Winning the bunch sprint is great, but looking at the way the stage was ridden, it's a real shame it was only for 4th place. That should've been at least for second.


Oh well, Arndt didn't lose any additional GC spots for his initial mistake of not joining the break, but overall I feel a lot more was possible for him regarding stage results and KoM, and obviously 22nd in the GC is atrocious for him, with plenty of more active riders jumping him.
He did show glimpses of why I still trust him though. Luck just hasn't been on our side, else he could easily sit at 2-3 GT stage wins this season.

At least Helme made up for that today and in the last few stages, with a nice 40 ranking points to be collected by our loanee tomorrow if he keeps these GC and U25 spots.
(but he's definitely not German )


I reserve my congratulations for after the final stage, but at least Hirt deserves some already for this ride! Really weird that nobody else jumped on that opportunity though.

Wow, the mad man did it. Tvetcov actually defended his 7th place.



Fully agree that Tvetcov finishing 7th is a retarded good result. I'd argue that he had chances to finish top 15 and a top 20 was reasonably likely but 7th is completely insane. So probably ~120 GC points more than i could have anticipated. He might have scored a couple more stage points though if he hadnt been in this superb position so 80-120 points more Tvetcov points than i could have expected.

I definitely think i "lost" more than that from stage results from the rest of the team. I had a top 2 favourite on at least half the stages in this race and got a single top 5 stage result out of that. Even when you remove half of them as likely break stages / mountain stages that only are disguised as hilly stages, I would only need sth like 2-3 additional second places to match the Tvetcov overperformance and i had good chances to get some bonus points through points jersey and/or temporary red. I believe that sth like a 550 points target wouldnt be too optimistic but I'll end up similar to the Rakuten Giro squad that had a good GC result but ended up in the bottom half of the scoring table due to the lack of GC points.

So is this race a desaster? No, Tvetcovs performance saved this and actually made the second half of the race quite entertaining for me even if it was frustrating to see how both Eislers and Skujins were awful and probably not really realistic either. The Skuijns part might have been the more obvious one but it probably was the lesser factor in my annoyance throughout the race. I always knew it was a big gamble to send him here as not all of the hilly stages were clearly for a hilly rider and he tried to do sth even if i think his attempts were obviously not smart. In hindsight it probably was a bad planning decision because i knew he had to win stage 3 (or 4) to make sending him here worth it but thats part of the game. It was just so difficult to accept because Eislers completely shit the bed at the same time - not even attempting to position himself for sprints when there was no logical excuse to not do so and we were also not active enough in the breaks. So assuming nothing changes tomorrow, we mark this down as a race where we underperformed quite a bit but it is within the normal variance while the way we achieved that, was highly unusual and very surprising.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for how I came across yesterday. If this is the wrong place to voice my frustrations I am sorry for that as well. I hope most of you know me well enough that, I'm not usually someone that gets mad like that.




I think crashes would almost be better in this situation, as at least then there would be an explanation for why my team has done nothing. Also I can understand Shikai underperforming, its mostly not even about that. Its the fact my team only seems to be riding passively instead of trying to join a break. I mean if we compare Reis and Shikai, atleast King Power has been sending riders into the break on several occasions. My team has two good sprinters (for this field) and then the rest of my team is climbers, with the worst being a 75MO rider. One of those riders should be strong enough to enter a breakaway. If Shikai can't hold onto a Top 10 in the race, my team should be a breakaway team like many others.

I mean there are so many teams that brought quite poor lineups and I know this is usually slightly intentional to target breakaways, but I probably would have been better off sending a team of riders with 72 as the max stat rather than the team I did, and that is what I feel is wrong with this game. Its like the game sets a Plan A for every team on stage one, and theres never a Plan B, all 21 stages are ridden with Plan A in mind, even if on Stage 15 its obvious Plan A isn't working.


Finally, I know I brought up Tvetcov and Brambilla, but its nothing personal at all. You guys should be very happy about the performances, and none of my anger was directed at the riders or managers specifically.

