The Tour

Purist is couple GC riders with the rest making up those riders who always go in a break at some point......

Ok my starting team barring withdrawals. Yep it's crap.

Marcel Kittel (GSH)
Simon Gerrans (OGE)
Michael Albasini (OGE)
Sep Vanmarcke (BLK)
Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ)
Tom Dumoulin (GSH)
Mark Cavendish (OPQ)
Jeremy Roy (FDJ)
Heinrich Haussler (IAM)

I know Cav should be out but hey only a game.

Ok my starting team barring withdrawals. Yep it's crap.

Marcel Kittel (GSH)
Simon Gerrans (OGE)
Michael Albasini (OGE)
Sep Vanmarcke (BLK)
Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ)
Tom Dumoulin (GSH)
Mark Cavendish (OPQ)
Jeremy Roy (FDJ)
Heinrich Haussler (IAM)

I know Cav should be out but hey only a game.

Wondering if Orica Simon might escape on the cote du Jenkin Road, and time trial to the finish.

Wondering if Orica Simon might escape on the cote du Jenkin Road, and time trial to the finish.

For the Tour, If you are prone to a small wager, then look outside the "ourights", and look at the jerseys some decent value there. It is a very very small chance, and depends on results up to rest day 1, but I got Sagan at HIlls 250 to 1 for the young rider, a few quid e/w.

I have Talansky outright e/w at 40/1 and Rui Costa e/w at 66/1 backed just after the Dauphine and TDS. I think they are 33/1 and 50/1 now.

For the Tour, If you are prone to a small wager, then look outside the "ourights", and look at the jerseys some decent value there. It is a very very small chance, and depends on results up to rest day 1, but I got Sagan at HIlls 250 to 1 for the young rider, a few quid e/w.

I have Talansky outright e/w at 40/1 and Rui Costa e/w at 66/1 backed just after the Dauphine and TDS. I think they are 33/1 and 50/1 now.

Response on the team picking page is a bit slow tonight. I can almost hear the tinkering and fiddling and swapping and jiggling and cries of "argh! still just 0.1 points short!"

I'm just polishing a spot on the matlepiece for my next lanterne rouge.

Tinkering done... So many choices...

Gone with Cav in the end, probably a case of heart ruling head... With the weather and the roads I feel much road rash coming on for the front of the peleton on this stage..

Good Luck to all...

My GC prediction....
1. CONTADOR
2. VALVERDE
3. TALANSKY
4. MOLLEMA
5. FROOME

Picking the purist is a real thumbsucker. The main question is whether to plough the big bucks into sprinters or GC guys (or one or two of each?!) and then finding the value elsewhere. My usual tactic is to blow out on three big names then a bunch of Matalan-esque bargains. However, that hasn't worked that well.

This time I'm going for a more balanced team, the only 30+ guy I've got is Sagan (who is, despite his huge price, probably the safest bet for rolling in a lot a points through the whole tour). Then there are a couple in the 3-4 range (who I suspect lots of others will have spotted as very good value...) and everyone else is in-between. The one guy who I cant seem to fit in is Bakelants; I might regret not taking him. I also wanted Kwiatkowski but think he's a little overpriced for this comp (in the end I've no OPQS guys, nor Orica, both of which decisions I'm unhappy with).

Oh, and I've gone for Frank Schleck too. It was either him or Voeckler

The majority of my purist teams this year have been pants. Too much of trying to pick the best riders in each category and running out of cash. So for Le Tour I've gone for value for money for the more mountainous stages, zero sprinters. Might see if I can squeeze Sagan in there though.
Standard team is doing my head in (based on what I've read here), now looking in detail at each stage on Le Tour website for assistance.

I ride the Tour roads out in Essex a lot, I'd say that stage 3 might have some nasty surprises.
The riders are not going to enjoy the roads on the lower sections before you get into Epping. They're narrow and still utter sh##e.
They've filled into a few of the worst holes but not particularly well. The roads are pretty much just joined up patches of different tarmac.
Riding around there yesterday in the rain it was hard to imagine the worlds biggest bike race doing the same.
Could be crash central.

Degenkolb is getting better at the lumpy stages such as stage 2, wouldn't put it past him to have a go there.

I tend to follow the betting, but - showing my hand - I would prefer Sagan for stage one ahead of Cav/Kittel/Greipel.

Kristoff I think will be up there, maybe even podium. Demare is a bit of a question mark, as is Degenkolb (anyone else find it odd that Giant have brought him to essentially ride for Kittel? Or have they targeted other stages for him?).

My stage one squad has half an eye on stage two as well. That stage two looks amazing, and should mix things up on GC very early on.

I have no cav, kristoff or kittel

Cavendish has bronchitis, I would think that it might be a problem for the first days maybe. Depending on how bad, probably hands day 1 to Kittle. There again if a breakaway gets really organised.

Part of his comments on facebook:

"Since my return from Italy I have not trained much, I was very tired and still feel the effects of this 3-week race. I do not feel ready to compete in the Tour de France. Yesterday I got a phone call from Bjarne Riis, who said that my start in France has already been decided and that I have to go.

"I'm not happy with this decision. I believe that the Tinkoff-Saxo management does not care about my health. I'm 24 years old and I believe that riding two Grand Tours in a row at my age is too much. I hope I am wrong. However, I have concerns"

Obviously Tinkoff Saxo have the riders health at heart, perhaps Bertie could sort him out a little pick me up.