TNR Report

Well, it was kinda like this video honestly.

Altona Gravel Grinder

The ABES and the OCC are putting on a gravel grinder this weekend in Altona. Perhaps more importantly, the bike riding portion of the event will be followed by a party in the Krahn Barn. The Dark Red Side will be well-represented. You should be there too.

Details here.

2013 TdF Pool - Final Results

We are back in the office and the Vicarious Racing Dept. is buzzing with energy.

The final three stage winners with Vanessa, Jonathan, and Jay.

In the overall race, Jonathan's dream tour continued right to the end. He was either first or tied for first in each of the post-race bonus points categories. In the end, he won by over 800 points. And Randy made a last-second move to grab second overall. He finished 13 points ahead of me. And Val was just 12 points behind. So just like the real race, at least we had a close battle for second place.

In the (first annual?) EMU vs. CMU Vicarious Racing Challenge, the victory went south of the border. Team EMU pretty much had their way with Team CMU, winning easily by an overall score of 22403 to 17534.

Full results and overall standings here.

Thanks for playing everybody. That was fun. Let's do it again next year.

Stage 18

Everything's coming up roses for Jonathan at the 2013 Vicarious Tour de France. He has Christophe Riblon as his TT man and Moreno Moser as one of his stage hunters. His climber is Quintana. And his two GC Men are Froome and Talansky. Those five guys combined to score 445 points for Jonathan and give him his second consecutive stage win. Well done Jonathan! Randy and Val tied for second on the day. They each had 345 points.

Jonathan's lead in the overall races looks pretty safe. It's up over 300 points now.

EMU no doubt continues to hold a big edge over CMU in their little side competition. But I'm too lazy to bother adding that up right now.

Full results and overall standings here.

Please note that this may be the last update until the end of the race. We are heading out to Falcon Trails for the 24 Hours of Falcon Ridge. Those EMU punks should really be there so we could settle this on the bike.

Stage 17

Big win for Jonathan. He took the stage with 355 points, thanks to Froome, Talansky, Quintana, and Kwiatkowski.  Dan, Mike, Miriam, and Randy tied for second. They each had 285 points on the day.

Jonathan's lead in the overall race is now over 200 points. Anna is still sucking it up at the bottom. She has 890 points, or exactly 2298 points less than Jonathan.

The CMU vs. EMU Vicarious Racing Challenge has absolutely no sense of suspense whatsoever:

EMU - 12611
CMU - 10984

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 16

Matt wins the stage. Jonah, Leonie, and JP tied for second.

In the overall race, Jonathan extended his lead to 99 points. At the bottom end of the standings, Donna had a good day. She rocketed up eight spots in the standings and left Anna holding the lanterne rouge.

In the CMU vs. EMU Vicarious Racing Challenge, KK has moved ahead of Ben. But EMU still holds a commanding lead:

EMU - 11514
CMU - 10329

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 15

Jonathan takes the win on Ventoux and jumps into the overall lead. With Froome and Quintana on his squad, it will be hard to catch him.

Six riders tied for second on the day. That is a lot. But there were even more who laid goose eggs. 16 teams came up empty on one of the biggest days of the Tour. Ouch.

Donna has freed Chris N of the burden of carrying the lanterne rouge. Anna is only 13 points from doing the same thing for Donna.

In the CMU vs. EMU Vicarious Racing Challenge, Team EMU has stretched its lead to 1145 points.

EMU - 10999
CMU - 9854

Full results and overall standings here.

EMU vs CMU Vicarious Racing Challenge

After stage 14, EMU leads by 845 points:

EMU - 10179
CMU - 9334

Stages 13 & 14

King Andy won stage 13. And Steve took stage 14.

In the overall race, things are heating up. Jonathan, no doubt emboldened by the recently announced CMU vs. EMU Vicarious Racing Challenge, is now just 16 points back of the overall lead. And the Halfrican has moved into third. For real this time.

Full results and overall standings here.

Results for the CMU vs. EMU Vicarious Racing Challenge are coming soon.

