winners are grinners

general classification
1st chris' team 01 - $36.00 + euro optics sunglasses + ride subscription
2nd team liquistep - $12.60
3rd missing links - $7.20

sprinters classification
1st chris' team 01 - $27.00 + bicycling australia subscription
2nd cadel divas - $10.80
3rd team baumbaum - $6.00

mountains classification
1st o'grady tough nuts - $27.00 + ride subscription
2nd creditless onthedole - $10.80
3rd team baumbaum - $6.00

stage wins
cadel divas - stages 9 & 12 - $5.49
o'grady tough nuts - stages 5, 14 & 20 - $7.32
creditless onthedole - stage 10 - $1.83
team decepto - stage 12 - $1.83
chris' team 01 - stages 2, 5 & 13 - $7.32
chris' team 02 - stage 17 - $1.83
flaminkestrels - stages 17 & 20 - $3.66
yellowfever - stage 1 - $3.66
missing links - stage 13 - $1.83
team irlande - stage 10 - $1.83

team owner totals
chris norris - $72.15 + euro optics sunglasses + ride sub + bicycling australia sub
ryan fynn - $50.61 + ride sub
jonny keyes - $12.63
paul owen & rob ramsden - $12.60
russell lagdon - $12.00
richard taylor - $9.03
darren matthews - $3.66
kim thomson - $3.66
stan blanks - $1.83
declan coughlan - $1.83

so, out of the huge prize pool, chris takes the lion's share. and the elephants share, and the giraffe's and part of the hyena's too. basically he claimed well over $250 worth of cash and prizes for his $20 investment.

ryan came in second with close to $100 of cash and prizes, so after that, there wasn't really much left for everyone else.

thanks for playing again this year, and a huge thanks to ride magazine, bicycling australia and euro optics for providing the extra prizes.

final tipping results

general classification

1. 3 days 15:47:21 - Chris Team 01
2. 3 days 15:49:18 - Team Liquistep +0:01:57
3. 3 days 15:50:22 - Missing Links +0:03:01

so in the final shake up, both team missing links and team creditless onthedole were totally even down to the last second. as stated in the rules, it then went to the team that tipped the most number of stage wins. both scored one win each. it then went to the finishing position of each tip over the course of the entire tour. it was very close for most of the tour, but in the final week, team missing links tipped better finishing positions and therefore takes third place overall.

points classification

1. 302 pts - Chris Team 01
2. 269 pts - Cadel Divas
3. 247 pts - Team BaumBaum


pretty straight forward result here. after a strong start by yellow fever, chris' team o1 took over the reigns and never looked back.












mountains classification

1. 105 pts - O’Grady Tough Nuts
2. 84 pts - CreditLess OnTheDole
3. 67 pts - Team BaumBaum


this classification is probably one of the hardest to win and most tipsters actually just luck it.

breakdown of prizes to follow

stage 21

so quikstep get a stage win to cap off a fairly ordinary tour. big gert steegmans is off to the new tinkoff team next year and will face a tougher tour if he is up against boonen for the sprints. sastre stayed upright and held onto the yellow jersey while the rest of the peleton joined in the procession. voigt had a tough last lap as his seat totally broke off his bike.

so cadel has to wait till next year to have another crack at the overall win but he put up a fine effort till the end. a stronger team may need to be on order.

so our tipping comp has also rounded out and there was not much change to any of the jerseys in the last stage. i will blog another post to confirm the final results as the third place on gc has had to go to a countback.

stage 20

i can't believe that schumacher had enough in the tank to smash the rest of the field again. he did so many attacks and breakaways during the tour that i was convinced that he was toast.

however, he proved me wrong, but at least my tip didn't crash and burn. so cadel will have to wait for another year. maybe he will never win it and be destined to always be the runner-up. and what a great investment popovich was. maybe silence-lotto couldn't provide the type of "support" that he got at discovery. there are rumours that the new tinkoff team, katusha, has cadel in their sights. i think that every olympic year the tour should be a national based thing like they did years ago. i think australia could field a strong team and it would be funny to watch the Italian's self destruct when they have all nine riders as designated leaders.

