Just noticed the Women’s “Giro Donne” is also open for team selection.
https://www.velogames.com/giro-donne/2022/
Let’s get some teams on there too! Some great racing in the women’s peloton this year!
(FYI just by picking your team you’ll automatically be in the WCC league since you’re already in the Tour WCC league).
Already in there … I have picked Pogacar…but most of the other picks are much less standard. Will be an interesting year. Good luck all!
There have been a couple of last minute withdrawals and substitutions due to Covid. Full list of riders approved to participate is here: Official Tour de France start list released: No late-hour spot for Mark Cavendish - VeloNews.com
Dammit, no cav 
I’m in. After picking my team jersey I can’t help but think, who liked Alpecin-Fenix’s Giro jersey more than their normal blue kit?
Some crazy couple of days in the Tour and some crazy tight scores in our league!
After 5 stages, the top 3 in our league are separated by 75 points (for context, that’s about 3% of the top score of 2389) and I’m in 4th and just 152 points from 1st place!
Some exciting stages coming up, but today’s cobbles and yesterday’s finish have already provided a tonne of action!
The WCC race for top 3 is even closer after today’s stage with only 49 points separating the three teams.
@darcy.martin , @KevRidesGravel and @Joe.Meissner
I’ve been keeping track of the daily scores on a spreadsheet and thought you might be interested in seeing which stages boosted you higher (stage 6 sees many teams that were scoring low on previous stages, jump up)…or dropped you lower (stage 5…cobbles.)
As of today (end of stage 6 - July 7)
Cumulative scores by stage:
Daily scores by stage
Arrrrgh, MVDP is killing me… Look at the difference between Wout and Mathieu: I checked, and Wout cost 18 to draft, MVDP was 14.
Agreed. Something is up with him…
I even rearranged my team to be able to get him on the team…argh.
For the last year I’ve been asking the velogames admin to add a “points won/points cost” on the riders list…he keeps saying “soon”. 
After some amazing stages in the Alps, the Tour is in southern France and progressing towards the Pyrenees and so I’m posting an update to the charts showing our respective teams’ progress.
Summary after Stage 12…
Cumulative Points
Team Murk has been holding onto first place since stage 6, but the gap to the next 3 places remains constant as places 2-4 continue the square dance of changes between teams Meissner, Muskrat, and Goats Aplenty.
Teams Ukraine will Prevail and le Grande Armee have shown a surge towards the top 4 in the last 3 stages and are closing the gap to the top group. Team Ballzout also showed a strong upward surge in the last two stages, but still has a considerable gap to close.
Teams Can i do worse than last time?, No DNSs, and Le Crumpets are a tight bunch fighting for positions 8-10 and hoping to not drop into last place. But, Bopper’s Bunnies is making this outcome less likely as they are drifting into firmly securing the final spot in 11th place since Stage 6 with the gap to the pack widening daily.
Daily Points:
Teams le Grande Armee and Ukraine will Prevail showing flashes of top level scoring in Stages 7 and 11 helping them close the gap to the top 4.
The entire WCC league had a rough day on stage 10 when a group of lower ranked/unpicked riders decided to go for glory in the Tour. As a result, we had the lowest total stage score of the Tour so far.
Stage 12 saw seven teams shoot up sharply with Balzout missing the highest single day score of the league by 8 points (721 to Team Murk’s 729 on stage 1). While 4 teams currently fighting to be in the top 4 spots, plummeted from their previous stage accomplishments, not helping their fight.
While the next three stages don’t have hills higher than Category 3, we should see some breakaways forming in the Tour while the contenders prepare for the Pyrenees on Stages 16-18. Not sure which team in our league has the best build for the next three stages…
I shouldn’t complain, but I guess I should figure out how swaps work and drop MVDP faster than Jonas dropped Pog the other day. 
No swapping in classic velogames.
He’s trying out a new side game that allows it it I haven’t tried it yet.
Rest day before the final week of the Tour.
I will admit that 3 week grand tours are traditionally not my favourite type of racing to watch/follow. Give me the spring 1 day classics any day…and if I had to choose a 3 week stage race to watch, the Giro seems to rarely disappoint.
BUT …this year’s Tour has me captivated and we have seen some of the most exciting stages in the history of the Tour!
This last week is shaping up to be VERY exciting and I recommend you find a way to catch some of the racing (if you aren’t already).
Something I found online: “The Best Possible Team” as of today’s rest day: (Total 100 points cost)
How are the WCC teams doing?
Cumulative Points:
Since my last update, we have a had three exciting stages with breakaways, finishes up steep ramps, and a thrilling breakaway/sprint finish yesterday! These stages have allowed Team Murk to increase their lead further with some key rider picks providing nice points (South African and a Dane!)
Team Goats Aplenty is starting to pull away from the group fighting for places 2nd through 6th and chasing 1st place…which would require some breakaway wins from Bora and/or FDJ.
Team Ballzout has slipped a bit and it doesn’t look like they will join that top group fight.
Team Bopper’s Bunnies is starting to plateau (not good). 
Daily Points
With the second lowest group daily score, Stage 14 hurt the league almost as badly as Stage 10. We even saw the leader, Murk, score their lowest daily total of the entire Tour (210).
There definitely appears to be a Cos wave to the group’s daily point totals…
Time to pick your team for the TdFrance Femmes! The stage race starts Sunday July 24th AM so make sure you pick your team by Saturday evening. After you pick your team scroll down and enter the WCC league code.
