Not to this date, no
As discussed, I'd rather keep him U23 for another year. Gives you time to develop other characters first and also gives you something to look forward to for the next season

Although off-season is not over yet, so we'll see how it goes!

Just to keep you in the loop, here's my planning for the rest of the week.
Sign-ups close on Wednesday, at 18h GMT +1 time. I will make the final edits to the riders. I'm not really expecting a lot more sign-ups, so every rider will probably have a team by Wednesday, too. That evening, I have stuff to do, so I won't be at home.

I have an important (music) show on Thursday. I won't have time to do much that day, either.

Friday, I will probably post a final season preview, taking a look at the UCI riders and the teams for the upcoming season.

Somewhere between Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon I hope to post the Duinencross preview, the first cross of the season.

After that, I hope to start the season with the race report somewhere early next week.

Hopefully, I can keep to this planning. And then, I hope we can make this a fantastic season!

Thanks for the schedule Ian, as i told you before, i am off to Italy and will return on Sunday evenening, so if you need something regarding my two boys, let me know today before noon.

I was planning two more posts, one with Karol and one with Jan Soucek, but i need to pack my stuff, so expect some role playing posts when i got back, right near the start of the season.

As the sneak peak, here are two banners for my boys, thanks the _hoyle for a nice work!
(you probably know the guy on second picture, he stole the identity of Jan Sou�ek, basterd).

Dammit haven't placed an order with Phil for my boys, the banners may have to debut after a few races!

Ahhhh I'm so pumped for this season! Can't wait! I'll do a very late season review and awards this weekend most probably, hopefully before Duinencross

@Avin: Great! I'll try to start the season on Tuesday or Wednesday, then, so you have that chance to catch up and even send in tactics if you'd want to
Roturn is also gone until 3 or 4 May, so that's why I chose to put the season start early/mid next week, so you two are back before the start!

Those are some killer banners. Nice work again by the_hoyle. Oh, yeah, I do recognize Soucek. Looks a bit older than I would've thought but okay

@jandal7: Glad to see you so pumped Hopefully we'll see that review and the awards this season. I'd really prefer them to be posted before the Duinencross indeed, otherwise it's a bit late for a season review

Just popping in to say best of luck continuing with this into season 2, Ian.

Thanks a ton for the offer to join, but I am going to have decline this time around . If I get notion I may well appear with some input at some point in the season.

After quite a lot of busy days I'm back on track. Sorry for not writing the promised piece of blog on saturday due to some unforeseen circumstances, and for the same reason I wasn't able to do it the days later. Hoping to get it done before friday when you post the season preview Sorry again.

@The Rider: Thanks for wishing us luck here

@matt17br: No worries. Though I'm anxiously awaiting Matt's vision

Well, with less than a day remaining, I'm not expecting any more sign-ups. Which, I guess, isn't bad, seeing we have a nice round 50 riders on the list now.

Great to see so many of the new riders have already introduced themselves in the Game Thread. I must say I'm very happy with some of these new guys (both riders and players). Some interesting characters to develop further into the game. I will re-read the applications as well as the game thread before starting the season to determine their overall level one last time.

Just remember. If you are, at any time, unhappy with something during this game, contact me and I'm sure we can work it out. I try to keep the results realistic within our own universe, but I'm open to your ideas or if you're unhappy with your rider's results. Just hope you understand this doesn't go for a regular podium contender pm-ing me to say he wants to win more... This is more for some of the new riders, coming from a tougher background, who may or may not feature at the front lines too often at first.

Sorry Ian, I'm having more computer issues, I'm trying to sort them out, but writing any post more than a few lines is impossible, so posting will be hard until I get them fixed.

First off, I've been following this for a while and looking forward to joining, though I was lucky I arrived back just in time, it seems

I also notice the Dutchies need a savior, could this fella be the one?

Name: Dirk Accostella
Nationality (region): Netherlands
Date of Birth: 5/5/1996
Height: 177cm
Weight: 74kg
Specialty: Intelligent Rider - First Round - ?
Weakness: Temper - This fella doesn't take crap from anyone, and he is know to lash out, especially at fans who make fun of how you can change his Christian name. He's learning slowly though - ?
Biography: Born to a Dutch Mother and an Italian father, Dirk grew up living the best of both nations, living in Amsterdam and travelling to Italy for holidays.

