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Tour of America Discussion
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| Yellow Jersey |
Posted on 16-07-2019 17:29
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Classics Specialist
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Awesome fight between Valls and Talansky!
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| DaveTwoBob |
Posted on 16-07-2019 18:40
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Small Tour Specialist
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8 seconds, that sounds familiar 
Haller needs intermediate points and a win to get the points jersey back but expecting the breakaway to stay away and spoil his chances.
Great bunching from my climbers in 19th 20th 21st.
Thanks again to Marco for the reporting.
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| Booker |
Posted on 16-07-2019 19:47
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What a way to (potentially) win the ToA, coming back in the final section of the MTT!
Unbelievably consistent performance by Valls throughout the race, what a foil he has proven to be, opposite PPP. The two CT legends, still at it. And what a storyline if Valls prevents Repsol, his old bosses, from promoting automatically, for thinking he wasn't worth the money in the PCT 
Thanks to TMM, jph, Kentaurus, Scorchio and all the rest for the competition.
It ain't over til the fat lady sings, but thanks to everyone for the advance congrats! I'm going to have heart palpitations reading the final report and watching for Talansky's sneaky tactics.
jandal7 wrote:
Valls proving he can do it with Polish EPO not just the Spanish stuff. Truly beautiful, happy for him and especially Booker, well done and awesome to see a cool team and manager get such a big win!
It's called vodka...
But thanks for the kind words 
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 16-07-2019 20:24
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Grand Tour Champion
Posts: 7775
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Valls the most consistent rider of the race. Whereas the others had one or more bad stages, Valls didn't have any, so in my opinion the deserved winner. Congrats Booker!
Talansky also not setting a foot wrong really. Eight seconds is really closed. Yates with the one bad stage where he lost a lot, and the MTT which didn't really go his way. Though both desevedly on the podium.
Then Eastman. After two weeks I was certain he was going to win. Then he completely faded away. Yet Azteca with a decent race, winning stages, but not enough to get them off the last place. At least the curse of "ToA winner will relegate" will be broken as Kulczyk is right in the promotion battle.
Berhane very inconsistent, winning a stage then falling away. Koshevoy's late attempt turned it into a great race for WCC, what they needed in a relegation battle.
Suaza the disappointment, lucky to get a top ten in the end but his race was over after the hilly stage. Bringing Zaini was a risk which didn't really pay off imo. Still they got four stage wins from four different riders and the teams classification.
Haller came close but it was a difficult task to get the green jersey this late. Winning three stages is quite the accomplishment though.
Also my congratulations to Reddit for Riesebeek's mountain jersey. Every stage where he wasn't in the break, I knew he would attack mid-stage. Same for Mendes, except getting dropped the moment he would join
Thanks everyone for the support. I managed to stick to my 2 reports per day schedule. The reports were shorten than I usually write (by orders from higher powers in this game ) so they were quick to write. Given the short time in which it had to be done, that was the right call. Tsmoha made a great route, a tough one but nevertheless everyone managed to finish!
Thanks again, and my congratulations to the teams which did very great this race, and commiserations to the teams which wanted more or are now dragged back into a relegation battle. As for the Minions, promotion is definitely out of reach now...
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| Aquarius97 |
Posted on 16-07-2019 20:26
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Grand Tour Specialist
Posts: 4190
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1 - It's quite likely this wouldn't be the definitive blow to my promoting hopes. After ToA i'm probably down to 9th/10th waiting for a miracle in Maroc
2 - I never said he wasn't worth the money, i just put myself in a situation where i needed to move him because his wage wouldn't allow me to make the moves i end up doing.
3 - What do you think of Rafa returning home after this season?
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| Booker |
Posted on 16-07-2019 20:34
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Aquarius97 wrote:
1 - It's quite likely this wouldn't be the definitive blow to my promoting hopes. After ToA i'm probably down to 9th/10th waiting for a miracle in Maroc
2 - I never said he wasn't worth the money, i just put myself in a situation where i needed to move him because his wage wouldn't allow me to make the moves i end up doing.
3 - What do you think of Rafa returning home after this season?
You'll still probably finish ahead of us...but we shall see
You also built a better team than I did, no doubt, I've just had Baugnies go nutty this year.
Rafa can do what he likes if we promote - he deserves better than to be a PT superdom for his swansong. If we don't though, I imagine some of that Spanish EPO for our other riders could sway things in your favour 
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 16-07-2019 21:16
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World Champion
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And forgot to mention earlier (because I forgot about him the last few days ) - Eyob adding a second cherry on top of the cake for Kulczyk 
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT]  Xero Racing
5x  x5
1x  x1
2x  x2
2x  x2 |
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 16-07-2019 21:33
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Classics Specialist
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This caps off a great race for Kulzcyk with GC and U25! Overall a very enjoyable race to follow, some big changes in the rankings to come next update
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| TheManxMissile |
Posted on 16-07-2019 21:42
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 17833
Joined: 12-05-2012
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I peaked with my response after Stage 20. So this is purely a congratulations to Valls for winning a thrilling race, a comiserations to Eastman for doing an Eastman, and a pat-on-the-back for Kim and Kristin for completing a Grand Tour not in last place!
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 08-12-2025 15:38
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| hillis91 |
Posted on 16-07-2019 21:54
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whitejersey wrote:
This caps off a great race for Kulzcyk with GC and U25! Overall a very enjoyable race to follow, some big changes in the rankings to come next update
+1!