I understand your frustration and like I said it wasn't anything personal, but it's hard to enjoy a race when you have to read how shitty the game is. I can't even imagine how it feels when you are reporting. I know the reporters know it's not targeted at them, but it can't be good for their motivation.

Obviously, Brambilla is over performing here. And he did the same last year. So it can't be just luck

But in the end he is not really beating a lot of riders that should be for sure based on their stats in front of him. He's beating some equal-ish riders that usually it's the PCM randomness that decides who does well and who doesn't. This isn't a PCM 18 related problem. It has always been like this.

It's weird what is happening with riders like Reis or Shikai, but this has happened before. Look at your very own Nairo Quintana. You spent a lot of money on him based on his stats, but he never performed according to those stats in previous seasons, which some of were played on PCM15. Another rider I can think of that had problems performing according to his stats is Cattaneo. And I'm sure there are others as well. Madrazo and Tenorio were hugely affected by the game changes at some point as well. From GT winners they became top 5 contenders.

My point is when you invest in a rider you take a risk that he won't perform as well as you think. Some already have a bad history, some don't as they are either young or haven't raced in your division. Just because a rider has a certain stat doesn't mean he will score that or this amount of points. If that would be the case, we'd just hand over the crown to the team with the highest average.

And it's not as random as you make it out to be. Usually it's the same riders that tend to underperform so you have to pay attention to that as well when you invest in a rider not just his stats.

And I experienced problems with the game myself. Dombrowski acted as 81 mo rider in PN, while Boswell has been acting as a 75 hill rider instead of 80 all season long. But I just take it as it is and try to take this into account when I plan my next steps/next season.

Superb stuff from Hirt! Thank you guys. Great to see his agressive racing here finally being rewarded with a top result. What a nice GT for my team after quite a bit worrying start. Looks like GTs can keep us in the game for top PT positions this time after way worse season than expected from Bewley.

And to add in a point on the current discussion: PCM AI always was, is and always will be weird in some ways. The current version seems to create a lot of random results, but after some time I quite like it as for example PCM15 was a lot predictible in this regard. Something in between these two versions would be better. Who knows, maybe PCM21.

ManGame record in the making: One more stage and Novikov will complete his 16th consecutive Grand Tour and yes he is also riding the Tour!

	Giro	Vuelta	Tour
2014	95th	111th	-
2015	DNF	59th	73rd
2016	43rd	35th	59th
2017	31st	52nd	111th
2018	47th	50th	52nd
2019	34th	49th	25th
2020	70th	38th	TBA

Good job by Novak, I like it! A shame though that Bakhtiyar hasn't been as aggressive as I hoped him to be, but he's doing okay for us.

Valls with a good final 2 days after not showing anything on the first 17/18 stages.

The GC position seems decent now, pointwise Ballerini's win was vital though as other than that only one more third and nothing else.

In addition to Toupaliks first week with Jersey points, it won't be nothing.

Still a bit surprised how Les stage points were gotten from my climbers here and in Giro combined as neither Velits nor Valls and in especially not Ciccone/Carboni came even very close to proper stage points unfortunately, which was what I had hoped when planning.

That said, even when hoping tiny bit, I never expected 3 stage wins from my punchy sprinters in 2 GTs, so clearly can't complain really.

Congrats to SotD on the win and thank you Nemolito for a thrilling race! I was hoping Schelling could do a bit better than 10th, but I see I am not the only manager disappointed and there were clearly some riders over-performing in this race. I commiserate with valverde and think we have had similar experiences in this race (I have also been frustrated to see my team working at the front of the peloton rather than joining breakaways, while Schelling drudges along outside the top-10).

Good race at La Vuelta, Novak did very well. Also the other parts of the team did okay which is nice. Good job by the squad, great reporting!

Congrats to PHL for his first and well-deserved GT win! And thanks to Desigual for making this a tense race until the final TT (the rest wasn't as interesting, as expected), and congrats on a home GT podium to Tenorio!

Thanks for reporting, Nemo, you did great in your first GT!

