in the last hectometers. His third stage win came with a 45" gap over Guerreiro, who saw riders attack from his back after he had been setting the pace.
He still leads the GC though, yet now by the slimmest of margins; 5", and we're probably in for one hell of a fight on the all-decisive mountain stage to Bola del Mundo.
What a finale this is shaping up to be! I was hopeful that Simon maybe passed his peak form when Ruben distanced him by 3 minutes, but this was quite the bounce back. Great to see Chavarri with the stage win!
cunego59 wrote:
What a finale this is shaping up to be! I was hopeful that Simon maybe passed his peak form when Ruben distanced him by 3 minutes, but this was quite the bounce back. Great to see Chavarri with the stage win!
Chávarri, what can I say. We just gotta love our Basque pocket-climber and the wins he's landed for us already. Very interested what he'll be able to do as his country's leader at the Worlds in a few weeks.
Ripley wrote:
Obviously looking forward to the conclusion.
Cerezo joined the breakaway for us. On the outskirts of Valladolid, he tried a late attack as he has no sprint he can count on. His move failed and Arthur Vichot later won the stage.
1
Arthur Vichot
CCC Team
3h59'06"
2
Simone Ponzi
UAE-Team Emirates
s.t.
3
Tim Declercq
BMC Racing Team
s.t.
4
Dieter Bouvry
Deceuninck - Quick Step
s.t.
5
Flavien Dassonville
AG2R La Mondiale
s.t.
Stage 19 :: 169.3 kms
Battaglin was our man out front on day 19. His decreasing form was proven by how, despite being one of the fastest men of the group on paper, he'd only finish in 7th place. Italian champion Fedi won as the GC remained the same for the all decisive mountain stage to Bola del Mundo.
1
Andrea Fedi
EF Education First Pro Team
3h40'02"
2
Salvatore Puccio
Team Katusha - Alpecin
s.t.
3
Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
Lotto Soudal
s.t.
4
Adriano Malori
Movistar Team
s.t.
5
Dieter Bouvry
Deceuninck - Quick Step
s.t.
…
7
Enrico Battaglin
RuralvÃa-CCU Pro Team
s.t.
Stage 20 :: 168.9 kms
Bola del Mundo had only featured twice before in all editions of La Vuelta combined. Back in 2010, when Nibali held off a raging (and doping) Mosquera, and in 2012, when Contador succesfully defended his lead on the flanks of the Madrilenian climb. This time it was up to our Ruben Guerreiro to redo what both Nibali and Contador achieved before him.
Before that, Buchmann and GC 10th Ravasi fought for the mountain jersey from a breakaway group that we happily gave about 15 minutes. The German champion couldn't win one mountain sprint and was dropped before the steepest part of Bola del Mundo.
The fight for the stage win was won by Søren Møller Lundbye, who beat Ravasi, Mamykin and Mannion.
As was to be expected, the Yates brothers lit things up early on the final climb. Slagter followed while Ruben once again rode his own pace.
Near the start of the narrow road, it seemed like he was gaining ground on them.
The other three suddenly started to climb less swiftly and Ruben caught up again. After that, he marked the wheel of Adam Yates, who everyonye looked at to set the pace.
The expected new acceleration from one of the brothers only came in the last hundreds of meters, where Adam kicked away. Ruben had to give him some time but he finished ahead of Simon, who was the biggest GC threat.
Without any big accidents, he would become the first ever Portuguese to finish on the top step of a Grand Tour GC podium.
In a week that was relatively easy on the sprinters, not even the ceremonial stage to Madrid ended with a chance for them to get the stage. UAE's Nicola Boem attacked from a breakaway group Cortes played no major role in to snatch the biggest win of his career.
Portugal has been added to the list of nations that have bred at least one Grand Tour winner. It's been a while since someone won by such a small margin.
Too many breakaway made it this year for any sprinter to stand a chance. Top finisher Ewan only has about half as many points as Simon Yates.
Though it's definitely not what he came for, the Brit is a logical winner, being the most consistent rider of the GC contenders with his three first ever GT stage wins on top.
1
Simon Yates
BORA - hansgrohe
206 pts.
2
Ruben Guerreiro
RuralvÃa-CCU Pro Team
129 pts.
3
Adam Yates
Team INEOS
128 pts.
4
Gregor Mühlberger
Team INEOS
123 pts.
5
Caleb Ewan
Team Dimension Data
104 pts.
Final mountain standings
The KoM jersey didn't leave a GC contender's shoulders until the final third of the race. Eder was a contender after his stage 16 win hadn't we put most of our eggs in the GC basket later on.
Ravasi beat Buchmann fair and square when it mattered most on stage 20, and finished close enough after stage winner Lundbye to hold on to the polka dots.
No one on our team came close despite Vandenborre and Chávarri being present. Both of them had a bad patch in the first week and bounced back with a stage win.
Van der Poel looked really good for a long time, until he suffered a very tough crash. Brkic seemed to take over at first, but he struggled on the steeper climbs Sam Oomen thrives on. His close-to-peak form was not enough for a top 10 spot though.
Fantastic result, contrats! Three stage wins for the cherry on top as well. And cool to see that every second counted, even those from places you wouldn't expect
Amazing to come away with the win! Love the summary of the race too! It ended up being really close, but smart riding by Ruben gave him the win. I actually hadnt realized the Yates were on different teams, but thats probably why they were so close in time then.
cunego59 wrote:
Fantastic result, contrats! Three stage wins for the cherry on top as well. And cool to see that every second counted, even those from places you wouldn't expect
valverde321 wrote:
Amazing to come away with the win! Love the summary of the race too! It ended up being really close, but smart riding by Ruben gave him the win. I actually hadnt realized the Yates were on different teams, but thats probably why they were so close in time then.