Also, i loved the reports and the tempo! Great job Marco
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 16-07-2019 22:23
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Classics Specialist
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Wow, thank you so much Marco, what a pleasure this have been to follow! A worthy last stage too, thank you for all your effort, pace and stamina during the entire ToA! |
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| jandal7 |
Posted on 16-07-2019 22:27
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World Champion
Posts: 11621
Joined: 17-12-2014
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Oh and how did I forget: big ups to our loanee Daniel Afoa for completing a GT in his neo-pro season in a very credible 78th place, a “Xero” record which may stand a while
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant."
[PT] Xero Racing
5x x5
1x x1
2x x2
2x x2 |
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| Vien |
Posted on 17-07-2019 05:03
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2241
Joined: 16-06-2008
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First of all congrats to Booker and also TMM in some way for their IMO unexpected results. And second, Marco for the amazing job reporting this. And don't worry about the report length, I think most of us are just waiting for this season to finish
Reddit did an amazing job here, and I'm glad I was able to fix last year's flaws of sending too good riders who wouldn't attack. But of course the results I got were incredibly lucky. Certainly one to remember, that's for sure.
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| roturn |
Posted on 17-07-2019 05:31
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Team Manager
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Thanks to Marco for the great coverage of this years Tour of America. Pretty impressed by his effort really seeing he was only starting the race shortly prior posting stage 1 and still kept a high pace for the whole race!
Next, congrats to Kulczyk for the GC win. Valls surely has a big MG history and with the ToA win he might have completed it GT wise. Talansky also with a strong race, which looked close for most of the time while Yates did okay but surely had expected to podium behind 1-2 other riders that disappointed a bit like Berhane.
Suaza shows that he might be best climber at times but has not the consistency over 21 days!
For my own team, I am quite happy. One of the most active teams with Mendes/Mollema/Minnard joining the break often, Ockeloen with 2-3 mid stage attacks and the sprinter train being up there on any flat day.
In the end it resulted in a stage win and several days in the KoM jersey, which unfortunately went to the weakest climber of mine, which was then desperate to defend it against others in the second half.
And also I got the Lanterne Rouge defended until the end as Hochman did make the time cut. |
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 17-07-2019 06:03
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Directeur Sportif
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Incredible reporting job by Marco first of all! Crazy turnaround time for such a big race, especially having done Portugal just a few days earlier. I haven't commented before in this thread, but I've followed it all the way through. Hats off
Big congrats to Valls on the win, just adding to his legend. Wherever he ends up next season, I'm sure he'll go out on high in his final peak season. Learnt to hate him last season, and have learnt to admire him now
Have been following the PCT promotion and relegation race with interest over the past half a dozen races, because let's face it, we're already on the beach... Congrats to Kulczyk on the win, and doing everything they can to push for back-to-back promotions. Would be very well deserved if they got it. Looking more and more likely with every passing race. Podium Ambition not doing their 'promotion ambitions' any harm with Talansky firing on all cylinders. Maybe a missed opportunity for Ayubowan!, with them now needing the rest of the races to push for an automatic promotion place. One bad day the difference between first and third for Yates! At the other end of the table, fair to say WCC and Kraftwerk (before considering Besseges, they're out of sight now) have more or less made themselves safe with this race. One huge performance from Koshevoy has probably made Scorchio breathe easy. This means that we're probably down to a three way fight between Lierse, Netia and Carlsberg for the final relegation spot, unless the others below can pull a rabbit out of the hat.
For all the hate ToA gets, this was a really enjoyable edition
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| sutty68 |
Posted on 17-07-2019 15:59
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Tour de France Champion
Posts: 34002
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Not the best outing in America but can't complain  , great reports Marco |
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| Scorchio |
Posted on 18-07-2019 20:02
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2073
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Thanks to Marco for the reporting and pace throughout. Congrats to the podium dudes, just a little disappointed not to be part of that contingent!
Had targetted 300+ points here from the start of the season as security against relegation. So this target achieved, but how we went about it was not as envisaged. Given Berhane was rated 1st or 2nd favourtie by PCM in each mountain stage, the limited (and in fact loss) of time to GC rivals across the piece was very disappointing given his 81 Mo stat I thought would have paid bigger dividends when hitting consecutive mountain stages. The less said about our 'sprinters', the better, other than to highlight that JAC is not that far behind Haller stat wise, but rather than hauling in a hat load of points he goes home empty handed - a disgrace to his NC jersey! After week 2 the lack of sprinters results was being 'carried' by the high GC placings of Affonso, Koshevoy and Brandt alongside Berhane, but this started to fall away through the last week until koshevoy's stage 20 heroics. This of course proved our ToA highlight with a brilliant stage victory and subsequent GC placing jump. Hence we met our 300+ target, just in a round-about way!
Commiting 21 RD's to ToA is always a gamble for PCT and CT teams, just happy in this instance it worked out OK for WCC, even if we can still look at what was percieved as potentially lots more points left on the table!
Manager of ISA - Hexacta in the MG |
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| Booker |
Posted on 18-07-2019 20:35
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Thanks for the stellar reporting Marco!
And thanks to all for the congratulations
Rafael Valls is my hero. There, I said it.
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