Talossan Cycling Association Tour Season 5 Leg 2: Barcelona -> Paris

[Glüc]

Talossan Cycling Association Tour
2026
Second leg
Barcelona -> Paris

The following teams are participating:

- Cézembre Fieschā - (CFA, Cézembre) Pogačar Evenepoel Rubio V. Paret-Peintre Bauhaus Cort Van Mechelen Walker Seixas -----------------------------------------------------	- Naziun Cjovani - (CJO, Belacostă) Pogačar Evenepoel Carapaz Rubio De Lie Armirail Askey Barguil Arensman -----------------------------------------------------	- Els Talossaes Rexhita - (REX, Maricopa) Evenepoel Lipowitz Ayuso Del Toro Pedersen Van der Poel Pidcock Godon Bittner -----------------------------------------------------
- Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs - (BDC, Cézembre) Pogačar Vingegaard Carapaz Uijtdebroeks Kooij Verstrynge Asgreen Affini Van Dijke -----------------------------------------------------	- Gordon Hiatus Support Team - (GHS, Belacostă) Pogačar Lipowitz Del Toro V. Paret-Peintre Kooij Baudin Affini Veistroffer T. Halland Johannessen -----------------------------------------------------	- Velociposse Florencia - (VFL, Florencia) Vingegaard Evenepoel T. Halland Johannessen Del Toro Philipsen Van der Poel Stannard Abrahamsen Verstrynge -----------------------------------------------------
- Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis - (MMM, Maritiimi-Maxhestic) Pogačar Großschartner Del Toro Yates Pedersen Politt Vermeersch Verona Skjelmose -----------------------------------------------------	- Cyclohexane - (CHX, Belacostă) Pogačar Lipowitz Carapaz V. Paret-Peintre Kanter Vacek Wellens Baudin Del Toro -----------------------------------------------------	- Esqipă Velocostă - (EVC, Belacostă) Vingegaard Jorgenson Del Toro Ayuso Pedersen Pidcock Abrahamsen Nicolau Bittner -----------------------------------------------------

Links:
Registration thread
Information about the route and riders

[Glüc]

Standings after stage 1:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	255	+255
2nd	(=)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	210	+210
3rd	(=)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	205	+205
4th	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	170	+170
5th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	160	+160
6th	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	145	+145
7th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	140	+140
8th	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	135	+135
9th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	65	+65

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 2 Tarragona -> Barcelona

A stage for puncheurs, on paper, but the final circuit in the hilly Montjuic suburb of Barcelona was too hard for most stagehunters and it ended up being an early affair between GC riders. Our two most popular picks (both on 6/9 teams) got an 1-2, with Isaac del Toro claiming the win ahead of Tadej Pogacar, and the other two final podium favourites Evenepoel and Vingegaard taking 3-4 close behind.

High scoring result for most teams, due to TCAT riders comprising the entirety of the top 10 (and 16 of the top 20). It is however Velociposse taking a closely contested stage win ahead of the Mençeis and GHST, thanks to holding four of the top 6 finishers to the other two teams's three. These same three teams also make up the current overall podium, with the Mençeis still on top.

Standings after stage 2:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	993	+738
2nd	(+3)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	922	+762
3rd	(+3)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	843	+698
4th	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	810	+640
5th	(-3)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	792	+582
6th	(+2)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	762	+627
7th	(-4)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	667	+462
8th	(-1)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	602	+462
9th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	567	+502

Today's stage is already about to finish!

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

Woohoo! The Posse might be in contention for this stage.

[Glüc]

Stage 3   »   Granollers  ›  Les Angles

TCAT crossed the border into Spain today. There was a break including Baudin (GHS/CHX), Pedersen (REX/VFL/MMM), Van Mechelen (CFA) and Cort (CFA), with Baudin especially scoring a lot of points on the way, but in the end everyone was caught by the peloton. The pure sprinters were dropped on the climbs along the way, but with a lot of riders still remainining in the reduced peloton, but a pretty steep uphill finish, the result was some sort of uphill reduced bunch sprint, which perhaps unsurprisingly was won by Pogacar (CFA/CJO/BDC/GHS/MMM/CHX) who also took the lead in GC and yellow jersey.