Nice, team definitely gave up. Didnt even want to try for a stage win or podium on the final day with Hayakawa or Liu, who both definitely should have been contesting the stage.


Thanks for covering the Vuelta Nemo, while I didnt enjoy the racing aspect for my team, the reports were very well done, and as a new addition, I look forward to the next race of mine you cover.

That hurts, that really hurts

Congrats SotD and thanks Nemo for the great reports

We really s**k at breakaways

Anyway. Hurts to miss the Top 5 due to passive racing, but Haig surely had a solide GT campaign in terms of GC positions this year.. Scoring won't be too overwhelming once again though and the feeling, that we should have done better despite high GV finishes, remains.

Thanks for the great coverage, Nemo. And congrats to all, who did well.

I wrote my conclusion yesterday already so i wont repeat the whole thing again. 4th place on the stage is a nice conciliatory end to a race that wasnt as good as we have hoped.

Tvetcov as the saviour of our race that prevents it from being terrible. Love to see that he delivers big time as he was one of my big transfer targets this year but i had growing doubts post-transfers whether it was the right decision since the alternative Keinath was a bit more of a "save option". I wanted him because i figured his top speed would be a weapon that can help him getting results from breaks and help him in hilly races. I guess that strength on hilly stages was a major help in getting him into a good GC position early on here and that snowballed into this super result. Obviously never expected him to compete for a top ten in a GT. So yeah - i'm glad i took that risk and i look forward to ridiculous wage demands by him

Congrats to SotD! The favourite prevails and I'm sure it feels great after investing about 593 millions into his development!


Thanks for the reports, great quality throughout and i loved to read the report each day in the last hour of my work shift. Thanks Nemo!

Well, that's it I guess.

Wonderful race thanks for all the reports. Beautiful and creative, Nemo. Kudos!

And lastly congrats SotD. PHL has come of age!

Thank you for you great work, Nemolito! I've enjoyed the reports, and it has also been great to see them come at such a consistent pace and with such a quality. Very well done!

And big congratulations on the win, SotD!

A top 10 GC in a GT is always decent from Galta, but I must admit I hoped for more when I saw the startlist here thinking of the team as a whole, but it wasn't meant to be this time around. Hopefully we can turn that around in the final, and biggest, GT of the season.

First of all a big thanks for the reports! In my oppinion they were well balances and well written. I enjoyed them even when I was dissapointed with results.

Secondly thanks for all those congrats! That means a lot. It has been a very long way in the making, since signing Lecuisinier back in the days dreaming of creating a French GT winner. I don’t remember if Moreau may have taken one in the early days, but other than that I think this is the first ever French GT win. Having had a French focus from day 1 this makes such a result a cardinal point in our career. We have also now claimed 2/3 GTs with Spilak taking the Tour a couple of seasons back.

We would have liked more Stage succes, but after a GT win and a lucky points jersey (sorry Grosu!) we are very very happy.

I do believe we have to look at how the race is put together though. If we want a TT to be decider we need it to be on Stage 19-21 and not Stage 17. Those Hills/mountains in the end was pretty worthless in terms of the GC battle (Hirt days no!).

Thanks for the thanks, all It already feels weird knowing that I won't have to post a Vuelta stage today Here's the final list of key statistics, which you can also find in the second post of this thread if you'd ever wanted to find them again quickly. Feel free to tell me if you spot a mistake somewhere

And of course, congratulations to all stage winners, to SoTD for winning two jerseys, Croatia for the polka-dots and SN for the white jersey!

