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Tour de France - Discussion
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 03-04-2024 18:22
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 16552
Joined: 27-07-2011
PCM$: 13638.70
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First of all, thank you to kandes for the absolutely phenomenal reports! Stellar writing, detail, and screenshots throughout. Super reliable schedule which gave me something to look forward to every day. Thank you so much for your hours of work bringing us this race! It's really, really appreciated.
Second, congrats to knockout. I know crossing this one off your team's lifetime checklist must be super fulfilling, and it's well deserved.
For us, it's fine but not great. The previous rankings are too old to really know who our relegation competitors are, or at least I'd have to look into it further, but we at best didn't lose a ton of ground here, and at worst, we did. Quintana in 13th is at the low end of what we expected, and on the TDF points scale, it's basically half of the points we'd get if he finished at the upper end of his ability in the lower top 10. 20th, 28th, and 34th make up for that a bit, and at least Olesen and Petrovski managed to steal places in the top 100 for a few extra points. Depth at the TDF is the best depth you can get, though it's still never gonna make up for better leaders.
Unfortunately we didn't really have much additional scoring. Sureda was great given his skill level. A top 10 on the Champs and a couple of better placings including a podium earlier. But besides that, we didn't have any super noteworthy stage results. We get 3rd on Teams, which isn't nothing, but is only a small benefit. Compared to previous GT's we were pretty anonymous here. And, unfortunately, the couple of times we weren't anonymous (Kamna's attack) came back to bite us more than anything.
We'll see when the rankings come out how this went, but at least with all the GT's done we'll now have a decent idea of where the season is headed going into the fall.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 03-04-2024 18:23
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7771
Joined: 04-07-2012
PCM$: 20845.00
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We end with a disappointment on the Champs-Elysees but overall the race has been good. A stage win and a day in yellow from Kalaba and a decent GC effort from Cattaneo. If we had any hope of surviving we should have won the race but as our only Tour appearance for the time being, we can be quite happy.
Congrats knockout on achieving the TdF win goal. Thanks kandesbunzler for the awesome reports last three weeks!
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| Laurens147 |
Posted on 03-04-2024 18:59
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Sprinter
Posts: 1523
Joined: 26-04-2020
PCM$: 900.00
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Big congrats knockout and thanks KB for all those awesome reports! 
MG - Lotto - Caloi
[MG] New Manager of the Year - PCM.daily Awards 2022
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| SotD |
Posted on 03-04-2024 19:10
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World Champion
Posts: 12631
Joined: 29-11-2006
PCM$: 2980.00
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Another horrible sprint result. It really is demotivating to have 1mio worth of wages put into sprinters.
Congrats knockout for the Tour victory! PHL is a beast ;-)
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| MacC |
Posted on 03-04-2024 19:14
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Sprinter
Posts: 1712
Joined: 15-07-2008
PCM$: 1000.00
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Congrats Knockout !
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 05-12-2025 18:30
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Bot Agent
Posts: Countless
Joined: 23.11.09
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| tastasol |
Posted on 03-04-2024 19:32
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3030
Joined: 11-09-2010
PCM$: 200.00
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Trondsen came quickly at the end there, so unfortunate that the line wasn't just a bit up the road, but a solid result.
Big congrats to knockout on the win. Very good race from PHL, hopefully the home fans enjoyed that one.
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| jph27 |
Posted on 03-04-2024 20:36
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Team Leader
Posts: 7374
Joined: 20-03-2010
PCM$: 900.00
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All things considered a fantastic race for us. 5th was the best case scenario for Barguil and to be in contention for 4th until the final few stages was a great performance. Add in Prado's top 20 on GC, strong stage results for Peak and Mansouri, and Gee's early stint in the polka dot jersey, and we should leave here as one of the highest scoring teams.
Based on my calculations I have us now 800 points clear of the relegation zone, with some decent scoring opportunities still remaining in the autumn classics, ToNE and Kemboi's remaining RDs. Hopefully that should be enough to ensure safety, and maybe even make a late push for the top 10 depending on which version of De Bie shows up for the rest of the season.
Massive congratulations to knockout for a deserved victory - feel free to let Lecuisinier go win the Tour for someone else now  - and thanks for a set of fantastic reports, which have made this a great race to follow! |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 03-04-2024 22:22
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 5234
Joined: 29-09-2018
PCM$: 185.00
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Huge congrats to Evonik for finally achieving that TdF win goal - the one time the goal wasn't just there to get more sponsor money, but a real goal, you made it stick. PHL really was in beast mode as soon as the mountains started, several stage wins, 3rd in KoM and points - that must be a pretty solid score!
Phinney gave him a great fight in his potentially final GT as a potential winner - and he might even have won the Giro had he gone there instead of facing PHL at Le Tour.
Bernal also is a deserving podium finisher here, very solid racing. I really liked Barguil's attacking style, fantastic rider to have despite his lack of TT skills!
I'd have loved to see the U25 standings a little closer going into stage 20, but Pogacar definitely deserves that white jersey. And McNulty still has another GT this year where he should easily take white 
Congrats to Yates on a great win in the points standings, and commiserations especially to Rabobank and ELCO for the many big fails by their sprinters. Ugly to watch, but the game just isn't better than that sadly.
