Why would the VSP use the Tour de Suisse instead of the Critérium de Dauphiné? The Dauphiné is looking like the pre-Tour de France. Sky and Garmindale are already giving their GC men nightmares by screwing up on the team time trial front. Practice, practice, practice, lads; it’s better to cock it up now than in the real Tour. Every TDF buck has bailed on the Swiss race in favor of anything else.
Where does that leave us and the betting window? Points are points so it’s time to channel your inner DS and copy @xyxax’s picks. Though the main GC riders may be elsewhere, there are many great riders here; enough to make this an interesting stage race. Maybe even a great race with no obvious overall contender. Bertie is racing but hopefully he is hanging in with the gruppetto everyday. The man needs some rest damn it, not 15,000 meters of climbing. Then there is his teammate Rafal Majka, I’m not sure I trust him. And I sure don’t trust Schumacher or Rebellin who are also racing on the orange CCC team, but that’s another issue and I shouldn’t be putting Majka in the same paragraph. But he shouldn’t wink at the camera while he is crushing everyone on a climb; it’s a little like the Italian Cobra Riccò taunting everyone for not keeping up.
I digress. Here is a start list. Consider this one’s warm up VSP for the Tour de France.
Don’t forget, points go toward great end-of-season prizes.
[vsp_results id=”33213″/]
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@Teocalli
just not the kind of performance I expect from my #1 pick!!
He's consistently let me down this entire VSP.
@JonnyG
AND I dropped Sagan for Thomas.
Should have put him as the winner instead of Kwia when you look at # of uphill finishes without massive climbing AND two time trials.
Pretty happy with my picks thus far, which is rare for me. Hope they can stay up there.
The rainbow stripes appear cursed right now.
@rfreese888
Sheeessshhh... Did any of you guys look at the profile for Stage 5 before the race?! Sagan is my favorite rider, hands down, but seriously, he's (as will Kwiatkowski and Kristoff) going to lose 10-20 minutes on that stage (last 13 km at 10%).
::: insert smiley face here :::
Philippe Gilbert was a non-starter today as it was revealed he had fractured his leg in that hard crash back in Flèche Wallonne. Man, how much of a hardman is he for riding all this time and taking two stages at the Giro? Respect.
@Chica
Convenient for the team to find a fracture a couple of days after he was pretty outspoken & critical of the fact that they hadn't let him know whether he'd be doing the tour...
http://cyclingtips.com.au/2015/06/news-of-gilberts-tour-absence-followed-voiced-frustration-about-bmc-racing-teams-selection-delay/
@Gianni, any chance of a half way update ?
@Minnesota Expat
Yep, the GC standing after stage 5 will not bear much resemblance to before it, at least in terms of ranking.