Tommeke v. Spartacus: We're Not Done

wow those are some lame-ass glasses

also he will probably ride Ster Elektrotoer, which he has had mild success in the past few years.

See what you think. I tried to be a tad conservative on Boonen, given my bias.

I don’t have time now but after I get some beer in me I’m taking a hatchet to at least Boonen’s possible VDS point totals. I think I can take 300 points off, easy! Cancellara? You might have nailed him. First, though: beer. There’s a new Wallonne-type beer at the Laurelwood I got to try.

But you took care of the math, and I think you did an ok job. Thing is, you Boonen owners can have Conta and your precious VDS points… I like the 2010 double baby.

And if Cance pulls off the worlds double, Boonen will have to win the goddamn TdF to be mentioned again beside Cancellara in a thread.

    The man said the World TT bores him. He wants to win two more monuments, Lombardia is next fall, and maybe the Worlds RR would be better prep. If he invests too much time on the TT bike it will hold him back In Lombardia. I think he will race Lombardia, to test himself. The course will be pretty much the same every year so he needs to measure his efforts against the course as part of the plan to win it one day.

Yep I don’t have a real GC threat but the fun that I had so far is compensating for the suffering in the following months.

Unless Nibali does something really really awesome.

Last year at this time he has scored 925 points. That included wins @ KBK and P-R. He scored 600 more points to get to his season total of 1525. Those 600 points mainly came from 2nd at Paris-Tours and 130 points from the Vuelta. Plus minor points at the Dauphine, Ster etc. and the Nats.

Now last year was his second year in a row in fighting his cocaine problem. Seemingly that cost him Tour points and maybe the Green jersey. So you might say that he could get 100-200 points there again if his head is on straight-like it is this year. Short of a big win somewhere that’s the place where he’s most likely to pick up points.

The problem is I don’t buy it. While Tommeke has had his 2 year post cobbles cocaine issues, the sprinting field has gotten a lot tougher while he has slowed down marginally, as shown last year by Gilbert out sprinting him at Paris-Tours. Cavendish and Farrar have come into their own, as has Greipel. Hushovd and Freire have kept their edge while Haussler has improved a ton. Petacchi is still around except now he’s on a Pro Tour team meaning he’ll go head to head with Tom.

So what we have here is a more focused Tom, but a Tom that is worse off compared to his sprinting brothers for the rest of the year. I am not saying he’ll score squat but if I owned Boonen I’d be happy if he scored 600 points again. That puts him at 1650 more or less. I’d put the percentage chance of him scoring 700, 800, 900 more points at 30%, 20%, and 10%. I mean 2000 points? He’d have to positively own the bunch sprint- and he’s only # 4-5—6 ranked there. He will reward his owners with what they expected.

Cancellara seems to have much more of a chance at 2000 points since he only scored zero points last year at this point. He’s got a 980 point lead this year.

But I have serious doubts that he’ll score at the rate he did last year post P-R (or really post Giro). He scored 483 points at Suisse last year but that course won’t be set up for him this year. 150 points I feel will be his max there and probably much less.

Then he copped 267 points from the Tour. He has more of a chance to do that again due to his chrono abilities. But you never know and last year I feel the luck was all with him. I think 150 points is more realistic.

Then he finished with a whopping 300 Vuelta haul, 350 from the Worlds TT, and 225 from the Worlds RR. Can he exceed that? I’d say no. Yeah there’s talk of him doing Lombardia but until he shows he can compete that way-and he most definitely hasn’t-then that’s all it is-talk. Unlike Gilbert he doesn’t have a sprint to give him extra points. He is competitive but the Worlds RR doesn’t look so good for him. He won’t get so much from the Vuelta either. I’l say that if he gets 500 points from the end of the season he should be happy.

So to sum up that’s 500+150+100 (Nats)=750. That puts him at 1730 points for the year, with a realistic chance (but less than 50% IMO at 2000.) Still he’s more likely than Boonen. Of course as Chris points out Boonen teams can have Contador, or Evans or Phi-Gil or whoever else that’s stupidly expensive and Cance owners cannot.

The Vuelta leader’s jersey will be red this year. Better get used to it!

It is return on cost that is important. Boonen is kicking Cance’s ass in that department. Right now he already delivered 48.4 points for every point he cost his VDS owners. Cancellare is bringing in the goods too but at 35 points per cost point it is no where near Boonen’s performance.
If Chris’ prediction come true Boonen will end the year with his return at 91.6. That is a very very good score for a rider in the top price category. Spartacus would end at 73.2 points. Just what you’d expect as a return for the costly points you spend. You probably need a return of 90-100 to make it to the top of the VDS team ranking. 28 points underscoring the required average will be hard to make up…

Ergo, no way will Cance-owners be a shoe-in for the final top-10 of the VDS league.

Not a whisper of an issue on or off the bike (except someone suspecting he has a rocket attached to him)…Been a fan since he beat Lance in his tour debut…

Yes, he’s expensive, but I figured I didn’t really like a particular GT rider (yeah, I said it) so his cost wasn’t an issue for me. I thought Farrar might bring me points in GTs and when Griepel’s racing, I got him too (Henderson to boot for some placing points, perhaps).

Nothing against Boonen – he’s having a Hell of a year – sometime it’s all about selecting the guy you just kinda like or respect the most. If he doesn’t score another point it was worth having him be my team’s Captain this cobbles year!