so, onto our tipping comp. well chris' team tipped well and managed to cement his lead by picking up a few more seconds tipping millar. team liquistep has second tied up as they are a fair chunk of time ahead of third. this is where it gets interesting. third place is tied between missing links and creditless onthedole. after 20 stages they are totally even. hopefully they tip different riders tonight to make my job easier.

the sprinters comp has been tied up by chris as well, but second through fourth can still potentially change on the last stage. the mountains has been decided for a while now and o'grady tough nuts has it sewn up.

there is still money available for the final stage win and you could win yourself a whole dollar!!!. so stay tuned and tip well. lisa you need to change your tip as cavendish is still out.

stage 19

who would have thought that the break would stay away, and even more so that chavanel would win a stage. i lost faith in him when he lost me 20 min in the tipping comp way back in the first week. good on him. the only reason he went well is because i didn't tip him.

unlike robbie. the old man just doesn't have it anymore. if you watch the aerial shot of the sprints you will see him stop pedalling when someone comes close to cutting him off. not like the old robbie who used to headbutt people out of the way.

so it all comes down to the time trial tonight. i will keep my filthy tips away from cadel to make sure i don't jinx him.

so just like the tour, it all comes down to the final time trial. currently chris' team is only 1' 27" ahead of team liquistep and they have both tipped different riders in the time trial. there may be a shake up on the last day. the sprinters jersey tipping may still change as there is points available on these last two stages, but the mountains has been pretty much wrapped up by o'grady tough nuts.

stage 18

so a breakaway stayed away. everyone played it safe today in the tour and in our tipping comp. no real change in either. it really comes down to the sprint for 6th or so place where your guy may just be able to earn you a few extra points.

another flattish stage before the all important time trial. will the pure sprinters get up tomorrow or will all the teams be too tired to chase?

stage 17

well carlos took off from pretty much the bottom of the climb and that was it for the stage. everyone else was then racing for second. the csc team has done a outstanding job of controlling the race and it is good to see them dominating, even if it is at the expense of cadel.

so with a couple of "transitional" stages before the time trial, it may be a chance for some of our tipsters to take a punt and tip a breakaway rider that stays away. stranger things have happened and it may allow then to knock chris' team from his perch.

the top five of our tipsters have not changed since stage 14 as they are playing it safe and tipping the favourites. chris' team also has a commanding lead in the points classification and o'grady tough nuts seems to have the mountains sewn up.

stage 16

cyril dessel, was not tipped by anyone. i have no idea why not. did you see the young south african guy go over the edge??? good way for him to get some sponsors airtime. oh, and if anyone wants a barloworld sponsored bike, it is about halfway down a mountain side.

so, like i said, the kiss of death. one of the main players to lose time was the guy i tipped, denis menchov. and he lost time on the descent. how bad is that. i definitely cannot tip cadel now. tomorrow i may tip sastre just to try to win cadel a bit more time.

on the tipping front, not a great change except yellwfever tipped poorly last night and lost 20min to fall way down the standings. minor changes in the sprinters points and surprisingly enough, no-one received any mountain points.

2nd rest day

so how have you been going on the general classification???

good, bad, a roller coaster ride???

the attached graph will show you your position in the leaderboard.

sprinters and mountain points to follow.

stage 15

well it looks like cadel has lost the yellow jersey, but another aussie has taken a stage win. well done to simon gerrans. is this the end for cadel, or a tactical move to get the other teams to defend the position??? is he getting tired??? can he attack in the next few stages??? i guess we will have to wait and see.

another rest day tomorrow so you can start tipping anyone again.

as for our tipping comp, no-one tipped the breakaway succeeding (surprise). but not a whole lot of change except for those that pick the little prince, cunego, and the change was a fall down the leaderboard.

stage 14

poor old cavendish couldn't get over the hills so friere takes his win to solidify his position in the green jersey. with the first day in the alps tomorrow and a mountain top finish before a rest day, will the outsiders try to go for the stage win or will the contenders attack cadel. or, will cadel attack to extend his lead???

on the home front, chris is still atop the leaderboard on both gc and sprint points. a bad pick by team baumbaum saw them slip down to 7th after losing about 5 min.

o’grady tough nuts also picked up a stage win with friere. no change in the mountain points, but that should all change tomorrow.

