It'll be strange without Cook for the coming ... (weeks, months?)
But nonetheless, we continue. Rio is next!

Cook's crash certainly causes (4C!) a whole new dynamic in Rio and the Trophy. Mazzarelli likely to lose time on Vague and probably maybe someone like Listerijn can bounce back into the fight for the overall win, which wouldn't have been possible if Cook is still there. Should be a goodie then.

Sorry for the radio silence.
Very caught up in some real (non-digital) life things at the moment!

Not much I can do about it now, so I'll make up for it a bit with this:



That's all I can do for now.

Again as last time, we all know that feel Ian, your life comes before anything else especially online stuff, take your time and we'll all be here just waiting for you. I won't be probably but not because I don't want to Where was I? Oh yeah just keep going with rl and CX can come when it's time for other stuff It's not, like matt said, as if you get paid for this or anything, no pressure

Yes, I know
Just wanted to let you know things are keeping me busy, still.

Taking it one race at the time for the moment!

So who wants to make bets on which riders have motors in their bikes?

Be warned the odds on Santos riders are very short, whilst i won't take bets on Listerijns because it's so obvious

I won't rise to the occasion, oops just did. Well now I'm here I'll just say that maybe that's what made their leader and team ordererer Bollinger so good last year, no wonder they disbanded Though J7Sports can categorically deny all allegations against our riders.


-ly not Louis because he's a good BKCP boy and not Milan because you have a potential vendetta against him

I had hoped for a report tomorrow although chances seem slim. Hm, motors in bikes.. it's getting crazy. maybe the story arc for 4th season?

Sorry for very long absence for CX - hope people are happy enough with my game thread reaction. Obviously real reason is my absence from here.

My son got up at 5am this morning so while I had him watching childrens tellie I thought at long last I would catch up with CX. Continued amazing reporting here and at the moment only this and ICL story game have kept super electric pace. Brilliant work all round.

I will keep reading on - Ian PMed me in early new year asking what I think should be done with Elliot. I went for injury in the hope that perhaps in May time I may get some time to write again.

Bananas cannot express my happiness with the post and the news. We await the return of the Cookie Moister but more importanly you take your time and come back when ready. Good to see you taking the time to catch up properly too

Next few days are crazy busy, but if I can, I'll write up a report this evening. Can't promise anything, though. It'll depend on when I get home, I need to get up very early tomorrow so if I'm back before 10 pm tonight, there's a chance I can write it up


The motor is very unfortunate. But like doping I don't see it becoming a part of this game

Thanks, Smowz, for giving Cook a voice in his (temporary?) absence from the game, appreciate that.

@ALL: I understand it could be a bit disappointing to see the game slow down this much after it has run over a year. But I'm certain you'll appreciate my situation and I'm doing what I can.
February is going to be crazy busy, for real. I'll be happy if I can do 2-3-4 reports that month. But March - 1st half of April will be much better and I can pick up some speed then again! 2nd half of April is busy again and then I'm good again from June - August, presumably.

That's the situation as it is right now, so you know, sort of

Oh yes thank you Smowzy for this
I think everyone needed a post from him, you more than all. It was great to read really.

Also don't worry Ian we've already seen the game stopping in summer and when it's come back it all felt better!

I think the game is fairly established enough by now with almost 1k posts that a few weeks of inactivity don't hurt it at all.

Great post smowz. Can't imagine Cookie going full roadie tho.

Well time for another update.
Haven't had 15 minutes of time since last time. Still preparing heavily for the internship and combining it with becoming an uncle, so you can understand both those things take up all my available time.

The next few days, it won't get any better. Realistically, I see the next report coming either in the last week of February, or the first week of March.

Thanks for the patience

I might have found a way to do a road version of this game.

Where an entire cycling universe would be created, with new teams, new riders, a (completely or slightly or anything in between) new calendar...

But instead of just jumping in, I wanted to run it by you, first. (either way I couldn't start now, but sign-ups could last a while so opening that could be soon-ish)

So my question to you: would you be interested in a road variant? Even more so than the CX game? Do you think this could work as well as CX? Would you personally play both games, only CX or quit CX and only play the road variant?

Just some questions, hope to see some answers. Some more info on how the game would run:

- monthly updates with results and race summaries
- larger updates for big races (GT, monuments...)
- role-playing still very important. A possiblity for a rider HQ (inside the same thread)
- Races back to the older days. 80km solos are possible, Sky train uphill doesn't exist. Action before the last km, bigger time differences in stage races. I love the 70s of cycling, so a bit mirrored to that era. More open racing.
- Still specialisation but a possiblity to be more all-round and successful. Wiggins could've done Roubaix in this game
- This game would co-exist next to CX. Both run in the same universe.

Let me know what you think. I still have every intention to continue CX:AND, so this has nothing to do besides that. Unless you all say: fuck CX, I want road.

Let me know

I prefer CX because of its close narrative and little needed number of players, however I'd be up for a road game too of course. I'd be active in both. I just hope there'll be lots of interest because for the road game, we'd need a ton of players for that to happen.

Same universe you say, eh.

I prefer CX because, frankly, there's just not enough members at the moment who would play such a game. We've been lucky already with the amount of members playing CX and in 3 seasons or so we've built our own little universe and I just want to stick with it only. Also, I feel like an action packed sport like CX, as much as you'd manage to bring Road Cycling back to the good ol' 70's, is just so much more action packed that makes it easier to make reports and also makes them more exciting to read.

Just my 2 cents though, it could be that Road turns into an outrageously awesome forum game outclassing CX, but if you ask me, we'd need a larger userbase for that. Of course, if you're motivated with it, I'd be interested to see how sign-ups and a potential season start would go. Good luck either way.

I would play road and love it almost as much as CX, although my activity ere may suffer slightly at my CX activity.

Still, as think we'll get more players in a road game as there is a higher level of interest for that on the site. So I think it'll work and I'll play it and love it, as long as it doesn't impact CX.

Otherwise maybe you can go back to the LLC (or whatever the acronym was) and give that another go?

EDIT: and new universe sounds pretty amazing and means I can make new riders as Sylvain doesn't race road, Pierre only like 8 race days in April for a small team last season and Ferdi is track/CX. So unless that French Gaul goes road then au get to make new riders.

I don't think it would work as well as CX. Road is a lot bigger and more complex, the relative simplicity and style of CX lends itself very nicely to this style of game. CX:AND is simple but excellent, and it can be played in a complex manner depending on the individual.

CX might be at it's limit in terms of scale (by which i mean number of races on the calendar) as it currently is. But i'd like to see it expand a bit more first, expanded U23/Junior aspect for example. Or you know, get its speed back a bit more.

If it started up i would join, of course i would. But i would rather not have both games currently. Get CX back to full force first, imo, and then talk about an additional game.

Ditto everything here, would play but prefer just CX