Catherine and I continued our Tour de France last week, so I thought I'd better write it up before I forgot what happened.
We ran two stages, the first flat and the second mountainous.
The Stage 16 runs from Gruissan to Nimes, and there's little in it to trouble the riders.
Saying that we had a fair bit of weather - a tailwind early on, then a headwind then a crosswind. To be honest this didn't really affect the race too much. I put my sprinteur into the breakaway. I'm still pondering how to do the bots in a breakaway; I still feel that they overbid a little and I also like the idea of one of the players getting into the breakaway despite a low bid because a bot decided to massively underbid.
Anyway, here we are, ready to go.
There was a tight pack at the start, although being out in front my sprinteur picked up a bit of fatigue.
Blue got well out in front, whilst my sprinteur got absorbed into the pack. My riders were just ahead of Catherine's at this stage.
The run for the finish. Both Catherine and I were out in front and it was an exciting sprint. Once again my Rouleur was pipped into second place by Catherine's, but my sprinteur finished third, a couple of places ahead of Catherine's. Blue got a fourth place, and red and white finished poorly.
This left Catherine and I neck and neck at the top of the table, along with white (who is consistent if nothing else). Blue's sprinteur let the team down and dropped their score a little relative to ours.
Stage 17 runs from St-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Supedevolouy and, after a flat start, is a steady climb to the finish.
An early headwind slowed everybody down.
The pack stayed tight going up the first ascent, but Catherine was slightly ahead of me at this stage.
Disaster. Towards the finish was a long ascent with rain on it. And as Catherine broke away one of my riders crashed on the wet road, costing me a couple of places.
This dragged my sprinteur back (although Catherine's wasn't do well either), and my rouleur wasn't doing brilliantly either. Despite everyone running out of cards, Catherine dragged herself over the line in first place, with white and red finishing well too. I managed a poor 6th place with my rouleur and Catherine's sprinteur finished ahead of mine for once.
There are four stages to go and Catherine now has a decent lead. The team scores are now:
Green (Catherine) - 248
Pink (Me) - 240
White (Peloton) - 239
Blue (Bot) - 227
Red (Bot) - 206
Black (Gruppetto) - 88
I think red and blue are out of the running now - I may need to review the various rules changes I made there - but white could still be a danger. However if Catherine doesn't make any mistakes I think her lead is possibly enough to give her a win. I've got a lot of work to do in teh next couple of races.
nice! love a bit of Flamme Rouge
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