Prediction Game

[Bartoli]

I guess it's pretty easy in this case: Cavendish and Haussler got two seconds on the bunch. And Cervelo seems to be the only of those both teams with 2 riders in the bunch (Hushovd and Klier). But i'de say: chill and wait for the final ranking tomorrow something.

Edit: final ranking is on cyclingnews

 

[180mmCrank]

The Davis pick was inspired never would have gone there

I had Hausler and Cavendish in the picks made with my heart but my head prevailed and bumped them for Pozzato and Hushovd...a lot of fun though.

Thanks for setting this up Merckx

 

[Merckx]

just make it easy on yourself and give the first team to have 3 riders in the teamscore

otherwise you'll probably get sick of this around may

Yea, I guess I can do that. Is everyone in agreement? Standings will be updated in 4-5minutes.

 

[Merckx]

Standings have been updated! Thx everyone for being patient! (been a busy day, and this took longer than I expected ) and thanks for participating as well! Congrats to Lookkg386 for his early lead, and better luck to Cosette and Martin in the next rounds!

Also note, that for future events; the team selection will be "first team to have 3 riders cross the line." As far as team selection for stage races, we will be going with standard team classification (cumulative time for team's top 3 racers).

Also in the future, for recording purposes, please send all picks in the following format:
- riders: ( Rider 1, Rider 2, Rider 3, Rider 4, Rider 5 )
- team: ( team )

If there are any suggestions/comments, please let me know!

See you all for RVV!

 

[Merckx]

Also, I think i'm going to change it to "1 day" (currently 1 hour) before the event/stage goes live. I know that in one day many things can happen, (as we saw today with lorenzetto) but having to cram everything right as the race starts is hard (especially since im in North America, and most races start at 4:30 AM where I live)

 

[Billopoulos]

Am I not in the standings?

 

[ak-zaaf]

Also, I think i'm going to change it to "1 day" (currently 1 hour) before the event/stage goes live. I know that in one day many things can happen, (as we saw today with lorenzetto) but having to cram everything right as the race starts is hard (especially since im in North America, and most races start at 4:30 AM where I live)

np

it's great you're doing this anyway

 

[Merckx]

Sorry Billo the registration was closed when you sent me your picks.

 

[Billopoulos]

Too bad...

I thought I was on time, wasn't online earlier...

Never mind!

 

[Kirsten Robbins]

Argh... I also had Cavendish as the winner but some one I know convinced me otherwise, said he couldn't get over the climbs. Good job Cavendish, you proved many of us wrong. Next time I'll go with my intuition as well!

 

[lookkg386]

Beauty!, In the yellow early!, very tough to hold it all the way but it has been done

 

[lookkg386]

Yeah, congratulations Lookkg386..nice pick Davis, also a fave of mine

Cheers , for a while there I thought Rebellin was going to be an inspired pick.

 

[Merckx]

Argh... I also had Cavendish as the winner but some one I know convinced me otherwise, said he couldn't get over the climbs. Good job Cavendish, you proved many of us wrong. Next time I'll go with my intuition as well!

I initially had Gilbert as my 5th pick, but decided to go with Cavendish. (Thought he was a wildcard/darkhorse, so I was pleased with the pick )

 

[jaylew]

Hey, thanks for the game!

Couple of suggestions:

Drop the Tour of Missouri. It's kind of ridiculous to have it in the mix when there will only be 4, maybe 5 top tier teams and then a bunch of N. American domestic teams.

If you want a 4th substitute the Volta a Catalunya. It always has a strong field and is guaranteed to have all the Pro Tour teams present as it is on the Pro Tour Calendar. Even the Tour of Poland or the Eneco Tour would be bigger races than Missouri and would have all the biggest teams as they are also on the biggest circuit.

And:

Do you really think we should abandon the UCI rules for team points? We're probably going to have some fairly meaningless team results if we completely abandon the time aspect. For example, you could have a team with two members in the break, the peloton several minutes back, and a team winner who wasn't part of any meaningful action and only won because of where their riders happened to be chilling in the peloton when they crossed the line. Meanwhile the team that really "won" the day gets nothing. I mean we're trying to predict the best team on the day, right?

As another option you could add the placings for the three top riders and award it to the team with the lowest total, which is what I believe the UCI does in case of a tie on time.