Also in the top 10: Vingegaard (BDC/VFL/EVC), Carapaz (CJO/BDC/CHX), Seixas (CFA), T.H. Johannessen (GHS/VFL), Lipowitz (REX/GHS/CHX), Evenepoel (CFA/CJO/REX/VFL), Del Toro (REX/GHS/VFL/MMM/CHX/EVC) and Ayuso (REX/EVC)

The result is a stagewin for Cyclohexane, who climb to 3rd place in standings. GHST also did well and are now in second place, while the Menceis keep the lead overall.

Standings after stage 3:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	1584	+591
2nd	(+1)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	1550	+707
3rd	(+3)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	1523	+761
4th	(-2)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	1495	+573
5th	(+2)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	1338	+671
6th	(-2)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	1305	+495
7th	(-2)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	1286	+494
8th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	1172	+570
9th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	1153	+586

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 4  »  Carcassonne  ›  Foix

Yesterday TCAT departed from my favourite boardgame's namesake town, for a medium mountain stage that looked perfect for a breakaway. We did indeed get a large one, with riders from most TCAT teams and plenty of stagehunters, but the win went to Mads Pedersen (EVC/MMM/REX), more of a punchy sprinter, who survived the couple of significant climbs along the way to get an important victory for his point classification aspirations - given he will be at a disadvantage to the pure sprinters in the flatter stages to come.

Other than the Dane, only Mathias Vacek (CHX, 10th) and Vlad van Mechelen (CFA, 13th) got stage finish points, which means we get a pretty low scoring result for everyone but the three Pedersen teams. The stagewin itself goes to Esqipă Velocostă, who moves up three places, as does REX; while MMM, a very close second today, solidifies their grasp on the lead for the time being.

Standings after stage 4:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Maritiimi-Maxhestic Mençeis (MMM)	1932	+348
2nd	(+1)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	1715	+192
3rd	(+3)		Els Talossaes Rexhital (REX)	1652	+347
4th	(+3)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	1640	+354
5th	(-3)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	1639	+89
6th	(-2)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	1590	+95
7th	(-2)		Cézembre Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	1409	+71
8th	(+1)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	1259	+106
9th	(-1)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	1234	+62

Today, the first bunch sprint finish is almost certainly coming up, with the pure sprinters finally getting a chance at delivering for their teams. Might be a good chance for Velocostă to get two in a row, as the only team with two sprinters (Pedersen and Bittner), or for Velociposse to also try and get a second win thanks to Philipsen, potentially the fastest pure sprinter among those picked in TCAT.

[Sir Lüc]

Brief trivia moment: with EVC and MMM winning stages already, they both confirm their record of getting a stagewin in every edition they competed in. GHST is the only other team who may also join them by winning one of the remaining 17 stages. Team in the Wind is not competing in this edition, but they also technically share that record by winning three stages in the one leg they took part in.

With their stagewin on Sunday, Velociposse became the third team to win 20 stages in TCAT; there was a "hidden" small race to be the first to cross that threshold between them, the Mençeis and Cyclohexane, and they indeed all won a stage already, but Cyclohexane initially stood at 18 stagewins (now 19) and the Mençeis at 17 (now 18). The Mençeis also overtook Port Maxhestic for fifth overall in the all-time stagewin ranking. Gonna be interesting to see who among the three will get the most after this leg is completed!

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

We have that board game! We only tried playing it a couple of times, but maybe we should give it another chance.

Any chance I can transfer my success here over to my world cup bracket? Mads Pedersen would maybe make a good football player...

[Sir Lüc]

We have that board game! We only tried playing it a couple of times, but maybe we should give it another chance.

Well I can't claim to be a boardgame expert, but it's great fun and pretty simple to pick up! Plenty of expansions you can pick-and-choose to round it out too.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

It was pretty simple. As I recall, the only reason we stopped playing is because my buddy got a Dune board game he really wanted to do.

One thing I really liked about Carcassone was that it felt like you ended up making a work of art with the tiles by the end of the game. Just very nice to look at, in the way that I didn't I feel like Catan was.