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 750 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 makes just one change to her Ready Steady Riders: Michael Rogers returns, after the quashing of his suspension, at the expense of Alessandro Petacchi who's career at the highest level seems finally over.
Faced with the retirements of David Millar and Thor Hushovd, Steve adds British World Tour riders Alex Dowsett and Adam Yates to his Nightowlers team.
Here's hoping for a similarly equal contest to last year's, where only sixteen points separated our teams at the end of the season and the result could have gone either way as we went into the very last day of racing. 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 | 5 | 65 | 5 | 16 | 10 | 55 | 156 | ||
Philippe Gilbert | 3 | 14 | 20 | 44 | 10 | 5 | 96 | ||
Mark Cavendish | 11 | 2 | 15 | 2 | 30 | ||||
Alex Dowsett | 23 | 2 | 11 | 36 | |||||
Vincenzo Nibali | 6 | 13 | 31 | 45 | 95 | ||||
Rick Zabel | 5 | 5 | |||||||
Adam Yates | 7 | 25 | 18 | 50 | |||||
André Griepel | 8 | 10 | 6 | 38 | 3 | 31 | 96 | ||
Peter Sagan | 22 | 12 | 14 | 42 | 10 | 35 | 135 | ||
Total | 45 | 91 | 70 | 40 | 144 | 87 | 126 | 96 | 699 |
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 | ||
Michael Rogers | 2 | 3 | 1 | 9 | 15 | ||||
Richie Porte | 92 | 31 | 13 | 136 | |||||
Marcel Kittel | 5 | 5 | |||||||
Daniel Martin | 7 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 4 | 32 | |||
Tom Boonen | 11 | 8 | 4 | 37 | 34 | 94 | |||
Alberto Contador | 28 | 74 | 22 | 124 | |||||
Thomas Voeckler | 0 | ||||||||
Ryder Hesjedal | 25 | 2 | 27 | ||||||
Fabian Cancellera | 11 | 3 | 10 | 24 | |||||
Total | 151 | 31 | 110 | 9 | 57 | 24 | 41 | 34 | 457 |
See above for Nightowlers' results.