stage 13

cavendish again???
four stages in one tour is pretty good. maybe too good...
and robbie came so close to getting this one as well.

chris' team 01 and missing links both tipped him so they picked up a stage win. this is chris' third so he is tipping pretty good. maybe too good...

the win and the bonus seconds were enough to propel his team to the top of the leaderboard, but less than a minute separate the top three.

stage 12

so the sprinters got to play today and cavendish pulls out his third stage win of the tour. are we looking at the same again tomorrow as we have another flat stage, or will everyone be tired and want to let the break go.

two teams tipped cavendish, but as the group all came in together, no-one really lost any time.

team baumbaum is still atop the overall standings and chris' team 01 has a commanding lead in the green jersey comp. the mountains jersey is on hold for another few days until we head into the alps.

so you can either play it safe and go for a sprinter, or dig deep into the lucky dip and try to pick which french rider will go for 4hrs of television coverage off the front of the main pack.

newsflash

saunier duval out of tour.

italian rider riccardo riccò of saunier duval has tested positive for blood booster erythropoietin (epo).

with the tipping contest we do not retroactively award times, points or stage wins. we had this problem last year with vino and it was decided that if you know that someone is doping, then you better tip them before they get caught.

and i didn't even tip him this stage, so how could have i given him the kiss of death.

stage 11

so the breakaway stayed away and with 12 riders in there you would think that we would have tipped at least one of them. a 15 min advantage over the rest of the field would have been a good bonus for any tipster. unfortunately (or fortunately) no-one tipped anyone in the break.

so no change to our overall standings either.

first rest day - prize pool

so the first rest day is here and the peleton has started to sort itself out. some of the favourites are no longer favourites (valverde), some of the dark horses have reared their heads (cobo, ricco) and some of the guys in the top ten are a surprise to everyone (vandevelde).

it is good to see cadel in yellow, but don't be counting any chickens just yet.

also, those tipsters that have had some bad luck on gc, don't count yourselves out. oscar pererio lost 20+ minutes in the pyrenees in 2006 so when he and voigt got away on a later flat stage, no-one chased him. he gained 30 minutes that day and went on to win overall (rather belated thanks to floyd). you just have to be lucky to tip those guys. in other words, if you are behind (like me) don't tip the favourites, tip the crazy outsider who will go for stage glory.

so, what am i playing for? you may ask.
money overall. not lots of it as we only have 18 tipsters this year.
however, we do have some extra bonus prizes thanks to our marketing director, lorraine.
this is breakdown of prizes this year -

general classification (yellow jersey)
1st - $36.00 + 1 pair euro optics sunnies ($90.00 value) + 1 ride magazine subscription ($43.95)
2nd - $12.60
3rd - $7.20

sprinters (green jersey)
1st - $27.00 + 1 ride magazine subscription ($43.95 value)
2nd - $10.80
3rd - $6.00

mountains (polka dot jersey)
1st - $27.00 + 1 bicycling australia subscription ($55.00 value)
2nd - $10.80
3rd - $6.00

stage winners
$36.60 (split between all winners, if there are 6 stages picked then each stage is worth $6.10, that amount is then split between the teams that picked that winner)
in other words, we don't know ho much each stage is worth till the end of the tour.

total prize pool of $413

thanks to euro optics, ride magazine and bicycling australia for donating these extra prizes.

stage 10

cadel in yellow.
third stage win for saunier duval.
valverde cracks big time.
what a great stage. it all came down to whether cadel would end up in yellow or would frank schleck take it. 1 sec was the difference.

as far as the tipping comp goes, we had two stage winners last night and this propelled CreditLess OnTheDole up the overall standings to be within less than a minute away from Team BaumBaum.

the mountain points classification is heating up with two teams neck and neck but with still a long way to go till we finish the mountains.

rest day tonight, which means that i will get to bed early and catch up on some sleep. once we hit stage 11, the slate is clean and you can tip riders from the first week again.

as for my tips, as i have the kiss of death (chavanel, cunego) i won't tip cadel so that he has a better chance of winning.

stage 09

so ricco gets another stage win and one lucky tipster picked him for this stage. is he a real contender for overall???

