Ripley wrote:
BMC drops out of the World Tour. Just 99 points all season, though only 6 more would have been enough to overtake FDJ and remain in the top flight.
And leave World Tour without French teams at all? No-no-no
Let's save the history of PCM together!
Just write me a PM if you have something for old PCM Editions (from 2005 to 2014) - databases, stages, shirts etc. and we'll share it.
You're right, Veiby should really have been in that list and finished high up. Piton has HIL 81 STA 85, but he only ever performed in LBL, he was 2nd in 2021 and won it in 2022. Apart from that he has one TdF stage, one TdS stage and a few low top 10 results. Though a nice silver medal this season, too, only outsprinted by Oakes.
Thanks, pal! And the sad thing is, I didn't even have to try hard in the end. Winning the Tour took some effort, but after that it was all too easy. Final words and some more stats on Monday and Tuesday.
(It rhymes if you say it out loud.) Welcome to the presentation of our new squad. I had really hoped we'd finally see a dent, a decrease in overall quality. But the hope was in vain, and why on earth did I continue to raise the wages? Because I set out a plan and I'm stubborn as a mule. So we've moved up to 7k/month, a full 1,000 Euros more than last season because we had two 6k years in a row.
Name: New rider Wage: Renewal
CHG: Year-on-year change of AVG, CHG: For new signings since 1st of August
I'd say the most noticable item is the yearly increase in AVG of Gasparetti. I've never seen anything like it. Most of it happened in the first six months, I presented how he turned into the Hulk even before San Sebastian. He slowed down a little in the second half of the year and so far hasn't reached HIL 85, but he's got the potential, he still has room to improve across the board.
Blaesi is already overpowered, too, while Ando Brackstone will also make a fine stage racer soon. Dallamano is highly dangerous in the classics, what he lacks in HIL he makes up in SPR. Boicenco is yet another Aviva rider who can reach COB 84/85, though unless he improves quickly we'd be weaker than in previous seasons in the northern classics. Rauls will probably leave us before he can consistently challenge in mass sprints.
The new faces: Stacey van Bentum is biggest catch, though he only signed a one-year contract. In the future he should be able to compete against the Italians in the hilly races. Rafael Barbero is already extremely useful with his MON 79 in a world with only few better climbers. Xio Cima is a possible 2024 captain for Paris-Roubaix. Though Mazurkiewicz is an even more exciting rider, with nearly equal COB, SPR and HIL.
Our climbing department has become insanely good, we also have plenty of options for hilly stages in the long stage races. We even re-hired Tacconelli, he was a captain a few seasons ago, now he's just a useful domestique with his MON 76 and TTR 75. Pozin hasn't got very far in the three seasons he's been with us, increasing his AVG by only one point per season (from 70.3 to 73.5). Potential isn't everything. Blackwood, the first rider we properly scouted and our first stagiaire, is the new Pozin.
World Tour overview
WT
CQ
Wages
Chg
QuickStep
6
7
1176000
+69k
Jovanovic, Pinot, Demare
Movistar
7
3
986000
+106k
Bennett, Howson, Matthews
Astana
2
2
821000
-110k
Dumoulin, Durbridge, Lozano
Orica
10
9
770500
-38k
RJVR, Slagter, Fernandes
Team Sky
5
4
739000
+13k
Dennis, Kulpaka, Arnold
IAM Cycling
4
6
696500
+74k
Biello, Veiby, Schreiber
Trek
8
8
543500
-150k
Piton, TVG, Dombrowski
Katusha
3
5
471000
-71k
Mohoric, Christiansen, Arredondo
Lotto - Belisol
9
11
465000
-70k
De Buyst, Hayden, Desclee
Caja Rural
12
12
376500
+5k
Nizzolo, Linnet, I. Izagirre
MTN - Qhubeka
14
14
340000
-9k
Kristoff, Bilro, Moser
Giant - Shimano
11
10
331500
-32k
Zabel, Laurie, Hagenaars
Cannondale
15
13
330000
-15k
Tsatevich, Elias, Hoem
Belkin
16
16
262000
-53k
Kelderman, Zakarin, Van Ness
Tinkoff - Saxo
13
20
256500
+11k
Polat, Wielockx, Lienard
SkyDive Dubai
17
15
223500
-55k
Aru, Malafronte, Pot
FDJ.fr
19
19
170500
-31k
Wiig, Grmay, M. Daniel
Aviva Cycling
1
1
164000
+9k
Kolk, Thierry, Juhl
Rider: Earning over 100k/mth
Only 13 riders still earn 100+k a month. The table shows 11 of them, missing are Mendezs, who earns a fraction less than his three Movistar team mates, and Barguil, the second highest earner in 2023, who is now riding for the PCT team Cofidis. Earning just under 100k are Biello, Veiby, RJVR and Groenewegen.
