Cycling forum Tour de France tips comp - free to enter

Here's the comp http://tinyurl.com/Betfairtdf

Welcome to the Betfair Cycling Forum Tour de France competition. There is no entry fee, no prizes and you can just dip in and out at any point as there is no penalty for missing GC picks or stages.

To enter just put your name up on the forum along with your GC selections and/or stage picks. There's 2 sections to this competition.

1) GC section.  Pick your top 10 in the GC (you can do this up to the start of Stage 2 - after this the GC section will be closed). You get 2 points for any rider you correctly say will finish in the top 10. There is also 5, 3 & 2 bonus points for correctly naming the winner, 2nd and 3rd if they are named in the right place. The winner of the GC section will be awarded the polka dot jersey.

2) Stages section. Pick up to 2 riders for each stage (no obligation to make picks on any stage). Any picks 6/1 or greater will be counted as 1 point each way. Any riders under 6/1 will be counted as 2 points win only. I'll use oddschecker to determine best price and I'll use the BEST AVAILABLE HIGH STREET PRICE at roughly the stage start time for each pick. I won't be able to do this for every stage so I might need some help from the rest of the forum to make sure we get the prices. The winner of the stages section gets the green jersey.

When the points scored in the GC section and the points scored in the stages section are added together we get the outright winner, and that person takes the competition's yellow jersey. Just a bit of fun chaps.

Just to clarify stages section:

points for stages = price at the off multiplied by points staked
points staked is always 2pts win if 11/2 or shorter, 1pt ew if 6/1 or bigger ie if you pick a winner at 4/1 that is 2points win so return of 10 points (profit of 8pts), you pick a winner at 8/1 that is 1pt each way so return of 12 points (9 + 3, so profit of 10 points).

stage 1
Dumoulin
Martin
GC picks to follow, cheers Mary.

GC

Contador
Froome
Quintana
Nibali
Pinot
Bardet
Van Garderen
Valverde
Frank
Konig

Stage 1
Malori
Martin

I'm not going to open the spreadsheet up for everyone to access btw, just put your picks up on this thread and ill stick them on the spreadsheet

done. stage 1 now closed for entries but people can still enter GC until start of stage 2, and all other stages

sorry for the late arrival to this

GC
contador
quintana
nibali
froome
van garderen
pinot
rodriguez
uran
valverde
rolland

stage 2
cav
malori

GC Top 10
Nibali
Froome
Contador
Quintana
Pinot
Van Garderen
Martin
Mollema
Uran
Fuglsang

Stage 2
Cavandish
Demare

GC Top 10
Froome
Nibali
Quintana
Contador
Rodriguez
Uran
Valverde
Pinot
Majka
Porte.

Stage 2
Cav
Degenkolb

welcome SP

Stage 2
Cavendish
Griepel

Table updated tinyurl.com/Betfairtdf

sixtwosix is in yellow after his Greipel pick.
SwingingPick in second place with an each way return from Sagan.

Now taking picks for Stage 3, and it's still open for newcomers, although the GC section is now closed. Put picks up on here as usual. I might not be able to get the best prices before the off tomorrow as I'm in the office, but I'll be able to update afterwards as long as we've got the prices. I'd be grateful if someone could pop onto oddschecker and note the prices for all selections just before the start of the stage.

Thanks.

Stage 3
Valverde 2/1
Kwiatkowski 25/1

Albasini
Sagan

A late arrival to this but more great work MC much appreciated.

Dan Martin 7/1
Kelderman 66/1

Stage 3 -- assault on the Mur de Huy!
Kwiatkowski
Mollema

got best prices all riders 150/1 and below, any other rider 200/1

great stuff lads, and well done sixtwosix, extended your grip on yellow from the look of it. I'll update the spreadsheet and report back.

Wow that was a thrilling day.
Stage 4
Degenkolb
Sagan.

Degenkolb
Stybar