Okay so after testing out the Be a Pro mode with several careers, some going into 2021, others just briefly, I think it's safe to say the mode is more than playable. Some annoyances, sure, AI is not always perfect. But overall, it's very enjoyable in the long term.

So now I'm thinking to get a career going and play every race. The career will take several months but I think it might be great to actually play every single stage. (maybe after a few seasons I'll occasionally switch to a quick-sim here and there, but it's the thought that counts!). Maybe even do two careers at once (to avoid getting bored, playing months with one type of rider only), so I'm thinking:

1. A successful classic specialist. Type Boonen, Sagan, Benoot... Great on cobbles, maybe good in the hills (though not as well as Sagan, but better than Boonen), amazing on the flat and a good sprint, so good enough for stages in a Grand Tour, maybe a Green Jersey with only if fought very hard for, maybe a World Championship on a course that suits him really well. Seems like fun to play with because the cobbles are always good fun and those stats would create some nice challenges not immediately reached (green jersey, WC, milan san remo...)

2. on the side, play with a rider based on my own skills (but then a bit better ), so starting as a climber, but reducing the starting stats even further and slowing down progression deliberately. A slow rise to the not-top, but hoping to develop into a decent climber. Never played with this kind of rider before and it will be nice to actually have the ultimate goal of just starting in the Tour de France or maybe winning a KoM/stage in a Grand Tour. Though depending on how long I can take the slow progression, might up it a bit and make him a wee bit stronger to challenge for lower division mountain finishes or even some GCs.

Here, too, I'll probably switch to quick-simming flat stages fairly soon, but the idea remains play every stage. Even if I don't

who would ever think that cyanide would be able to make a playable game mode

at the moment i have a career with a stage rider (i am in 4.th season)
-but i want to try something else. do you have any ideas, and tips how to train them, så they quickly get some high stats

Is it possible to start with a rider focused on stats like flat and then train him, so that he turns into a mountain rider? Or are there any limits for the stats?

There are limits for what max stats you can achieve. I think the max Mountain stat would be around 75, most likely lower, if you were a flat type rider.

At the moment I have a GC-rider that has a low hilly stat but good climbing and timetrial because the last two levels I trained puncheur and got 3+ mountain each and only 1+ hill, even timetrial and prologue went up both time +1.
76MO, 70HI, 73TT/71PR

Is this a bug or just coincidence?
I'm fine with the high mountain stat now of course but that's not how it should be imo.

even if you kept training on mountain, it would give more Flat then Mountain, and you won't reach mountain rider. you need to have the speciality to be mountainrider., so no not possible

Thanks Christer and coolrex!

Alright, I am part way through my 4th season. I have been playing like a maniac during the last week...around 15 hours a day. Playing 95% of stages in be a pro mod.

My experiences so far and AI issues to report.

Started off as a 19 year old hill climber and concentrated much early training to sprint ability. My aim was a rider like a Kweatkowski/Sagan with decent sprint, very high acceleration and strong downhilling. I hate suffering yellow bar depletion on flats and like to win races with clever stamina strategy (both endurance). The rider would usually finish in between positions 4-10 in sprints in the lowest division sprints (with sprint ratings between 67-70).

My favorite races are Milan-San Remo and Rhonde van Vlandren (Tour of Flanders) so long term wanted to do well in those.

After about 3 months I was able to start consistently winning points competition in stage races and after 4-5 months win outright leaders jersey in continential races.

My team was the Australian Continential team Jayco.

The highlight of my first year was winning the World Champions in my first year. I was mega pumped after that win. The stage hand sharp climbs and some cobble sections. I hand been spending the last half of year developing training as a fighter, northern classics rider. My average rating at end of 1st year was about a 76 with sprint around 72, acceleration around 79, cobbles of 72, hills around 76, flat of 72, stamina and resistance around 78. The World champions win was the hardest of my life. playing on normal difficulty setting. Finished first year with 55 position in Super Prestige with about 570 points.