MON is oddly strangled in this career, 4 riders have MON 82 (Jorgensen, Mohoric, Hayden and Chumillas), 6 have MON 81, 8 have MON 80. One rider trumps them all, Egon Braglia with his MON 84, but frustratingly he is without a team this season. Aanother nail in the coffin for this career, the only climber we'd really have to fear and he's taking a break.
HIL is more competitive, 3 riders with HIL 84 (Gasparetti, Mendez, Van Baarle), one with HIL 83 (Oakes), 3 with HIL 82 (Koch, Hoem and now also a Canadian, Tony Fenwick), 3 with HIL 81 (Mohoric, Piton and Desclee) and plenty with HIL 80.
TTR is also well represented, Howson with TTR 85, Dumoulin and Fowler with 84, 3 with TTR 83, one with 82, 4 with 81.
Similarly, there are more COB specialists than I usually see, the three best riders all used to wear our colours, Veiby and Masakadza (84) as well as Heubach (83). 4 each have COB 82, 81 and 80. Though Veiby reigns with his HIL 76, nobody else has more than 70, while De Buyst has COB 82 SPR 83, the others don't want to sprint against him.
SPR, as always, is stacked. Anybody who edits the YoungRiderCharac xmls should work on this, I think. 3 with 85, 5 with 84, 8 with 83, 12 with 82, 8 with 81 and too many to count with 80 (30 or so).
By AVG one rider stands out with 82, and it's Michael Matthews, now 32 years old. As a sprinter – with SPR 83 – he cannot win that many mass sprints, but he adds HIL 79 and STA 82. He's won few Tour stages and a couple of green jerseys, he also wore the rainbow jersey for a year. 7 riders have AVG 81, Bennett, Dumoulin, Demare, De Buyst, Durbridge, Howson and Pinot. Several sprinters who cannot really stand out because of all the competition, three TTR specialists who can usually only target a few stages every year, and Pinot. Though his stat distribution just isn't that good. ACC 85 is great, but it's coupled with MON 80 HIL 79. He made the WT top 10 the last three years in a row, but he's only ever won the Tour de Pologne (3x) and Paris-Nice (once).
Inspired by Kiserlovski, but of course lacking his lovely presentation, here is an overview of Aviva's best performances in all the WT races.
Race
Best
Year
Rider
Stages
Tour Down Under
2nd
2020
Emile Denis
3
Paris-Nice
7th
2019
Delfi Grande
2
Tirreno-Adriatico
3rd
2022
Volker Frech
2
Milano-Sanremo
2nd
2020
Töns Falkenmayer
Volta a Catalunya
1st
2019
Delfi Grande
7
E3 Harelbeke
2nd
2021
Mads Veiby
Gent-Wevelgem
2nd
2020
Mads Veiby
Ronde van Vlaanderen
3rd
2021
Mads Veiby
Vuelta al Pais Vasco
3rd
2020
Cesar Marrou
6
Paris-Roubaix
2nd
2021
Mads Veiby
Amstel Gold Race
1st
2021
Mads Veiby
La Fleche Wallonne
4th
2019
Igor Sergienko
Liege-Bastogne-Liege
4th
2022
Jani Tewelde
Tour de Romandie
5th
2022
Volker Frech
Giro d'Italia
5th
2022
Volker Frech
11
Criterium du Dauphine
2nd
2022
Fetis Juhl
9
Tour de Suisse
1st
2020
Finn Jorgensen
18
Tour de France
1st
2022
Hoang Doc Blaesi
21
Clasica San Sebastian
1st
2022
Pierre Dallamano
Tour de Pologne
1st
2019
Noah Davis
12
Vuelta a Espana
1st
2022
Hoang Doc Blaesi
29
Vattenfall Cyclassics
1st
2020
Jani Tewelde
GP Quest
1st
2017
Laurens De Vreese
GP de Quebec
1st
2017
Laurens De Vreese
GP de Montreal
1st
2016
Rafael Silva
Il Lombardia
1st
2022
Hoang Doc Blaesi
Tour of Beijing
1st
2019
Hannes Köszegi
2
There's quite the discrepancy between the first and second half of the season. Partly it's due to the fact that the later races are all easier, partly it's due to holding our best stage racers back for the Tour and Vuelta, the spring team was captained by rider like Kudus and then Marrou and in 2022 by Frech, who did very well considering his MON 78. If I were to play just one more season I'd make Blaesi the captain for the spring team and together with Gasparetti he might win most of the races we couldn't win so far (except for the cobbled classics).
AVG
WT Pts
CQ Pts
Victories
2014
69.37
2172 (23.)
26 (11.)
2015
69.71
3929 (15.)
35 (3.)
2016
70.22
668 (11.)
4694 (13.)
22 (12.)
2017
71.16
887 (9.)
5591 (10.)
28 (8.)
2018
71.84
787 (10.)
5273 (10.)
24 (8.)
2019
72.60
1278 (2.)
7015 (6.)
35 (7.)
2020
73.29
1594 (2.)
8926 (2.)
42 (2.)
