Bikex wrote:
WTF are you doing Lutsenko? Again a quite promising situation completely wasted, when my riders dropped out of the front group.
I'm sure jph mixed something in my team's food.
You've not seen Herbiers yet I see
Cattaneo less useless here, but still not going to be enough barring an Act of Yates in Lombardia.
Bikex wrote:
WTF are you doing Lutsenko? Again a quite promising situation completely wasted, when my riders dropped out of the front group.
I'm sure jph mixed something in my team's food.
You've not seen Herbiers yet I see
Cattaneo less useless here, but still not going to be enough barring an Act of Yates in Lombardia.
You're right, hopefully Cattaneo can conserve his timetrialling form from there.
He will pass a lot of the riders in front of him, though. I guess it will be enough for you to be ahead in the rankings before Lombardia and Lutsenko has shown again and again that he is completely useless.
Bikex wrote:
WTF are you doing Lutsenko? Again a quite promising situation completely wasted, when my riders dropped out of the front group.
I'm sure jph mixed something in my team's food.
You've not seen Herbiers yet I see
Cattaneo less useless here, but still not going to be enough barring an Act of Yates in Lombardia.
You're right, hopefully Cattaneo can conserve his timetrialling form from there.
He will pass a lot of the riders in front of him, though. I guess it will be enough for you to be ahead in the rankings before Lombardia and Lutsenko has shown again and again that he is completely useless.
Currently I have it as you on 4341, T-Mobile on 4340, me on 4334, Fablok on 4186 and Repsol on 4155. Think you'll be up another 100-150 points or so after Deutschland finishes though, and don't think I'll outscore you by much here. So I reckon going to Lombardia it'll be something like:
It then comes down to the puncheurs, and Lutsenko should outscore my Yates and McCarthy pairing - think the real fight for you now is with T-Mobile, or Fablok if Ponzi wins Lombardia.
Bikex wrote:
WTF are you doing Lutsenko? Again a quite promising situation completely wasted, when my riders dropped out of the front group.
I'm sure jph mixed something in my team's food.
You've not seen Herbiers yet I see
Cattaneo less useless here, but still not going to be enough barring an Act of Yates in Lombardia.
You're right, hopefully Cattaneo can conserve his timetrialling form from there.
He will pass a lot of the riders in front of him, though. I guess it will be enough for you to be ahead in the rankings before Lombardia and Lutsenko has shown again and again that he is completely useless.
Currently I have it as you on 4341, T-Mobile on 4340, me on 4334, Fablok on 4186 and Repsol on 4155. Think you'll be up another 100-150 points or so after Deutschland finishes though, and don't think I'll outscore you by much here. So I reckon going to Lombardia it'll be something like:
It then comes down to the puncheurs, and Lutsenko should outscore my Yates and McCarthy pairing - think the real fight for you now is with T-Mobile, or Fablok if Ponzi wins Lombardia.
Interesting, thanks!
However, I think you are a little pessimistic from your perspective here, I'm quite sure that Cattaneo will move up into a very good position on the last stage which should at least make the gap much smaller to your team.
And, as said I'm not sure Lutsenko will score good in Lombardia, as it is too mountainous which should suit Yates better.
Bikex wrote:
WTF are you doing Lutsenko? Again a quite promising situation completely wasted, when my riders dropped out of the front group.
I'm sure jph mixed something in my team's food.
You've not seen Herbiers yet I see
Cattaneo less useless here, but still not going to be enough barring an Act of Yates in Lombardia.
You're right, hopefully Cattaneo can conserve his timetrialling form from there.
He will pass a lot of the riders in front of him, though. I guess it will be enough for you to be ahead in the rankings before Lombardia and Lutsenko has shown again and again that he is completely useless.
Currently I have it as you on 4341, T-Mobile on 4340, me on 4334, Fablok on 4186 and Repsol on 4155. Think you'll be up another 100-150 points or so after Deutschland finishes though, and don't think I'll outscore you by much here. So I reckon going to Lombardia it'll be something like:
It then comes down to the puncheurs, and Lutsenko should outscore my Yates and McCarthy pairing - think the real fight for you now is with T-Mobile, or Fablok if Ponzi wins Lombardia.
Interesting, thanks!
However, I think you are a little pessimistic from your perspective here, I'm quite sure that Cattaneo will move up into a very good position on the last stage which should at least make the gap much smaller to your team.
And, as said I'm not sure Lutsenko will score good in Lombardia, as it is too mountainous which should suit Yates better.
You may be right after his performance there, although if there's no splits on the final stage in Deutschland you should be back in front. Enjoying the battle even if it's a little tense!
Cattaneo did what he needed to, although the time loss from yesterday cost him an even better result. Shame that PCM decided Spilak was milliseconds quicker, better not go down by less than 12 points
Thanks for the reports Marco, nailbiting finish in prospect at the bottom...
That's a great way to end the season for Taaramäe! Very happy with that overall win, as it should secure a top 10 finish in the overall rankings too.
Thank you for the report, Marcovdw! Quite some depth and details for a TT report, I enjoyed reading it, and even more when it became obvious who was going to ride away with the GC
Ouch, shame that both Bibby and Kangert had a bad day. This cost them many GC places to riders with equal TT skills. Still a decent result for the team though.
Congrats to ember! Taaramäe is an unstoppable force.
Novak with an amazing GC result we couldn't have dream of before the race, but unfortunately Cattaneo could recover the little time loss, so together with Herbiers/Deutschland disasters must mean we are relegated before Lombardia
Bevin, Vasyliv and Stüssi were our cards to play here, in case stage 2 was going to be kind to the climbers.
Especially the latter two showed they know how to make the most out of their opportunities earlier in the season.
But, disaster striked for us after literally all of the climbing was done, with Vasyliv dropping and losing nearly a minute on the very last flat bit. Disappointing after a good showing on the rest of the stage, and with Stüssi and Bevin nowhere, we're left with very little points to gain in this race.
Of course, Sütterlin also fails to impress here after his home race didn't go well earlier. 24th in GC for Vasyliv is also not quite what we came here for, being in the fight for the overall podium, although he certainly tried his best.
Not losing those 50 seconds on stage 2 would've meant a much more respectable 17th though.