Details about each of the 8 stages are here: Tour de France Femmes: Stage by stage race guide - VeloNews.com
Cheat sheet reviewing riders: Tour de France Femmes 2022 team guide: Start list, star riders and kits to look out for - Eurosport
Pick your team: https://www.velogames.com/velogame-femmes/2022/
WCC League code: 884650521
I hope you’re all watching the last stage of the this year’s tour as I type this up. And i hope you all had a chance to see a great sprint in the first stage of the Women’s Tour which started this morning in Paris!
I’ve been doing some number crunching while watching the champagne portion of today’s stage and this is what I’m seeing.
It looks like, after leading for ALL (but stage 5) stages…Murk doesn’t have the overall win locked up yet!!!
Ukraine will Prevail had the highest single day score on Stage 18 with 979 points which has set them up for potential jump to 2nd place today!
Place : Team : Current Score : Score after expected Final GC Points : Sprinter for Today : Comments
1 : Murk : 8798 : 9603 : Van Aert/Pedersen : Needs Pedersen sprint points to be <84 points from Philipsen sprint points to maintain 1st place (basically within 4 places)
2: Goats Aplenty : 8434 : 9519 : Van Aert/Philipsen : Needs Philipsen to get >84 points from Pedersen to jump into 1st place (finish 4 places better than Pedersen)
3: Ukraine will Prevail : 8279 : 9644 : Van Aert : Needs Philipsen to place 5th or less to jump into 2nd place
4: Meissner : 8010 : 8790 : Van Aert/Jakobsen : Can’t get 3rd and locks up 4th with any Jakobsen points…except look at Le Grande Armee!
5: Muskrat : 7993 : 8728 : Van Aert : Most likely dropping to 6th
6: Le Grande Armee : 7916 : 9236 : Pedersen : Having top 2 GC might make this team leap frog most likely into 4th …especially if Jakobsen beats Pedersen in the final sprint and Van Aert doesn’t do well…hmm?!
7: Ballzout : 6642 : 7512 : Groenewegen : 7th even with a Groenewegen win in the sprint.
8: No DNFs : 5925 : 6750 : Groenewegen : 8th unless Jakobsen soundly beats Groenewegen in the sprint today…then 9th you might go.
9: Can i do worse than last time? : 5669 : 6514 : Jakobsen : Needs Jakobsen to soundly beat Groenewegen to jump into 8th.
10: Le Crumpets : 5057 : 5557 : Jakobsen : Solidly in 10th place…enjoy the stage today 
11: Bopper’s Bunnies : 3329 : 3489 : Jakobsen : Definitely 11th place…sit back, relax, and enjoy the day!
Good luck today! I hope the above gives you all a bit more guidance on who to cheer on in the sprint today!
Charts:
Cumulative
Daily
What an ending! I’ll collapse the recap so that there are no spoilers for those who haven’t watched today’s final stage.
Head’s up…coming soon “The Worst Possible Vuelta”. We switch it up a bit…each player has to use the full 100 points allocated to build your team…but the winner is the person with the LOWEST total score. (This is, in some ways, harder than the traditional approach to this game!)
Today’s stage ending on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées has historically come down to a sprint and today had moments where I wasn’t sure this year would follow this unofficial tradition. Many breaks and even a last lap jump by Thomas/Ganna and even Pogacar (!?) kept the finale somewhat unsure. With 2km remaining the established sprint trains were dismantled and entering the final km saw most sprinters having to figure things out on their own in the chaos! (different from many previous years of long trains).
At the line, Philipsen powered ahead by a couple bike lengths and I have a feeling this will be the last time I’m the only person picking Philipsen for a sprinter! (I have been following him for a few years and he is one of the few sprinters that pushes to the line even if it might not seem they will win (see: Caleb shutting down his sprint if he’s not top 4 in the last 100m). You may have also seen Philipsen in the mix on a few stages that had short/sharp uphill finishes and ending up in the top 25. He’s a sprinter with a good short sharp climb too.
How did the WCC League end up?
With Philipsen’s win and Pedersen nor Jakobsen breaking the top 10 (56th and 13th respectively) it brought Goats Aplenty to within 123 points of Murk before the final GC points were allocated.
Groenewegen’s 2nd place prevented No DNFs from dropping to 9th.
Final GC points saw Ukraine will Prevail and Le Grande Armee take massive jumps! Ukraine will prevail jumped from 3rd to 2nd place (over Murk) and Le Grande Armee jumped from 6th to 4th over Meissner and Muskrat!
Final GC points also got Goats Aplenty over Murk to claim first place.
The outcome of the WCC League literally came down to the final stage!
Thanks to all that played!
The Charts
Cumulative:
Daily
Thanks for all this analysis…it makes it feel like a hockey play by play breakdown!
It’s time for “WORST POSSIBLE VUELTA”!!
IMPORTANT: We change the rules for the Vuelta each year to spice things up.
The goal: Get the LEAST amount of points with a full team costing 100 points to build.
We will use the honour system for the usage of 100 points to build your team…but understand that once the race starts, we can see your team cost and if it’s less than 100 points, your team will not be included in our competition.
Get onto Velogames and build your WORST POSSIBLE VUELTA team!
Wishing you all bad luck in this year’s race! 
Entry closes 12:15pm this Friday August 19.
That is way harder to do than I thought it would be! Given my skill at not doing well in these leagues maybe I have an advantage here
I think I’m personally going to build two teams - best and worst. I can’t get excited about watching the Vuelta and cheering for riders to end up last.
