Today I decided to play the TDF 2013 game because of a bunch of computer issues that I won't go into (kind of complicated). when I selected to play a new game, the thing as it always does, came up on Saxo Tinkoff first and I saw I hadn't got many of their achievements so I decided to give a 7 stage tour with them a go. the first stage went all right the entire peloton bar 6 riders finishing together, Valverde won the stage (puncheurs stage).
The next stage was up to Aix-3-Domains, in my quest to complete goals, I put Bennati in the break and pulled him back to the peloton after he won the intermediate sprint, when I got to the climb, I went all-out with Paulinho, Rogers, Morkov and Sorensen relaying, with Kreuziger protecting me and Roche protecting Majka who was on follow attacks (I did this to keep riders forward), a few riders got away and Pinot caught up to the original break which contained Moreno, while Quintana got 20 seconds on the bunch, those event where kind of weird, then Sorensen and Rogers rode away from the bunch, because they relayed too hard and I (as Contador) rode up to them, then Valverde rode up to us. We rode like that until the peloton pulled us back, then I realised that every rider on my team, bar Contador, Sorensen and Rogers, had been dropped, despite the peloton having 40 riders left and some of my riders being amongst the best climbers. Sorensen and Rogers quickly got dropped because they were so tired and Froome attacked, the peloton sped up to keep him from getting away and a group of about 14 riders, including all the big contenders except Rodriguez, went together, which caught Quintana and Froome, although Pinot and Moreno still had 1 and a half minutes. We reached the summit of the climb.
I made sure Contador went over the top first for KOM points and the group quickly turned into a 30 rider group, after being caught by the remnants of the peloton, I fast-forwarded some of the descent, and came back 3 km before the base of the climb, without thinking I made an attack and got pulled back by the peloton, but when I got caught, the peloton slowed to about 20km/hour, just free-wheeling, if I attacked, they all chased me down, then stopped again and Pinot now had over 2 minutes on the group, we reached the climb and I attacked again and they all sprinted after me, almost like the final sprint and as soon as I was caught, they just completely stopped, literally 4km per hour, I swerved along the road and held the brake button down to stay the same speed, but they acted normally, with some riders even getting out of the saddle.
Soon the group containing Majka, Sorensen and Kreuziger caught them and Majka and Kreuziger simply rode away, while Sorensen started riding on the front, at about 15km per hour, at which point, Monfort riding for RadioShack (remember Schleck still has high stats for some reason), decides to help relay, but nobody else in the now 70 rider group, but amazingly, Pinot only has 4 minutes 30 on the bunch, it's like everybody is riding slowly, but the peloton is riding even slower than everybody else, with 1.5km to go, Majka blows up, while Krueziger has 1 minute on the bunch and Pinot has 6 minutes 30 seconds and suddenly, the peloton starts going in some all-out sprint, with everybody going as hard as they possibly could then at the flamme rouge, they suddenly go into what would be considered a normal climbing pace, for mid-way through a tour climb and I actually Sprint with Contador for 8th, catching Majka on the line, but finishing behind him, here are the stage results:
1. T. Pinot 4h 49' 35"
2. B. Kadri +51"
3. G. Izagirre +1'03"
4. A. Geniez +1'03"
5. D. Moreno +1'17" (Weird that he lost time to weaker climbers?)
6. R.Krueziger +4' 14" (Saxo)
7. R. Majka +4' 52" (Saxo)
8. A. Contaddor + 4' 52" (Saxo)
9. A. Schleck +4' 52"
10. P. Rolland +4' 52"
...
20. M. Scarponi + 4' 52"
21. N. Quintana +5' 24" (Riders here were dropped in that weird sprint at 1.5km to go)
...
42. I. Basso +5' 24"
Now there are some really good climbers, strangely ages back on the main group:
47. R. Porte +9' 46"
(Dupont, Coppel)
50. S. Spilak +10'01"
(Kessiakoff, Peraud, Nieve)
54. R. Uran + 10'59"
(Vanendert, Rujano, Le Mevel, Kruijswijk, Velits, Jeanesson, Kloden, Kern, Navarro, Poels, Gallopin, Matinez, Menchov, Fuglsang, L. L. Sanchez, T. Martin, Horner, De Weert, Riblon, Albasini, Chavenal, Malacarne, Zubeldia)
78. L. Ten Dam + 14' 06"
(Gautier, Caruso, Tiralongo, Niemiec, Hoogerland, Kiryenka, Paulinho, Fedrigo, Hushovd, Iglinsky, Voight, Intxaustim Sicard, Cobo, Szmyd, Amador, Boasson Hagan, Weening, Cancellara, Geschke, Bak)
136. G. Thomas +22' 25"
137. B. Swift +22' 25"
139. P. Gilbert +22' 25" (these three usually finish high up because of a reasonable mountain stat and high other stats)
... it continues from there
The stage was completely broken, firstly the point with the riders slowing down. but, looking at the time gaps, riders who are good or at least reasonable climbers, including Gilbert and Thomas who usually break the game by finishing in the top 10 on stages like this, have finished 10 or even 20 minutes down on riders such as Hivert, Feillu, Casar, Dupont and a number of other climbers, who are of equal or less mountain ability to riders who finished over 20 minutes down (excluding the break here).
I know a lot of people will just say that the game is broken anyway, but I've never seen it anywhere near the broken
