Le Tour de Freakin' France 2014 Prediction Contest

[Moliere]

Crashendish

[creekster]

Stage one results

The top three finishers are Kittel, sagan and Navardauskas. AS a result, kittel pick gets three, Sagan gets two and the other guy gets one. Suffice it to say no one picked the other guy. Dwight picked kittel for a nice three point award and I picked sagan, giving me two. The rest of you hitched your wagon to that leaning sour ball, the manx mucker, Cavendish. No points for you!

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Stage one results

The top three finishers are Kittel, sagan and Navardauskas. AS a result, kittel pick gets three, Sagan gets two and the other guy gets one. Suffice it to say no one picked the other guy. Dwight picked kittel for a nice three point award and I picked sagan, giving me two. The rest of you hitched your wagon to that leaning sour ball, the manx mucker, Cavendish. No points for you!

Ha! That's what I get for filling my answers out at 2 am. I thought for sure I had Cavendish down for the win for the exact reasons PAC talked about.

[mtnbiker]

Bellavela can't remember her password, so, while waiting for a reset by JL, her prediction for tomorrow's cobble stage is Cancellara.

[creekster]

Bellavela can't remember her password, so, while waiting for a reset by JL, her prediction for tomorrow's cobble stage is Cancellara.

No worries. How about the rest of her picks? It is getting a little into the race, eh?

[mtnbiker]

No worries. How about the rest of her picks? It is getting a little into the race, eh?

You saw her initial picks at the end of my post wherein I posted my picks, right? Do you have a deadline of when the individual stage picks have to be made? I assumed changes could be made up to the time each stage starts.

[creekster]

You saw her initial picks at the end of my post wherein I posted my picks, right? Do you have a deadline of when the individual stage picks have to be made? I assumed changes could be made up to the time each stage starts.

It's no big deal. In the OP I asked that picks be in by the third stage or so. I did see hers and they are on the spreadsheet but hers did not include all the stage winners.

[PaloAltoCougar]

I'm not feeling good about my prophecy that Andy Schleck will be KoM.

[creekster]

I'm not feeling good about my prophecy that Andy Schleck will be KoM.

but it was a noble and hopeful pick. The famille Schleck appreciates your faith

[PaloAltoCougar]

but it was a noble and hopeful pick. The famille Schleck appreciates your faith

My picks are the kiss of death. Five of my slots are filled with names who are now out of the tour, after only four stages

Spoiler for the dearly departed:

(Froome, Cav and Schleck)

.

[creekster]

Just a brief update. No points for anyone on stage 5. Next big event is stage 10.

I was thinking about what we should do to allow for things like Froome's withdrawal and Cavendish's abandon. It is probably too late this year, but I think that next year we should have an alternate pick for each category and then each person would get points for the highest placed finisher of their picks for that category. Think about if that works.

Speaking of nullifying results, don't look now but the country holding down the lantern rouge spot is none other than CHINA. Yes, that famous breakaway killer himself, Cheng Ji, the ONLY Chinese in the race. What are the odds? He has managed to get his name on TV quite often, in fact, an extraordinary amount given that he is in LAST PLACE and there by a fairly comfortable margin (3+ minutes at this point). And what breakaways has he killed, anyway? Very odd. His closest competitor for the caboose spot is Ed King, an American, who is doing his best but not quite holding off the charge of Ji. It is worth noting that these guys at the back are down by around an hour at stage 6, meaning that they are ceding an average of around 10 minutes per stage.

[bluegoose]

While rummaging through my garage while changing a flat tire tonight, I came across the major award which we all seek. Here it is, in all of its glory:



Ain't she a beauty.

I believe that creekster was the original craftsman, Mtnbiker added the brake pads, and yours truly added the chain links, cleverly crafted into a "C". For cougars, of course, as a ute fan has yet to win the annual challenge, or even show up for for any of our epic organized rides.

[PaloAltoCougar]

While rummaging through my garage while changing a flat tire tonight, I came across the major award which we all seek. Here it is, in all of its glory:



Ain't she a beauty.

I believe that creekster was the original craftsman, Mtnbiker added the brake pads, and yours truly added the chain links, cleverly crafted into a "C". For cougars, of course, as a ute fan has yet to win the annual challenge, or even show up for for any of our epic organized rides.

Correction! JIC and his fine family showed up at the second Tahoe/Donner Pass ride.

[creekster]

The TdF has almost concluded for another glorious year. Here are the updated standings:

Dwight Schrute 7
BBB 6
Bluegoose 5
Creekster 4
Mtn Biker 3
SMR 1

All others, like Ginger and Maryann in the first season of the show, can be put in the category of "all the rest."

The other categories are already pretty much set, so I could probably finish it up tonight, but I will wait until it is official. Suffice it to say that with the departure of Cavendish, Contador and Froome from the tour, most of our picks were pretty much rendered irrelevant.

On to Paris.