2021
73.82
1936 (2.)
10742 (2.)
60 (2.)
2022
74.05
2358 (1.)
12538 (1.)
56 (1.)
2023
74.61
This is the table I kept updated in my 2nd post. I had expected that there'd be dips and highs, certainly when it comes to ranking points, possibly also to the average AVG, if good riders leave us and we couldn't find replacements. But except for a small dip between 2017 and 2018 it just wasn't to be, the team just kept getting better and better and better.
Lastly, here is a "world exclusive", the change of the wage budgets of all teams over 10 seasons. When I started the career I made the effort of extending all sponsorships indefinitely (well, until 2032, I have read that there might be problems after that) and with this table the effort paid off.
Here's a chart with a few examples, Quickstep always had the highest wage budget, IAM moved from 366k in 2021 to 697k in 2023. BMC came crashing down, Katusha seems to be following. Aviva's climbing steadily from 30k to 164konly SkyDive had a larger increase, by a factor of 5.66 (from 40k to 224k).
Not featured on the chart is the third biggest budget increase, percentage-wise, Bauknecht has gone from 28k to 114k. You can find that and all other budget changes in the table below:
Phew, I'm glad to be finished with this story. Apart from playing the career and taking extensive notes, I spent at least a few minutes per day for over a year on editing what I'd written. It's been haunting my dreams.
Why did this career become so damn successful? I actually thought I'd found a nice balance, only winning Catalunya in 2019 thanks to breakaway success on stage 1. The slowly rising wages shouldn't make much of a difference, or so I thought.
In hindsight, I shouldn't have hired those expensive coaches. I was never quite sure how much of a difference these trainers make, I thought it might be a small boost at best, but it was mostly a way to spend all that excess cash.
I guess I was also too lucky, picking up so many riders with potential 7. In 2016, in our first WT year, we had two with pot 6 (Golem and Hoem) and two with pot 5, the rest had less. And I promise again, I never checked the potentials of the riders I hired. But in 2018 we hired two riders with pot 7 (Singh and Davis), in 2019 we added three more (Veiby, Heubach and Biello) and those developed tremendously, probably thanks to those coaches. Two more in 2020 (Myles and Jorgensen), two more in 2021 (Blaesi and Masakadza) and suddenly six more in 2022 (Boicenco, Oakes, Dallamano, Gasparetti, Gazzola and Brackstone) and another three in 2023 (Blackwood, Van Bentum and Saidov).
Plus lots of riders with pot 6, too. In 2023 we would have had 8x pot7, 10x pot 6, 9x pot 5 and only 3 with less. That's just insane.
Making matters worse was the lack of competition, especially in climbing. I just provided an overview of the best riders for 2023, compare that to my World Domination 2026 story, I had by far better climbers in my team – plus strong competition, including a pot 8 beast, Le Gall – than there are in whole db this time round.
And I just have to mention those easy classics again. It really starts with San Sebastian, the older route with a flat finale, where it's too easy to keep the whole team together and line up a sprint train. Hamburg is a joke, no reason why riding with 80 effort in the final 20 km should distance the whole peloton by 3 minutes, it's flat. GP Quest is nearly as bad and so are the Canadian races, at least all the PCM 14 variants I have. A stark contrast to the spring classics, which are all so much tougher.
Where to go from here? Probably, if I publish another story again it will be with 3D mode on fully automatic, let the AI handle it. I've played such a PCM 17 career since leaving this career behind, it's quite relaxing, though it can also be quite frustrating. Though truth be told, it was also extremely successful because I was very aggressive on the transfer market, so I'd have to contain myself again to have any hope of keeping it realistic.
And here's the final savegame, it's from the 10th of January, 2023, with the season already planned out (well, as planned out as it gets with me). Since it's a custom team it would need Canojuancho's pack to show up properly.
I haven't read it all but congratulations on the complete story, great stuff - insane the stuff you do with PCM
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Followed along at points, but never commented much here. Its been a great journey, with a great premise to keep it interesting for a long time. Its fun to create rules for yourself, since certain aspects of the game are just way too easy. Great work! I'll try to follow along more closely for your next project
valverde321 wrote:
Followed along at points, but never commented much here. Its been a great journey, with a great premise to keep it interesting for a long time. Its fun to create rules for yourself, since certain aspects of the game are just way too easy. Great work! I'll try to follow along more closely for your next project
I echo every point there! Great to see a story succeed with such a unique idea. Also, congrats on being able to end the story on your own terms with a satisfying conclusion. Not a given by any means, as I would know
Thanks guys! I'm not sure I have another story in me, I'm pretty drained. Those who haven't read all of this, maybe wait for a nice winter weekend with a cup of hot cocoa to read it all, it's about 270 pages in my word processor, in font size 12.
Hope to see you with another story soon, or continue you carton's thing.
Admit those kinda long block text are hard to follow close, not being a native eng speaker, but never the less did skimming and scanning most of the time.