a lot can change over the next two weeks, especially now since cadel has had a tumble and may have hurt his collarbone.

do you still tip him for the big mountain stage tomorrow, or should valverde get your vote. this is the last stage before the rest day and then you can start using your previous tips again.

stage 10 is the one that a couple of our regulars on the weekend rides recently did as part of the l'etape du our ride. check out their write up here and here.

stage 08

i think everyone was surprised that it came down to a sprint finish, including the sprinters. it was the type of stage that looks on paper as a perfect breakaway stage and a group certainly did try. however, there are still enough teams out there that are still going for stage glory and they sacrificed themselves to pull it back.

so cavendish gets his second stage win and kirchen stays in yellow. a good day all round for team columbia.

as far as the comp goes, team baumbaum showed enough faith in the sprinters to tip the mighty thor and as such has jumped to first on gc and is now pushing the top of the green jersey comp as well.

stage 07

again a stage winner that no-one expected. this makes the pool of money for the stage winners goes a lot further as it is split according to how many winner in each stage.

as for the overall gc race, a disastrous tip by myself and michael meant that we both lost 21 minutes on that stage alone. damn frenchys, can even ride a bike consistently.

more points are beginning to accumulate in the mountains competition, but until we see the high mountain stages, it is still pretty open to anybody.

the active riders list has been updated after a number of withdrawals yesterday. moreau surrendered, backstedt didn't make the time cut and beltran failed a drug test.

stage 06

so the first real climb of the tour and i didn't expect the big boys to come out to play. i thought that they would let some poor non-gc rider escape and go for glory, but no they all wanted to see who had form.

unfortunately for chris' team, the younger schleck brother didn't have that good of form and he lost a bit of time and chris lost the lead in our comp.

for the first time our tipsters have received mountain points and so that comp is now underway.

a similar stage tomorrow, but with out the mountain finish. will they let an escape go, or will the gc riders try to put more time into their rivals.

also if you haven't paid, i will be collecting entry fees this weekend.

stage 05

so cavendish finally got his stage win.



it looked like the sprinters may have stuffed it up again, as the little frenchy almost made it to the end in his breakaway.



most tipsters picked sprinters with half picking robbie, so there were a lot of sprint points to be earned. chris' team 01 seems to be streaking ahead in the green jersey comp as well as having a handy lead on gc. remember, one bad tip in the mountains and you can lose over 10 minutes. last year someone was leading the comp and picked vino in that stage where he went really bad and lost so much time, that tipster was then on the bottom of the leaderboard for the rest of the comp.



so, a semi mountain stage tomorrow. not the hardest climb, but enough for the main gc riders to maybe flex their muscles and try to wrest the yellow jersey from the back of the german. we will have to see.

stage 04

come on, with a name like schumacher, of course he was going to go ferrari-fast.

with half the tipsters following cancellara, we had no-one pick the stage winner for the second day in a row. this equates to more money for stage winner tippers.

hopefully the sprinters get to come out to play tomorrow as it is one of the last flat stages, with no categorised climbs, for a while.

remember, no doubling up, so you can't pick a sprinter you have previously used.

stage 03

samuel dumoulin. did anyone pick him???

hmm. i don't think so. if the sprinters teams had done a bit more work, then maybe robbie would have had a victory.

the second group came in the following order - mcewen, zabel, freire, hushovd, forster, cavendish. so most tipsters would have got green jersey points.



the first time-trial tomorrow so dig out the favourites. don't everyone pick the world champion though.

video highlights of stage 03

stage 02

the mighty thor - god of thunder sprints, took out the stage in convincing fashion. i was sure that cancellara was going to take it out and then i was sure that my tip, pozatto, was going to take it out. well done to chris' team who managed to tip thor on the stage.

tomorrow looks to be a more traditional sprinters stage, so dig deep into your bag of sprinters, or maybe hope for a breakaway.

i have extended the daily tipping time to 6:30pm to allow you all to watch the sbs highlights package in case you need this to info to place your tips.