Ripley wrote:
Congrats, what a massive achievement for the team!
Thank you all! Together with the LBL and Lombardia Monument wins, this is for sure the greatest achievement in this career so far. I was surprised to see the Yates brothers not cooperate on Bola del Mundo, as both still had a shot at the overall win. But hey, no complaints on my part.
The Worlds (with an out of form Spanish squad that doesn't feature many of the country's starts) and Lombardia are the last major races of the season. After that, I'm considering putting the story on a back burner.
My way of writing is quite time consuming, which causes the pace to be rather low. I'm also planning on buying the new game for the first time in years and it's my intention to use it for a brand new story as well.
If only Team Sky had said "well, we won the Tour once, that's enough".
Thankfully, PCM doesn't have a relationship bonus. Though that could be quite cool, riders are or grow to be friends and then they are more likely to work together, as if they were team mates, even if they ride for different teams.
I'd be happy to either see Caja Rural continue or a new story - or both.
It's going to be sad to see this dicontinued, but I can imagine how much effort you put into it (which is what makes the story so great, of course) so I understand maybe wanting to move on to something else. And you're finishing on a high point, which is great! Looking forward to the final posts and then of course the new story, whichever way you go with it This has been an amazing accomplishment, that's for sure!
Ripley wrote:
If only Team Sky had said "well, we won the Tour once, that's enough".
Thankfully, PCM doesn't have a relationship bonus. Though that could be quite cool, riders are or grow to be friends and then they are more likely to work together, as if they were team mates, even if they ride for different teams.
I'd be happy to either see Caja Rural continue or a new story - or both.
I don't think anyone on this forum would agree more than I do on the Sky topic. Well, Shonak maybe.
The relationship bonus would be really cool though. I honestly can't imagine the two brothers slowing down IRL, they'd always have gone for the 1-2 in either order.
I'll surely keep on playing this save, but it has taken me about a full year to advance through the last season. That's slow, even if I start to use a different style of reports. In an ideal world, I'd like to slim this one down in terms of details to make room for the new one I have already been thinking about.
cunego59 wrote:
It's going to be sad to see this dicontinued, but I can imagine how much effort you put into it (which is what makes the story so great, of course) so I understand maybe wanting to move on to something else. And you're finishing on a high point, which is great! Looking forward to the final posts and then of course the new story, whichever way you go with it This has been an amazing accomplishment, that's for sure!
Many thanks from the kind words. It's been quite an (almost) 5 years since I started this one. As I stated above, a slimmed-down version of Caja could be more than interesting enough until the new game is playable and I have caught up with 5 years of gameplay changes.
On our schedule, Grand Prix de Wallonia was the last prep race for the World Championships. As usual, the startlist mostly featured Belgian and Dutch teams from every level, this year joined by our team, Bahrain-McLaren and Sunweb.
Two attackers, Nguyen and Chernetskiy, caught and dropped the breakaway duo on the first of three climbs in the finale. Thanks to Sunweb's labour though, they were caught again at the foot of the final climb on the famous Namur citadel.
Ochoa made a smart move going to the other side of the road and used the good legs he's had for a few weeks now to pull off a very long sprint. It turned out to be a winning one too, co-favourite Valgren was the only one to finish close.
cunego59 wrote:
Very nice visuals with the banner and the jerseys Oh, and totally missed Ochoa's victory, going strong in all departments, I see
Thanks, I love to make these flag-based pictures for the Worlds. Ochoa's good form from the Canadian classics is still there, hopefully he'll have a good day in Algiers soon.
As it's not that easy to properly comment on a time trial, I chose to just give a chronological overview of the riders that, at some point, held the best time (and the spot they eventually finished in).
On the course: though being categorised as flat, the two early climbs are leg-sappers with slopes up to over 15%.
47
Ivan Lutsenko
RUSSIA
1h11'10"
Ivan, who's not related to the Kazakh 2020 Roubaix winner of the same last name, was the first to roll down from the start house. It's not a coincidence that he was the first man to sit in the hotseat.
26
Jesús Herrada
SPAIN
1h10'01"
(-1'09")
Jesús Herrada was one of the four Spaniards that didn't do their national team coach any favours by arriving in mediocre shape at best. Still, Jesús rode about a minute faster than Ivan Lutsenko.
13
Thibaut Pinot
FRANCE
1h08'38"
(-1'23")
Jesús wouldn't stay in the lead for long either. Thibaut Pinot, Giro stage winner, GC 3rd in Le Tour and podium finisher in multiple WT stages, bettered his time by almost a minute and a half. Five finishers, three new best times.
3
Sam Vandenborre
BELGIUM
1h07'42"
(-56")
Sam Vandenborre, the reigning world champion, made it four best times out of seven tries. He found the legs of his Vuelta TT win and rode another minute faster than Pinot.
Fellow favourites Dumoulin, Dennis, Malori, Guerreiro and Kelderman all failed to beat Sam's time. Only championships specialist Brändle, who finished second last year only behind Sam, turned the tables on this year. Brändle will be the first ever Austrian to wear the rainbow jersey in each and every ITT he participates in.
1
Matthias Brändle
AUSTRIA
1h07'29"
(-13")
The last finisher was Ryan Mullen, another top favourite. He squeezed onto the podium; into second place even, beating Sam by 6 seconds.
Vuelta a España (2.GT) 
Algiers, 45.9 kms
