Good to know that old faces are still here... and new ones.
Just finished 3-day long Tour of Elk Grove. Not very demanding competition (2.1), only 79 riders showed up.
Tour of Elk Grove peloton on day 2.
Not a big surprise that with riders like King, Krivenco and Ciolek it was dominated by my team.
Tour of Elk Grove
Stage 1 - ITT
Tour started with a 8300 m long individual time trial in Chicago. Ben King, Michal Kwiatkowski and Jimmi Sorensen were among the favouirites... and they didn't disappoint, grabbing first 3 places (in that order), with my leader for this tour - Gerald Ciolek losing 37 seconds and becoming 16th.
Day 1 winner - Ben King winning at his home ground.
Stage 2 - Flat
Short (167 km) flat stage with 2 intermediate sprints. There was a 3 rider breakaway group which with 100 km to go had a 5 min lead, so I decided to take over peloton with Kwiatkowski alongside with Sorensen. They managed to catch the breakaway 25 km before the finish line. After that it was all down to my train, Ciolek and Krivenco. Both train and sprinters did very well leaving rest behind and securing double win for Ciolek and Krivenco. Pawilowski was eventually chased down on final meters, finishing 8th.
Stage 3 - Flat
After that win Ciolek was still 17 seconds behind, so he needed to win on last stage to get a yellow jersey... and he did. Finishing again ahead of Krivenco with Pawilowski 10th this time. Obviously he aslo got a green jersey and Pawilowski was named best young rider of the tour. In team ranking Coca-Cola won with solid 1:11 lead. My only regret is that I havend won the only mountain premium (was to late with chasing breakaway) and didn't add polka dot to that collection, but still very good minor tour.
Ciolek winning again.
Tour of Elk Grove (2.1)
Overall: 1st Ciolek
Points: 1st Ciolek
Mountain: N/A
Young: 1st Pawilowski
Team: 1st
Also decided to go for U23 No 1. He's a puncher, he's Russian and he goes by the name of Rodion Ischenko.
Unfortunately and due to long break I had I was bit late with that signing and couldn't get him as trainee. Not bad in my opinion (great HIL stats, very good for cobbles and quite fast), but will be able to tell more when see his potential... unfortunately in January.
Edited by wroblitz on 28-03-2013 21:09
Always good to see stories return.
I only read this through once in a while when this was active, but will defenitely try to follow it now.
Great signings btw!
Stage 1 - ITT
It started with a 5,2 km prologue. Taylor Phinney from Garmin Sharp was unrivalled there with great time - 6'39". Ben King lost "12 to him and Michal Kwiatkowski "13, finishing 2nd and 3rd, so good start for me.
Ben King on the final meters of the prologue.
Stage 2 - Flat
On flat stages it wasn't that easy for one reason... his name was Peter Sagan. Together with Boeckmans (signed already by Coca-Cola) he did very well giving the spectacors no chance for an exciting finish. Gerald Ciolek managed to finish 2nd and Oleg Krivenco only 19th.
Peter Sagan way ahead of the others on first flat stage.
Stage 3 - Flat
On day 3 riders headed to Ardooie. It ended up with massive sprint, and again, despite great effort from Ciolek, Sagan won the stage by overtaking him on the final meters, giving himself another chance to pinch some podium girls.
Stage 4 - Flat
Stage 4 was a 192 km long race with some cobblestone sections. It ended up with successful breakaway from which Filippo Pozzato from Alitalia - ISD was the fastest, just ahead of Ramon Sinkeldam. 56 seconds later peloton came in. And again it was Peter Sagan who finished first, this time ahead of Oleg Krivenco with Ciolek on 11th.
Stage 5 - Flat
It was Coca-Cola against Dexia - Belisol, Ciolek agains Sagan.
And once again it was Peter Sagan who did much better, adding another 25 points to his pool, with Ciolek only 5th and Krivenco 15th.
Stage 6 - Flat
Stage 6 was bit strange. And that's because for some reason my train (Kwiatkowski, King, Krivenco, Ciolek) managed to tear away from the peloton and even gain 1'34" lead, grabbing first four places. That moved Ciolek to the 1st place in GC and Krivenco to 2nd.
Stage 7
Then it was all back to normal. Peter Sagan won after close finish (I kept Ciolek behind him this time, but I guess attacked a little bit too late). Stage was won by Sagan and ahead of last stage - ITT he was losing 1'08" to Ciolek.
Stage 8 - ITT
Last day of the tour was a 17 km long indivudual time trial. And just like on day 1 it was split between Phinney, Kwiatkowski and King only this time it was a Polish man who came 2nd, thanks to great form on this day.
Race leader - Gerald Ciolek came 44th, losing 1'33" to Phinney and 40" to 12th Sagan but it was enough to hold a yellow jersey, whereas Krivenco who was 50th ended up 2nd, only 3" ahead of the Slovak sensation. However Sagan dominated points classification with 38 points lead to Ciolek. Coca-Cola, once again, was named team of the tour.
