We are pleased to announce a new addition to our administrative team here at PCM.daily: Rjc_43.

He has already been helping out for some time, through his jersey making, management game work and of course co-running our 2010 Fantasy Game, but it is the Fantasy Betting which will be his main sphere of control - so you should now see much more bets being produced, to make that system more active and competitive.

Update, 10th of March: If you've been picked, you should receive a PM on the Cyanide forum today or one of the upcoming days.

It's that time of the year - Cyanide is now looking for beta testers to help out with finding bugs in the upcoming Pro Cycling Manager 2010.

The main focus this year is testing of the new graphic engine, especially when it comes to the stability. For the same reason, you don't need a super-configuration to take part. Having time and motivation to test is the most important.

Other than that, there's also the usual testing, e.g. checking the new features, feedback on the AI changes, etc. - so all in all, a quite serious task. If you're up for it, have a look at this thread.

Cyanide has been extremely early with both screenshots and the first trailer - luckily for us who're looking very much forward to PCM10. We've also heard a few tid-bits about new features in the game, and for the very same reason, we had several questions ready for Cyanide when the opportunity to interview them came up.

Although they are still not allowed to reveal everything about the upcoming game, we do come around subjects such as minimum game requirements, improvements to the AI/gameplay, the stage editor, the new season mode and the historical data - and several other interesting points.

You can read PCM.daily's interview with Cyanide / Xavier Wiart here and the documentation here - enjoy! :)

We are in the final week of February, so you are now able to make any changes you wish to make to your fantasy cycling team, if you have one. (And if you dont, its not too late to join).

Like last month, you can bring in up to 4 riders, but release as many as you like - so long as you keep with the minimum 16 rider limit, and the minimum of 5 ProContinental riders.

The deadline for changes if the end of the month, with races to look out for including Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano SanRemo, Tour de Langkawi, Criterium International, E3 Prijs and KBC-Driedaagse De Panne.

Your changes can be PMed to either Rjc_43 or SportingNonsense, or posted in the comments section here.

PCMdaily's successful Management Game has just ended it's 4th season. Mrlol's La Gazzetta dello Sport team won the ProTour rankings, after a close battle with dave92's Wikipedia (who are in only their 2nd ProTour season), with SotD's Festina in 3rd. Meanwhile, mattiasgt's Sony Ericsson and alexkr00's Jack Wolfskin (in their first season in the game) were the leading continental teams to win promotion.

As usual, the end of a season brings about an opening for new managers to join the game. There is no set amount of spots, we will select those users who submit a convincing application, and we believe will able to manage with the game and make the most out of it.

But what is the Management Game? Those who join the game will most likely get a brand new continental team. No riders to start with, but armed with a budget, you will enter the transfer season with all the existing teams, and look to build a squad of 20-30 riders, within a salary cap. You then also get to choose which races your team enters, and which of your riders will participate in each race. The races are then played by a team of reporters, who control a Control Team, watching and reporting on the events of each race. There is plenty of choice over how you target your team, you can go for whichever path you will enjoy the most.

The game can take a fair amount of effort and dedication to manage your team, but if you are interested, take a look at this topic - you can ask any questions you have there, or alternatively as a comment to this article.

It's been some time since we last saw the first screenshots of PCM10. In a new press release, Cyanide say that they've now improved the new graphic engine even more, mentioning the stages' realism level, high resolution textures, more diverse and realistic environment - and a lot more details:

"Many improvements reinforce the race stages' realism. The game features very high resolution textures and a new handling of the flora which is now luxuriant, more diverse and environmentally accurate to where the race is taking place. The lighting ambiance of each one of the hundreds of stages has been reworked according to various weather conditions in order to offer more believable and vivid sets. Finally, many advanced visual effects complete the ultimate rendering of the game: the "bloom" effect simulates image exposure to light, more depth of field enhances the focus of the TV cameras that follow cyclists during each race, while "motion blur" simulates speed."

And now for the fun part: Watch the trailer here!

Its time for the first scores update for the Fantasy game - for all 98 teams who entered the game in January. Predictably, the Tour Down Under was the key race. 16 teams entered after the TDU (and therefore also San Luis and Bongo) and they are in the bottom 17 postions - but the season is long, so plenty of time to catch up.

Andre Greipel was the key rider, scoring 497 points. Hendersen was the next best on 208, Luis Leon Sanchez scored 195, before the Bongo winner Charteau on 182, and San Luis winner Nibali on 167. Such was Greipel's dominance, the 19 teams who picked him all made the Top 23 (Scotty's Spitfires, Bonnet de Douchebag, Musteline Warriors and Lucca Tuscana being the teams up there who did not pick him). Two articles have now been posted, one showing Rider Rankings and the other showing Rider Value Rankings,

LDF - Velingnews.com are the leading team for January, with 24 scoring riders, including the likes of Greipel, Henderson, Dumoulin and Roberts. Tinkoff Revival trail by 369 points with Cyclopaths in 3rd - the highest placed team to have missed the early National Championships. The current Top 10 is below, full standings can be found by reading the extended news article.