2nd season I moved to MTM Qubeka which was a Pro Continential team which I thought they would stay as but evidently they got promoted that year to be a CYA team. I concentrated training on hills fora tilt at Milan San Remo. To get there I had to gets a points jersey win at Tour of Oman which unlocked some CYA stage races so I peaked my fitness of Paris Nice and was able to get the points jersey there which is essentially the race before San Remo (that was intense!). I got to San Remo and did a perfectly timed counter attack at base of last hill. I can not remember who attacked, I think gilbert. I held his wheel on the up hill and attacked on the downhill and was able to out sprint my opponent. In other spring classics races I got top 3 in Gent (Kristoff and Dekenkolb are very strong!!!). I think about 7th in Tour of Flanders classic, 14th in Paris-Roubiax (my cobble ability was just 74 at that stage), and a top 5 finish in Fleche Wallone (Bardet very strong!).

next peak of fitness for Tour de France and a tilt at the green jersey. I fought as hard as I could each stage and with mountain abilty of about 73, hill around 79 and sprint around 74-75 I was able to WIN the green jersey in first tour at 20 years old. I also place 5th overall as I was able to pull out of big time on the GC contenders on several hill stages that would net me a minute or 2 on a few stages.

At this point I will report some bugs.

By around stage 14 of Tour de France Nibali was over 30 minutes behind GC. That should not happen!!! (his hill rating should be higher too).

After my first year win of world champions I was really excited about going back to back. For some reason the game just continued to simulate past the race though without me able to control at all (evidently the sim had me finish 2nd on a hill friendly stage).

I finished the year just bettering Contador on the Cya ranking with about 630 points to his 615. I was top of Super Prestige with about 5500 points (lots of classics wins and HC stage race wins with points wins).

Season 3 moved to Etixx-Quickstep as they were the strongest team and good for my ambitions for cobblestone classics to take me to the next level. The highlight of the season was winning Rhonde can Vlanderen. I was pumping my fist in the air at 3am at night big time and very happy with a 5th position in Roubiax with cobble stone ability of 77 and flat lands of 79. I basically won most things in my third season. Won Tour down under, Paris Nice, Catalyna, Pais-Vasco (with some modding of the calendar to enable doing some of these races when the cobblestone races are also typically. Won Romandie, Tour de Swisse, won Tour de France by over 5 minutes to Kweatkowski and Quintana and my team-mates worked very well for me.

Team-mates of Gilbert, Tony Martin, Boonen, Kreuzinger, Jan Bakelads, Kittel (Aru did not do too much for me as we did Giro and Veulta), Van Avermat and Guilheme Van Keirsbulk absolutely destroyed themselves during the final 8 days. I would try to not destroy myself at all on the mountain stages part way through the stage. Van Avermat and Gilbert would work steadily first up on the mountains with Boonen or Cavendish usually protecting me then Martin, Gilbert, Van Avermat, van Keirbulks and Boonen would all relay on the downhill and flats and then seem to be able to sense what strategy I would want to take which was to sting the legs of the pure climbers before the final mountain so the would ride at around 85%+ to destroy themselves to be fully spent on by the base of the last climb (I had flat lands of about 78ish so they seem to sense what I wanted them to do. If the flat lands guys died in the early slopes from other teams setting too high a pace of them then people left like Martin, Bakeladts and Kreuzinger would work for me in the middle of the stage. I found the AI for Kreuzinger and mountain helpers in general to be a bit troubling. On the final climb of the day when there hand been some attacks I would either have Krezinger not come up to help set the pace for me or if the peloton where all over the place with just groups of 2-4 on the final climb Kreuzinger would sometimes wait for me if head and but when I got to his wheel he would then set a pace way too high and destroy themselves within about 2-3 km so with his mountains about 3-4 points above me at the time then it was hell to time follow him and would have had me destroyed just half way up the climb. So AI issues with setting a good tempo on mountains.

Had another issues with World championships in 3rd season as well with game just siming past it even though I won that year.

I was excited about another year with Etixx as I had a great season 1900 Cya points, 9000+ Super Prestige points but a lot of the top guys like Aru, Kreuzinger, van Keribulk, van Avermat and I think even Martin all left for different places. That was the heart of my team gone .

Also to note, I would say there are AI issues with making a sprint train!!!! On a few stages only I saw Van Keirbulk be the old person in the sprint train/ lead out for Kittle. That is it!!! It was extremely frustrating having guys like Martin and Van Keirsbuck with mega high flat lands rating and then Boonen and van Avermat be next in line then either me (with me then sprint of about 78ish) or Cav to lead out Kittle. None of that happens. I got guys like Boonen or Cav protecting me or working on the front wasting energy on flat stages. Unless I just do not know how to do it I can say no one has ever mad a sprint lead out for me in my own team even though I basically have the points jersey on me within the first few stages of any stage race.

