The men's team looks decent, while the women's team looks incredibly weak.

Stage Info

Weather

Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the eleventh stage of the Vuelta a Espana.

We are in Murcia, the land of Alejandro Valverde and Luis Leon Sanchez, giants of spanish cycling's past 20 years.

We start in Cartagena, on the coast, namesake of the ancient Carthage city in current day Tunisia. The stage will not stray inlands in the roads where the Vuelta a Murcia goes sometimes to decide a GC if it's in a stage race format. The day is almost completly flat with the exception of a cat 3 30 kms from the finish which shouldn't change much for the race unless a team really drills it.

2 90° corners in the penultimate kilometer but apart from that nothing special in the final

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ Brennan

★★ Meeus, Coquard, Pedersen

★ Aular, Hofstetter, Romele

On a mostly flat stage, hard to see past Brennan if Visma are working for him instead of WVA.

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?

• *For a live chat way to discuss/follow the race we [have a discord too](https://discord.gg/

Stage Info

Weather

26°C to 30°C, cloudy

Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the tenth stage of the Vuelta a Espana!

After a rest day, the riders continue to make their way towards Andalucia. This stage is in the province of Albacete, so a bit North of Andalucia.

The stage is, to make it simple, sort of a classic Vuelta sprint/transition stage. It's not flat (rarely is in Spain) but it's not overtly hard either, Here and there you will get hard ramps but overall it is a rolling stage. The finale is interesting, it's uphill but not hard and the final kilometer is a bit twisty without being really tricky.

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ Brennan

★★ Coquard, Pedersen, Aular

★ Laurence, Miquel, Breakaway

Most of the sprinters in this race are actually specialist of these types of sprints so this is arguably the best setup for a high level sprint in this race. Brennan has shown his strengh on there. Coquard and Pedersen made a career of these sprints. Aular while not a winner is at his best in this sep up. Brennan is beatable, espcially if his train isn't working, on paper he is the favourite, but last saturday showed it's possible to defeat him.

There is a world in which this is a break (not an easy stage after all) but seems unlikely

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?

Come on, that last stage was just a masterclass in suffering. Is there a class about rampas inhumanas? Montañas hostil?

Time to draw a quick breath again as the riders are trying to save up some energy on their first rest day. Who has been the most impressive riders of the first week? Any riders who you think is underperforming? Looking at the breakaway riders so far, who do you think will be heavily features during the next week? Does anyone want to guess at the KOM jersey already?

• *For a live chat way to discuss/follow the race we [have a discord too](https://discord.gg/

The Bretagne Classic gave us a pretty interesting SRFL round!
While most participants went for Paul Magnier, with no fewer than four picks, unfortunately, none of those picks scored any points. Magnier was forced to abandon the race after a heavy crash. Thankfully, there was no serious physical damage, which is by far the most important thing.
Even more surprising, none of the top four finishers were picked by any participant!

SRFL Winner
The winner of this round is u/Cultural-Record3704!
The winning pick was Rick Pluimers, who finished 8th and delivered a very nice 67 points.
A great example of how looking beyond the obvious favorites can really pay off in SRFL.

Second Place
In second place we have u/Eyeconoclastic, who selected Michael Matthews.
Matthews finished 17th, but that was still enough to collect 33 points. Not a bad return at all!

Shared Third Place
Third place is shared by u/AwakenTheBacon_ and myself.
We both selected Jenno Berckmoes, who had a fantastic result by finishing 5th.
Unfortunately, there were two of us with the same pick, so the points had to be split between us. That also meant no bonus points for either of us. A great result for Berckmoes, slightly less great for our SRFL scores.

Overall Standings
At the top of the overall standings, Avila99 is still holding on to 1st place. There were unfortunately no points scored in this round, but the lead is still intact.

And while the Bretagne Classic may be over, the cycling action certainly isn't!
La Vuelta España is currently in full swing, so there are still plenty of opportunities to score points and shake up the standings.

The race for the overall title is far from over!

Good luck with the next picks, everyone!

Bretagne Classic
Overall standings  

Photo: https://imgur.com/tWrNBtk

Tadej Pogačar posted a photo from a hospital in Barcelona on Sunday morning. He appears determined to come back even stronger.

Pogačar was transferred from the coastal city of Gandia to Barcelona at around 9 p.m. yesterday, where doctors will assess when he can undergo surgery.

From his hospital room, Pogačar has already posted an update on Instagram, sharing a photo of himself lying in bed wearing a neck brace and covered in medical patches. He appears determined not to let the crash stop him and is intent on returning even stronger.

Primož Roglič has also already wished him a speedy recovery.

After a thorough examination, doctors at the hospital confirmed that Pogačar had suffered a concussion, a fractured and dislocated left collarbone, a fracture of the seventh cervical vertebra, and numerous abrasions.

In any case, it is difficult to imagine Pogačar returning to racing this year. A fractured collarbone and cervical vertebra require a lengthy recovery.

https://www.rtvslo.si/sport/kolesarstvo/dirka-po-spaniji/brutalen-pogacarjev-padec-nov-opomnik-kako-hitro-se-lahko-zalomi-tudi-najboljsim/792267

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

Results

• Official
• Firstcycling

Reports

• Cyclingnews Live Report
• Sporza

Race Ratings

• Rate the Stage
• Current Ratings

Today is the first rest day, which means it’s time to take a breather and look back at what has been a pretty eventful first week.

