Tour De Pance 2020

 Hello. It seems George has conceived a cunning work around to avoid legal trouble from those wankers at the ASO and their shitty "Fantasy Tour De France". So the "Great Big Bike Game" is running as  I type. I've not been paying a whole lot of attention to the Pro Cyclings recently, but I did manage to submit a hastily picked Bike Beans, (damn you auto-correct) team before the deadline, so it's game on. Here's the League code:

600112313

Last minute Pance Adjustment

Hello,

Would you like to play Velogames Tour de France, but are a bit upset about the strongarm tactics of the Lawyers at the ASO? Well, fear not. Dr Chan has a plan revolving around the Velogames scoring (minus breakaway points as they are tricky and not worth the trouble) and this spreadsheet. Scoring as per Velogames, rider costs are from the evil ASO games.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1omqYIlO_Xld6bffiOl1hxD9RqKDxR5p9HE5Mro1akkM?fbclid=IwAR1EE-3l6Oh0brmH9hWAyDv4KjGF-zJfLuql-QpG6ANyhWDijynudwm0aVM

We're making it up as we go along, but I'd guess if you put a team up in the comments in the next 12 hours or so, we could have a race on our hands.

I'll go first.....

E. BERNAL G	Team Ineos	All	21
M. SCHACHMA	Bora - Hansgrohe	All	12
D. GAUDU	Groupama - FDJ	Climber	13
G. BENNETT	Team Jumbo - Vis	Climber	13
A. GREIPEL	Team Arkea - Sa	sprinter	13
L. ROWE	Team Ineos	unclass	6
N. TERPSTRA	Total Direct Energi	unclass	7
R. ZABEL	Team Katusha Al	unclass	6
J. ROSSKOPF	CCC Team	unclass	9
			100

Pance Picks Paris-Nice Nicely

Hello Pance Pickers. Snow still blankets the ground near Pance HQ, but looking on the bright side, I did get that Fatbike I was craving back in the day.

With all the snow-shoveling and ice-scraping that comes with living in the snow-belt, it's easy to forget that the Pro-Cycling season is already underway. There's already been a few races in countries with more money than Human Rights, but the action is about to hit France for Paris-Nice. As always, enter a Team, sign up to the league and cross your fingers.

FTDF Stage 21 & Overall - Kristoff Sprints, Thomas Top.

That's the Tour done for another year then. There's plenty to get through, so first of all, lets give a congratulatory nod to Alexandre Kristoff, for finally winning a stage, on the Champs-Elysees no less.

Geraint Thomas didn't fall off, and so won the overall. He seems like a good egg and has had his fair share of bad luck in the big races, so I'm happy for him - he's also one of the few Bile Beans to get many points.

Only a fool wouldn't have picked Peter Sagan. He had the Green Jersey competition sewn-up ages ago and he's still been finishing pretty high up in the sprints, despite a big crash a couple of days ago.

And lastly, and as far as most people are concerned, leastly, Julian Alaphilippe took home the Mountains Jersey.

Let's head over to the scores, as we have some extra ones today. Firstly, here's the Stage scores and a win for the Charmers.

Team	Manager	Stage 21
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	235
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	143
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	127
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	113
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	109
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	107
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	72
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	70
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	62
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	57
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	47

And now onto the Big Ones, the End of Tour points. For once, it's not the History Boys in the lead, Drew's Dudes came out nicely, but it was too little too late.

Team	Manager	End of Tour
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	1174
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	938
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	924
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	882
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	792
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	783
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	764
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	741
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	713
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	585
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	525

As if we didn't already know, Warwick won the overall with the History Boys, who were a quality unit to be honest.

Team	Manager	Total
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	7905
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	6510
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	6083
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	5879
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	5600
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	4890
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	4877
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	4747
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	4446
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	4096
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	3520

That's it then. A big thank you to Danny for all his work with the scores, I may have been a bit generous with the breakaway points, but I reckon they were close enough. Velogames should be back with some more non-French themed fantasy races and don't forget to Go Fund Them.

FTDF Stage 20 - Tenacious Tommy D

In the "race of truth" today, the truth is, nothing unexpected happened. Tom Dumoulin won the stage, but couldn't take over 2 minutes out of Geraint Thomas. Chris Froome finished a close second to Dumoulin, and managed to push Roglic off of the podium, making Tommy D the likely meat in a Sky Sandwich in Paris.

Another good day in the saddle from Drew's Dudes

Team	Manager	Stage 20
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	334
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	208
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	191
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	190
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	187
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	185
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	171
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	106
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	94
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	85
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	32

Let's face it, the History Boys are going to win, but there's a tight race going on for second place, between the Dudes and Running with the bulls & etc.

Team	Manager	Total
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	6840
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	5193
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	5187
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	4898
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	4601
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	4243
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	4042
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	3908
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	3663
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	3142
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	2873

Stage 21 is the traditional piss about till Paris and then have a sprint on the Champs Elysees. You know, I think that as long as Geraint Thomas doesn't fall off, he could win it.

FTDF Stage 19 - Primoz in his Prime

Primoz Roglic, eh? He may be young(ish), but the alert among us may have noticed that he hasn't lost a stage race that he started this year. He managed to win Tour of the Basque Country, Tour de Romandie and Tour of Slovenia overall. And in case you hadn't been reminded by the cycling commentators every 10 minutes or so, he used to be a ski-jumper. As the GC contenders had their last throw of the dice today, Roglic did the best, winning the stage and leapfrogging Froome to move up to third. 

Drew's Dudes did nicely today, but with what looks suspiciously like a placeholder team, the Smugblokes did well to finish second. It may be too little, too late for Mark to move off the Lantern Rouge spot however.

Team	Manager	Stage 19
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	435
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	369
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	353
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	352
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	335
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	332
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	296
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	240
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	215
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	154
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	106

Let's face it, there's no shifting the Fucking History Boys now...

Team	Manager	Total
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	6632
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	4996
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	4859
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	4711
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	4507
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	4053
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	3957
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	3723
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	3557
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	2971
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	2841

Not long to go now. Stage 20 is an Individual Time Trial. You'd expect World Time Trial Champion, Tom Dumoulin to do well, but double Olympic Gold Medalist Geraint Thomas is no slouch against the clock, and is in the form of his life...... he should be safe with a lead of over 2 minutes, as long as he doesn't fall off.

FTDF Stage 18 - Hey Arnaud!

Stage 19. A sprint. Arnaud Demare won.

Good for him. I much prefer him to that other French sprinter and massive fin de cloche, Nacer Bouhanni, who is such a con, that his team didn't even take him to the Tour.

Pance Jr. showed wisdom beyond his years when he selected Demare, none of you losers did, so most points to the Charmers.

Team	Manager	Stage 18
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	333
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	133
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	130
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	124
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	105
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	98
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	90
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	78
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	74
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	73
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	54

Unless the History Boys all fall off tomorrow, I think the battle is now for second place.

Team	Manager	Total
History Boys	Warwick Anderson	6280
Running with the Bulls and an Inhaler	Delphiakid	4781
Dudes Riding Using Good Stuff	Drew Stephenson	4424
Chanbots Ultra	Evil Dr Chan	4376
The Charmers	Craig E Pance	4211
BarmbyWorld	Clive Jeffery	3947
The Golden Lions eating a baguette	Lisa	3604
Bile Beans	Vestan Pance	3483
Do Androids Dream of Chris Froome	Eric Mortier	3225
Kloefekappers FC	Jan Van Belleghem	2687
Smugblokes	Mark Philo	2602

Stage 20 is the last mountain stage, so if anyone wants to try something (and plenty of people do) then it's now or never.