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I have to pass on the responsibility to my riders, seems that there is a communication problem between team owner and riders. They are just doing what they want!
Jokes aside, I am moving up to 2nd overall!! Wow!
And I made up 300 points on Shalgo this week.
With just 1400 points behind, this means, that if I continue my run, I will also overtake Shalgo in 5 weeks!
Well on a more serious note, I think this will be my best placing for the season, although it will depend a lot on Ayuso´s autumn schedule and of course his performance there.
Hoped for a bit more from C. Rodriguez at the tour, but the most important thing was, that he finished the race and got in the end the GC points...
Shalgo will be at 12621 points after the Tour which means that my 2012 team remains (barely) the highest scoring team at that point of the season but more importantly their team drops behind skidmark's 2012 pace for the first time. It's still worth tracking as long as the two teams are fairly close but it's now pretty unlikely that skidmark will cede the title of best team ever.
Running a linear regression on the leading score post-Tour vs final winning score in previous years puts shalgo's predicted total around 18650 points which is right in the range of the #4 (Total Package 2021, 18676) and #5 (EITB 2022, 18662) teams of all time which would also set up a dramatic finish.
Yes, the Tour was not good for my team, with Ayuso dropping out and Bernal underperforming. It's also a little hard to see where my points are coming from over the rest of the season, though at least Cosnefroy was looking frisky today in Wallonie.
I somehow have six people (Christen, Morgado, Albanese, Pedrero, Kanter, Oldani) in Castilla y León today, if only more of them were sprinters...
That's a smashing lineup for a random slightly hilly 1.1 race though. I have three of those guys. I'm really liking what Oldani is doing at the moment. Finally farming small races as he should be. Hopefully I haven't jinxed him for today, now.
Until June it looked like there was only one right answer to what the best strategy was when it came down to expensive picks, but now it's more up in the air. Ayuso, Rodriguez, Mas and Pidcock all look quite samey at this point (putting Mas in there despite lagging a bit behind as he's probably the safest bet for solid Vuelta points).
Obviously you don't have much to fear with banger picks like Girmay and Cosnefroy, who are looking like the game-winning picks at the moment. But as you and adamski101 are the only ones profiting majorly from both, the rest of us still have quite the fight on our hand based on how our Spanish GC riders (or in my case, British non-GC rider) do.
Even if you're unlikely to beat skidmark 2012, you can still shoot for biggest winning margin I assume. And EITB might have numbers on this too.
Update #27: Tadej is the greatest
While we knew that the two teams with Tadej Pogacar in this game would have a good week with GC points alone, he added three stages, leaders' jersey points for the whole week, 2nd in the mountains and 4th in the points classification, adding a total of 1015 points on the week! For context, this is more points in a week than any of Carlos Rodriguez, Joao Almeida, or Alexander Vlasov have this year, or 8 points less than Juan Ayuso got last year.
Beyond that, his now-record-for-a-year (and counting) CQ score of 4236 is almost 1000 points more than 2nd (Philipsen) and 3rd (Evenepoel) have combined in 2024. That is astonishing. Is he finally too expensive to be a good pick in this game? I would think so but have been consistently proven wrong.
This Week's Top Scorers
Amethyst takes the top spot this week of course, thanks to the strategy of betting it all on Pogacar (1015 points, 2 teams) and Evenepoel (475, 2). firefly3323 manages to squeeze into 2nd without Pogi with a good set of selections including unique pick Matteo Jorgenson (305), not unique pick RIchard Carapaz (308, 69 teams), Carlos Rodriguez (230, 24), Enric Mas (129, 14) and Bini Girmay (100, 48). Googolplex gets third primarily on Pogi points, with 3 other riders scoring between 2 and 25 points for them this week.
This Week's High Movers
Amethyst doubles up here, moving a further 15 spots up in the overall. Googolplex also repeats on the podium, while Riverside nabs the third spot here.
Green Jersey Competition
Googolplex expands their team's lead here, and with 65 points in the last two weeks they now have a 68 point lead over shalgo in second. Amethyst's win - and 116 points in the last 4 weeks - moves them into the top 5 as well.
