Riding a Grand Tour is never easy.
The intensity of the racing, the added pressure from the media, the stress of riding competitively for three weeks straight. But it's all a little more extreme at Le Tour. The climbs are a little bit tougher, the sprints a little bit faster, the cobbles a little bit rougher.
When I ride in Spain or Switzerland, the media don't care - they didn't get me to write this because I won a stage in the Tour of Poland!
I haven't had many good experiences at GTs, I'm the first to admit it. Crashing out of the 2013 Vuelta, breaking my collar bone on the very first stage of my home Giro, last year. But I did have some of my best days in the three week tours, winning stage 9 of the 2013 Tour or taking home 7th in GC in my last Vuelta.
Now I'm nearly thirty, it's time to step up my game. I'm going to France with full support from my team, aiming for a stage win and a Top 10 in the GC. And you'll be right next to me, reading my daily Tour diary right here.
Spoiler
So, here we go again - Dippo's at it once more. Short story this time, I hope to upload each stage the day it's raced IRL too (might be too busy watching to play though, so it might take a little longer). DB is expansion pack, completely unedited. Not sure what exactly to expect, but the Huy stage is definitely a big target. Hope you enjoy following me noob around in my first ever attempt at non-be a pro PCM 15.
Good luck, sounds promising! Very interesting course for Dan.
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
Jesleyh wrote:
Very nice, good luck.
Will you be using a real startlist?
It is availbale on 2 threads down here .
No ads, sorry.
Goodluck with that my 'Story-Game' mate
#FREELANDA #FREELIA MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
emre99's stages Thread of the Week : Tour of California 2014 -Official PCM World Cup 2016, 10th best keirin player in the world PCM.daily Awards : 2 Nominee 0 Award
Daily Song Contest WINNER! With Foals - Mountain at my Gates with Greece! 1 like 1 girlfriend ''I call you the stage god. You are the stage god.'' -baseballover312, 15.07.2016
Very nice, should be a great addition to the Tour to have this everyday as a comparison, especially if you use a real startlist like Jesleyh proposed Looking forward to it!
Standing in the starting house, waiting to go out on course in tropical temperatures, I knew exactly what I had to do. I was one of the last to start, so I had good info what the course was like. Ryder and Andy both looked good for spots in the Top 10, so I didn't want to lose too much time on them either.
It was a disaster. I'm not sure where exactly things started to go wrong, but it was absolutely terrible. I couldn't find the right position on the bike, I couldn't take the corners properly, I couldn't hit my stride at all. I finished the day in 157th out of 198, 1 minute and 27 seconds behind yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara and over a minute down on Froome, Quintana, Nibali and Contador.
The atmosphere in the team hotel tonight was a little edgy, to say the least. Ryder got 9th, while Andy finished 12th, so now they both believe they should be leading themselves. Jonathan Vaughters told us after the race that we were still going for me, but I'm not sure they can be trusted to give all when they're needed most...
The aim for today was simple: Conserve energy. Things were still a little tense between me, Andy, and Ryder, but there wasn't any way to resolve that before we enter the Pyrenees, so I'm preparing for a rather intense week in the camp. The stage itself offered a little more drama than was expected, thought thankfully we managed to stay out of it.
While our three "captains" stayed close to the front all the time, some weren't so careful, and with 20km to go, they paid the price. Someone in the middle of the pack hit a pothole at full speed, taking down 20 other lads with him. The main casualties of the fall were my cousin Nico Roche, my main opponent for the hilly stages Alejandro Valverde, and French GC hopeful Romain Bardet. Whilst Nico and Piti could at least finish the stage (losing 3'08" ), Bardet broke his tibia and is out of the race before it even entered his homeland.
Tthe big day. The Mur de Huy, one of my favourite hills. I was second here in 2014, fourth in 2013, sixth in 2012 - the climb definitely suits me. Even Andy and Ryder realised that today was my chance. I stayed near the front all day, putting some of our lads on the front to help pull back the break.
As we reached the last KoM before Huy, with the break nearly caught, we had a big attack. Purito, Contador and yesterdays crash victim Valverde gave it a go with 6km from the finish. We didn't panic - attacks like this don't normally work in Fleche Wallone, so why would they here? But as they linked up with Boom from the early break, they pulled out a bigger and bigger gap.
They dropped Boom after a while, then hit the Mur with a minute over the pack - we knew we were fighting a losing battle. In the end, Piti made up for his bad luck yesterday, winning on the Mur for the second time this year.
My positioning wasn't great going in to the finale, so I was boxed in when the sprint started. I tried my best to fight my way forward, but in the end 19th was all I could get. I was best on our team, but they're doubting me more than ever now. I'm still convinced I just need to gain form, but Ryder and Andy don't seem to see it like that.
emre99's stages Thread of the Week : Tour of California 2014 -Official PCM World Cup 2016, 10th best keirin player in the world PCM.daily Awards : 2 Nominee 0 Award
Daily Song Contest WINNER! With Foals - Mountain at my Gates with Greece! 1 like 1 girlfriend ''I call you the stage god. You are the stage god.'' -baseballover312, 15.07.2016
Cobbles. The big one. Today, except for an off day in the mountains, was the day most likely to end in heartbreak. Luckily we have a few good cobblers in our team, so our three captains were well protected. Until we reached the big cobbled sections everything went well. The breakaway was small, the gap manageable (allthough bizarely, Ian Stannard was part of it), and everyone kept out of trouble. Once we hit the last 45kms, we knew we needed to move forward. Then it happened.
Andy hit the deck hard, taking some big names like Porte, Kruijswijk, or Gesink with him. We all just looked at each other, but Jonathan shouted at us through the team radio to keep on riding, so we pushed on. Froome wasn't directly involved in the crash, but got caught behind it, so Astana, Tinkoff and Movistar pushed on. We didn't get directly involved, but we stayed at the very front, with Langeveld protecting me.
As we reached the last few cobbled sections, it became obvious Andy wasn't going to come back. So Seb set a high pace at the front, with me and Ryder tucked in behind him. This gave an almost immediate reaction, pulling the three of us plus Valverde clear of the rest. We tried to push on, but we were all getting tired, so eventually a small group containg Nibali, Contador and Quintana caught up with us. Whilst Cancellara won in the yellow jersey, ours was the next bigger group, taking over two minutes on the likes of Froome. This stage really boosted our GC standings, with Ryder 4th, me 7th, and Sebastian 9th. There are still some poor climbers ahead of us, whilst some semi-favourites are pretty much out of contention, so me and Ryder are looking good for a Top 10 finish.
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