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La Vuelta...
A touch ahead of myself, I know, but I CAN'T WAIT for this year's Vuelta! I know that TdF & GdI were both up a couple of weeks prior to the big start; any idea when this one will be up and running?
I need to do my obsessive stage-by-stage plan (that will be binned by stage 5), so want to know rider values 
Also I suppose there's a 'Pick Three Spaniards' game to be run 
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
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Thanks for setting such a reasonable deadline for Stage 1... It means I can sleep in tommorow, have some coffee and relax while I try to figure out again at the last minute how to tame this beast! I really appreciate it...
Well, while everyone else is clueless, I have picked literally the perfect team, which will win every stage up to stage 6 without having to make a single transfer.
Nothing can go wrong
Not sure about the perfect team but definitely the perfect attitude!
Oh boy, it starts tomorrow, and I'm still clueless... besides, just when the kid is finally asleep, the game is uploading... I bet the uploading is done in order to eliminate stage 1 from the game, to save me from my misery...
That makes two of us. It's a tough sequence and circumstances
Where's Wig when you need him?
And Ian putting a paywall up again
And every mamil who thinks they're an expert and trying their hand at blogging, ending up with rubbish or repeated dross
Yeah, I'm confused by the bookies a bit. Almost certain there is no young rider classification in the Vuelta, they have that weird combination jersey.
Horner out for low cortisol levels.
The bookies are offering young rider, just not Each Way.
So I take it there aren't any young rider points in this competition then? Says there are on the scoring info pages.
Trying to find an EW bet on him for young rider but none of the bookies offering for some reason.
Probably because there is no "best young rider classification" at the Vuelta.
The 4 jerseys are GC, Points, KOM and combination classification.
Chavez could be a great shout.
Not a single Spaniard in mine. EDIT: oops, actually turns out I do have just the one.
My Purist.
Nairo Alexander Quintana (MOV)
Christopher Froome (SKY)
Thibaut Pinot (FDJ)
Daniel Martin (GRS)
Jonathan Fumeaux (IAM)
Johan Esteban Chaves (OGE)
Warren Barguil (GSH)
Merhawi Kudus (MTQ)
Lluis Guillermo Mas (CJR)
Back to 160 after some lower budget races... going to take some readjusting of the fantasy viewfinder! Should be fun.
Im remembering the TDF and how his Nibs won a hilly stage early doors and then held yellow nearly every day. Valverde might be a good early pick perhaps.
Have made one change to my standard today. That's it now. All ready for stage 1!!!!
There aren't any out and out sprinters in there anyway!
Agreed, settled on my Purist a few days ago. Barring last-minute withdrawals I doubt I'll change it, making it my least-tinkered-with purist team ever.
Standard would be easier if, like the Giro, it was followed by three out-and-out sprint stages. But it isn't. So I'm still stuck.
Didn't find Purist difficult at all.
Standard, now that is hard.
9 countries represented in my purist team
Picked my team for stage 2 onwards forgetting all about stage 1 so any points will be a bonus to be honest.
Same here pointless trying to pick a team for stage 1 then waste transfers the next 2/3 stages to catch up
Still looking at my team like it's Stoke City on a wet Wednesday in November. It should do the job for stage 1, but hey...
Nothing wrong with Stoke
although it gets very old up there on a wet wednesday night
I have doubts about both of them as well. There are no massive points for intermediate sprints, less sprints. And Boonen could go awol at any moment. He's currently in my team but I am regretting it already.
Question mark for me purist-wise is over Sagan. With a Tour in his legs will he be as consistent a finisher? Or will he make up for not winning any stages in France by targeting some in Spain - certainly he's less likely to win the points jersey here than in the Tour. And 40 creds is a lot.
Quite happy with my team/plan for stages 1 and 2.
Found purist rather hard!
Hard? How about impossible. With such a strong field there is so many difficult questions to answer:
Is it worth including more than one sprinter due to the lack of flat stages?
How many 3.0 riders to include to free up credits for the star names?
Who is racing as training for the worlds rather than for results?
Will Adam Yates complete the race?
Who is team leader at Garmin?
Also, as well as being the strongest line up for a Grand Tour in a long time is it the most multicultural ever? At one point my purist team contained riders from 5 continents and the only country represented by more than one rider was Eritrea!
I've just picked a team for stage 1 and it looks nothing like I imagined.
Going to give it a go though.
Yeah. Got a reasonable idea for my purist, but standard is tough indeed. Short TTT = tiny time gaps = random scores. I think there are five or six teams who should be pushing for the win, then another four or five below them, then the rest (except one totally unfancied team will bizarrely get fourth place).
The idea then would be to pick riders from the fancied teams who are likely to do well on the following stages. Trouble is, I don't have a clue about stages 3, 4 & 5, and even stage 2 which looks like a straightforward sprint could get very windy...
So basically I'm stuck. I'd probably do just as well by picking riders at random that add up to 160.
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