 If there's one thing that is consistent with the monthly Fantasy Cycling score updates, it is that each month, I tell you that it has been the most important month so far in the game - and April was no exception. The Ardennes and Cobbled Monuments were important, but so were Pais Vasco and Romandie - plus the various other races in the month, all counting towards the game.
Accumulating a massive 1147 points, Alejandro Valverde was the top rider in the month. Great news for the 2 teams who have him, not so great for the other 96. Next we had Phillipe Gilbert with 911 points, with Cancellara (830), Rodriguez (625) and Vinokourov (581) completing the Top 5, and Evans, Horner, Kolobnev, Boonen and Hesjedal all in the Top 10. The order of Valverde, Gilbert, Cancellara also transfers over to the overall rider standings. Greipel at last has lost his early lead, falling to 5th - now behind Boonen aswell. Rodriguez, Freire, Contador, LL Sanchez and Evans filling the rest of the overall Top 10.
April's most efficient rider though, highlights the fact that the big races are not everything. Besides 1 HC classic, Angel Vicioso raced solely in .1 races, and the 425 points he achieved came at a cheap price of 190,000 for the few teams owning him. Chris Horner comes in a close 2nd, but theres a notable gap to the rest. 3 Spaniards complete the Top 5: Valverde, Intxausti and Marcos Garcia. Overall though, Keukeleire and Modolo remain the Top 2, but Romandie pushes Sagan up to 3rd. The rest of the Top 10 are Horner, Eisel, Vanmarcke, Dumoulin, Vicioso, Valverde and Boeckmans.
Now, onto the bit that really matters - your teams. And we have one stand out team who scored a lot more than anyone else, and remarkably, they are a team who has not made any transfers. Gilbert, Cancellara, Hesjedal and Hammond led the scoring for the Sparta team, who scored 3950 points in April! A distant 2nd best are Fabulously Subconscious, with 3216, while Ukrainian Beauties also broke the 3000 barrier with 3083, with a gap of nearly 300 to EDTeam (2789) and then Team Georgetown p/b John B (2713), Sand Castles Cycling (2664) and the leaders going into the month LDF - Velingnews.com (2553). April is therefore the 2nd month where Fabulously Subconscious were the 2nd best team, but the positive is that they now take the overall lead - with a 500 point advantage. Sparta have lept up 26 placed to 2nd, while LDF - Velingnews.com slip to 3rd. Ukrainian Beauties clibm 11 spots to 4th, while it is very interesting to see that the 2 best managers from last year's Fantasy TDF game are next - Eoin's EDTeam is up 5 to 5th, while jack888's Huffy Test Team fall 2 places to 6th. Team Georgetown p/b John B have already been mentioned as one of the month's top scorers, and this has also made them the month's top climbers - a 41 place jump from 71st to 30th.
The new overall Top 10 are:
| 1 |
(2) |
Fabulously Subconscious |
tgsgirl |
7890 |
| 2 |
(28) |
Sparta |
sparta |
7384 |
| 3 |
(1) |
LDF - Velingnews.com |
SportingNonsense |
7296 |
| 4 |
(15) |
Ukrainian Beauties |
djlovesyou |
6888 |
| 5 |
(10) |
EDTeam |
Eoin |
6742 |
| 6 |
(4) |
Huffy Test Team |
jack888 |
6594 |
| 7 |
(14) |
Sand Castles Cycling |
untal |
6495 |
| 8 |
(3) |
Bonnet de Douchebag |
sephus |
6431 |
| 9 |
(5) |
Team Swed-Stats |
jaccan |
6385 |
| 10 |
(7) |
Scotty's Spitfires |
ScottyMuser |
6377 |
To see the full standings for teams, riders and efficency, go to the April scores thread. The full overall team rankings are also in the extended version of this news article. |