When last I wrote about our Tabletop Tour de France we had four stages left to run and Catherine's green team had a fairly solid 8 point lead. Last week we played two more stages.
Stage 18 runs from Gap to Barcelonnette. It's quite hilly, but there's no extreme climbs. The short climbs are interesting; if you position yourself right you can bump over them in a single move, and then use the descent or supply zone on the other side to burn off a low card. But time things incorrectly and you could get stuck on one and that can cost you position.
Here's the start. We had a tailwind early on, over the first ascent, but a later crosswind would slow things down towards the finish and the final straight was wet with the potential for crashes.
Early moves. Everyone was bunching together in teams except for me; I'd managed to split my riders up and, indeed, was running last.
Blue got out ahead and was looking strong, but would probably burn out before the finish.
And just over halfway through we caught up with blue. Both of my riders were pushing hard as I tried to stay ahead of Catherine. Somehow she had slipped quite badly and I wanted to exploit this.
I got my rouleur into the front pack.
And good fortune for my sprinteur; I had a single sprint left but it wouldn't get me over the finish line. However on the penultimate turn the pack closed up several positions thanks to slipstreaming, putting me within reach of the finish-line.
An epic final sprint saw my rouleur win and my sprinteur take second place. Blue picked up a third place and Catherine's highest finish was in fourth.
I picked up 23 points to her 14, eliminating her 8 point lead from the previous race and getting a 1 point lead of my own. I was back in the running!
Stage 19 runs from Embrun to Isola 2000. It has three quite horrible climbs, especially the one in the middle.
A tight pack on the run to the first climb.
After the first ascent was a crosswind, which would make catching up via slipstreaming impossible. And the biggest climb was into a headwind.
The first climb broke things up a little. Catherine had got ahead of me at this stage.
We closed up on the long ascent.
But heading towards the finish I got my rouleur out with the leader. With a climb to the finish line it was just a matter of holding position; there would be little in the way of epic sprint finishes.
And once again I got a win! I Increased my overall lead to 2 points as well.
Heading into the final two stages the team scores are:
Pink (Me) - 280
Green (Catherine ) - 278
White (Peloton) - 273
Blue (Bot) - 252
Red (Bot) - 225
Black (Gruppetto) - 96
Catherine and I have a good lead, but white could still surprise everyone.
Top individual riders:
Green Rouleur (Catherine) - 189
Pink Rouleur (Me) - 169
Blue Rouleur (Bot) - 156
I think Catherine's top rider position is assured; for me to catch her she'd had to finish almost dead last in both remaining races whilst I would have to win them. But the team scores are closer; Catherine's sprinteur tends to do quite badly whilst I manage mine better (indeed I have the highest ranked sprinteur).
So there are two stages to go, and it's anyone's championship!
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