2023 Talossan Cycling Association Tour - Leg 2: Bilbao -> Paris

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Thibaut Pinot among the crowds on Petit Ballon

Sign says "I have a sign" 😁

[Glüc]

Party at Banqeu da Cézembre HQ!

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Before the official final results and the celebration of the winning teams, a  great thanks to Sir Lüc and Glüc for the organisation, the detailed comments and TCAT progress updates everyday and the sharing of their contagious passion.

[Audrada Roibeardet]

Personally, I think TCAT is the greatest thing to happen in Talossa. I'm very pleased to be part of this.

[Glüc]

Stage 21 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines -> Paris

As expected, not much racing happened during the first half of the final stage on sunday. Jersey winners celebrated their achievements, champaign was drunk, photos were taken, etc, while the peloton moved at a leasurely pace towards Paris. Once the tour arrived at the famous Champs Elysees for the first lap, however, things started to get serious as there was still a stage (and potentially even the overall team victory in TCAT) to be won. Several riders tried to win by attacking, most notably including Tadej Pogacar, who may have come second overall, but also made the tour really fun to watch due to his attacking style.

All these attempts ended nowhere however and the peloton geared up for a sprint. Philipsen (BDC) missed out on the stage win and got second place. Groenewegen (CJO) came in third, followed by Pedersen (SOS/VFL/PTM), with Girmay (ATX/GHS/MCB) finishing in sixth place. BdC scored the most points of the stage due to Philipsens result. Of course, even if BdC hadn't done well, els Gagnheirs would have had to score big here to overtake them.

Standings after stage 21:
NOT INCLUDING END-OF-TOUR POINTS!
(These points actually will cause the final order to change, so stay tuned for the final results)
   

Pos	±	Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)	Banqeu da Cézembre Runners Up (BDC)	8466	+325
2nd	(=)	Els Gagnheirs (GNH)	8060	+172
3rd	(=)	Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	7862	+290
4th	(=)	Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	6756	+114
5th	(=)	els cantzelerïă aþletici (SOS)	6245	+237
6th	(=)	Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	6051	+226
7th	(=)	Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	5823	+249
8th	(=)	Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	5556	+202
9th	(=)	Kinetic Racing (KIN)	5455	+104
10th	(=)	Cyclohexane (CHX)	5390	+100
11th	(=)	Dead Last (DED)	5165	+82
12th	(=)	els Averatxeirs (ATX)	4377	+176
13th	(=)	The Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	3836	+151

The stage was of course followed by award ceremonies and celebrations. In the end, Vingegaard managed to do the full 3406 kilometers in 82 hours, 5 minutes, 42 seconds. That is 7 minutes and 29 seconds faster than Pogacar. Of the 9 * 13 = 55 TCAT riders, 44 finished the race. That includes Adrien Petit (CFA) , who managed to finish despite crashing hard in stage 23, taking only 5 hours, 42 minutes longer than Vingegaard, the slowest of all TCAT riders but still an impressive performance.


The winners of the four jerseys on the podium in paris:
Vingegaard (CJO/CFA/KIN/GNH/BDC/CHX/DED), yellow jersey, general classifcation
Philipsen (BDC), green jersey, points classification;
Ciccone (SOS/ATX/BDC/MCB/DED), polkadot jersey, mountain classification
Pogacar (CJO/CFA/GNH/BDC/PTM/GHS), white jersey, young rider classification

(Or in other words, a BdC team photo ;) )


TCAT at the Louvre


TCAT peloton gearing up for the final sprint.

All photos from letour.fr

[Glüc]

I'm sorry I wasnt able to post the stage 21 result yesterday. I was both busy and not feeling too well. Stay tuned for the full results. It may take a few days to post all these.

In the meantime, many thanks to everyone who participated and also to everyone who posted here to share their thoughts. Knowing that people are following and are invested in this really makes this fun to do and makes all the effort worth it.

And of course, many thanks to Lüc again for sharing hosting duties with me and for his many other contributions.

(As a sidenote, I hope the centraseira we recorded before the start of this edition still gets released at some point, even if its maybe a bit less relevant now. It was fun doing it anyway.)

