Wednesday 23nd May

Falzes/Pfalzen - Cortina d'Ampezzo 186km

STRICT DEADLINE = STAGE START TIME 11:55 CET

NOTE STRICT DEADLINE NOW: TIMESTAMP 1 MINUTE PAST START TIME WILL NOT COUNT

LAST CLIMB:

LAST FEW KM:

Steve's preview at Steephill:

Each year there is always a big Dolomites stage and this is the one for this year... This year's route has four big passes: Passo Valparola (cat 2) followed by a very fast descent then there are the steeper Passo Duran (cat 1), Forcella Staulanza (cat 2) and Passo Giau, all of which have more technical descents. Besides being technical, the descent down to Cortina d'Ampezzo for the valley town finish will have two small hills including the run into town and there is also a small bit of pavé.

Stage 16 Results

Izagirre, De Marchi, Clement.

byzantium had Herrada in the break, but that was all that our combined genius managed to achieve today. Our cappello rosa pablo777 made 3 big-name picks and left himself wide open to the break, but we missed the chance to punish him. No score, on to tomorrow.

Link to spreadsheet with full results history

Rules

For each stage, you (the DS) pick three riders. The order of your picks does not matter. The first three riders score. The basic score is stage winner 4 points, second place 2 points, third 1 point.

In addition there are bonus points awarded. Stage winner bonus is 24 points, second place bonus 12 points, third place bonus 6 points. The bonus points are split equally among all the DS's who picked that rider. Thus you're likely to get a big bonus for an outsider who scores, whereas the bonus for a favorite will be split among a lot of DS's.

The strict entry deadline is the official start time of the stage. Subject to the deadline, you may change any or all of your picks, but only one time, in a single reply to your original post. The only exception to this "one change only" rule is that you may make a substitution for a pick announced as DNS - but still subject to the deadline. If you miss making an entry for a stage, you score zero for that stage, but you're still in the competition. Also, there's no limit to how early you can make picks. If you want to pick for future stages ahead of time, just post in the latest thread and make sure I've seen it.