I would like to add some suggestions for Czech riders

Jan Hirt - 21/01/1991
He was already suggested by Avin, he is a really good young climber, who is good in hills as well, and not the worst in time trial either, raced for Radioshack CT this year, will ride for OPQS next year with a really big chance to jump into the main team in 2015 and he should be at least a really good domestic for Grand Tours. The dream for me would be to make him future Czech GT rider as the only one who is trainable to that is König (hopefully Hirt could be the next König, maybe even better rider than him one day) and it will cost really a lot of money, it would be amazing if it would be possible to have some Czech leaders in my team in the future. So at least a possibility to sign one would be really amazing.

Josef Cerny - 11/05/1993
Already suggested by Avin a few pages back, I agree with him, he really deserves an upgrade, he is better all-around rider than what he would become in DB now, he could be a good all-around rider in addition to his TT abilities in PT in the future, he is way better in hills than he is in DB, better climber too. He has a decent sprint as well, maybe could be a good lead-out rider in a good team in the future, he isn't afraid to go to a breakway either. Probably the biggest Czech talent after Vakoc.

Alois Kankovsky - 19/07/1983
He isn't a free rider, but I really think he deserves an upgrade if he will become free, as he is now a really almost unusable rider and probably won't be resigned by his current team. He had an amazing season 2013, as he won a lot of races in China and Iran, he is a really good sprinter and would deserve much better secondary and flat attributes than he has now.

Jiri Polnicky - 16/12/1989
Typical Czech all-around racer, former cyclocrosser, so he should have a good downhill and his best abilitity are probably hills, but not by much in comparision to other attributes, he should has solid cobbles maybe as well. He should be a good fighter and potentially at least a decent rider for CT level.

Martin Hunal - 08/09/1989
He has quite good attributes in DB right now, but he really deserves a way better fighter, accelaration and sprint attributes than he has now. He attacks a lot for mountain points in KOM competition in real cycling. He goes for breakaway a lot, he should be breakaway specialist in PCM terms and good enough at least for CT level to have some ability to get himself at least to that breaks.

Frantisek Padour - 19/01/1988
He got a contract in NetApp recently. He should be a good all-around luxury domestic for König who is I think the best as a climber/puncheur. In DB terms he could be at least a good option for a CT team to have in the team.

Josef Hosek - 23/12/1991
He should get a big upgrade, as he really improved overall and mainly in climbs/hills in last term. He wasn't too far behind Petr Vakoc in Tour of Slovakia and GP Kralovohradeckeho kraje, he could be a mini-version of him with solid abilities in time trial. He is a nice Czech talent and should be hopefully one of leaders of the biggest long-term Czech team Bauknecht in the next season. He could hopefully do a career like did Rabon in the future and one day he will get a place in a PT/PCT team in real cycling.

Daniele Turek -> Daniel Turek
He could be improved as well, as potentially he is a good time trialist, good all-around rider, quite solid climber. He could be at least a solid domestic in CT scene in addition to be have a solid TT.

There are some really solid Czech young cyclocrossers who are riding on road in local races only as a summer preparations so far, but I think they still could be added/updated to have some new talents in other than traditional countries for cobble (or hilly) races, all 3 could likely make a full-time jump to road in coming years:
Tomas Paprstka - 01/03/1992
Vojtech Nipl - 14/01/1993
Lubomir Petrus - 17/07/1990
Paprstka is the way biggest talent of them, he could be a really good cyclocross rider in the future, probably not the next Stybar though, but he raced MTB as Stybar did as well, mini-Stybar version maybe, cobbles with good all-around attributes as mainly all cyclocrossers. Current Stybar from DB could be a good comparision for other two rider of their attributes cap what they could have in DB, maybe, if it would be worth to add/update them. Decent PCT/CT domestics they could be at least.

Some other Czech riders are probably worth adding to the DB as well, at least for an occasion if another Czech team would like to show up and so he could sign some riders to have some Czech domestics in the team, they are all fairly all-around riders:
Tomas Koudela - 01/04/1992
David Dvorsky - 11/06/1992
Ondrej Rybin - 12/05/1993
Tomas Kalojiros - 03/08/1994
Koudela is a good all-around rider, going for breakaways quite a lot, isn't really good in TTs, he should be a really solid helper. Dvorsky is a puncheur with a solid sprint, he is a decent climber as well, not the worst in TTs. Rybin is a young sprinter who did a lot of lead-outs and domestic work for Kankovsky this season. Kalojiros combines MTB and road cycling, I don't know much about him, but probably his strenghts are quite same like for mainly all other MTB riders.

Boros, Lechner and Slovakian Baska addition/changes were already suggested by Avin and I totally agree with him.

In addition I would suggest adding some young talents from mainly very small cycling countries, but I don't know anything about them, but it would be indeed nice to have a new talent from non-hyped country in the game, and it isn't usually too hard to guess the type of the rider from their results:
Marko Danilovic - 23/04/1993
Milos Borisavljevic - 09/03/1994
Krists Neilands - 18/08/1994
Abel Kenyeres - 14/02/1994
Martin Laas - 15/09/1993
Bruno Maltar - 06/10/1994
Josip Rumac - 26/10/1994
Daniel Biedermann - 24/03/1993

When I wrote about MTB racing and cyclocross, I have an idea, I think it would be great to add/improve some riders from these disciplines to the Man-Game, as we already have quite a lot of them in DB and it would add some nice extra things and fun to this game if they would be better evaluated, as is probably Niels Albert for example and he never really raced on road. For example I was absolutely thrilled when SN added Kulhavy for this season, it would be nice to have more riders like these in the game. This isn't a game 100% based on reality, so it isn't a complete fantasy in any way I think...