UPDATE
video highlights of stage 02

stage 01

well that definitely wasn't a sprinters finish and it caught half the tipsters out that used up a perfectly good sprinter on that stage. however, those that tipped top mountain climbers can now no longer tip them until after the rest day, and there are some big climbs coming up.


so stage 02 doesn't look that flat either, but will the sprinters come out to play???


i have updated the leaderboard down the right hand side of the blog, so you can see where you sit. the DEFAULT team is where you sit if you didn't tip and just got the default rider. best to try to be better than that.

I will also be deleting riders from the active riders list in the right hand frame as they withdraw from the race, so use this list to keep up to date.

UPDATE
i will be posting my tips on the top of the right hand frame so that you know i am not cheating.

UPDATE
video highlights from stage 01

final startlist

SILENCE - LOTTO (SIL) - Sporting Manager : FRISON Herman
001 EVANS Cadel
002 AERTS Mario
003 BRANDT Christophe
004 CIONI Dario
005 HOSTE Leif
006 MC EWEN Robbie
007 POPOVYCH Yaroslav
008 VAN SUMMEREN Johan
009 VANSEVENANT Wim

TEAM CSC SAXO BANK (CSC) - Sporting Manager : ANDERSEN Kim
011 SASTRE Carlos
012 ARVESEN Kurt-Asle
013 CANCELLARA Fabian
014 GUSTOV Volodymir
015 O’GRADY Stuart
016 SCHLECK Andy
017 SCHLECK Frank
018 SORENSEN Nicki
019 VOIGT Jens

EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI (EUS) - Sporting Manager : GERRIKAGOITIA Gorka
021 ZUBELDIA Haimar
022 ASTARLOZA Mikel
023 ISASI Inaki
024 MARTINEZ Egoi
025 OROZ Juan José
026 PEREZ Ruben
027 SANCHEZ Samuel
028 TXURRUKA Amets
029 VERDUGO Gorka

CAISSE D’EPARGNE (GCE) - Sporting Manager : JAIMERENA Jose-Luis
031 VALVERDE Alejandro
032 ARROYO David
033 COYOT Arnaud
034 GARCIA ACOSTA Vicente
035 GUTIERREZ José Ivan
036 LOPEZ GARCIA David
037 PEREIRO SIO Oscar
038 PORTAL Nicolas
039 SANCHEZ Luis-Leon

TEAM COLUMBIA (THR) - Sporting Manager : HOLM Brian
041 KIRCHEN Kim
042 BURGHARDT Marcus
043 CAVENDISH Mark
044 CIOLEK Gerald
045 EISEL Bernhard
046 HANSEN Adam
047 HINCAPIE George
048 LÖVKVIST Thomas
049 SIUTSOU Konstantsin

BARLOWORLD (BAR) - Sporting Manager : TEBALDI Valerio
051 SOLER HERNANDEZ Juan Mauricio
052 AUGUSTYN John-Lee
053 CARDENAS Félix
054 CHEULA Gianpaolo
055 COOKE Baden
056 DUENAS NEVADO Moises
057 FROOME Christopher
058 HUNTER Robert
059 LONGO BORGHINI Paolo

LIQUIGAS (LIQ) - Sporting Manager : ZANATTA Stefano
061 POZZATO Filippo
062 BELTRAN Manuel
063 CHICCHI Francesco
064 FISCHER Murilo Antoniobil
065 KREUZIGER Roman
066 KUSCHYNSKI Aleksandr
067 NIBALI Vincenzo
068 QUINZIATO Manuel
069 WILLEMS Frederik

LAMPRE (LAM) - Sporting Manager : PIOVANI Maurizio
071 CUNEGO Damiano
072 BALLAN Alessandro
073 BONO Matteo
074 BRUSEGHIN Marzio
075 MARZANO Marco
076 MORI Massimiliano
077 RIGHI Daniele
078 SZMYD Sylvester
079 TIRALONGO Paolo

CREDIT AGRICOLE (C.A) - Sporting Manager : BEUCHERIE Serge
081 HUSHOVD Thor
082 BONNET William
083 BOTCHAROV Alexandre
084 ENGOULVENT Jimmy
085 FOFONOV Dmitriy
086 GERRANS Simon
087 LE MEVEL Christophe
088 PAURIOL Rémi
089 RENSHAW Mark