Stage 12

With the show of Germanic force at this year's Tour de France (5 wins in 12 stages), it is surprising that Cousin Thomas and the Secretary are not doing better in The Pool. Their teams are usually stacked with Deutschlanders. Too bad Andreas Kloden is no longer the GC threat he once was. And where are Bernard Kohl and Stefan Schumacher when you really need them?

Today's stage was won by, well, me. In reality, it was Sagan, Lobato, Quintana, Kwiatkowski, and Impey who did all the hard work. But don't worry Anna, any hint of conspiracy will disappear soon. Between Pinot's fear of descents and J-Rod's less than awesome form, Jonathan and his dog named Froome will no doubt catch and pass me by the time the final allotment of GC points is distributed.

Mike G and Val tied for second on the day.

As for the overall race, we begin with a bit of revisionist history. It turns out there was some confusion in the spreadsheet between Dan and Tony Martin. Clearly the spreadsheet does not pay attention to teeth. In any case, Ben was not credited with all the points he deserved. And Brad got some points from Dan Martin that he did not deserve, while at the same time missing out on the points from Tony Martin's TT win that he should have gotten. It all gets a bit confusing at times. But everything has been fixed now and the standings from stage 8 onward have all been updated. The most important change is that Ben is in third overall. And the Halfrican never deserved the kudos he got for being there. He has not been higher than fourth. Sorry for the confusion.

The Awesome One now has the lanterne rouge. No bit of revisionist history is going to undo that.But lucky from him, a number of others are still lurking close by. It will no doubt change hands several more times yet before all is said and done.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 11

The Halfrican won today's vicarious ITT and moves up into third overall. Todd finished second on the day. Ben and Chris O tied for third.

In the overall race, Jonathan is now just 16 points from the overall lead. And Anna managed successfully to pass of the lanterne rouge to Cousin Thomas.

Most importantly, nobody in the TdF Pool had urine thrown at them.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 10

Eryn edges Donna for the win. Chris D and Jonny B tie for third on the stage.

In the overall race, Randy bumped Jonny G off the last step of the podium and moves up into third overall. And Anna retains the lanterne rouge for a second consecutive stage.

All of this could change, however, if the race jury decides to relegate Cavendish for that shoulder check.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stages 7-9

The last three stage winners were as follows:

Stage 7: Jonathan L-T
Stage 8: KK
Stage 9: Brad E

Note also the revolving door at the bottom end of the overall standings. Anna holds the vicarious lanterne rouge for now. But it could well change hands again tomorrow.

Full results and overall standings here.

Stage 6

No time for chit chat. Everything you need to know is here.

Stage 5

Here.

Stage 4

Thanks to some feats of spreadsheet wizardry, we have results for the vicarious TTT.

Mike G edged out Val and the Secretary for the win.

Full results and overall standings here.

Technical Difficulties

We have a problem. Or in the parlance of our times, it appears something is fucked.

Usually in a TTT, individual results are posted along with team results. Only riders who finish with the team get the time of the team. Those who come in on their own are credited with the time they cross the line. This point was driven home today by the sad case of Ted King, who found himself eliminated by just 7 seconds and some less than transparent time keeping methods. Today, however, no such individual results were published. Just the team results and the individual times for the GC.

In any case, this is an issue for the TdF Pool. Unless we find the individual results for today's stage, we can't figure out the vicarious racing equivalent. At least not without putting in a lot more work than I'm willing to do.

If the results don't get published, our best bet is to subtract the overall times for each rider after yesterday's stage from the overall times for each rider after today's stage. If it were that simple, we'd have results already. But in order to do this, we need to find a way to translate one time format (e.g., 12h 47' 24") into a single number, say total number of seconds. If there are any Excel whizzes out there who can create a script that will do this automatically, please let us know.

Stages 1-3

We have results, finally! The first three stages were all won by charter members of the Dark Side. Have we finally figured out this vicarious racing thing? Almost certainly not.

At the other end of the standings, six teams have yet to score a point. Each of them is already 585 points off the overall lead. They'll no doubt be happy to leave Corsica behind.

Full results and overall standings here.