Clear winner in California. Henao made up for the time lost on the flat stage 4 by winning the ITT. Great ride by Fuglsang and by far the best performance of Valgren this season - maybe he needed my criticism in the teams thread. Bibby also did well, though he, Denilf and Monsalve all lost 4 to 5 minutes on the final flat stage and thus GC positions and prestige points. But we still won the teams classification for the first time!
AbhishekLFC wrote:
I'm not sure I understand PCM anymore. Boasson Hagen stronger than Degenkolb on hilly sprints, the former is consistently stronger than Intxausti as well! Kreuziger stronger than Porte in Sochi, who is barely able to beat Tony Martin! I think I need a reboot.
Is Intxausti riding as a domestique in the all races he rides, despite us not having anyone stronger in the climbs? How can a top 15 contender keep losing time stage after stage? And it's not the first time, keeps happening race after race. I mean 77 mon can't be this bad!!
I am increasingly deluded by the PCM results, too, of which Sochi is just the latest installment. Seeing the overperformance of Kelderman in general and Tony Martin in the mountains is particularly of note, although I don't want to limit the odd results to just Sochi. Looking at some GCs, like South Africa, Romandie, there are just odd gaps and rider differences which shouldn't be.
What is the difficulty that others are playing on? Perhaps it is viable to switch to Extreme to make the stat differences more significant? I have been always playing on Hard, full disclosure.
Edited by Shonak on 02-03-2018 08:44
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Well I expected Froome to lose 5th place to Martin but again losing 15 seconds to someone who has 3 TT statpoints lower on a flat course is bewildering. Not sure what I need to start expecting from races any more.
Sorry about the rants. It is quite out of character for me but if planning is ruined like this, I can't help it.
No taking away from Froome's win though. He was dominant. Congrats Selwink
I thought I'd look stupid asking this, but do riders get injured or catch a virus? And surely they have the daily form from -5 to +5 which makes a huge difference. That's how I'd explain Tony Martin's performance on the brutal Sotchi mountain stage, a +5 day.
Since dominox complained about him I checked how Winner Anacona is doing in the Giro, and it's comically bad. Anacona must be in a free role, behind Chamorro he's the best CCC ride in the race, MON 77, HIL 75, AVG 75.5. But he's losing ridiculous amounts of time on just about every stage. For example, he lost 22'27 on stage 7, was dead last on stage 8, he lost 38 minutes on stage 9, 17 minutes on stage 10, 12'27 on stage 11, 26'42 on stage 14. Even -5 daily form every day doesn't explain it, he surely must be injured(?).
Time trials simply are random in PCM. If you've played a career on automatic or watched your other riders in Be-a-Pro you know some will use up all their energy long before the stage is finished while others finish with energy to spare. I was thinking whether I should suggest simulating ITTs for more realistic results, but from my careers (where I always simulate flat ITTs) I know those are pretty random, too.
Ripley wrote:
I thought I'd look stupid asking this, but do riders get injured or catch a virus? And surely they have the daily form from -5 to +5 which makes a huge difference. That's how I'd explain Tony Martin's performance on the brutal Sotchi mountain stage, a +5 day.
Since dominox complained about him I checked how Winner Anacona is doing in the Giro, and it's comically bad. Anacona must be in a free role, behind Chamorro he's the best CCC ride in the race, MON 77, HIL 75, AVG 75.5. But he's losing ridiculous amounts of time on just about every stage. For example, he lost 22'27 on stage 7, was dead last on stage 8, he lost 38 minutes on stage 9, 17 minutes on stage 10, 12'27 on stage 11, 26'42 on stage 14. Even -5 daily form every day doesn't explain it, he surely must be injured(?).
Time trials simply are random in PCM. If you've played a career on automatic or watched your other riders in Be-a-Pro you know some will use up all their energy long before the stage is finished while others finish with energy to spare. I was thinking whether I should suggest simulating ITTs for more realistic results, but from my careers (where I always simulate flat ITTs) I know those are pretty random, too.
If a rider crash during the race, he can be injured. Afaik, in single race mode there aren't any diseases; that's only for career mode.
The randomness of TTs imo have more to do with the fact that in TTs every rider rides for "himself", without team tactics, so if a rider has a good day, there's no "domestique role" stopping him from getting a high result, like in road stages
Ripley wrote:
I thought I'd look stupid asking this, but do riders get injured or catch a virus? And surely they have the daily form from -5 to +5 which makes a huge difference. That's how I'd explain Tony Martin's performance on the brutal Sotchi mountain stage, a +5 day.
Since dominox complained about him I checked how Winner Anacona is doing in the Giro, and it's comically bad. Anacona must be in a free role, behind Chamorro he's the best CCC ride in the race, MON 77, HIL 75, AVG 75.5. But he's losing ridiculous amounts of time on just about every stage. For example, he lost 22'27 on stage 7, was dead last on stage 8, he lost 38 minutes on stage 9, 17 minutes on stage 10, 12'27 on stage 11, 26'42 on stage 14. Even -5 daily form every day doesn't explain it, he surely must be injured(?).
Time trials simply are random in PCM. If you've played a career on automatic or watched your other riders in Be-a-Pro you know some will use up all their energy long before the stage is finished while others finish with energy to spare. I was thinking whether I should suggest simulating ITTs for more realistic results, but from my careers (where I always simulate flat ITTs) I know those are pretty random, too.