Top 10 Overall
shalgo finishes 43rd on the week, lower than 8 of the top 10 teams overall. But their team's lead remains about the same as adamski101 finishes 67th on the week, tumbling out of 2nd place as the only team in the top 10 to lose ground to shalgo. Earns1985 is now the only team within 1500 points of shalgo's formidable squad. Although shalgo is showing Pogi-like dominance this year, unfortunately for other teams this doesn't work like a bike race, and shalgo can't get fatigued from all those weeks in the leader's jersey and lose points in a single bad day or something. The teams behind will have to earn (or Earns, in the case of our 2nd place team) those points to close the gap, and there isn't a ton of season left.
Despite the GC points on offer this week, there isn't much movement as 7 of the top 10 teams are within 120 points of each other on the week. Gotland moves into the top 10 at the expense of Squire, who falls back to 11th.
Now that the Tour is over, we diversify our attention towards the smattering of later summer races. This week sees the stage race Tour of Wallonie, the now 1-day Castilla y Leon, the Volta Portugal, and in the normal place of San Sebastian (which has moved back to August), we have the Olympics TT.
spreadsheet link
While we knew that the two teams with Tadej Pogacar in this game would have a good week with GC points alone, he added three stages, leaders' jersey points for the whole week, 2nd in the mountains and 4th in the points classification, adding a total of 1015 points on the week! For context, this is more points in a week than any of Carlos Rodriguez, Joao Almeida, or Alexander Vlasov have this year, or 8 points less than Juan Ayuso got last year.
Beyond that, his now-record-for-a-year (and counting) CQ score of 4236 is almost 1000 points more than 2nd (Philipsen) and 3rd (Evenepoel) have combined in 2024. That is astonishing. Is he finally too expensive to be a good pick in this game? I would think so but have been consistently proven wrong.
This Week's Top Scorers
| Rank | Team | Points this week |
| 1 | Amethyst | 1573 |
| 2 | firefly3323 | 1152 |
| 3 | Googolplex | 1052 |
| 4 | Riverside | 941 |
| 5 | ray10 | 873 |
Amethyst takes the top spot this week of course, thanks to the strategy of betting it all on Pogacar (1015 points, 2 teams) and Evenepoel (475, 2). firefly3323 manages to squeeze into 2nd without Pogi with a good set of selections including unique pick Matteo Jorgenson (305), not unique pick RIchard Carapaz (308, 69 teams), Carlos Rodriguez (230, 24), Enric Mas (129, 14) and Bini Girmay (100, 48). Googolplex gets third primarily on Pogi points, with 3 other riders scoring between 2 and 25 points for them this week.
This Week's High Movers
| Rank | Team | Up/down |
| 1 | Amethyst | (+15) |
| 2 | Googolplex | (+9) |
| 3 | Riverside | (+8) |
| 4 | nbfc1962 | (+7) |
| 5 | Armchair cyclist | (+6) |
| 5 | firefly3323 | (+6) |
| 5 | Fivezzz | (+6) |
Amethyst doubles up here, moving a further 15 spots up in the overall. Googolplex also repeats on the podium, while Riverside nabs the third spot here.
Green Jersey Competition
| Rank | Team | Total |
| 1 | Googolplex | 294 |
| 2 | shalgo | 226 |
| 3 | Jakob747 | 186 |
| 4 | Amethyst | 177 |
| 5 | HoudiniCycling | 149 |
| 5 | Shakes | 149 |
Googolplex expands their team's lead here, and with 65 points in the last two weeks they now have a 68 point lead over shalgo in second. Amethyst's win - and 116 points in the last 4 weeks - moves them into the top 5 as well.