I will also comment on the competitiveness of the GC contenders. Personally I would expect a lots more fight from guys like Froome, Nibali, Contador at a Grand tours. Supposedly these guys have set this race as their main objective but they are riding for crap! There should be no way I can pull out 13 minutes – 17 minutes + on those guys buy stage 13 or so. There are not that terrible in the hills. Kweatkowski and Bardet were really my only rivals through most of the tour races and Quintana making a slight comeback at the end. I would suggest that the AI for GC contenders be smarter. I might be great at controlling my endurance and launching great attacks and counter attacks by positioning the best at the crucial final stages of a race but really. With my then hill rating of 83 or so I should not be so far ahead of those guys before the mountains when theoretically they should be climbing hills close behind.

My biggest disappointment of the year was another lost to Bardet at Amsil Gold. He attacked with about 12 km to go and was burning on his energy hard with only one other person 2 others with him. I waited to chase down the 35 or so second gap in last 5 kilometers and my stamina and resistance was like 82 so I had heaps left in the tank. I used my superior flat lands and downhill advantage to get to the group without attacking and about 70% of yellow bar still left by base of final climb with about 2 km to go. My mistake was to let Bardet start the climb first as starting first seems to give an over advantage in the stronger rider to move past (similar issue found on stage 3 I think it is of tour down under, first hill stage with similar finish, everyone dives into get on the climb first but only room for 2 or 3 max on the road so very hard to move past from physical restrictions.).

So I decided to shop for a new team. Watmat (USA) were impressing me with a decent bunch of the best up and coming young riders. I noticed Tiesj Benoot and a few other riders there that like performed well and came on my radar like Croatian Qukoviv in particularly at Quebec classic at the end of my 3rd year and Kudes and Simon Yates (at least one of the Yates boys did well in the Tour though) . Considering that I was sick of my best team mates up and leaving at the end of each year I wanted to make some strong roots with this year team as these riders will only improve. I guess I was thinking too much in the manager mode type of thinking or synergy of understanding as in football manager games. So I altered my database to make sure there contracts were long and to bring in some top helpers like De Gent and Bossan Hagen, my love affair with Sagan, and a couple of up and coming flat lands and cobble riders of 20 years old.

At present in my 4th season I am at level 22 and rating 81 flat lands, 80 mountains, 85 hills, 73 TT and Prologue, 79 sprint, 82 acceleration, 82 downhill, 79 cobbles, stamina and resistance of 83. My last 2 levels have seen my stamina, flat lands, cobbles and hills around 1 point each to get me to be a beast!!!!! Hopefully I can challenge for Robaix this year and get Flanders again (and some revenge in Amsil Gold).

Disappointed that still no lead out coordination for me or Sagan (or our other sprinter). Many other teams are coordinated for sprint trains but not mine in guess!!

AI issues to report in season 4. Yes I was one of the favourites for Milan San Remo but really weird AI behaviour. It was a windy day with 35km winds so there was pace on the front of the peleton. I am trying to conserve my energy as much as possible when such pace in on even though I am now in the top 3 flat lands guys in the world so I am slowly drifting from the front to the mid and rear of the pack at 59-60% effort. I am around the last third of the pack now and the peleton snaps in 2, 110 riders up the road now me in pack behind of 90 riders. As soon as the back pack snaps from front then riders in my bunch basically come to a complete stop. Front pack then slows down to normal rate and my packs sits then for 12 minutes before then decide to get moving. They only start moving at the same speed of the front peleton, so heart rates around 120 beats. They never try to gain back again. I do not think it is realistic for the AI to come to a complete stop of 90 riders in this circumstance!!!

Obvious I was annoyed and repeated the stage. Second time. Another issue! Sagan has peak form, he is the one only being protected in the pack for my team (even though I am better so should be two protected riders, Sagan came second to me the previous year in San remo) . We get to about 5 kilometers from the last hill and we are running a bit low on water. I think perhaps 1 or 2 of our guys may have dropped off the pace. And we were in the main group of about 90 riders left as the pace was really on in the last 60 km. We have about 25% in last bottle with last 16 kms to go. Sagan decides to go fetch water for himself and others even though there were several other riders in our team that should be programmed to before him! I never went to get water. I was out of water for the last 10 kilometres but who cares, I got 1st and Sagan got just about 10th when he was on +2 form for the day it destroyed his race. He should have gone without water and not worried about me or himself for 10 kms! He was 2 star rated I think on the stage as favoutite yet he fetched water at the crucial moment!

