The Tabletop Tour de France - Part 10 - THE END

And so here we are - the final part of our epic Tour de France replay using Flamme Rouge. Over the past few weeks we've travelled far and wide, all without leaving our dining room. But last night we played the two final stages of the Tour, and we have a winner.

Stage 20 is from Nice to Col de Couillole. There's four significant climbs in it. It's nasty.

I accidentally ended up with my rouleur in the breakaway but, given that there's a slope almost immediately, this was no bad thing. I'd possibly be at the front getting exhaustion, but at least I'd not get caught in the bottleneck that happens at the start of each ascent.

Not getting caught in the bottleneck was key in this race, as the track section before the ascent started was wet, so cyclists unable to use their full movement would crash. And that's what happened; three cyclists crashed, including Catherine's sprinteur.

Meanwhile I was stacking up piles of exhaustion at the front.

The slow plod continued. I let my rouleur drop back so someone else could run at the front. I also pushed my sprinteur forward; I wanted to make sure he finished well before Catherine's so I could maintain my lead in the team scores.

The ascents really break things up because there's so little slipstreaming possible. I had both of my cyclists in the lead group of five, whilst Catherine only had her rouleur there. Her sprinteur was right at the back and in terrible trouble.

The run to the finish was uphill, into a headwind, and was hard work. But my rouleur had just enough decent cards left to win the race. Catherine's got third place. But my sprinteur also finished fifth whilst Catherine's finished last.

So I had now increased my lead in the team event to 11 points! However my rouleur was starting teh next race with a massive five exhaustion cards; he'd shot his bolt in that stage and would really suffer in the next.

So onto the 21st and final stage. This one runs from Monaco to Nice. It's set up as a short time-trial course but, as with the previous one, I added in some extra pieces to make it a full course. The core of it is two simple ascent/descent combinations. My additions were some simple flat track so we could have an epic sprint finish.

My course was:

1 2 C K t p H 9 e g M q S B r 4 j 0 f i d u

This time Catherine ended up in the breakaway, and would be able to lead from the beginning. With no future races to consider she had less to worry about in terms of accumulated exhaustion (although obviously accumulating it affects you in the race as well).

The only significant weather effect was a headwind on the finish - again.

Catherine got a good lead off the back of hitting the first ascent well before the rest of the pack. I was struggling in the middle; my rouleur had already had at least one bad hand stacked with exhaustion.

We dealt with teh ascents and were now into the flat section that ran to the finish. Catherine had slipped back a little and I even had my sprinteur close to the front. But getting there had cost me a lot of my good cards.

Catherine had cards left to play. She broke away with both of her riders in a pair of fast sprints. If she could finish well and ensure I finished a long way back she could eliminate my lead and maybe win the tour.

The headwind reduces card options for players and slows bot teams. With cards running out everyone struggled. Catherine maintained her lead ...

... but her sprinteur lost momentum just before the finish. Sadly so did both of my riders.

The final positions. Catherine's riders were first and sixth. I finished near the back, having pulled a pile of exhaustion cards on the final turn. 

So it was time to tot up the final score. Catherine's team picked up 19pts for the final stage. I got a mere 9pts. But my lead was 11pts at the start, so ... I'd won by a single point!

It was the tightest possible win, and an amazing result given that we'd run twenty-one races. 

The final team scores were:

Pink (Me) - 309

Green (Catherine) - 308

White (Peloton) - 306

Blue (Bot) - 276

Red (Bot) - 251

Black (Gruppetto) - 110

Note that white had closed up on the leaders as well.

Individual Rider scores were:

Green Rouleur - 199

Pink Rouleur - 181

Blue Rouleur - 163

Red Rouleur -152

White 1 - 147

White 2 - 141

Pink Sprinteur - 119

Blue Sprinteur - 98

Green Sprinteur 90

Red Sprinteur - 87

So Catherine got the best individual rider (which always tends to be a rouleur), whilst I had the top sprinteur.

We both really enjoyed playing this; on the days we played we'd trash-talk and plan our strategies in advance having checked the courses we were to run. The whole thing took us ten sessions over about six weeks. The finish was so tight that we can both point to key moments throughout the tour that would have made a difference. Catherine's crash in the 19th stage cost her dear, for example, but so did mine in an earlier stage. If I did it again I'd make a few tweaks to my bot rules; I'd only have a winning bot rider take a single exhaustion (instead of 2) and possibly rework the breakaway test so that the rider draws two cards and always takes the lowest, so bots will tend to bid low. This can lead to players accidentally winning the breakaway. I'd also possibly consider running either the gruppetto or the peloton team, so there's a third conventional bot team in play.

I hope the few of you that have read this far have enjoyed the ride.