[Glüc]

RESULTS OF THE TALOSSAN CYCLING ASSOCIATION TOUR 2023 LEG 2: BILBAO -> PARIS

13:

The Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB, Maricopa)
4254 points
Team leader: @Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat
Season: 9328 (#12)

Stage Wins: 2 (Hindley, Asgreen)
Best General Classification (Yellow): 7th (Hindley)
Best Points Classification (Green): 6th (Asgreen)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Polkadot): 1st (Ciccone)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): 5th (Skjelmose)
Final classification points: 420 (#13)

Team:
Hindley 1483
Ciccone 697
Skjelmose 594
Asgreen 531
Girmay 406
Bardet 317 [ab: stage 14]
Wright 206
Cort 20
Mas 0 [ab: stage 1]

The tour started out bad for the Cabana Boys, with Mas crashing. However, where other teams recovered from a bad start, the Maricopans never really got going. Asgreen winning a stage and Ciccone winning the polkadot jersey were some late highlights, but by that time it was already clear the Boys would be carrying the red lantern in Paris, especially since Bardet dropping out and Hindley underperforming in the final week and dropping to 7th in GC meant that not too many end-of-tour points were going to be scored either

[Glüc]

12:

els averatxeirs (ATX, Maritiimi-Maxhestic)
5279 points
Team leader: @Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP
Season: 9735 (#10)

Stage Wins: 1 (A. Yates)
Best General Classification (Yellow): 3rd (A. Yates)
Best Points Classification (Green): 11th (Girmay)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Polkadot): 1st (Ciccone)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): 4th (Pidcock)
Final classification points: 900 (#12)

Team:
A. Yates 1868
Pidcock 940
Gaudu 866
Ciccone 697
Girmay 406
Bardet 317 [ab: stage 14]
Van der Poel 165
Cort 20
Carapaz 0 [ab: stage 1]

Bonus points to els averatxeirs for sticking to the smallest stdev strategy and making the competition more interesting. Scorewise, it did not work out however. There were a lot of similarities to the performance of the Cabana Boys here, except it was Carapaz who dropped out in the same crash as Mas on the first day. The difference that stopped Averatxeirs from being last this time mostly came from Yates, who won the first stage and had a pretty strong tour after that, finishing on the podium.

[Glüc]

As a sidenote, I was wondering how far you could have gotten with the averatxeir strategy if you stuck to the same credit distribution but optimal picks.

Turns out the answer is 7845, enough for 5th place.

That would have required picking Laporte instead of Cort (both 8c unclassed), Simon Yates instead of Ciccone (both 10c climbers) and Philipsen instead of Gaudu as wildcard (both 14c).

If you include any strategy without Pogacar or Vingegaard I think the optimal team would have scored 12001, more than enough to win overall (though still fewer points than the optimal team with Pogacar).

Of course thats all in hindsight. In practical terms getting a high score without these two feels a lot more challenging, because you need all your picks to be good.

[Glüc]

11:

Dead Last (DED, Vuode)
6289 points
Team leader: @Tric'hard Lenxheir
Season: 13052 (#6)

Daily winner: 1 time

Stage Wins: 1 (Vingegaard)
Best General Classification (Yellow): 1st (Vingegaard)
Best Points Classification (Green): 5th (Vingegaard)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Polkadot): 1st (Ciccone)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): 4th (Pidcock)
Final classification points: 1120 (#8)

Team:
Vingegaard 2946
Pidcock 940
Ciccone 697
Laporte 510
Cavendish 437 [ab: stage 8]
Ewan 391 [ab: stage 13]
Alaphilippe 222
Bernal 126
Cort 20

After a strong debut in the previous leg, the pessimistic Vuodeans performed ok in the first week as a solid sprint team with both Ewan and Cavendish close to stage victories. However after that things turned sour with Cavendish crashing and Ewan not strong enough to cross the Alps. Vingegaard ended up winning the tour, but his relatively passive riding style prevented him from scoring as many points as Pogacar. With Bernal not having returned to form yet, having only Vingegaard compete in GC was not enough. At least they're not actually Dead Last

[Glüc]

10:

Cyclohexane (CHX, Benito)
6511 points
Team leader: @Erschéveþ da Schir
Season: 15180 (#3)

Daily winner: 1 time

Stage Wins: 1 (Vingegaard)
Best General Classification (Yellow): 1st (Vingegaard)
Best Points Classification (Green): 5th (Vingegaard)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Polkadot): 3rd (Vingegaard)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): n/a
Final classification points: 1130 (#7)

Team:
Vingegaard 2946
Van Aert 1443 [ab: stage 18]
Kuss 938
Majka 543
Alaphilippe 222
Van der Poel 165
Bernal 126
Bettiol 111
Kirsch 28

It's always hard to make a pick between the two cycling rivals that dominate every race and that everyone always talks about, so Cyclohexane signed both...