One quick note before we dive in. Stage 3 does not count, as the stage was cancelled.

Someone actually nailed it!
Looking at Stages 1 through 9, we already have one participant who managed to predict the exact finishing result. That participant is u/paulindy2000!
During Stage 6, paulindy2000 was the only participant who went for a Group 2 prediction. And guess what? That turned out to be exactly the correct outcome!
Everyone else had predicted a gap, so this was a perfect example of why sometimes it pays off to go against the crowd.

Another smart call in Stage 9
In Stage 9, it was u/LurkasM1 who decided to go against the majority.
While everyone else predicted a gap, LurkasM1 was the only participant to predict a group.
The group prediction turned out to be correct! The only thing missing was the exact number of riders in the group.
Still, being the only person with the correct type of prediction meant a very nice haul of points. Sometimes being different really does pay off!

Overall standings
And that smart Stage 6 prediction has paid off in the overall standings as well.

paulindy2000 currently leads the competition.
u/BSantos57 is right behind in second place.
LurkasM1 sits in third.

But don’t start celebrating just yet! There are still two weeks to go, meaning there is plenty of time for the standings to change.

Will the leaders hold on?
Will someone make a late comeback?
And most importantly, who will have the courage to pick a Group when everyone else goes for the Gap?

See you after the next stages, and good luck with your predictions!

Overall standings
Pick the next stages

First Cycling

Flandrian toughness is legendary, but climbing 3,500m with a collapsed lung is crazy. Speedy recovery to Luca.

• *For a live chat way to discuss/follow the race we [have a discord too](https://discord.gg/

Sometimes you feel like you've made a brilliant choice. And then you discover that five other people had exactly the same brilliant idea.
That was pretty much the story of the WSRFL Classic Lorient Agglomération.

No fewer than six participants had the same thought, Mischa Bredewold is going to do it! And to be fair, it wasn't a bad choice at all. Bredewold finished in a very respectable 2nd place.
The only problem? From a WSRFL perspective, it wasn't exactly the most lucrative choice.
While six participants happily went in the same direction, one participant quietly decided to take a completely different horse euh, bike.

The big winner of this round is u/FHDeck80! They were smart enough to pick Célia Gery, making them the only participant to select her.
That gamble paid off brilliantly 93 points including bonus points. That was enough to make FHDeck80 the clear winner of this round.

The second place is shared by u/listenyall and Avila99. Both put their faith in the eventual winner, Elisa Balsamo, which earned them 90 points each.
No bonus points this time, but 90 points is certainly something both participants can be happy with.

General Classification

u/Kryziven is still firmly in 1st place. However, there is now a small but important asterisk next to that position, no pick was made for the last two races, resulting in 0 points on both occasions.

And that could become important later on, because the WSRFL is far from decided. There are still four races to go, which means there are plenty of points left to fight for. And the next race is a big one right away, the World Championships are up next.

Meanwhile, Team_Telekom is making a strong move up the standings and has now climbed into 2nd place in the general classification.

Four races remain, so there is still plenty of time for things to change.

Bring on the World Championships!

Classic Lorient Agglomération
Overall standings WSRFL

Netcompany-Ineos posted on social media: "Josh Tarling’s Vuelta has come to an end as he’s decided to stop. We couldn’t be prouder.”

Later, the team added: "After the unimaginable loss of his brother Fin, Josh showed incredible courage in starting La Vuelta. We are immensely proud of him, and he now returns home to be with his family with the full love and support of everyone at Netcompany-Ineos. Family comes first. Always.”

Stage Info

Weather

30°C, Sunny

Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the ninth stage of the Vuelta a Espana.

Welp. That changes things.

A new race started today, Pogacar Out, Coquard winning a GT stage, might as well have been another eclipse the probability of both events happening int he same stage were most likely near 0%.

Now what happens? Another mountain day. We are in the Costa Blanca countryside in roads that all the riders have taken a bazillion time in their training camps in december and january, in those costal hotels completly empty of people but the best weather for cycling in Europe at that time of the year.

We start in the suburbs of Benidorm and we head directly inland, for a day that will ever have a meter of flat, starting with the Puerto de Tarbena which leads into the famous Coll de Rates, used as the benchmark of climbing ability for every rider in the peloton.

The day has 5 KOM before the final climb, the Alto de Aitana, which was last climbed in the Vuelta in 2016, as the final climb in stage 20, where Quintana guaranteed his win over Froome and where you have an incredible final kilometer between Darwin Atapuma in his prime and Pierre Latour before he got terrified of descent, you should look it up on Youtube if you can.

22km at 5.9%, it's a climb that gets progressively harder as we get near the top and the final kilometers are hard enough to make differences.

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ A entire mess of a stage

★★

★

I'm not gonna bother to try and predict this, there is no point. A whole new race started, which implies completly new dynamics, and trying to predict all of it is kinda pointless without having a sample to work with.

Everyone will go for the break, because the big wolf and his team won't control anymore. Maybe a GC team will try to control but can they/will they? Decathlon possibly, but I don't really see the point. The GC leaders will also change their way of riding without Pogi there. WIll it be a standstill, big attacks, tactical coups? Race is as open as ever and everyone will be looking to make their own move or read what the others want to do. It could end up being a big standstill tomorrow as it is the first mountain stage in that set up, before being less controlled next week.

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?