Top 10 Overall
| Rank | Up/down | Team | Points |
| 1 | (-) | shalgo | 12621 |
| 2 | (+2) | Earns1985 | 11211 |
| 3 | (-) | EvansIsTheBest | 11103 |
| 4 | (+1) | skidmark | 11056 |
| 5 | (-3) | adamski101 | 11040 |
| 6 | (-) | MADRAZO | 10934 |
| 7 | (-) | HoudiniCycling | 10779 |
| 8 | (-) | Nakazar | 10684 |
| 9 | (+2) | Gotland | 10620 |
| 10 | (-1) | Total Package | 10619 |
shalgo finishes 43rd on the week, lower than 8 of the top 10 teams overall. But their team's lead remains about the same as adamski101 finishes 67th on the week, tumbling out of 2nd place as the only team in the top 10 to lose ground to shalgo. Earns1985 is now the only team within 1500 points of shalgo's formidable squad. Although shalgo is showing Pogi-like dominance this year, unfortunately for other teams this doesn't work like a bike race, and shalgo can't get fatigued from all those weeks in the leader's jersey and lose points in a single bad day or something. The teams behind will have to earn (or Earns, in the case of our 2nd place team) those points to close the gap, and there isn't a ton of season left.
Despite the GC points on offer this week, there isn't much movement as 7 of the top 10 teams are within 120 points of each other on the week. Gotland moves into the top 10 at the expense of Squire, who falls back to 11th.
Now that the Tour is over, we diversify our attention towards the smattering of later summer races. This week sees the stage race Tour of Wallonie, the now 1-day Castilla y Leon, the Volta Portugal, and in the normal place of San Sebastian (which has moved back to August), we have the Olympics TT.
spreadsheet link
First time since January that I'm out of the top 10. 
Ayuso DNF-ing the Tour and I still finish worse in the big Tour update than all the Ayuso teams in the top 15 bar one team.
Ayuso DNF-ing the Tour and I still finish worse in the big Tour update than all the Ayuso teams in the top 15 bar one team.
Year | Team | Winning Margin | Winning % |
2012 | 1266 | 106.99% | |
2022 | 1077 | 106.12% | |
2023 | 893 | 105.78% | |
2016 | 685 | 104.66% | |
2014 | 674 | 104.92% | |
2015 | 593 | 103.80% | |
2020 | 490 | 105.15% | |
2011 | 447 | 103.32% | |
2018 | 414 | 102.57% | |
2019 | 180 | 101.25% | |
2017 | 169 | 101.08% | |
2021 | 114 | 100.60% | |
2013 | 20 | 100.15% |
Winning by 100 points if the two top teams score 20000 points indicates a much tighter race than if both teams score 1000 points. To account for that, I have included the winning % (computed by dividing the winning score by the second place team score). In both metrics (1410 points winning margin and 112.58% winning %), shalgo is well ahead of the pack. While their team hasn't kept up with skidmark 2012 in recent weeks, it has still steadily increased its lead on the field so there's no obvious reason why that won't hold to the finish.
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Wasn't sure if anyone would catch that
Had to channel my inner 90s kid at least once this season.
1-2-9 in Ordizia today. Seems that my rare really good days this season are all Spanish 1.1s...
Edit: and Lamperti got a win too, maybe there is still hope for my team to escape the bottom half.
Edit: and Lamperti got a win too, maybe there is still hope for my team to escape the bottom half.
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Wandahl into profit! Whop-wooo.
However, it's not gonna help me much for my hope to re-escape out of last place, several Spanish races coming up, and Samu have a whole pile of Basque riders for those.
However, it's not gonna help me much for my hope to re-escape out of last place, several Spanish races coming up, and Samu have a whole pile of Basque riders for those.
Judged from the Spanish races this week, I'm not sure I'll be scoring that many points. It looks like Okamika and Bizkarra might score me some in Portugal, but still fewer than Txomin Juaristi achieved last year.
We gotta hope and pray for Sheffield to stay upright today.
What a disaster. Plapp and Sheffield should have been 5th and 6th judging by the first time split.
So with Thomas Gloag scoring in his first race after his injury, it´s not completely out of question anymore, that he can still outscore his 2023 points. Because I don´t have Piccolo, theoretically it´s still possible, that every rider of me could be in profit at the end of the season.
Let´s have a look at my riders not into profit yet:
Teuns: A bit dissapointing yet, but normally should still go into profit in the end
E. Hayter: One of the biggest dissapointments yet (also that he opted out of the Olympics ITT). Of course not impossible to go into profit with a descent autumn calender, but a big task.
Meintjes: Also dissapointing right now, but with Vuelta GC points or GC points from another race, normally should still be in profit by the end of the season.