And congrats to Gazelle for the KoM jersey win after a great fight against triple-P 
And last but not least, big thanks to kb for the fantastic reports all race long, great job!
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 04-04-2024 03:15
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 3914
Joined: 02-11-2010
PCM$: 300.00
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Another thanks for KB for taking on the reporting, always great to have more reporters in the GT stable. We still need one for the Tour of America by the way.
Congrats to Knockout on a very deserved GT win. Always nice to see a French rider win the Tour. Also congrats to Ryan on Yates' point victory. I think it is pretty cool to see the points jersey go to neither a sprinter or GT rider. Although sad that is partly due to the fails from the big sprinters.
For McCormick a learning experience. McNulty somewhat redeemed his performance with a great final time trial. He should be feeling confident going into TOA. Bagioli also impressed, I fully intended to sell him after this year but he has wormed his way into my affections and that is going to be a hard call now.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling |
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| ember |
Posted on 04-04-2024 06:15
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Team Leader
Posts: 7057
Joined: 27-03-2008
PCM$: 900.00
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baseballlover312 wrote:
First of all, thank you to kandes for the absolutely phenomenal reports! Stellar writing, detail, and screenshots throughout. Super reliable schedule which gave me something to look forward to every day. Thank you so much for your hours of work bringing us this race! It's really, really appreciated.
Second, congrats to knockout. I know crossing this one off your team's lifetime checklist must be super fulfilling, and it's well deserved.
I can only second everything of this. Very happy to see Evonik and knockout get that jersey and overall win, and what a performance it was by PHL.
For us, I'm super happy with Prasad. What a rider he is! He's again contending, and agin finding the right pockets and wheels to be in contention for a great placing. 2nd place on Champs-Elysees is sensational, and a very nice ending to this Tour for us. |
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| redordead |
Posted on 04-04-2024 08:30
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Team Leader
Posts: 5511
Joined: 18-10-2017
PCM$: 200.00
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Congrats to knockout on winning the Tour de France! I know the gap between PHL and Phinney wasn't that large in the end, but truly I never thought the home favourite wasn't gonna win it
For us the race panned out to be very successful. I had Pogacar pegged anywhere between 6th and 10th, and he finished on the highest end of that spectrum. He also held the white jersey from the 1st mountain stage until the end. This was his last opportunity to wear white in any race, so I'm glad he took full advantage
Besides Pogacar' scoring, the thing that made this a great race for us was the depth we had when it came to our climbing core. Bringing pretty much every climber we had to this race was certainly with the aim that we would get some good depth, but of course it doesn't always work out. It did this time and we got big contributions from Habtemichael, Borisavljevic and Bouchard. Their performances were also crucial in us winning the team classification at the biggest race there is
Our only downside of this race was the sprinting. Rajovic never really got going. Not that I think he should be dominating or anything, but when similar sprinters are going way above their pay grade, because the game AI is so broken that the favourites always get screwed. I wished we could've gotten at least a slice of that 'luck'.
This was a very enjoyable Grand Tour to follow. Mostly because my team was set up to be competitive on nearly every stage, but also because kandesbunzler did an awesome job reporting them all! The quality and consistency were top notch, a big thanks for your hard work
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 04-04-2024 08:33
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 3837
Joined: 20-04-2020
PCM$: 425.00
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The best rider won, but nice to see Phinney give him a bit of competition. Congratulations to knockout! Great reporting from kb
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| knockout |
Posted on 04-04-2024 10:09
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 8235
Joined: 21-12-2010
PCM$: 500.00
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Most importantly, thank you for another grand tour filled with excellent reports. It's crazy how high the quality standard has become over the last couple of years and it was always cool to know that another great one would be uploaded in the evenings.
Lecuisinier might have been the dominant rider throughout but it felt like one bad mountain stage might be enough for Phinney to overcome the challenge until the very last one. Made for a thrilling experience as i had to hope for every tiny gap to appear.
Feels great to have won all three GTs now. The transfer deal for Lecuisinier might have been extremely large but i received exactly what i hoped to acquire so I'm glad i did that. Guess the win TDF goal memes have to be stopped now though even if there is a good chance it wont be the last time i use that in the near future.
Thanks for all the congrats. Both now and in the later stages of the race. I was too scared to comment on them in fear of jinxing myself but it was much appreciated for sure.
Outside of the fight for yellow, this has been a massive tour for us with multiple stage wins and a long stint in yellow. Definitely gives me a good push for the rankings and i should be strong in the fight for the three podium spots now. ember, I'm coming for you!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 04-04-2024 14:28
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Classics Specialist
Posts: 2797
Joined: 20-04-2008
PCM$: 200.00
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Great job kandesbunzler! Thanks for the effort.
And congratulations on winning the TDF, knockout! Well deserved
This has been a great Tour for Gazelle considering our lineup.
Warchol was one of the most visible riders and became ruler of the mountains, while also celebrating stage success and doing a decent job in GC.
And Senni finishing 14th in GC is a big result for a rider on a 140k wage.
Also Karnulin, Vervaeke and Leknessund finishing top 50 is a nice source of extra points and helped secure second in the TC.
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 07-04-2024 08:23
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Directeur Sportif
Posts: 9137
Joined: 13-03-2013
PCM$: 2100.00
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Late to theparty, but what an amazing achievement for knockout, loving it!
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