_{Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert.}

Regardless, the winner of the previous edition could not repeat their performance, despite picking the overall winner this time. Van der Poel really only was effective as a leadout and Alaphilippe and Bernal underperformed. At one point being near the bottom of the field, the TCAT Italy winners were making something of a comeback due to the spectacular performances of Van Aert, but when he left the tour to witness the birth of his second child, the progress stalled at place 10. As a result Cyclohexane also drops to a third place in the season overall standings. They need a good result in Spain to get back in contention for season winner.

[Glüc]

9:

Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS, Benito)
6663 points
Team leader: @Sir Lüc
Season: 11103 (#9)

Stage Wins: 3 (Pogacar 2x, Hindley)
Best General Classification (Yellow): 2nd (Pogacar)
Best Points Classification (Green): 4th (Pogacar)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Polkadot): 5th (Pogacar)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): 1st (Pogacar)
Final classification points: 1105 (#9)

Team:
Pogačar 2979
Hindley 1483
Pidcock 940
O'Connor 506
Girmay 406
Neilands 197
Meintjes 109 [ab: stage 14]
Perez 23 [ab: stage 18]
Cort 20

Pogacar did not win the tour, but was a good pick as he scored many points and won two stages. Outside that, the Gordon Hiatus Support Team was less succesful, with O'Connor and Girmay disappointing, Meintjes unfortunately breaking his collarbone and Pidcock and Hindley losing time in the third week. Still a considerable improvement over the previous performance for the winners of the 2022 Spain edition.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Love these summaries so much. Checking multiple times a day as they come out, waiting eagerly for each one!

[Glüc]

8:

Port Maxhestic AC (PTM, Maritiimi-Maxhestic)
6893 points
Team leader: @Ian Plätschisch
Season: 12725 (#7)

Daily winner: 1 time

Stage Wins: 3 (Pogacar 2x, Pedersen)
Best General Classification (Yellow): 2nd (Pogacar)
Best Points Classification (Green): 2nd (Pedersen)
Best King of the Mountains Classification (Polkadot): 5th (Pogacar)
Best Young Rider Classification (White): 1st (Pogacar)
Final classification points: 1070 (#10)

Team:
Pogačar 2979
Pedersen 1349
Kuss 938
Pinot 898
Bardet 317 [ab: stage 14]
Shaw 281 [ab: stage 14]
Bettiol 111
Cort 20
Carapaz 0 [ab: stage 1]

Port Maxhestic notably went with four riders who also prominently featured in the previous. Somewhat of a risky strategy, as in cycling doing a grand tour can be exhausting and it's notoriously difficult to peak for two grand tours in a row. Also, the field in the France leg tends to be stronger, so doing well in Italy is no guarantee. Even so, Kuss and Pedersen perfomed very well, with the latter winning a stage. Pinot, who sadly is retiring, also performed well, although not as spectacular as in the previous leg, and sadly not winning a stage. Only Cort disappointed.

Going with Pogacar turned out to be the right choice, but otherwise Port Maxhestic was also very unlucky, being one of two teams to have two riders drop out, including two on the same day.

[Glüc]

Some additional thoughts on the Pogacar v Vingegaard thing:

Vingegaard won, but Pogacar was the better choice due to being a bit cheaper and getting better stage results. The best possible team would have included Pogacar but not Vingegaard. Even so, the Vingegaard+Pogacar teams swept the board. I think that's because practically, picking both is much easier. To actually get close to that best possible team, all your other picks need to be really good, which is just very unlikely considering the amount of options there are. Whereas if you pick both, even if all your other picks are rubbish, thats already nearly 6000 points that are safe.

So even if picking only Pogacar was theoretically the optimal strategy, practically picking both worked out better.

To be clear, thats not always gonna be true about expensive picks. The big favourites won't always be as dominant as they were in this tour. Additionally, if something does go wrong with either of them thats gonna be hard to recover from.