I am just in Cataluna stage race now and did the mountain stage around stage 4 I think it is. The AI for my team were terrible. In the previous hill stage I had worked with Quokovic and Kudes to get them 5th and 8th overall in the race. They started the stage with wearing the points jersey and white jersey between them while I had leaders jersey. What happens as soon as the race starts? My boy Quokovic decides to do relays on the front with Kudes. I do not think there was even any breakaway. When there was a breakaway though they were definitely on the front. They are both meant to be free element. I had them and Formoso (with 85 mountain rating) and Yates and Henao all on the front and not just relaying at a sensible rating of 50-60% effort but rather what seemed like 75-85% effort. They all destroyed themselves and there was no one really important or too much of a threat to chase down (Talansky with a couple of others with 180 kilometers and and massive mountain passes ahead of them. By the end of their relaying there was just about 6 left in the pack) and still 50 kilometres to go. It was totally ridiculous AI as I did not like to be pressed so hard on the early slops and I wanted them to preserve themselves and a few of them could finish in the top 5 and 10 in the race.

Looking forward to my cobblestone campaign!

I wish there was some function when I can give commands to my groups as a leader on the road and say SLOW DOWN or PROTECT ME, or PROTECT HIM, Stop Protecting me (getting out of my way teammate I am trying to sprint here!!) conserve yourself. This team now has too many good riders in it that they often can not work out what to do for themselves to get good points for the team rather than just ensure a victory for me. I think once a certain level is reached you should become like team captain somewhat on the road…Sprint train please!!!

I need some pointers.

I train towards Northern Classics and so far I pretty much suck in all races. Won 2 races my first season (played with Rabobank Dev team). But my thoughts are:

1. Is there any point in starting with the U23 teams? Because with the limited number of races it hardly seems like a good choice, however you have a greater chance of winning races.
2. What do you get xp from (besides training and achieving certain stuff, like 50km breakaways).
3. Should I start out as something else and then evolve into a NC specialist? Or train something else besides NC?
4. Anything else that is great to know?

Thanks

The Money i get in B a pro what can i use them to ??

THIS!!! Right here! Is THE reason I dont want to buy this game.. Yet anyway.
Look at those stats! Such high stats in that age! And not only that. High stats in every category. That is just plain stupid and not realistic at all.

Can you really enjoy the game, when you practically are superman on wheels?

I'm sure the next patch will solve that issue

I hope not. That would stop me from playing the game.

Free choice is the only fix

I am also in my 4th year and do not have that good stats. I have 85 Acc, 82 Spr, 75 Sta, Rec 71, 70 Dhi, Fla 74 and all other stats under 70.

I wonder how the h*** such a fast progess could go unnoticed by the devs and beta testers..

Now it gets personal

Well, their aim was to make your riders develop in superstar at some point. Considering the whole progression system changed(for both modes) and the whole mode is new, you could obviously expect some balancing issues at the release.
Well, 4th season is obviously too early, but 6th or 7th season would probably be reasonable considering the (current) aim of the gamemode.

To defend myself, in the beta tests, I myself have done a lot of progression tests, it's not as if progression was left untested by beta testers. It was adjusted several times, but unfortunately the ideal balance has not been found, it appears.

No need to rage, if this is the biggest bug left in the game after the day one patch, then Cyanide did a much better job than last year.

I'm pretty sure that Cyanide will do some adjustments in a later patch.

Ok then, we will get you beta testing next year.

I could list you all the stat development reports, the discussions, the suggestions to make stat development better,which were made during the beta test period.

All the beta test was focused on that, but because of the lack of time encountered before the release, the stat development for procyclist wasnt completely fixed. I mean, you really think it went unnoticed? Bullshit. Cyanide did an awesome work building a brand new, succesfull game mode in less than a year time but we all know that it needs a bit of improvement before its perfect. Stat development was promised to be fixedf in the next patches, so i dont see why some of you are complaining so much,as especespecially the game is much more bug free than in the previous years. Show a little respect at least.

I don't think the progression system is bad, and although maybe a little fast people's opinion seems to vary. An evolution of attributes slider would be perfect.

I cant understand how he have those stats compared to mine when we are supposedly around the same time in our careers, same age and all. I am on level 21 compared to his 22. I did not have the game before the first patch so maybe that had something with it. I like the level my stats are at now.