the best of times, the worst of times

Today Thor Hushovd sprinted like a man among boys (just like me) to take the win. Look at that gap! Talk about the cat among the pigeons, or the iron in the fire, or the maiden and the three-legged cow(insert your favorite Ligget-ism here). Predictably, it was a great day for Thor and the Basque Batallion as they took the stage and moved up to 2nd on the GC.

However disaster did strike during the stage when Iban Mayo, also of the Basque Batallion, retired. The Fruita Freewheelers, still leading in the general classification even after only notching one point today, lost Jose Enrique Gutierrez.

In other GC news, Pan Blanco leap-frogged me today to move into 11th place, so i don't want to hear anymore belly-aching! My finely honed squad is just managing to stay in front of Senor Poopy and owner of the first draft pick, Carrie Casagrande. My draft looks like it works as well as it does in the NBA!

Ay Caramba, can the mountains come soon enough? Don't worry, they'll be here tomorrow.

Petacchi blah blah, Nudists blah blah

Well Petacchi and the Blue and Silver train of Fassa Bortolo are back in effect. Today was the longest stage of the whole race, hot and flat with no KOM points on the line. Pablo Neruda's Nudists took their second stage in a row, but couldn't yet overtake the overall lead of those Fruita Freewheelers. Bradley McGee stayed in the golden fleece.

The sprinters may have their days for a few more, as far as i can tell, there is a good climbing finish on thursday and the really sick stupid climbing starts next Monday. So the complexion of our gc may shift at that point, we shall see. I know the Unfrozen Taco could use some help.

In other news, Angelo Furlan bowed out yesterday, so Adolfo Garcia Quesada started today for Team Rookie.

Petacchi back in charge

Note, as i was typing this entry this morning we lost power, and only got it back tonight around 9:00, but all is well here in Baton Rouge.

Katrina was nice enough to leave us with our cable and power long enough to read the live report today. Stage 3 results can be seen here. Pretty cool sounding stage, Thomas Ziegler tried to give it a go on the last climb of the day but the sprinters brought it all back and Fassa set it up perfectly for Petacchi and Pablo Neruda's Nudists.

The GC is also shaping up now with the Fruita Freewheelers tied for first with A Spain in My Ass and the battle for second also a tie with Team Rookie and Las Mariquititas.

More rider bumping, i hope this will all get cleared up as more riders gain points in the first week. Sergei Ivanov was replaced with Andre Korff and Luis Perez Romero with Freddy Gonzalez.

Carrie Casagrande lost Giuliano Figueras yesterday so today Matt Hayman subbed in.

Win Stage 2, get a Zorro hat

The Fruita Freewheelers took their first stage of 2005! Bertagnolli won the stage and Bradley McGee has now worn the leaders jersey in all three of the major national tours. The overall was taken by A Spain in My Ass.

Results for Stage 1

Posting these results took way longer than i had hoped. Evidently Hurricane Katrina is affecting internet service :). Anyway, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Taylor's Team Rookie picked up Denis Menchov as the last pick in the first round of the draft and it paid dividends today. He smashed the course. Rick Verbrugge got second and his quote is reason #1258 why I'm not a pro: " I used a 44 and 55 chainring in front: 44 to climb the hill strongly and 55 to be fast enough downhill and on the flat." Uh, yeah right, don't mind my feebleness. Anyway, hope to have more comprehensive results up tomorrow, team breakdowns, etc. Peace out.

1 Team Rookie 104
2 A Spain in My Ass 56
3 Herradura Cura 47
4 Unfrozen Taco 34
5 Pan Blanco 20
6 OLE! 20
7 Carrie Casagrande 14
8 Las Mariquititas 12
9 Senor Poopy 3
10 Vuelta Skelta 1
11 El Rippo 0
12 Fruita Freewheelers 0
13 Pablo Neruda's Nudists 0
14 Thor & The Basque Batallion 0

Bumped Rider

In compiling the results today, i learned that José Cayetano Julia Cegarra got bumped by Francisco Perez, so A Spain in My Ass has a "replacement".

Last Minute Entry

I know i'm bending the rules here, but i think it's okay since i haven't checked the results yet. I rode with Keith this morning and he'd like to submit a team, I think the fact that his team is coming in post-draft is enough of a penalty. Anyhow, welcome aboard Senor Poopy which was constructed from the scraps left.

Also thanks to Tom who said he would kick in a bottle of tequilla which I'll work into the prize list some how. That will evolve as we get closer. Peace out!

Results of the Draft

Alright, and not a moment too soon, here are the draft results. It looks like about half of each team is filled with recognizable names, the other half will make it quite interesting. Anyhow, today is the time trial, so let the games begin.

Draft Order set for Tonight

The draft order is set...

1 Carrie Riche
2 Thor & The Basque Batallion
3 OLE!
4 Fruita Freewheelers
5 Las Mariquititas
6 Pablo Neruda's Nudists
7 Vuelta Skelta
8 Herradura Cura
9 El Rippo
10 Pan Blanco
11 Unfrozen Taco
12 A Spain in My Ass
13 Taylor Ahrens

How does this draft work?

