The teams have finally been announced, and published today, so the comp can start. Everyone can enter, especially members and friends of DHBC.
No cost to enter, but that’s mainly because we don’t have any prizes yet. I’m working on prizes, and it’ll probably be a free feed at one of our local cafes. If anyone has any other ideas let me know.
Select a team of 9 riders to compete in the tour. Your skill will be to pick the best 9 riders to win and hold the 3 main jerseys on offer in the race. You get points when a rider on your team wins or places in the three jersey competions each day. You also get points when a rider on your team defends his jersey.
If you pick a strong team of riders, you will start scoring points immediately. If you get it horribly wrong, don't despair. You can swap your riders for better ones (for a fee).
I’ve designed this comp from scratch, and I’ve never done it before, so this is a bit of an experiment, and I welcome everyone’s feedback. If you think this is too complicated, I can simplify it.
Here are the rules:
RULES
Whilst the Tour de France is a race against the clock, the tipping comp is a points race. You will be pitting your skill against others to try to predict who will take out the various jerseys on offer throughout the race.
Step 1
Select a team of 9 riders from the participants in this year’s Tour. Your riders can come from any of the 20 teams competing this year. Here is the list: http://tdf.sbs.com.au/tdf2008/teams-riders. or
http://startlist.cyclingfever.com/start ... 7&id=18888
Step 2
Nominate a team leader from your 9 riders. This rider will be competing in the yellow jersey competition.
Step 3
Nominate a sprinter, and a climber for your team. These riders will be competing in their respective competitions, and accruing points for your team.
- You can only nominate one leader, one sprinter and one climber for your team.
- You can nominate the same rider to be your leader, sprinter and/or climber.
- It is possible to change your nominated leader, sprinter or climber, but there are conditions, and it will cost you points. (See later).
Points will be awarded each day depending on the success of the riders of your team. The points will be as follows:
Points in the above table are cumulative. For example, if the leader of your team wins a stage, you will get 30 points for the win, plus 60 points for the team leader winning = 90 points. If that rider is also your team sprinter, you will get a further 30 points.
Changing your team:
You can change your team any time, but it will cost you.
The cost is outlined in the table below:
If you give up a rider, you don’t get any points. You just give him up.
If you lose a rider through illness, injury or misadventure, you still have to pay the fees to buy a new rider. That’s bike racing.
If you lose a rider through controversial circumstances (cheating, drugs, etc) you cannot replace him and you race on with just 8 riders. This rule has been introduced to counteract the unfair advantage you may have gained from fielding a drug cheat. (I won’t be going back and subtracting points. That would be too hard.)
Step 4
Provide your team members to me by PM, including your contenders for the 3 jerseys. Please provide rider’s official race numbers when you give me their names (assuming official race numbers are issued before Saturday).
Step 5
Develop your strategy. There are several strategies you could use to win this competition.
E.g. you could choose to pick a team of sprinters in the first week, and nominate a sprinter as team leader, etc. Then in the second week, switch your team leader to a climber, and in the 3rd week when you can see who is likely to win, nominate the likely winner as leader.
Or, you could choose a team of the contenders for the yellow jersey, and concentrate on getting the yellow jersey points, which are higher value.
Or, you could just try and guess the winner of each jersey, pick them in your team, and stick with them. This will save you transfer fees. Transfer fees have been designed to give an advantage to those who stick with their original team. They stop people making too many changes. This strategy should give the best result for most people.
There is definitely an advantage to picking a sprinter as the team leader in the early stages. You will note that you get twice as many extra points if the leader wins. However, the additional cost of switching to another leader after the flat stages (~160 points) probably nullifies any early gains, so you better know your sprinters and their form if you want to adopt this strategy.
Step 6
Make sure you notify me before the start of the next day’s stage if you want to make any changes. You can notify me by PM.
Results
I will try to post updates daily in this thread (or possibly a separate thread if this one gets too crowded.)
Let the competition begin...
I went with Valverde, and he seems to have dropped off into obscurity!
