As has become our custom, Lisa & I will be adding to our interest in this year's professional cycling season by following the fortunes of our own fantasy cycling teams. We've been doing this since 1997. We select our teams on the basis of each rider "costing" his total UCI ranking points earned last season divided by fifteen and rounded to the nearest five, with a minimum cost of twenty points and a maximum of 200. We allow each team 900 points on this basis, with nine riders to be selected. No more than two riders in each team can be selected from the same real life trade team. Throughout the season we score our riders performances in all the major races according to the points system adapted from one used by Roger Hughes in his Fantasy Cycling League. The tables below summarise the fortunes of our teams throughout the season.
For this season's line-up, Lisa has only to make one change to her Ready Steady Riders, bringing in the new Aussie young gun Richie Porte in place of the retired Robbie McEwan.
To enable Lisa to keep her all-conquering team from last year together, the point limit this year has had to be set at a new high of 900 points. This has allowed Steve to make five changes to his Nightowlers team. He regains Mark Cavendish after his year with Sky and adds Peter Sagan, André Griepel, Vincenzo Nibali and Joaquin Rodriguez to his squad while retaining the services of Philippe Gilbert, Thor Hushovd, Allesandro Ballan and David Millar.
The unusually imposing strength, at least on paper, of both teams should have ensured a high-scoring shoot-out during the season. As things turned out, the contest was massively one-sided from the Giro (in Period 3) onwards. For a blow-by-blow account of our riders' scoring rides, see the accompanying blog.
See below
for Ready Steady Riders' results.
N i g h t o w l e r s | |||||||||
Rider | Period Scores | Total Score |
|||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ||
Joaquin Rodriguez | 38 | 26 | 43 | 37 | 49 | 193 | |||
Philippe Gilbert | 3 | 30 | 17 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 7 | 68 | |
Mark Cavendish | 15 | 14 | 42 | 4 | 31 | 9 | 115 | ||
Thor Hushovd | 1 | 4 | 9 | 11 | 3 | 28 | |||
Vincenzo Nibali | 33 | 31 | 87 | 15 | 69 | 15 | 250 | ||
Alessandro Ballan | 0 | ||||||||
David Millar | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | |||||
André Griepel | 12 | 28 | 6 | 23 | 5 | 34 | 108 | ||
Peter Sagan | 70 | 39 | 12 | 43 | 42 | 14 | 220 | ||
Total | 172 | 140 | 174 | 28 | 141 | 40 | 201 | 91 | 987 |
R e a d y S t e a d y R i d e r s | |||||||||
Rider | Period Scores | Total Score |
|||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ||
Alessandro Petacchi | 2 | 2 | |||||||
Richie Porte | 59 | 24 | 5 | 22 | 11 | 11 | 132 | ||
Samuel Sanchez | 3 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 11 | 39 | |||
Daniel Martin | 33 | 37 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 14 | 100 | ||
Tom Boonen | 6 | 3 | 3 | 12 | |||||
Alberto Contador | 19 | 13 | 8 | 29 | 7 | 76 | |||
Thomas Voeckler | 7 | 3 | 3 | 13 | |||||
Michael Rogers | 10 | 3 | 13 | ||||||
Fabian Cancellera | 40 | 50 | 5 | 13 | 28 | 136 | |||
Total | 166 | 127 | 18 | 61 | 49 | 13 | 26 | 63 | 523 |
See above for Nightowlers' results.