When he was 12, Dirk discovered CX after attending the World Championships in Utrecht. His grandfather. He watched the riders make their way through the mud - this was different to his annual trip to watch the punchers fight it up on the Cauberg - this was cross, and from then on Dirk just couldn't get enough of it.

Growing up through the ranks, he owns a silver medal from a Junior World Championship and after a brief year in the U-23 ranks which resulted in two wins but a broken leg in Lisbon which cut the rest of the year short.

Despite the setback he's making another jump - now to the elites.

In terms of riding he loves snow, rain or shine, but mostly rain - Dirk can't get enough of the mud on his face, sliding around and navigating the wet corners. He loves most terrain except sand - not his cup of tea at all. He's got a decent jump at the start too and loves to outfox his opponents in daring solos, mostly due to a fairly average sprint despite his acceleration.

His personality is an interesting mix, he can be genuinely a nice guy to be around, but next minute he could snap - he gets the red mist and loses it. He brings a hard-working Dutch attitude and more than a dash of Italian arrogance.

Stats: [Choose between: very low, low, medium, high, very high]
Bike Handling (technical): high
Sand: low
Uphill: medium
Cobblestones: high
Sprinting: low
Explosiveness: high
Flat (TT/riding hard): high
Power: high
Running: medium
Snow/Ice: high
Jumping: medium

@trekbmc: Hope you get it fixed. Good luck with that computer

@RockyRoad: Dirk is accepted. Glad to see another Dutchie in the peloton. Though watch out in the role-playing with that weakness 'temper'. Last season, there were times when some players almost crossed the line. Rivalry is great, but don't turn it into plain cursing and aggressiveness Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, some bad things are said, but keep it realistic



That brings our total to 51 riders. I don't like that number so Matt Claveren is retiring. He's inactive and not a big name anyway, so it's no problem. That brings us back to 50 riders!

That makes 14 (pack-filler) riders less than in the first season. Will there be some more? I always see between 60-70 as the best size of a CX line-up.

Yeah? Given how the average amount of finishers last season was between 30 - 40 riders, I imagined 50 riders in the peloton would be enough.

Still, if you think 60 would be a better number, I guess I could bring back a few non-active players, but personally I'd rather have 50 riders and a bigger share active riders than 60 riders with just an added 10 "useless" inactive riders.

But I could do it, no problem. Will think on it.

Another option to increase the peloton (on occasion) is to let riders of the U23 database compete in the pro races. Much like in real life, some riders could ride several races with the pros while riding the others with the U23.
There'd be some U23 riders who specifically ride a classification, others will just randomly ride some races with U23 and others with the pros.

Let me know what you all think about the size of the cross peloton (50 now or try to bring it up to 60) or the above idea.

At the end of the day it's probably only cosmectics and it's not important at all, I just prefer a slightly bigger peloton, 50 is sorta the minimum of an acceptable peloton and a peloton with a slightly bigger number (60-70) ensures that, even when riders are skipping races, there'll be a good number at the starting line and there also be a bit more variety in the results I reckon. For example for World Cup, you simply need to finish the race now to get a point.

Well yeah, to get a UCI point. To get a World Cup point, you still need at least 25th position

But I see your point.
Though I'm not so sure about how to increase the peloton to 60. I'm not really interested to bringing back 10 riders I've already let go. 10 more sign-ups in the next 8 hours isn't that realistic, too

You could apologise to Kimi Hakkinen for sabotaging him last season

So that's not going to happen

But, okay. I can see the point of a wider peloton making things more interesting, varied and realistic. I'll start bringing back some scratched riders. With reduced stats.

So after the above discussion, I added an additional 10 riders. They're all from last season and won't have a big impact on the game. they've been re-admitted to the game with lowered stats and are mainly here to increase the variaty of results in the game and to - rarely - spice it up for our active players.

With sign-ups closing in just over 7 hours, this is the provisional list of riders for the next season:



60 riders, spread over 17 teams.