Stage podiums

	Winner	Second	Third
Stage 1	Harrison	Jakobsen	Bouglas
Stage 2	Grosu	Hayakawa	Harrison
Stage 3	Yates	Lecuisinier	Gesink
Stage 4	Lecuisinier	Tenorio	Gesink
Stage 5	Grosu	Soupe	Harrison
Stage 6	Tarvis	Skujins	Gesink
Stage 7	Rosch	Quita	Harper
Stage 8	Smit	Rodrigues	Bizkarra
Stage 9	Tenorio	Goos	Haig
Stage 10	Smit	David	Jensen
Stage 11	Lecuisinier	Tenorio	Kritskiy
Stage 12	Ballerini	Meiler	Oka
Stage 13	Gesink	Tenorio	Formolo
Stage 14	Novak	Sequera	Kozhatayev
Stage 15	Prado	Lecuisinier	Smith
Stage 16	Smith	Arndt	Brambilla
Stage 17	Prado	Fraile	Reis
Stage 18	Warchol	Smith	Sepulveda
Stage 19	Boonratanathanakorn	Mager	Valls
Stage 20	Hirt	Faglum Karlsson	Kirsch
Stage 21	Harrison	Grosu	Yates

Standings

	GC	Points	KoM	U25
1	Harrison	Harrison	Toupalik	Jakobsen
2	Harrison	Grosu	Toupalik	Toupalik
3	Harrison	Grosu	Toupalik	Toupalik
4	Lecuisinier	Grosu	Toupalik	van der Poel
5	Lecuisinier	Grosu	Toupalik	van der Poel
6	Lecuisinier	Grosu	Toupalik	van der Poel
7	Lecuisinier	Grosu	Toupalik	Toupalik
8	Smit	Grosu	Toupalik	Toupalik
9	Tenorio	Grosu	Toupalik	van der Poel
10	Smit	Grosu	Toupalik	van der Poel
11	Tenorio	Grosu	Elissonde	Godoy
12	Tenorio	Grosu	Elissonde	Godoy
13	Tenorio	Grosu	Elissonde	Godoy
14	Tenorio	Grosu	Novak	Godoy
15	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy
16	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy
17	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy
18	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy
19	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy
20	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy
21	Lecuisinier	Lecuisinier	Novak	Godoy

Podium places - riders

	Winner	Second	Third	Total
Lecuisinier	2	2		4
Grosu	2	1		3
Harrison	2		2	4
Smit	2			2
Prado	2			2
Tenorio	1	3		4
Smith	1	1	1	3
Gesink	1		3	4
Yates	1		1	2
Tarvis	1			1
Rosch	1			1
Ballerini	1			1
Novak	1			1
Warchol	1			1
Boonratanathanakorn	1			1
Hirt	1			1
Jakobsen		1		1
Hayakawa		1		1
Soupe		1		1
Skujins		1		1
Quita		1		1
Rodrigues		1		1
Goos		1		1
David		1		1
Meiler		1		1
Sequera		1		1
Arndt		1		1
Fraile		1		1
Mager		1		1
Faglum Karlsson		1		1
Bouglas			1	1
Harper			1	1
Bizkarra			1	1
Haig			1	1
Jensen			1	1
Kritskiy			1	1
Oka			1	1
Formolo			1	1
Kozhatayev			1	1
Brambilla			1	1
Reis			1	1
Sepulveda			1	1
Valls			1	1
Kirsch			1	1

Podium places - teams

	Winner	Second	Third	Total
Moser - Sygic	3	1		4
Desigual	2	4	1	7
King Power	2	3	2	7
Festina - OAKA	2	2	1	5
EA Vesuvio	2	1	1	4
eBuddy	2	1	1	4
ISA - Hexacta	2		3	5
Isostar - Specialized	2		2	4
Duolingo	1		3	4
Aegon - Peroni	1		1	2
Air France - KLM	1			1
Indosat Ooredoo	1			1
Team Puma - SAP		3	1	4
Generali		2		2
Bennelong - Mitchelton		1	2	3
Volvo acc. by Spotify		1	1	2
Rakuten Pro Cycling		1		1
Evonik - ELKO		1		1
Team Tinkoff - La Datcha			1	1
Gazelle			1	1

Thanks Nemo for the coverage! Even though Tenorio didn't manage to win, still an incredible grand tour for us. The last three weeks brought a lot of excitement. Hopeful to be back in the Pro Tour soon to be a regular in these events.