Tour De France Bike Challenge Team Leaders Thread (and rules)

Cat, many thanks for putting this all together.

Warm greetings to all from Team Barloworld, a.k.a. the Raving Newbies both here at BT and the TdF.  As expected we are bursting onto the scene (well, onto this thread) with the lead.

I can't get the Excel spreadsheet to open--I guess tri is not the only thing we are newbies to.  Here are the stages committed from each member:

TriAya--20, wurkit_gurl--12, JoshKaptur--12, sf_biggestloser--10, zipp1--10, DMarkSwan--7, DoloresM2--6

Best of luck to all!  (I thought I'd be nice before you all discover our sense of humor) 

Hi,

If you (and any other team leaders who cannot access the spreadsheet) would like to PM me your email address I can email it to you.

Im thinking that it will make reporting in much easier for everyone if you only have to shoot me an email each Monday for reporting (and for me to just compbine all the spreadsheets for tracking... there are quite a few competitiors!)

Also - very impressed with the Barloworld team getting into the challenge!!

Now I just have to find myself a team in the next 24 hours

Cat

Team T-Mobile results:

Update:

I missed one ride.  This is the correct information below.

Hey Cat - Here's a preliminary look at E-E!  I'll have my PC with a connection on Tuesday and I'll send off the sheet then.

ChicagoMan65 - 12 Plan, 4 actual

Gaiaserver - 21 plan, 8 actual

GTAUSP3 - 12 plan, 4 actual

jldcarlo - 10 plan, 3 actual

lil turtle - 10 plan, 3 actual

orbeaman - 11 plan, 4 actual

PanicTour - 10 plan, 3 actual

Willie05 the gimp - 12 plan, 3 actual

Total - 98 plan, 32 actual

Cheers!

Barloworld Bike Blast Bits are attached.

Barloworld Blasts its Sound Bites:

JoshKaptur blasts his first tri despite a flat and chain dislocation. The next week, he signs up for Savageman HIM and bikes its crazy course--reputed to be the hardest 1/2 course ever.

sf_biggestloser has a deer blast his bike on the way to a tri and does it anyway on a borrowed bike. Has since been doing TdF challenge, sans bike, on a stationary.

wurkit gurl blasts a training PR—a 1:12:40 split for 15.93mi on a hilly, technical ride. Does a sim-tri at the gym.

DMarkSwan is blasting away at the challenge despite his wife imminently producing a Mini-Mark, or BarloBaby.

zipp1 blasts through the water on her first open-water swim!

DoloresM2 blasts through her first brick … without blasting her legs!

that ok kat? 

Kat: here is the final, final updated info for Team T-Mobile. I have added Joblin's info from her logs.

Hope this corrects the wingdings issue some people are seeing in my last update ... can't be prouder of our newbie flock, what with their personal victories and Juan Mauricio Soler Hernandez's win ... 

JoshKaptur blasts his first tri despite a flat and chain dislocation. The next week, he signs up for Savageman HIM and bikes its crazy course--reputed to be the hardest 1/2 course ever.

sf_biggestloser has a deer blast his bike on the way to a tri and does it anyway on a borrowed bike. Has since been doing TdF challenge, sans bike, on a stationary.

wurkit gurl blasts a training PR—a 1:12:40 split for 15.93mi on a hilly, technical ride. Does a sim-tri at the gym.

DMarkSwan is blasting away at the challenge despite his wife imminently producing a Mini-Mark, or BarloBaby.

zipp1 blasts through the water on her first open-water swim!

DoloresM2 blasts through her first brick … without blasting her legs!

TriAya blasts out her longest ride ever—including a 16-mile leg in :50:00 on a bike with cruiser bars.

Okay, so I caught some flak about the Hernandez spoiler (I did say the newbies were zealous to the point of impropriety, no?!) On the one hand, do people not access the Internet/news/radio/TV/talk to anyone until they've watched their TdF recordings? On the other hand, I really do get that spoilers suck.

Then again, I've really loved Cat's cutting edge updates.

But in the interest of fairness, if the team leaders want to reach some consensus about results rules, I'm happy to play.

Not a team leader, but as a "flak giver" (I guess?), I want to respond.

I make every conceivable effort to not access anything that gives Tour results for the day.  I don't read my news RSS feeds during the tour, I never log onto the Tour websites until I watch the recordings.  I don't even really read the news to avoid coverage.  It really sucks to post a ride to my team's thread and have someone spoil the results for the day.   

Ok - fair call... it IS hard however that this challenge is SO closely linked to the live action in terms of interest and that is part of it... what does everything think about a seperate SMACK TALK - TDF Action thread or something similar?

Would enough people be interested in taking the live action related discussions to another thread out of the team threads to avoid this issue? Team leaders can you confirm?

I must admit Im probably the most guilty of this as I genuinely want teams to know whats happening with their pro counterparts to really get into it... and with me watching it live til 2am then heading straight it bed I get REALLY excited and post results...

But... its more a time difference related head spin. I totally understand having to delay watching the action... I know not everyone can devote their whole life to TDF action for a month!

So my suggestion... is this....

1) No results from the previous nights stage will be posted in any Team thread until the next days stage starts... giving everyone 24 hours to watch the action or at least KNOW what to expect

2) Set up a seperate TDF Challenge - Live Action thread for teams to talk about their pro riders... (if there is enough interest)

3) If teams are happy to have stage updates posted in their Team thread let me know and I will continue - otherwise 24 hour code of silence applies to EVERYONE taking part in the challenge

What do you all think?

THis is our team update as of yesterday- with the caveat that I think Matt may have several more rides under his belt. This is how many he said he has done since Saturday, not sure what he had before that though:

Doesn't bother me at all, but in fairness to others who want to see the action, probably posting in a separate thread would be a good idea.