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
Sutty it's Photoshop of course and gaussian blur for everything apart from selected area (which is Ciolek's path).
Second week of Vuelta a Espana 2017 started even worst for me, and it wasn't because of the results, but inability to start first two races.
Stage 8 - Flat
Simulated. Won by Mark Cavendish, 2. Nacer Bouhanni, 3. Gerald Ciolek. Oleg Krivenco came 12th.
Stage 9 - ITT
Simulated. Won by Peter Velits, 2. Alberto Contador, 3. Edvald Boasson Hagen. Michal Kwiatkowski was 6th, Ben King only 24th.
Bucause I don't play PCM that much lately I decided to change the way my story is presented. From now on each race will have separete post, and it will be more detailed. I'm open to any suggestions and opinions, as I don't know which way suits you better.
Ok, so here's the first one. That's the first race I was able to run after the game crash.
It started just as planned. I didn't let the breakaway group go too far and Chris Burton was able to won first two mountain premiums, which gave him another 26 points. Of course I wasn't able to chase the breakaways all race long, so had to give up the third one.
I didn't aim for an intermediate sprints, as Ciolek's has some good lead there, and I rather him to finish the stage than get some extra points, but few kilometers before the second one there was no breakaways, so I decided to go for it with both Ciolek and Krivenco. Another rider joined in but with such a great sprinters I was able to win it easily. That gave Ciolek 4 extra points, and 2 for Krivenco.
Ciolek and Krivenco shares points from intermediate sprint.
Then it was one day rest for the cyclists, and after that another mountain stage in scorching heat (34*C).
My main goal (apart from best result possible for Kennaugh) was first mountain premium worth 16 points and is possible another ones. It went well as after few kilometers there was a successful breakaway of 9 with Chris Barton in it, who was already wearing Polka dot. He won first mountain premium just by a wheel as Brambila went for it as well.
Peloton didn't chase the breakaway and nobody was interested in intermediate sprint, so Barton took it as well.
He won all the mountain premiums but last one (Brambilla surprised me with final meters attack), and ended up with 43 points.
With 50 km to go breakaway hold 14 min lead and then I realised that win will probably go to them. With 20 km to go Contador attacked, but he was caught by the peloton due to Pawilowski and McArther effort. Then the final sprint for the breakaway started. Despite few good climbers like Gilbert, Koprivcic, Pantano it was Barton who played it best and got his first win of the tour. 7 minutes later race leadres came in, and again it was Pinot who did best, gaining another minute to his oppoments. I stayed behind Contador with Kennaugh but again his pace was to fast for my climber. I went for a final sprint but was last in that group, finishing eventually 16th.
Once again my game crashed on "starting inrace server", so I had to simulated stage 12. Lucky enough it went to the breakaway of 6. Mark Cavendish came first in mass sprint, Ciolek was 10th and Krivenco 15th, so I didn't lose that many points.
Stage 13 wasn't unlucky for my team (at least it loaded alright), in fact it was another good day for Barton. He managed to win all the mountain premiums, intermediate sprints, and was first on the finish line (just 11 seconds ahead of the rest).
Peter Kennaugh one more time wasn't able to keep up with Pinot and Contador, and finished 7th.
On 14 day of the tour rain and temperature fell down (well, not only them, but we will get to that). It was another busy day for Barton. He quickly joined the breakaway (9), and despite very bad form (-5), won the first mountain premium. Few kilometers later he did it again... and again (other riders didn't really go for it). He did the same with intermediate sprints.
On 80 km bad thing happened to Thibaut Pinot - he fell down. Unfortunately he was still alive after that , and very quickly get back on his bike, not even droping from the peloton.
Despite the fall, he did very well and was first to come after the breakaway, what gave him 6th place, and another few seconds. In breakaway group it was Barton again who managed his strenght best, got the win No. 2, and went 12th in GQ. This time Peter Kennaugh did much better, in fact he was the only one, who was able to keep Pinot's pace, but despite trying very hard, he wasn't able to overtake him on the final meters (however he didn't let Taaramae pass him).
And that's how rankings looks like ahead of the last week.
It looks like Barton won the KoM jersey already. I'm also happy and confident about the green jersey (unless I get few game crashes on flat stages). Anyway, very dissapointing performance from Cavendish (he's 18th at the moment). Also looks like Ricky McArther will be best youngster of the tour. Quite happy with team result too, just could be little bit better in GQ, but we will see what remaining 3 mountain stages, and 1 hilly will bring.
With only 3 mountain stages to go I decided that will be last stage for collecting KoM points, as Barton's advantage should be enough to get the Polka dot. It went quite unusual. All the breakaways were small and chased down very quickly, and for almost entire race it was only the peloton, going really slow. Despite that I managed to win first mountain sprint, get a double win with Barton and Mcarther on second, and 2nd place on third and fourth, which gave Barton another 36 points. He also snatched 6 points on intermediate sprints.
A double for Coca-Cola. Chris Barton and Rocky McArther win mountain sprint.
On last kilimeters there were two groups. E1 had Contador and Pinot in it, while in peloton there was the rest (including Peter Kennaugh). Of course I did my best to catch E1 before the finish line. Didn't really have to do much as there was another team that took over peloton and with 15 km to go they were all equal. Pinot attacked first, so I went after him with Kennaugh, who was in great shape on this day (+5). Then Tarramae attacked from the peloton. As soo as he passed us I counter attacked, and then attacked by myself. Pinot went after me, but Kennaugh was in way too good form for him. He managed to hold "24 lead and win his first race in Vuelta.
That gave me some hope for better place in GQ. I will try to beat Martin and Coppel, as they hold only 20" lead, and finish 4th.
Edited by wroblitz on 13-04-2013 18:42
Then it was a well deserved rest day. After that tour went flat.
My only plan for this race was to make it mass sprint finish, and get best place possible with Ciolek, so I didn't take part in breakaways. All intermediate sprints were won between 6 riders in E1.
Breakaway group on stage 16.
With 31 km to go Barton got a puncture in his bike, but we was able to get back to the peloton. 15 km later Frank Schleck fell down. He finished last, and that fall costed him 5 min. However he wasn't among the best riders (128th in general), as he's 37 now with MO only 71.
Breakaway was finally caught 6 km before the finish line, and then it all started. My train (Kwiatkowski, King, Pawilowski, Krivenco, Ciolek) was first, however Ciolek with his -1 form wasn't favourite to win this race, it was Boasson Hagen. He did pretty well, and was 1st on final meters, and it looked like his gonna take this one, but then Ciolek gave his all and passed him on final meters, Cavendish came 3rd.
I've seen your story is doing pretty well - 88 pages, that's a great result! Keep it up!
