Catherine and I got in three more stages of the 2024 Tour de France this weekend.
We added a couple of small changes to the Tour setup rules. Firstly if a bot rider gets first or second place then in the next race they have two or one exhaustion cards added to their deck respectively. In the case of the peloton team only the highest-placed rider triggers this (so if the Peloton comes first and second they still only get two cards). Any unused exhaustion cards are discarded at the end of the race - unlike a player team exhaustion is not retained.
Secondly we changed how the breakaway is calculated for bots. Originally it was only the rouleur that is considered. Now it will be whichever of the two riders in the team finished the highest in the previous race. In addition the mechanism for the draw is changed slightly. Instead of drawing one card for the bot you draw two and total the scores. If the total is odd then use the lowest of the two cards. If the total is even then use the highest. Obviously if the cards are the same you just use one of them. Put the unused card to one side until after the breakaway is decided, then shuffle it back into the deck. It's a minor change, but lowers the total the bot gets a little, creating an illusion that it bids low sometimes.
On to the races.
Stage 3 is a nice flat run from Plaisance to Turin. There are a few cobblestone sections to keep things interesting, but that's it.
Catherine went wild and pushed her sprinteur into the breakaway. My rubbish position in the rankings put me at the front of the main group.
Catherine's sprinteur got off to a dreadful start, whilst blue's rocketed ahead and was soon at the front. You can see the cobblestones breaking up the riders a little here.
Catherine and I both ended up with our sprinteurs running with the gruppetto at the back. I couldn't get my rouleur forward, but Catherine's ran well. Blue took a commanding lead with both riders and no attack either of us made was going to easily catch them.
Red and blue took the top three places. Catherine did manage to come fourth and I scraped fifth. Catherine's sprinteur came last though, so I made up a few points against her in the team scores. We still finished this stage in fourth and fifth places, though. And that's basically bottom since no-one expects the sixth place gruppetto to do any better than that.
Stage 4 is a mountainous run from Pinerolo to Valloire. There's lots of ascents (including a huge one towards the end) so it's one for careful hand management. There are descents and supply zones after each climb, offering a chance to burn off exhaustion, but not a run for epic sprints.
Red and blue took the breakaway, whilst Catherine and I had the best starting positions in the main group. The only weather effect was a tailwind in the second supply zone, which would be useful for all riders.
This time it was me who messed up with my sprinteur, and who ended up at the back. Catherine kept both of her riders together at the start. However I decided to go for it and threw my rouleur to the front.
This is the position later in the race. As you can see the riders have really split up. My sprinteur was still last (and having to burn useful cards to even stay up with the gruppetto), whilst Catherine had now closed up into the leader group.
Catherine and I both went for a sprint finish, and she just beat me into first place. Her sprinteur shook off the horrors of the previous race and finished third, whilst mine came last. This really boosted Catherine's score and left me well behind her in the team results. Although in fourth place Catherine was closing the gap between her team and the bot teams.
Stage 5, from St Jean de Maurienne to St. Vulbus, is another sprint but there's a small ascent early on followed by a useful exhaustion-burning descent.
Once again red and blue took the breakaway. There was a headwind early on (in a supply zone, which would help offset it) and a useful tailwind later on.
Everyone stuck together in this race; there was a lot of slipstreaming. Catherine had both of her riders to the fore.
There was some epic sprinting at the end where Catherine and I got to test who had managed their had the best. Once again she just beat me into second place with her rouleur, but my sprinteur finished ahead of hers. The peloton did really well, getting fourth and fifth places. Red and blue did poorly in this race, with both of their sprinteurs finishing behind the gruppetto and neither of their rouleurs doing well either.
This fifth stage shook up the rankings a little. The peloton team (white) went into first place, with Catherine's green team in second. Then comes blue and red, and then my pink team. However even I have closed to within striking distance of fourth place, so long as I can beat red in the next stage. In terms of individual rider, Catherine's rouleur is in first place, the blue rouleur in second and, surprisingly, my rouleur in third. It's the sprinteur who is letting my team down.
The next stage is another flat sprint, and I'm better off in terms of exhaustion than Catherine, so we'll see how things pan out.
No comments:
Post a Comment