Breathe Out

Well, that was fun. Thanks for playing, everyone. I hope you enjoyed it. I know I did. It will take a little while to come down from the annual TdF high, but we will get there. Before that, we need one more roundup of all the action.

Matt R became the third member of the Durham connection to win a stage in the 2009 FGBC Tour de France Pool. With Cavendish and Renshaw on his squad, he mirrored the outcome in the real race. Add another 10 points from Fabian, and Matt ends up with 285 points and the much coveted victory on the Champs Elysees. RRR's Chris D picked up 230 points for a second place finish. And Prince Dan bagged another podium finish, his third of the race, with a 225 point day. Interested in the real race? How about some Pez.

After all the final results were tabulated, it was time to apply to bonus points--for the final GC and each of the three special jerseys. The big winner on this front was Chris D. He picked up a whopping 1320 points to help catapault him up the overall standings. Melissa was next best with 1275 points. She never ended up winning a stage, but nobody was as consistent from beginning to end. My team's 1260 points were good enough for third place.

As for the final overall standings, things turned out pretty much as we predicted yesterday. Melissa held on to win it all. And a very impressive win it was. Not a bad way to make your vicarious racing debut. Congratulations Melissa! Greg also managed to protect his second place spot from the fireworks that were going off below. That's 4th and 2nd in his first two vicarious races. Do we have a budding superstar on our hands? But after Melissa and Greg, the GC experienced a bit of a violent shakeup. Recall that Andy and Brad were tied for third place heading into the final stage, with Keith and James just off the pace. The King and the Impaler treated us to a thrilling battle for the final podium step over the course of the final week. But James and Keith didn't seem to care. On the strength of their 4th and 5th best totals in the bonus points, they lept ahead and let Brad and Andy duke it out for the bottom half of the top 10. The biggest winner in all this was, you guessed it, The Weasel. James shot up all the way from 6th place to find himself on the podium. Whatever. Keith was just 36 points behind him, slotting in at 4th overall. Brad dropped all the way down to 6th place on the final GC, thanks to Chris D's late power surge. And Andy slid down to 8th place. Having Cadel Evans on his team seemed like a good idea at the time. But I bet Andy would like to have that one back at this point. What happened to our defending champion? Mike entered the 2009 FGBC Tour de France Pool never having lost a vicarious race in three attempts. But his luck has finally run out. Mike ended up 33rd overall. Just ahead of Miriam, who's seven years old. And last but not least, we come to the lanterne rouge. This one remained close all the way to the end. Looking at it last night, LeAnn looked to be in good position to avoid finishing last, because she had 260 bonus points coming her way whereas Mark only had 150. But Mark picked up 185 points today from Renshaw and Bennati to limit his losses. So LeAnn ends up holding on to the lanterne rouge as the last place finisher of the 2009 FGBC Tour de France Pool. She did manage to crack the 1000 point barrier, finishing with 1232 points. But that still left her more than 3700 points behind Melissa.

Out of 55 teams in the pool, here are the top 10:

Melissa H 4959
Greg W 4792
James F 4616
Keith M 4580
Chris D 4557
Brad E 4349
John Wi 4243
Andy L 4239
Chris H 4229
Ian H 4186

Full results and final standings here.

Now of course all of this counted toward the FGBC - RRR FGD Challenge. For a while, it looked like the FGBC was in big trouble. Two weeks into the Tour, RRR had Brad, Mike, and Larry sitting 4th, 5th, and 6th, respectively. Chris D was also in the points, at 13th. The FGBC, meanwhile, only had one team in the Top 20--Paddy in 14th. But in the end, we managed to dodge another bullet. We both ended up with two teams in the Top 20. Mike and Larry evidently peaked too early and fell out of the points. And while Chris D moved up at the end, the Impaler was headed in the other direction. On the strength of a good showing in the final GC and Young Rider competitions, my team moved all the way up to 9th. And Jonny G came on strong, just like he did on the grass track last Wednesday. He wound up 17th overall. Good enough for 5 points in The Challenge. In the final analysis, RRR won this round 34 to 18. We should count ourselves lucky. It could have been much worse. With their victory, RRR has also retaken the overall lead. The see-saw battle continues.


With Mike and Chris doing the provincial road race today, we can expect to concede a little more ground. But hopefully the gap won't get too large before Matt and the Secretary start racing and save the day for the dark side.