Paris Nice start planning now

Unless one of my team pulls out its now set in stone with my 2 transfers for the next day also sorted.

I was being a bit cheeky with my team and tried to throw in a low baller with my descriptions - Wiggins is British but was born in Ghent, Belgium so dont know if he holds dual nationality

Still no guesses on my

1 Rider from a place near a gate where their twin nuns eat on "Anchor"

Work back from the clues

Luke Rowe is more your endurance guy, so he'll be pulling the sky guys along to get them into the finish in a good position

If you want a sky sprinter then Hunt or Nordhaug would be your best bets, but most sprinters will have stayed away from this race

So
2 from down under
2 from America
1 from former eastern bloc
1 brit
1 german
2 from the med (i.e Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal might be on the med,Tunisia Algeria or Libya)

Starting with;

2 Belgians
1 German (team mate of 1 of the above Belgians!)
1 Brit
1 Aussie (team mate of above Brit)
1 Russian
2 French (1 of whom was highly rated by Tommy Voeckler in a recent interview)
& 1 Lithuanian

Not finalised yet tho..

I'm also trying to work out which sky rider will finish highest on stage 2 ... but no obvious sprinter stands out. Can Luke Rowe sprint? Or will he go for a long one?

Hmmm, might work but there's no points listed for the next stage yet so not sure how it'd stack up.

The major down side is that if you pick two of Martin's team mates and he doesn't win that is then two wasted picks. You also don't get any ongoing GC points for those two DSs after that stage.

Picking Martin and using a throwaway cheap DS pick on his teammate might work better. That being said its all about the gamble and if you get it right it could pay off.

How is this for a tactic. If you think Tony Martin is going to win the ITT, don't pick him. Instead pick 2 cheap DS from his team OPQ, and pick the stars who you think will come 2nd and third.

Good tactics ???

Yeah, one of those

So far I've got:

An Italian,
A Spaniard,
A Brit
A German
A Yank
A Kiwi,
An Aussie
A Dane
and a member of a certain Baltic state who I'm not giving away just yet!

Ok how about

2 x Belgian (being picky ?)
2 x french
1 x Aussie
1 x Maori
1 x German
1 x Dane
1 x Slovak

Any Guesses ?

All change after provisional declarations:
Martin,Wiggins,LuLuSanchez,DeGendt,Porte,Phinney,Astarloza,Moreno,A.N.Other

Not bad, no American though

unsure on your team and nationalities

I wanna say 1 is german, then brit, then aussie, 4 french, a Spaniard? and i really arnt sure american?

unsure how to describe my team so will just give nationalities

2 french, 1 german, 1 spaniard, 1 estonian, 1 italian, 2 aussies and 1 belgium

Ok, provisional team picked

1 Rider from a place near a gate where their twin nuns eat on "Anchor"
1 Brit
1 Shrimp on a barbie
4 Legs of Frogs
1 Who lays in the sun
1 Little holy drummer boy

You can get 6/9 nationalities, but i bet you dont get 2 of my 9 guys, specifically the first and last clues

aside from Tony Martin and Thomas Voeckler, I will leave my star rider slots blank til the last minute.

But i'm fairly set on my domestiques
Michel Kreder 3.2
Ramunas Navardauskas 6.9
Remy DiGregorio 5.8
Pierrick Fedrigo 5.7
Stef Clement?

Just picked my provisional team and I'm pretty happy with it, although it's not looking that strong for Stage 2...

Ok with the provisional list, 31 riders is cut to 22, now just to work out DS from Star, that should cut the list down again, then by teams, then i MIGHT have a team to pick

2 of my DS aren't there - tweak, tweak, tweak.

What i've learned from the pure league is a good DS can be as valuable as a 'star' rider.

Done!

Provisional start list;

http://www.letour.fr/2012/PNC/RIDERS/us/engages.html