QUICK STEP (QST) - Sporting Manager : PEETERS Wilfried
091 DEVOLDER Stijn
092 BARREDO Carlos
093 CARRARA Matteo
094 DE JONGH Steven
095 FACCI Mauro
096 ROSSELER Sébastien
097 STEEGMANS Gert
098 TOSATTO Matteo
099 VAN DE WALLE Jurgen

AG2R-LA MONDIALE (ALM) - Sporting Manager : LAVENU Vincent
101 DESSEL Cyril
102 ARRIETA Jose Luis
103 DUPONT Hubert
104 EFIMKIN Vladimir
105 ELMIGER Martin
106 GADRET John
107 GOUBERT Stephane
108 RIBLON Christophe
109 VALJAVEC Tadej

GEROLSTEINER (GST) - Sporting Manager : HOLCZER Hans-Michael
111 SCHUMACHER Stefan
112 FÖRSTER Robert
113 FOTHEN Markus
114 HAUSSLER Heinrich
115 KOHL Bernhard
116 KRAUSS Sven
117 LANG Sebastian
118 SCHOLZ Ronny
119 WEGMANN Fabian

AGRITUBEL (AGR) - Sporting Manager : LEPROUX Denis
121 MOREAU Christophe
122 BICHOT Freddy
123 CASPER Jimmy
124 FEILLU Romain
125 GONZALO RAMIREZ Eduardo
126 JALABERT Nicolas
127 LELAY David
128 LEQUATRE Geoffroy
129 VOGONDY Nicolas

RABOBANK (RAB) - Sporting Manager : BREUKINK Erik
131 MENCHOV Denis
132 FLECHA Juan Antonio
133 FREIRE Oscar
134 LANGEVELD Sebastian
135 MOERENHOUT Koos
136 POSTHUMA Joost
137 TANKINK Bram
138 TEN DAM Laurens
139 WEENING Pieter

BOUYGUES TELECOM (BTL) - Sporting Manager : RODRIGUEZ Jean-François
141 FEDRIGO Pierrick
142 CLEMENT Stef
143 FLORENCIO Xavier
144 LEFEVRE Laurent
145 PINEAU Jérôme
146 SPRICK Matthieu
147 TROFIMOV Yury
148 TSCHOPP Johann
149 VOECKLER Thomas

TEAM MILRAM (MRM) - Sporting Manager : ALGERI Vittorio
151 ZABEL Erik
152 GRABSCH Ralf
153 KNEES Christian
154 LANCASTER Brett Daniel
155 MÜLLER Martin
156 SCHRÖDER Björn
157 TERPSTRA Niki
158 VELITS Peter
159 VELO Marco

FRANCAISE DES JEUX (FDJ) - Sporting Manager : MADIOT Marc
161 CASAR Sandy
162 CHAVANEL Sébastien
163 DI GREGORIO Rémy
164 GERARD Arnaud
165 GILBERT Philippe
166 JEGOU Lilian
167 LE BOULANGER Yoann
168 ROY Jérémy
169 VAUGRENARD Benoît

SAUNIER DUVAL - SCOTT (SDV) - Sporting Manager : FERNANDEZ Joxean
171 RICCO Riccardo
172 BERTOGLIATI Rubens
173 COBO ACEBO Juan Jose
174 DE LA FUENTE David
175 DEL NERO Jesus
176 GOMEZ Angel
177 JUFRE POU Josep
178 PASSERON Aurélien
179 PIEPOLI Leonardo

COFIDIS CREDIT PAR TELEPHONE (COF) - Sporting Manager : VAN LONDERSELE Francis
181 CHAVANEL Sylvain
182 AUGE Stéphane
183 BRARD Florent
184 DUCLOS-LASSALLE Hervé
185 DUMOULIN Samuel
186 DUQUE Leonardo
187 MOINARD Amaël
188 MONCOUTIE David
189 MONFORT Maxime

GARMIN CHIPOTLE (TSL) - Sporting Manager : WHITE Matthew
191 VANDEVELDE Christian
192 BACKSTEDT Magnus
193 DEAN Julian
194 FRISCHKORN William
195 HESJEDAL Ryder
196 LOWE Trent
197 MAASKANT Martijn
198 MILLAR David
199 PATE Danny