Lund Andresen: Had an horrific schedule until now, but now his time, where he can ride on his own results will begin, so think that he will go into profit in the next couple of weeks.
Foss: Also dissapointing until now, but the remaining 17 points he should at least get from the Worlds TT or some other minor races..
Busatto: Had been good in the beginning of the season, but didn´t scrore that much in the last couple of month. One good race could be enough for him to go into profit. So potential is there, but surely not a given.
Staune-Mittet: Also a bit dissapointing this season yet. Also his performance in the Czech Tour (where he crashed out last year, while being in second position), wasn´t good. Well, let´s at least hope, he will get the remaining 14 points somewhere. Of course this at least is possible.
B. Turner: Well thing is he is mostly riding as domestique. Had been dissapointing in the cobble races, where he could ride on his own. To come into profit, one really good race could be sufficient, but the question is where and when this could happen. So together with L. Hayter, E. Hayter and Gloag one of the biggest question marks..
Gloag: Scored in his first race after a long break, which of course is a very good signal. Still a long way to go into profit, but not impossible anymore.
L. Hayter: Well, what can one say to him. Also big dissapointment this season yet. Right now, don´t know where his remaining points should come from. But same for him, one good race could be enough in the end to go into profit, so fingers crossed.
Summarising, one can say, that most of my Ineos riders had been the biggest disspointments this season for me yet. More or less all the others will realistically be into profit at the end of the season. (Exception Gloag perhaps)
Let´s have a look at my riders not into profit yet:
| Full Name | Current Points | 2023 Points |
| TEUNS Dylan | 319 | 384 |
| HAYTER Ethan | 248 | 476 |
| MEINTJES Louis | 207 | 264 |
| LUND ANDRESEN Tobias | 192 | 249 |
| FOSS Tobias Svendsen | 180 | 197 |
| BUSATTO Francesco | 148 | 186 |
| STAUNE-MITTET Johannes | 94 | 108 |
| TURNER Ben | 87 | 158 |
| GLOAG Thomas | 35 | 171 |
| HAYTER Leo | 15 | 97 |
Teuns: A bit dissapointing yet, but normally should still go into profit in the end
E. Hayter: One of the biggest dissapointments yet (also that he opted out of the Olympics ITT). Of course not impossible to go into profit with a descent autumn calender, but a big task.
Meintjes: Also dissapointing right now, but with Vuelta GC points or GC points from another race, normally should still be in profit by the end of the season.
Lund Andresen: Had an horrific schedule until now, but now his time, where he can ride on his own results will begin, so think that he will go into profit in the next couple of weeks.
Foss: Also dissapointing until now, but the remaining 17 points he should at least get from the Worlds TT or some other minor races..
Busatto: Had been good in the beginning of the season, but didn´t scrore that much in the last couple of month. One good race could be enough for him to go into profit. So potential is there, but surely not a given.
Staune-Mittet: Also a bit dissapointing this season yet. Also his performance in the Czech Tour (where he crashed out last year, while being in second position), wasn´t good. Well, let´s at least hope, he will get the remaining 14 points somewhere. Of course this at least is possible.
B. Turner: Well thing is he is mostly riding as domestique. Had been dissapointing in the cobble races, where he could ride on his own. To come into profit, one really good race could be sufficient, but the question is where and when this could happen. So together with L. Hayter, E. Hayter and Gloag one of the biggest question marks..
Gloag: Scored in his first race after a long break, which of course is a very good signal. Still a long way to go into profit, but not impossible anymore.
L. Hayter: Well, what can one say to him. Also big dissapointment this season yet. Right now, don´t know where his remaining points should come from. But same for him, one good race could be enough in the end to go into profit, so fingers crossed.
Summarising, one can say, that most of my Ineos riders had been the biggest disspointments this season for me yet. More or less all the others will realistically be into profit at the end of the season. (Exception Gloag perhaps)
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You could actually be ridiculously close to a fully green team. But I think Leo Hayter will not get there. Turner also a big question mark. I think Gloag will get enough from assorted Italian classics etc. to turn a profit.
For L. Hayter I have to hope for an unexpected good performance at the Tour of Guangxi like last year. There he got half of his season points last year, without having raced since may. (which is also the case this year, only god knows why..)
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