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DD's CT Analysis
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 01:55
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Small Tour Specialist
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There is no shortage of excellent previews that look at which teams are expected to do well. So I thought it'd be cool to do something slightly different.
I created 8 categories that each represent a certain type of race and then for every category I made a top 10 of which CT riders I consider to be the strongest there.
In reality some of these riders will also compete in HC and C1 races, where they will face PCT competition. And even the C2 races will have some PCT riders in them that are top 10 contenders. This means that these lists are not a prediction of which riders will score most points for their teams, or something like that. It's mostly a theoretical analysis of the best riders in the CT. Just for fun.
The categories (click link for full results including description)
- Mountainous Tours with TT (and mountain TT's)
- Regular hilly Classics, Stages and Tours without TT
- Mountainous hilly Classics, