It's going to be tough not getting demoted... You can always save your riders for the last couple of months of the season and peak then because it's a lot easier to win in months like September and October...
I think that was his stat explostion... and he only really gained 4 in mountain. But at least he has some use now.
Also i am aware of the last few months being easier, and as i also have a sponsors goal of coming top 5 in the Paris - Tours, i'll be leaving a couple of riders until the end of the year to peak. Plus i expect Ciolek to do well in the Eneco and Deutschland tours.
Today is a big day for Levarlet as the course is even tougher than the day previous. With slightly suspect form, will he be able to keep up? We hoped he would.
As the attacks started a few km in, Malacarne was the designated rider for todays stage. But we noticed it wasn't the usual rubbish attacking, oh no, it was Menchov, a threat to the overall for sure.
But the attack persevered, and it looked as if it would be allowed to go clear, but more riders attacked causing the bunch to chase. Over the top, Menchov led with a small 30 second gap to the bunch.
The break was brought back, and Martinez was in no shape to attack, that was for sure. So when Canada and a Lampre rider went, he was no where near the front.
But as soon as he was able, he managed to get away from the bunch.
Running upto the big climb in the middle of the stage, it looked like Martinez would take 3rd up it, but annoyingly, Rodriguez, the Spanish Road champion, decided to attack across.
This caused an even bigger chase, which resulted in Martinez being caught, Rodriguez staying away, and the bunch spitting out nearly the entirety of the squad and then sitting up once Martinez was back in. Great.
Over the top of the climb, Canada had got away from his fellow escapee, and Rodriguez was chasing them both down.
On the long descent, Levarlet just couldn't hack the pace, and was dropped right after Malacarne and the new improved Mederel.
As Levarlet started taking turns to try to get back, Malacarne, Mederel, and a group containing Boasson Hagen and Steegmans came back across to him. So he sat up, and the combined might of Boasson Hagen and Malacarnes downhilling skill (nearly 75 now) allowed Levarlet to rejoin the bunch.
He quickly returned to a good position as they approached the intermediate sprint, taken by Rodriguez who had overtaken Canada, who hung on for 2nd, with Boonen claiming 3rd.
But soon enough, Rodriguez had given up his attack and was back in the fold. And again, disastor struck as Levarlet followed in the wake of Malacarne and Mederel as all three were dropped once more on the climb.
With Vandevelle for company, Levarlet made it back upto another group, but would finish the day a long way down. As he was being dropped, the favourites had started their games for the day, and Schleck was the first to go.
Running into the finish, Gadret opened the sprint from the front and got a gap easily. Sat up, then sprinted again. He still won, but ended up with no time gap.
Levarlet finished well over 7 minutes down, and drops a mile down the classification, even losing out to pure sprinters with climbing skills of 58. Yes. Quite.
Another day in red for Martinez will do the sponsors some good though, as they are starting to get a bit miffed off with no results to speak of.
Bauge was dropped first climb, and managed to solo the entire stage to still finish within the time limit. Proof of how much bonus extreme mode gives the AI.
Yeah, at least i've got one thing to be happy about... but i don't think i'll keep it unless i can get into another solo breakaway. Crap riders are just far too strong for Martinez to keep up with. Maybe i'll start with sending Levarlet up the road as well.
rjc_43 wrote:
Yeah, at least i've got one thing to be happy about... but i don't think i'll keep it unless i can get into another solo breakaway. Crap riders are just far too strong for Martinez to keep up with. Maybe i'll start with sending Levarlet up the road as well.
rjc_43 wrote:
Yeah, at least i've got one thing to be happy about... but i don't think i'll keep it unless i can get into another solo breakaway. Crap riders are just far too strong for Martinez to keep up with. Maybe i'll start with sending Levarlet up the road as well.
rjc_43 wrote:
Yeah, at least i've got one thing to be happy about... but i don't think i'll keep it unless i can get into another solo breakaway. Crap riders are just far too strong for Martinez to keep up with. Maybe i'll start with sending Levarlet up the road as well.
Thats what makes this story great. B)
It's great because i'm shit?
No, its great because its realistic. When you get a result, its all the sweeter and many times more valuable than a win gained by going a superteam, which I know is the whole basis/ethos behind the story. You're doing the impossible with shit riders. Edited by stuartmcstuart on 02-06-2008 00:37
stuartmcstuart wrote:
No, its great because its realistic. When you get a result, its all the sweeter and many times more valuable than a win gained by going a superteam, which I know is the whole basis/ethos behind the story. You're doing the impossible with shit riders.
Ahhh, with ya now yup, every result i get this game year will be bloomin' hard work. And i expect i'll only get results with riders who are above 90 fitness, and who are my best riders. Plus next year a lot of the good riders will become great, and that will allow the team to actually develop some good talent (who i've finally scouted and found for once!!!)
Mainly here for experience, the team will be led by Belkov for the one mountain stage, Vaugrenard due to his already high fitness (74) for the ITT, and Drujon for the sprints. Also riding is Gaudin as he is getting grumpy without racing anything on his calender.
Stage one is a flatish affair, and should prove problematic for the flat guys in the team.
Sobal goes in a break, carrying on his good work from Langkawi, and takes a KoM sprint.
Unfortunately, due to him finishing so far down after being caught and dropped, he won't be wearing it tomorrow.
On the run in to the finish, nigh-on everyone was dropped. No joke, everyone was dropped apart from Drujon. There goes overall hopes, but at least it makes it easier to go for stage glory, and to support Drujon for sprints.
Milram take the first stage, and Drujon just doesnt have it in him to follow for long.
Today sees the riders tackle the famous Mont Ventoux climb, starting just 60km from the finish line, and lasting over 15km in length, the climb will destroy the field. With percentages over 10% in places, this climb actually is a climbers mountain for once, and not one for Bennati, or other sprinters.
Tronet tried to get in the break to take those early points, but wasn't fit enough, or strong enough to get up with the front three, or hang with the second group of 6. On a downhill. With full blue bar. Hmm.
Up front after the two non-contested intermediate sprints, we have a group consisting of Menchov, Gerdemann, Landaluze, Eltink as well as others.
Nothing else much happens for a while, until the chase starts, and with a nasty sidewind, the pack is split. Levarlet and most the team making the first half of the pack.
But it comes back together just in time for the climb.
As the main pack hit the climb, Moncoutie (sp?) attacks first, and with him go unfit Evans and Contador. They are all soon back in the pack.
Meanwhile, Levarlet is hanging on for grim death, and Martinez is doing well to protect him as much as he is. Mederel and Malacarne, along with Morizot all drop off around about 6 km to the top, and with 5 to go, a split occurs again in the peloton.
Levarlet is circled, and even though the groups come together again, its clear that most of the riders in that back group are tired.
Every single rider hits the wall on the climb upto the top, but Levarlet hits it after Martinez, and they manage to get into a good group which are working to keep Ignatiev in with a chance of overall glory.
Over the top of the climb for the favourites, and a group of 18 are led again by Caisse.
The pack of around 40 are behind them, and a few stragglers inbetween the pack and Levarlets group.
Martinez, after a brilliant protection ride, eventually has to let go, and blows with only 7km left to the finish.
Levarlet makes it across the line with about 2 km worth of energy left still.
Deadpool wrote:
I'm suprised Vaugrenard didn't stay with the pack
He could have, quite easily, but i was using him to protect Belkov, and by the time i'd realised Belkov wasn't gunna hack it, he'd gone with him. I'll just go for a good stage position in the nice 40 odd km time trial.
With Sobal so eager for a jersey whilst racing in the pro tour, he went on the attack again, this time going first after 30km of easy riding. He got in a nice break for the day of riders worse than him on the hills. The four of them pulled out a good lead, and Sobal managed to win two of the climbs, and take 3rd on the last one to take 11 points and the KoM jersey for a day.
But prior to the last intermediate sprint the break was caught, and even though many of Auber's riders struggled with the pace set by the sprinters, they all stuck it out, apart from Jollet again. Drujon, well protected got over the final little climb, and moved forward on the descent.
With 3km to go, Drujon was looking for a wheel, but his lack of fitness wouldn't let him get any.
Drujon sat near the front waiting for a wheel.
And so with less than a km to go, Drujon had gotten on Ventoso's wheel, who was well out of it, and O Grady looked like he'd add a win to that National Champion jersey he wears.
Drujon managed to follow wheels for a top 20 finish again, but its starting to look easier for him with every race done.
Gaudin is starting to build some good form for the classics, and we hope to get some top 20 finishes in the cobbled classics. We are less hopeful for races like Milan San Remo and LBL as hills aren't our forte!
A pivotal stage in the fight for the KoM jersey, which is basically what the tour has come down to for us.
As can be seen, the parcours are somewhat hilly, which don't really suit Martinez, or the out of form Levarlet, but we'll see what we can do.
A break went early on, which Martinez went with, but with Gerdemann and Eltink in, would never be let go. Other riders countered, just as the pace settled down, which was (excuse my french) bloody annoying.
With Rolland in the break, we feared we'd lose the jersey if he cared about it, but he wasn't the one we should have worried about.
Eventually we got to the point that the pace went skyward, as usual on a climb, and Levarlet was soon left with one... no wait, no helpers.
He'd soon be struggling to keep up, and with 3km to the top of the climb, it wasn't looking good, but he got over that climb, and the pack split big time on the final climb of the day.
Levarlet was looking ok in this pack of 50.