If a rider crash during the race, he can be injured. Afaik, in single race mode there aren't any diseases; that's only for career mode.
The randomness of TTs imo have more to do with the fact that in TTs every rider rides for "himself", without team tactics, so if a rider has a good day, there's no "domestique role" stopping him from getting a high result, like in road stages
And the most comically thing is that Anacona was riding like that in all his WT races so far. At Tachira he was the same. He was our leader yet somehow he was bad. It is better to not send him to WT races in the future if he rides like that. But even a crash would not do the time he is losing on almost every stage. If an injure is that bad, so why PCM doesn't abandon him from the race? Would be much better for me
Chamorro 18th in GC. Hoping for something better, but it seems I can't complain. Especially that Dall'Oste is doing something really nice in this race as it comes to his performance. Also Rivera is still 2nd in MC. Rivera/Ochoa are doing breakaways. As expected.
Kelderman that was a great race for us - he was always going to be a candidate for 3rd - 6th, but this was awesome! It's nice to be on the bright side of overperformance for once
Viruses would be even sneakier, because you'd never be able to know when somebody's got one. But crashes are seldomly reported and can lead to injuries, so it's something to keep on mind when checking results. I'm 95% sure something was wrong with Fuglsang in the Tour of South Africa, at least on stage 7, possibly later, too. And something must be wrong with Anacona in the Giro.
The randomness of TTs imo have more to do with the fact that in TTs every rider rides for "himself", without team tactics, so if a rider has a good day, there's no "domestique role" stopping him from getting a high result, like in road stages
I don't see that as a cause for randomness, that's the way it should be. But on any given day you often see somebody with, say, TTR 70, beat a rider with TTR 75. For example, my Dowsett (76) was beaten by Willwohl (70) in De Panne.
I'm quite sure that Anacona has not crashed. I noticed him being shit already from the first few stages on and checked the race log if he had crashed. Maybe I missed something, but in generell it is observable that many riders are not anywhere close to where they should be in the GC. Also look at Konrad, Dombrowski, Intxausti or Kangert. They are just shit for no apparent reason. On the other hand there are these extreme overperformances from riders, most notably Verona. I'm always happy to see lesser riders punching above their weight, but unfortunately this seems to happen on the expense of others doing extremely bad.
Thanks for the results of Sochi Shonak, this race was Froome's to loose. Not a bad decision by Vittel to choose this race with the TTT. It was clear that many WT teams would be here with weaker TT squads due to the Giro also starting with a TTT. Kelderman, another Argos rider overperforming, the only one staying with Froome in the mountains. I believe Herrada was individually the strongest on the mountain stage and could have won if he went with Froome right away. Just look at how big of a gap he closed rather easily.
From my team not much to see but that was to be expected, it was nice to see Boily active on the hilly stage.
Sochi
I assume Coppel was injured in Sochi as he didn't perform on any stage, but might just be the random rubbish factor?
Congrats Selwink, Froome was dominant.
Giro
Guerin's stage win is a great boost to morale and we have 2 riders in the KOM hunt now.
Bardet attacks, gets 30 secs, blows up, gets passed - oh no here we go again, gets back on on the downhill, up to 8th. Can I hope for a top 5? His recovery is improved but not great.
Thanks, Bikex! So... randomly riders will simply over/underperform in some races? I can live with that, should even out across the season. Maybe Anacona will win the Tdf!
Ripley wrote:
Thanks, Bikex! So... randomly riders will simply over/underperform in some races? I can live with that, should even out across the season. Maybe Anacona will win the Tdf!
Current situation after two weeks. Riders between 77 and 76 are likely just so many in the race that it is hard for them to distinguish themselves to the AI. On the other side, you have severe overperformances by Verona, Kiserlovski and Fernandenz, punching well above their weight on the cost of 78 climbers. Personally, I am very happy for Sevilla and Verona as I have said, since he has been always on the losing side of this gamble. The big off are definitely Bardet and Majka (two time podium finisher!)
Some guys with less than 76 in the Top 30 are Chernetskiy, Preidler, Laengen,
Dall'Oste and Eddy Boss
Bardet is back in business! Konrad continues to be shit, but in return Villella is doing really well considering he is a 74MO rider.
Stage 16 was really weird. I wasn't paying attention when the crash happened so assumed Verona was hit by it. When I looked at the replay I noticed he wasn't and actually was called back by his DS to help Pibernik. And when he was in the group of his team mates he just sat on and didn't help at all with the pace making. The gap was more than 4 minutes. I can't remember a gap like that being pulled back in the last 30 kilometres after a crash. I got very furious at the Sevilla DS, when it seemed like he'd risk Verona's good GC for something stupid like this, but luckily Brandle and Novikov (only those two Peugeot didn't help) did an immense job pulling the groups back together almost on the finish line.
Feel sorry for Suntory with the withdrawel of Zabel just when it started to look better for them.
Bibby also did well, though he, Denilf and Monsalve all lost 4 to 5 minutes on the final flat stage and thus GC positions and prestige points. But we still won the teams classification for the first time!
that was a great race for us - he was always going to be a candidate for 3rd - 6th, but this was awesome! It's nice to be on the bright side of overperformance for once 
