Polemica! Or, Not So Fast, Randy

First of all, this is not 'Nam. This is vicarious racing. There are rules. Specifically, there is Rule #3. It reads as follows:

3) Any rider who is disqualified from the race forfeits all his points. But only if he's caught during the race. Take your chances.

Let us also remember that a certain Danilo Di Luca was tossed from the race last Friday. He was caught with EPO in flowing through his veins for, like, the millionth time.

This should have led us to determine which, if any, of the teams in the pool had selected the notorious Killer. But we did not. We were at the Spring Ride. We have gone back and checked now though. It turns out Jonny G chose Di Luca. No surprise there. He's always had a special spot in his heart for the shadier types. But there was one other team who had Di Luca on its roster--Randy's! This means that both Jonny and Randy forfeit the 270 points the Killer earned before he was busted. And here's where it gets really interesting. Before we caught the mistake, Randy's margin of victory over Prince Dan was 244 points. So with the application of Rule #3, it turns out that Dan, not Randy, is the champion of the 2013 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool--by just 26 points. Crazy stuff!

Sorry about the confusion, boys and girls. And thanks to King Andy and his eagle eye for drawing attention to this rather significant oversight. It takes a village.

Check out the corrected final standings here.

Spring Ride 2013

Giro Pool Wrap-up

As expected, Randy held on for the win. Congratulations Randy!

The final podium looked like this:

Randy - 5006 points
Dan - 4762
Chris H - 4377

Full results and overall standings here.

Thanks for playing everyone. That was fun. We'll do it again in about a month.

Stage 18

Just as Nibali did to Evans in the real race, Randy beat back pesky Prince Dan by winning the vicarious uphill ITT. He placed four riders inside the top 20 and racked up an impressive 340 points. I was second on the stage with 320 points and Dan was another 5 points back.

One small change in the overall standings. King Andy drops out of the top three and is replaced by me.

Full results and overall standings here.

Due to the Spring Ride, there will be no more updates until after the weekend. Thanks for understanding.

A Report From the President

It almost reads like a poem:

WE were almost F'd
The K & H [sic] did a tally for the WRONG group...
regardless.
spoke with LEE this AM as to why no  returned call.
ALL IS good
Nothing is F'd
It will all be ready tomorrow for anyone i.e FGBC to pick up.

In other words: The Beer is Going to Ingolf. All is well.

Stage 17

More exciting downhill racing. Too bad Sir Bradley and his utter lack of descending skillz quit the race. That would be fun to watch.

As for the vicarious race, it was another stage win for the DFL--the fifth one of the race. This time it came courtesy of some guys named Giovanni and Fabio. In the Giro, it is never a bad idea to go with dudes whose names end with vowels. Which is but another way of saying that you should look for names that sound like they could be characters in trashy romance novels. David was second on the stage. Andy and Karel shared third place.

Dan has Visconti as well and Randy does not. So Randy's lead in the overall race got a bit smaller today. His lead over Dan is now down to 299 points. If the Prince of Vicarious Racing can convince Visconti to win two more stages, they'll be even. King Andy remains in third overall.

Full results and overall standings here.

TNR Report

The annual Spring Dogfest. It happens on the final Tuesday before the Spring Ride. Except that it almost didn't happen this year. But then KK took to the Twitters to remind us that this is what we do. And Brad the Impaler stepped in for Juan Eppstein and provided the venue. The only thing missing was dogs. And the Secretary. But the Awesome One grabbed the reins and, with a series of rather bold claims, made sure it was a night to be remembered. Though perhaps not by himself.

The Northwest Passage was traversed. The Hipster's birthday party was recounted and the CycleChick's birthday was commemorated.

There was some talk about Spring Ride details. But mostly we will wing it, just like we always do. Just be at Deacon's Corner on Friday at 9:30 am and all will be fine.

"I believe in the seventies" was his opening line.
It went downhill from there.

There was fire. But surprisingly few dogs.

Stage 16

Well, that was exciting. The real race, that is. The vicarious race, less so. Unless your name is Dan. He won it, with 170 points thanks largely to Tanel Kangert.

Full results and overall standings here.

Randy still leads the overall and looks pretty untouchable, with Nibali as his main GC guy. Dan sits in second overall and is probably the only legitimate threat to Randy's vicarious pink jersey. But Dan also has Nibali, not to mention 4 other riders he shares with Randy. So if he's going to make a move, it'll have to come from Kangert, Visconti, Pozzovivo, or Blythe.

For the record, here are their two teams:

Randy

Vincenzo Nibali

Damiano Caruso

Mark Cavendish

Giacomo Nizzolo

Mauro Santambrogio

Maxim Belkov

Danilo DiLuca

Peter Stetina

Wilco Kelderman

Dan

Vincenzo Nibali

Damiano Caruso

Mark Cavendish

Adam Blythe

Domenico Pozzovivo

Tanel Kangert

Giovanni Visconti

Peter Stetina

Wilco Kelderman

Stage 15

Crappy weekend for riding bikes. But at least there's vicarious racing. Stage 15 details here.