And before long he had the company of 8th placed Schleck, who would clearly lose a lot of time today.
Annoyingly Levarlet got over the climb, and half way down the slope before hitting the flatter section, and then getting dropped.
Gerolsteiner took a 1 - 2 on the day, looks like they're getting in form for the Ardenne Classics.
Whilst classed as a sprinters stage, the massive hill to start with will see a few sprinters dropped, and others lose enough of their 2 bottles worth of energy that they won't make it to the finish in the lead.
Fortunately, both Gaudin (51 Mtn) and Jollet (54 Mtn) get over the climb somehow in the bunch, which trails Kroon, who must be in form to drop Karpets on the climb (a difference of 13 mountain).
Kroon would stay out front solo for the majority of the stage, until he blew and was caught by the break of 3 behind him, then the bunch.
With the run in to the finish being a combination of flat and downhill, most of the Auber riders were, once again, dropped. Annoyingly Gaudin, who was using this race for experience and fitness training for the cobbled classics, would finish outside the time limit, as would Jollet, who was here just for the experience more than anything.
Coming into the finish, a group of 5 or 6 riders were off the front of the bunch due to the intermediate sprint. Vaitkus was leading with less than a kilometre to go.
And he would hold off Scog(bsignsdns) for the win, but not the leaders jersey.
Results:
1 Tomas Vaitkus DISCOVERY CHANNEL 3h29'17
2 Carlo Scognamiglio TEAM MILRAM s.t.
3 Fran Ventoso SAUNIER DUVAL - PRODIR s.t.
4 Assan Bazayev TEAM ASTANA s.t.
5 Stuart O'Grady TEAM CSC s.t.
6 Danilo Napolitano LAMPRE - FONDITAL s.t.
7 Heinrich Haussler GEROLSTEINER + 42
8 Matteo Carrara CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
9 Luca Paolini CAISSE D'EPARGNE s.t.
10 Damiano Cunego T-MOBILE TEAM s.t. 126 Benoît Vaugrenard AUBER - BELTELECOM s.t.
140 Yauhen Sobal AUBER - BELTELECOM + 6'30
141 Maxim Belkov AUBER - BELTELECOM s.t.
150 Niels Brouzes AUBER - BELTELECOM + 9'43
165 Tristan Valentin AUBER - BELTELECOM + 13'55
166 Mathieu Drujon AUBER - BELTELECOM s.t.
167 Karsten Kroon RABOBANK + 14'34
DNF Vladimir Karpets DNF Damien Gaudin
DNF Thierry Jollet
DNF Mark Cavendish
DNF Jimmy Casper
DNF - other domestiques too numerous to name.
Today will be the last chance for Martinez to copy the likes of other French stars such as Remy di Gregorio in capturing the wanted King of the Mountains jersey.
With such a hilly stage, Levarlet will probably lose another 5 minutes at least, but we'll still see where we can get him.
Martinez was the first and only attacker of the day (mainly due to a downhill )
Until the first climb that was, where Kolesnikov wasn't going to give up that jersey quite so easily.
But after the climb, he sat up, and Menchov with a few others attacked proper. They formed a chasing break, and would catch up with Martinez before long.
Martinez, having already been out for a while, did well to stay with the front three up some stonking climbs, but soon sat up to go his own pace in an attempt to actually finish the stage.
And with 90km left to go, Martinez was going to be caught by a very fast moving bunch.
It did not look good for finishing today, but Malacarne was ordered back with him, and he didn't try to keep with the bunch.
By this point, Levarlet and Morizot were the only two riders in the bunch, and so as the team gradually caught Martinez up from behind, they would all attempt to protect him to keep him moving as fast as possible. Whether it works or not I don't know, but i do know that he appriciated the thought
Up front, Levarlet was once more losing touch.
He'd lose a lot of time again today on the winner Di Luca, who had a minute going under the 1km to go banner.
A great performance by Martinez to secure that Jersey. Hopefully that will please the sponsors to increase their happiness from Average for a bit at least.
A nice mountain stage today. We will see how Belkov fairs against some of the competition he will no doubt face in the Giro.
A break goes early on containing Bettini of all riders. But they would of course be caught before the line by the favourites attacking. The first of whom was Schleck.
He managed to get a 2 minute lead over the top and descent of the penultimate climb, on the final climb i dont know what happened to the favourites as i was watching Belkov. Who managed to stick with the current race leader.
Going back to the start of the stage, Ricardo Serrano crashed by himself and would be chasing all day long. One thing Cyanide got right as he's crashed in nigh on every race this year so far
yup, every result i get this game year will be bloomin' hard work. And i expect i'll only get results with riders who are above 90 fitness, and who are my best riders. Plus next year a lot of the good riders will become great, and that will allow the team to actually develop some good talent (who i've finally scouted and found for once!!!)
