Tour De France 1903 - Part 2

The 1903 Tour De France for  'Flamme Rouge' continues. The second stage runs from Lyon to Marseilles and, like the first, includes a horrible great climb. This time it's near the stary of the race, and it's even bigger than the climb in the first. Fear not; this is the last big climb of the tour; the ascents for the 1903 riders were fairly modest after this one.

As per the rules the riders were arranged in ascending order of team times. This left White in pole position, followed by Blue, then Black and then my Pink team. The new expansion includes little card bases to go around the cyclists and show who is currently wearing the yellow (fastest time), green (sprinter) and polka-dot (king of the mountain) jerseys. In races this has no effect but come the rest days a team gets a Tour Point (the VPs of the game) for each riders that is wearing a jersey. The downside to this is that because they spend all day doing interviews with the press they don't get to halve their exhaustion cards like other riders. Being the best has its price.

Anyway, here's the course so you can admire that magnificent climb. I also threw in a cobbled section before the final small climb just to make life harder.

And here's the riders ready for the off. The White rouleur wears the polka-dot jersey, the Black rouleur the yellow jersey and my Pink sprinteur somehow wears the green jersey.

The riders hit the big ascent. This immediately split them into two packs. At the rear is the Black sprinteur. He somehow got totally detached from the peloton and cycled the entire race alone, finishing a long time after the other riders. We won't see him again.

The big ascent really broke up the pack. Catherine's Blue rouleur was running second and doing well. My riders struggled up the mountain.

We all got back together in the middle section, ready for the small  ascent before the final sprint. The Black and White rouleurs had run a strong race up to this point, but their decks were running out of steam. A good push by Catherine and myself could see a win for one of us here.

All four rouleurs ended up in the race to the finish.

Mine didn't quite have the puff for that final sprint and finished third. The White rouleur finished second and Catherine's Blue rouleur finished first. 

A win gives you three TPs, second-place gives you two and third-place 1. TPs are actual final victory points so are key. Riders are also awarded mountain points and/or sprinter points are two points in the race. These are accumulated and then TPs are awarded at the end of the tour for the team with the best rider in each category. There's also TP awards at the end for fastest individual rider and fastest team. 

These are the standings after two races:

Tour Points

White - 4
Blue - 3
Black - 3
Pink - 2

Individual Times (m:ss)

Black Rouleur - 0:50
White Rouleur - 1:20
Pink Rouleur - 1:20
Pink Sprinteur - 1:20
Blue Rouleur - 2:20
White Sprinteur - 4:40
Blue Sprinteur - 5:10
Black Sprinteur - 8:40

Team Times (m:ss)

Pink - 2:40
White - 6:00
Blue - 7:30
Black - 9:30

Sprint Points

Blue Rouleur - 2
Black Rouleur - 2
White Rouleur - 2

Mountain Points

Black Rouleur - 6
White Rouleur - 6
Blue Rouleur - 5
Pink Rouleur - 1

Catherine (Blue) is doing OK, with a stash of Sprint and Mountain points as well as a second-place TP total. My Pink team is doing less well, although my propensity for bringing in my rouleur and sprinteur together (rather than leaving the sprinteur behind) has given me the best total team time. I need to try and win at least one race to stay in the running though.