Just one day later my team went to Spain, to take part in World Tour's Clasica San Sebastian.
With few hills and pretty flat finish I was looking for a good result from Ciolek, but yet again it was Peter Sagan who stopped him from winning. He won in great style and Ciolek came 2nd.
The good news is, I'm on the 4th place at the moment with real chances for 3rd.
I took Coppa Bernocchi (1.1) as a final test before Vuelta a Espana. It went good and resulted with an easy win by Gerald Ciolek followed by Oleg Krivenco, with Polish youngster - Remigiusz Pawilowski 8th.
Yes Ian - it is back and I'm also surpsised by that. I've seen your story is doing pretty well - 88 pages, that's a great result! Keep it up!
Anyway, just started Vuelta a Espana.
Vuelta a Espana
Week 1
Stage 1 - ITT
It started in Granada with 7,3 km ITT. It was great opening day for Coca-Cola (I guess AI riders wasn't set very well for this stage) as the team grabbed first 3 places (Kwiatkowski, King and what came as surprise - Kennaugh).
Michal Kwiatkowski in Grenada.
Those great results gave Coca-Cola a 55" lead in team classification.
Stage 2 - Flat
With riders like Cavendish, Boasson Hagen, Swift, Trentin and Boeckmans it thought it will be hard to get any wins, but first flat stage brought a nice surprise - it was totaly dominated by Coca-Cola. Ciolek won the stage with good lead, Krivenco came 2nd, Jimmi Sorensen 4th (which was quite a surprise) and Pawilowski 10th. My main rival Mark Cavendish dropped off the peloton on last kilometers and eventually came 97th.
Stage 3 - Flat
With 34*C and some hills on the way to Puertollano Edvald Boasson Hagen was the main candidate for a win. And I have to say he did pretty well... but Gerald Ciolek with some help from Krivenco and Pawilowski did even better, and after close finish 25 points went to "Gerry" again. Krivenco came 3rd and youngster Pawilowski 4th. Mark Cavendish didn't do well on hills again finishing only 20th.
Stage 4 - Flat
Stage 4 proved that it will be very hard to stop Ciolek & Co from winning. He won confidently and Oleg Krivenco, despite being his lead out, managed to keep the 2nd place (Pawilowski was 11th).
Stage 5 - Flat
Stage 5 was the last flat stage of the week. I was looking for a mass sprint finish and another win for Ciolek. My plan was also to start collecting mountain points with Chris Barton (or Ricky McArther if necessary, but I'd rather him to fight for a youngsters ranking) when first mountain stages starts, but on last kilometers, and just before last hill peloton came so close the breakaway that I decided to went for a mountain premium and start collecting my points a little bit earlier. Unfortunately it wasn't close enough and Barton was jus few meters away from his first points.
Chris Barton losing his chance for the first mountain points in Vuelta.
However breakaway was chased down few kilometers later and last flat stage of the week ended up with massive sprint, and Gerald Ciolek didn't disappoint again, snatching his 4th win of the tour. Oleg Krivenco came 2nd again, and Chris Barton was 9th.
Great performance in Vuelta moved Ciolek by 77 positions! And at the moment his 13th.
Stage 6 - Mountain
Finally tour got some elevation. All eyes were turned on Pinot, Contador, Kennaugh, Chavez and Taarmae, as they were favourites on that day. It started very well for me, as I keept the breakaway close and managed to catch them with Kwiatkowski and Pawilowski just before mountain premiums, which both were later won by Chris Barton.
Chris Barton starting his KoM campaign.
However, there wasn't much he could do on 3rd mountain premium and finished that day with 16 points and 4th in mountain ranking.
18 km before the finish line decision time came in. Alberto Contador, Rein Taaramae and Thibuat Pinot took off, but it seemed to early for me, so instead of counter attacking them with Peter Kennaugh I decided to increase peloton speed using Kwiatkowski, McArther and Chris Barton for that. After few km I knew already it was bad decision, as I wasn't able to reduce the gap. With 12 km to go I decided to attack with Kennaugh. He managed to overtake few riders but finished only 11th, losing 4'15". Stage win eventually went to the breakaway (Gabriele Pizzaballa in particular), Soler came 2nd, with Alberto Contador '35 after him. Taaramae ended up 5th, and Pinot came 7th, so not a best start for me.
Stage 7 - Hilly
Unfortunately I wasn't able to play stage 7, as my game was crashing all the time, so asked Barton to go for mountain premiums, Ciolek for final sprint, and prayed for the best. Barton eneded up with 1 point, and Ciolek finished 18th. Win went to Jeff Koprivcic, Daniel Martin came 2nd, with Contador on 3rd. What's even worst it was last stage of week 1, so I couldn't take the podium screenshots of classification, so instead of my usual week sumary I had to go for this one:
So, after first week I'm pretty happy with flat stages and my sprinters performance, little bit less with KoM results (but that should be easy to improve), and quite disappointed with GQ.
Edited by wroblitz on 09-04-2013 06:32
