Criterium du Dauphine

You wanted to win the competition... But you had to get through joelsim... Not (!) an easy thing to do (!) ... But how, you say, how? ... I haven't slept for days now... How can you beat a beast like joel?... Of course, you can't.. But what if I learned from the masters themselves?...
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What if I tried to come up with a strategy based on using the least amount of transfers possible, stick to the 'Best Purist Team Possible' as much as possible, used 'Breakaway Specialists' sparingly, if at all, and tried to stick to just swapping sprinters for climbers?

So here it is... The guide to to 'Perfection'... Here's 'Enrique's Retrospective Guide to Winning the Dauphine with 8 transfers or Less'. Enjoy!

Premises:

1. You mysteriously figured out Nacer Bouhanni, Sacha Modolo, Samuel Dumoulin, Tiesj Benoot, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Jonas Vangenechten were the sprinters you wanted on your team for Stages 1,2 and 4.
2. You decided Daniel Teklehaimanot was going to do something special in this competition.
3. You noticed Dennis Rohan was well placed in the YR competition and decided to bring him in for the TTT.
4. You decided your climbers would be Chris Froome, Tejay Van Garderen, Simon Yates and Dan Martin. You would put Chris Froome in at the beginning of the competition and he would never leave... The same with Teklehaimanot, Benoot, Boasson Hagen and Vangenechten...
5. When Benat Intxausti showed himself on Stage 5 you decided to switch to the Movistar rider for Stage 6.
6. You liked your team so (!) much you decided not (!) to fiddle around with it, not (!) to gamble on breakaway riders and not (!) to switch your climbers around.

(See screenshot below).

If you had stuck to these guidelines, you too (!) could have beat joel! I jest, of course, that was next to impossible, but here it is, a guideline for saving transfers and winning a weeklong stage race, courstesy of hindsight, which as you all know is 20/20!

Oh, yeah, this formation and strategy would have yielded 1204 points and used only 6 transfers, just enough to beat joel!

Now if only I could learn something from all of this...

backflipbedlem wrote:

... What island are you on?...

Both my parents are from a beautiful little island called Puerto Rico... So, it's a saying down there we're fond of saying...

There were 839 teams registered for the Criterium du Dauphine.

There were only 140 unique scores, meaning at the very least, there were only 140 different teams made... There could be more, of course, since teammate bonuses are the same for every team member of the winning rider... And breakaway riders may match the score of a rider who placed in the Top 20..

And things like the Lanterne Rouge getting the same points as a Top 20 rider... For example, Caleb Fairly, the Lanterne Rouge today, got the same points as Chris Froome (10)....

These riders need to be added to the game start list:

Alberto Losada Alguacil Team Katusha
Alexei Tsatevich Team Katusha
Angel Vicioso Arcos Team Katusha
Bryan Nauleau Team Europcar
Calvin Watson Trek Factory Racing
Damien Howson ORICA GreenEDGE
Edward Beltran Suarez Tinkoff - Saxo
Evgeni Petrov Tinkoff - Saxo
Gatis Smukulis Team Katusha
Jose Rodolfo Serpa Perez Lampre - Merida
Kristjan Koren Team Cannondale - Garmin
Perrig Quemeneur Team Europcar
Tiago Machado Team Katusha

These riders need to be removed from the game start list:

Alex Howes Team Cannondale - Garmin
Daryl Impey Orica Greenedge
Davide Cimolai Lampre - Merida
Dmitriy Kozontchuk Team Katusha
Eduard Vorganov Team Katusha
Fabrice Jeandesboz Team Europcar
Hayden Roulston Trek Factory Racing
Ivan Basso Team Tinkoff-Saxo
Manuele Boaro Team Tinkoff-Saxo
Maxime Mederel Team Europcar
Sergei Chernetski Team Katusha
Sven Erik Bystrom Team Katusha
Thierry Hupond Team Giant - Alpecin

Come the high mountains, teams are going to look something like this:

40.0 Alejandro Valverde
38.0 Christopher Froome

Your pick of one of the following:
35.6 Joaquin Rodriguez
30.7 Tejay Van Garderen
34.1 Vincenzo Nibali
30.2 Bauke Mollema

Your pick of one the following:
18.4 Andrew Talansky
18.4 Adam Yates...

and something like this:

a 3.0 rider
another 3.0 rider
yet another 3.0 rider
still another 3.0 rider...

*sigh* I miss the Giro already!...

... but I wonder who'll be able to put in any more than 4 'stars'?... There's always fastiduosly creative people who foil the game for us mere 'underperforming' mortals... My self esteem suffers every time I play this game... But it's beautiful...

Or is it what a 'high valued' field?...

What a tight budget!