That was a good reminder of why we do these races vicariously. We are told that these are "hard men." I think that is supposed to mean that they are tough as nails, guys who can tolerate a lot more pain and suffering than the comparably soft men who do their racing in July. And yet these guys were battered into submission by a weather system named Xynthia. With 169 riders abandoning the race, we didn't even manage to award the full complement of points for the 30. There were only 26 finishers. We are even softer still. And so following along from a distance is just fine.
Yesterday was also a good reminder of how much a crapshoot all this vicarious racing is. For example, I very nearly picked Bobbie Traksel for my team because his name reminded me of the old Cubs pitcher, Steve Trachsel, whom I once had on a fantasy baseball team. But I passed him over, opting instead for Frederik Willems, who shares a surname with the iconic Anabaptist martyr named Dirk. Willems finished 51st on Saturday, giving me 5 points for which I am grateful. But I would happily trade that for the 350 points Traksel earned yesterday. Another guy worth mentioning is the Canuck badass Dominique Rollin. A solid 5th place for him. Nice. Too bad nobody in the FGBC Spring Classics Pool was willing to show him some love. He went unchosen.
With all the bad weather it almost looked like a cyclocross race at times. So it is fitting that Jay came out on top. The recently crowned champion of the 2009-10 FGBC CX Pool picked up 295 points to win his first race of the Classics season. Jonny G finished second, with 270 points, thereby escaping, for the first time a long time, the bottom few spots of the standings. And Brad the Impaler found the podium for a second consecutive day. His 250 points were good enough for third place. With so few finishers, and even fewer big names among the ranks of those who did finish, the points were quite a bit lower than they were on Saturday. Fifteen teams tied for last place with zero points. Which makes Brad's weekend look all the more impressive. He moves into first overall after the first weekend of racing with 960 points. Dallas falls to second, with 795 points. And Charlie rounds out the top three with 715 points. Among the fifteen teams who failed to score a single point yesterday were Steve and Vic. They still have just 10 points each. Bummer.
Full results here.
Next week we head over to Italy for the white gravel roads of the Montepaschi Strade Bianca. That is one of my favourites.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Nearly 35% of the field is yet to crack 200 points and Brad's almost at 1000. That's a pretty good start, I'd say. It seems he's still trying to make some angry.
A good start indeed. Here's another statistic. After two races Tom Boonen has exactly 0 points. That is the risk with option 1. I suppose Cancellara also has no points. But he didn't so much try and fail as not show up at all. He is no doubt training for a run at one of the bigger races.
I will send out a list of all the teams later today.
Someone appears to have a twitchy trigger finger. Please read over your comment before you hit "publish." Because now we're all wondering what was deleted.
Perhaps we should have a poll:
Choose among the following:
a) The Impaler made another awkward innuendo.
b) Dallas's re-read his post and found it lacking in hilarity.
c) Halberto poked fun at our cheap lights.
d) The Cricket revealed his true self, bitter and verbose, with a bitchy rant before thinking better of it and removing all traces of it from the record.
it was me, sorry, I spazed out when I saw your reverse columns,(or at least reverse to me...)
I thought I had less points after KBK...that said I liked my placing after the first race compared to yesterday, this is gonna be another sucky vicarious season for me it seems
That is not nearly as interesting as option d.
duly noted.
Post a Comment