The best Cyclocross riders quite a lot are racing on the road as their preparation for their main season and MTB riders concised to make the jump to road quite a lot. I think it could be a good fun to have some of these riders in DB, as we already have a lot of MTB riders like Schurter, Stander (RIP ) or Kulhavy or cyclocrossers like Albert or Walsleben in DB. It is quite an impossible to guess their likely attributes, but MTB riders in the past were mainly same types of riders, cyclocrossers as well. Some riders would definetely deserve to be added then, if I can suggest at least one, it would be Ondrej Cink, he had an amazing season and possibly future MTB star. Jan Skarnitzl would be a nice option as well, but I can't want everything.

From riders who was on the top of both World Cup standings (MTB, Cyclocross) would at least deserve to add/update Daniel McConnell, Mathias Flückiger, Lukas Flückiger, Marco Aurelio Fontana, Florian Vogel, Fabian Giger from MTB and update/add cyclocrossers like Kevin Pauwels, Lars Van der Haar, Tom Meeusen, Rob Peeters, Martin Bina or Radomir Simunek. Some new riders from track racing could be indeed added as well.

Thanks for the detail Roman. Hirt was already on my shortlist as one of the top climbers to add!

I recommended Alex Hagman a while ago, but nevermind adding him because he is retiring.

Amazing, I really can't wait for the off-season to see how good Hirt can potentially be!

Name: Byron Guama De La Cruz
Rider ID: 130
PCS: Link
CQ Ranking: Link

First, change his nationality from Venezuela to Ecuador. Should be also given a change in his stats, since he's not a sprinter, he's more a pure climber, altough he is pretty good on hilly stages. And even tough he's not a 72 SP rated, he should be decrease a little bit, to 68 and his ACC should stay as it his, or maybe go up depending on what SN wants.

Willie Smit
PCS

Developed significantly in the last season. He won a few small local races in SA, but he won the biggest SA one day race last year, 94.7 Cycle Challenge. He won it in a similar style as Reinardt Janse van Rensburg did in the previous edition. He rode away from a fast peleton with a massive show of strength. He also finished 2nd in African Continental TT Champs.

Seems to be a strong TT, flat and punchy rider. Not a total hopeless on long climbs as well. He's riding for Vini - Nippo in 2014.

I'd put him on XP 2.00 with stats similar to these:
71 FL; 65 MO; 71 HIL; 71 TT; 69 PRL; 63 SPR; 69 ACC.

Maxed out can be anywhere near the following:
74 FL; 70 MO; 76 MO; 75 TT, etc, etc.

Haritz Orbe
Spanish
Im pretty sure he is in PCM, climber, either 25 or 26. Talented and Basque.

Phillip Gaimon

Rides for Garmin this year and showed some decent results last year as 2nd in the Tour of Gila.

Should be a decent time trialist with some climbing skills as well.
Most likely a helper guy, who could eventually score a point here and there.

When can we expect the 2014 database to be available for us nerdy managers?

We have 4 PT races left, and all of them are one-day races. I would really love to be a little better prepared this transferperiod than the last, so time to tangle with the DB would be much appreciated, and for a guy like me there can't be too much time to do so.

I normally go through every single rider in the DB to check for talents of different qualities - And obviously I would love to do it again. Even if there's still a possibility of a few extra talents to be added I would love to get starting soon.

Of course it needs to be ready before we can have it, but an estimate would be nice, I think

There'll be a database ready before Renewals. Can't really be more specific than that because ultimately, I dont know. Depends how long adding new riders / updating stats takes.

Fair enough. I didn't know whether or not you were tweaking a bit here and there through the season, so it was basically done without a few exceptions.

I'll stay in my skin for a little longer

Possibly already mentioned but Damien Howson, riding for Risa Ergon, is down as a European Australian in the after transfers DB.

-A few names I came across while going through the race reports:

ID 680 Moris Possoni -> Morris Possoni
ID 3114 Stefan Kung -> Stefan Küng
ID 6475 Carlos Betancourt -> Carlos Betancur

I don't think there is any particular upside in adding the umlaut. His name is slightly more correct, but is becomes tedious for non-Germans to write his name, and for me, the second one takes priority.

I understand, but we have lots of Umlaut names correctly spelled in the DB already (Lövkvist, Taaramäe, Schär, Schädlich, Sütterlin to name the best), and honestly it's kinda annoying to read the misspelled name when you natively use them and know it's wrong.

In the end, I'm fine with what the majority/SN wants.

I agree with Cio here, the only reason I haven't mentioned it is because I've no idea how to get that symbol to show up without copy and pasting it.

I know there must be a keyboard shortcut for it but I haven't found it yet.

Umlaut's Im not fussed about. May as well change it as it has been pointed out, but in a race report I will always call him Kung, regardless.

Something like Betancourt/Betancur Im not sure about. Its like Van Stayen/Van Staeyen, or a few cases aidan pointed out somewhere else in this thread. I prefer to keep their name consistent - even if a different spelling has emerged and more widely used since they were added to the DB.

I'm not particularly bothered either way, I just prefer not having to copy paste the letters.

I get missing them out in reports for ease of typing, but U =/= Ü. They are different letters with different pronunciations and that should be represented in the DB at least where possible.

If you've got a windows computer then open your Start Menu => All Programs => Accessories => System Tools then open the program called Character Map. from that prgram you can drag them into the document, or it will tell you what keys to press to type it.

e.g. if you hold alt and type 0252 on the number pad with numberlock on then it will give you ü