Btw, I truly appreciate you putting this whole thing together as I've also run a fantasy cycling game via forum and appreciate how much work actually goes into it. The normal team winner rules wouldn't be too difficult to follow as most races actually will list the team winner for you and if they don't it's not that hard to calculate. It could even be something we figure out on the forum while you're working on the individual point totals. I'd even volunteer to figure it for you if it's too much.

Anyway, thanks again

 

[marshan]

Only 4 picked Cav - more may have chosen him if it was known he worked with Zabel.
Boonen was the hands-down favorite, all but one had him in their roster.

 

[Cosette]

Only 4 picked Cav - more may have chosen him if it was known he worked with Zabel.
Boonen was the hands-down favorite, all but one had him in their roster.

And that one person is quite insane.

More seriously though. There is something I was wondering about. You want our picks one day before the race. But I live in a completely different timezone, I don't know when your days start and end....What time would you consider one day before?

 

[lookkg386]

Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) is next event on 5th April. The day before depends on where you are Cosette. But the race is on a Saturday in Belgium so if you put in your predictions on a Friday for arguements sake you can't go wrong where ever you are, if it helps in Australia it is on early Sunday morning for us.

 

[skidmark]

Why don't we just say 24 hours before the race starts, and post the starting time of each race? The races may start at different relative times, but it starts at the exact same time for everyone, in an absolute sense.

Eg. if RVV starts at 11:30am GMT, it'll start at (I think) 6:30am US Eastern time, right? So get your predictions in 24 hours before this time.

This seems to make sense to me, but Merckx is the final say in this so we'll see what is easiest for him.

 

[Cosette]

Well, I live in Europe. So most of the races are in my time zone.
The most logical time for me to post predictions would be the evening before. Indeed friday in the case of Flanders...
I was just wondering if posting at that time might not be considered a day before...Which might be the case further west from here....
It's probably nothing, just want to be sure I get it right. I'd hate being kicked out for not posting in time..

 

[Merckx]

Thanks for the comments/suggestions everyone! I appreciate it, as I'm still trying to fine-tune this pool. (First time doing it, so it's a learning curve for everyone!)

Why don't we just say 24 hours before the race starts, and post the starting time of each race? The races may start at different relative times, but it starts at the exact same time for everyone, in an absolute sense.

This is indeed what I meant by one day before. Regardless of where you are in the world, the race will be starting at the same time. You will now have to make your predictions 24hours at the latest, before the start of the indicated event. I understand that this may be inconvenient for some people, but we have people from all over the world (it'll be the middle of the night for someone no matter what). As we get closer to the RVV, I'll post the exact time by which people have to send their picks by - if that makes it any easier for you guys?

@ jaylew, thanks for the comments. To be honest, we could remove the tour of Missouri altogether because it overlaps with the vuelta (same thing with your suggestion of Volta a Catalunya, which overlaps with the giro). I think it will be hard enough to track all the scores from the grand tours, without adding a small stage race to the mix.

- regarding Teams. I will be removing "teams" from specific events/stages, but will keep the Team Classification for Stage Races/Grand Tours. IE: at the start of the TDF, you will still predict the best team (which will be determined the conventional way), but for each selected stage of the TDF you will no longer be predicting a team - only your 5 riders.

Thoughts, comments?

 

[lookkg386]

Sounds good, Last point makes sense, all we need to do is predict final teams classification and not worry about particular stages.

 

[Merckx]

Trying to remember why I had it in the first place, I think it was to give people a higher chance at earning points.

First Post has been updated, I now have all "Updates" listed at the top of that thread, so you guys can check there to see if anything has been updated

 

[Cosette]

Thanks for clearing the time-thing up.

And the inconvenience is inevitable, as you have already said yourself. We'll just have to make it work somehow.
I'm just happy that you were willing to put this up, and to put a lot of work into it.

As for the Tour of Missouri. You could also replace it with either the Tour of Poland or the Eneco Tour, as jaylew suggested as well. They are both held somewhere inbetween the TdF and the Vuelta. (TdP early August, Eneco shortly before the Vuelta)

 

[Merckx]

Hmm yea, Our month of August is looking pretty bare.. What would you guys prefer, Tour of Pologne or the tour of benelux? I'd say the latter, since the tour of poland is right after san sebastian. Spread em out maybe.

 

[Cosette]

Both? Nah, kidding.

It's a shame neither of them is in the middle of the month, would have made it a bit easier...
The TdP starts the day after San Sebastian, but the Eneco Tour (I can not get used to Tour of the Benelux <_<) ends like 3 days before the Vuelta starts...
In that sense, Eneco Tour is probably the most logical pick of the two...