Stages 12-14

Everything you need to know is right here.

TNR Report

Big turnout. Good times. Rode the Silver Ave Bike Expressway. Sat outside for a while at the Klubhaus.

Highlights:
1. Hot Legs Dave gets asked about the fancy (not) paint job on his bike and he responds by throwing it in a very large ditch. That seemed to mark an appropriate time to head back to the klubhaus.

Dave retrieving his bike from the ditch.

2. Watching the plane come in.

where the planes go.

Stage 11

Charlene wins it, ahead of Karel and David.

No big changes in the GC.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 10

More bad news for Hesjedal, more good news for the Dark Lord. Is there a pattern here? I hope not.

There was good news for Randy and Dan too. Randy finished second on the stage and pushed his lead in the overall race up over 200 points. Dan was third on the stage and moved into second overall, bumping Andy down a spot to third.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 9

It was a bad day to be Ryder Hesjedal. It was a good day to be the Dark Lord.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 8

Ben and Dan tied for the win with 230 points apiece. Karel had 170 points to grab the last spot on the podium.

Randy still leads the overall race. He has 1191 points. Joe is still in second with 1173 points. But Dan has moved into third overall, just 1 point behind Joe. The top three are separated by just 19 points.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 7

Randy won the stage and moved into the overall lead. Vic was second on the stage and jumped into fourth overall. Joe rounded out the podium and held onto second place on the GC. He's just 18 points back of Randy. Leonie has dropped down to third overall, another 60 points back.

Full results and overall standings here.

It sure would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the Team Sky bus this evening.

Stage 6

KK, Miriam, and Randy shared the win. They each wound up with 215 points.

Joe has moved ahead of Leonie and now sits atop the overall standings. Dan is back into third overall.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 5

John Degenkolb and his sexy creepy awesome interesting moustache won the real race. Karel won the vicarious one. He had 160 points. Vic was second, just 5 points back. And Helen rounded out the podium, finishing with 90 points.

Leonie still sits atop the overall standings. Karel has moved into second ahead of Joe. It's all very close still. The top three are separated by just 55 points.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 4

And the winner is . . . me! By just 5 points over Karel, 275 to 270. In third place, with 195 points on the day, was Prince Dan.

Leonie still leads the overall. Joe is still in second, now just 20 points off the lead. And Dan has moved from 8th to 3rd.

Finally: yes, Leonie, Todd is still dead last.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stages 2 & 3

Karel and Leonie put in the fastest time in Stage 2's vicarious TTT. They had 158 points apiece. Prince Dan was third with 137 points.

Leonie took the win outright on Stage 3. She totalled 290 point day. Joe and Jonah were a distant second with 175 points apiece.

Leonie now leads the overall race. She has 618 points. Joe sits in second with 503 points. And Randy is third overall. 476 points for him.

Todd gets the dubious distinction of being in last place overall. He has just 43 points and already sits 575 points back of the top spot. I'm sure Leonie will draw attention to that repeatedly in the next little while.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 1

First of all, welcome everybody to the 2013 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool. There are 26 of us in the pool, including a couple of newcomers. Everybody give a warm welcome to Helen and Karel. And please be nice to them. Surely you all remember how awkward it can be to be the new person in a pool full of old friends.

There are also a couple of notable absences. Dallas and Chris O, what happened? We hope you make it back for the Tour de France Pool.

As for the racing, KK, Miriam, and Randy shared the win and squeezed onto the top step of the podium. They had 240 points apiece. At the other end of the race, there were two goose eggs laid. I laid one of them. Brad the Impaler laid the other. It was quite the scene in the old henhouse.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 2 results coming soon. It always takes a bit longer to calculate the TTTs.

2013 FGBC Giro d'Italia Pool

Update: there have been a few rider changes. Most significantly, Basso is out. Make sure to double check the spreadsheet before submitting your final roster. Changes will also be listed in the comments below.

It's Grand Tour season, boys and girls. That should mean that summer is just around the corner. But we'll believe it when we see it. What it does mean is that we get to race vicariously pretty much every day for the next three weeks. That is very exciting.

How does it work? It is all very simple. Pick a team of nine riders from this list.

Your team must be composed as follows:

2 GC men - values must add up to 6 or more
2 sprinters - values must add up to 6 or more
1 climber and 1 TT man - combined values must add up to 6 or more
1 stage hunter (any one from the list)
2 wild cards (any two from the list)

When submitting your teams, it is very important that you cut and paste from the spreadsheet and list them in a single column of nine riders with no spaces in between. That makes setting up the spreadsheet so much easier. DO NOT FUCK THIS UP! Please and thank-you. In case it's still unclear, it should look like this:

Rider 1
Rider 2
Rider 3
Rider 4
Rider 5
Rider 6
Rider 7
Rider 8
Rider 9

For the scoring system and the rest of the rules, go here.

Submit your team here by 10am Saturday morning.

There is no entry fee and there will be no prizes.

Feel free to invite others.