Here is a good question, that reminds me that i haven't really explained how the draft works:
how do I know who other people have picked?

The answer is that you won't.

In fact, if you fill out your own list, you may not get anybody on it.
here's how it works you say you want
1. heras
2. zabel
3. landis
4. jaja
5. jose
and the rest you don't care about

Your team ends up getting the 6th pick in the draft, picked randomly by me once all the teams are in.

The team with the first pick also had heras on their list as first, they get him, you don't.

the team with the second picks had heras 1st and zabel 2nd, heras already got picked so they get zabel.

The team with the third picks had landis 1st and he is available so they get him

The team with the 4th pick had landis 1st, then jaja 2nd so they get jaja b/c landis already got picked

The team with the 5th pick had heras 1st, jaja 2nd but they're gone so he gets jose who was his 3rd pick.

Now you get 6th pick, the top 5 on your list are all signed on to other teams, so it goes to your 6th pick which you didn't choose, so it would be the top ranked guy on my ranking list who isn't selected yet. In this case it would be Petacchi.

So you see, you don't get to pick him like in a live draft, instead you just set your "preferences" in your list and you may or may not get them. Sometimes it works out pretty sweet, sometimes you don't get anybody you wanted. I've seen both, b/c this is the way we do Fantasy NBA.

Hope that helps...

Registration is Open

To register for the 2005 Fantasy Vuelta, e-mail me with your teamname and revised pick list, if you want to customize it. Thanks! Registration closes at midnight on Thursday, August 25th.

Rule Changes for 2005

Ok, game play will continue as it has for previous years with two fundamental changes.

One, you will receive your team as the result of a draft held on Friday, August 26th. Everyone will default to using the pick list supplied in the previous post unless you supply a different order to me by midnight on Thursday, August 25th. The results of the draft will be published to this blog sometime on Friday. If we need more riders than the 68 "ranked" below, they will be picked at random from the remaining field.

Two, each team manager will receive a squad of 10 riders. The last rider selected in the draft for your team will serve as a substitute. His points will kick in when/if one of your first 9 riders pulls out of the race. Once the teams are posted, if you would like to designate another rider as your sub, just let me know via e-mail.

That's all i can think of for now, no prizes yet, we'll see how this shapes up. Thanks for playing.

2005 Vuelta Draft List

Pick Rider
1 HERAS HERNANDEZ Roberto
2 ZABEL Erik
3 PETACCHI Alessandro
4 MANCEBO PEREZ Francisco
5 FREIRE GOMEZ Oscar
6 JIMENEZ Eladio
7 MENCHOV Denis
8 NOZAL VEGA Isidro
9 LANDIS Floyd
10 PIEPOLI Leonardo
11 SASTRE CANDIL Carlos
12 ZABALLA GUTIERREZ Constantino
13 PEÑA Victor Hugo
14 BELTRAN MARTINEZ Manuel
15 PARCUAL RODRIGUEZ Javier
16 GUTIERREZ CATALUNA José Enrique
17 GONZALEZ DE GALDEANO Igor
18 PEREZ RODRIGUEZ Luis
19 SIMONI Gilberto
20 IVANOV Ruslan
21 CASERO Angel Luis
22 JOACHIM Benoît
23 HORRILLO MUNOZ Pedro
24 GONZALEZ JIMENEZ Aitor
25 GOMEZ MARCHANTE José Angel
26 HORRACH Joan
27 SEVILLA RIBERA Oscar
28 LATASA David
29 AZEVEDO José
30 HUSHOVD Thor
31 BACKSTEDT Magnus
32 BOONEN Tom
33 VAN HEESWIJK Max
34 BETTINI Paolo
35 DANIELSON Tom
36 GARCIA QUESADA Carlos
37 LASTRAS GARCIA Pablo
38 STEELS Tom
39 BLANCO David
40 MARTIN PERDIGUERO Miguel Angel
41 FUENTES Juan
42 ZANOTTI Marco
43 VAN BON Leon
44 RUBIERA José luis
45 MAYO DIEZ Iban
46 LARA RUIZ Francisco José
47 CASPER Jimmy
48 VOECKLER Thomas
49 OSA Aitor
50 CAÑADA GRACIA David
51 PEREIRO SIO Oscar
52 DEAN Julian
53 OSA Unai
54 FLECHA Juan Antonio
55 BALDATO Fabio
56 BOTERO ECHEVERRY Santiago
57 VANDEVELDE Christian
58 MCGEE Bradley
59 PIIL Jakob
60 PERON Andrea
61 CALCAGNI Patrick
62 PLAZA Rubén
63 KLIER Andreas
64 GARCIA ACOSTA José Vicente
65 PAOLINI Luca
66 PRADERA Mikel
67 FURLAN Angelo
68 SERRANO RODRIGUEZ Marcos A.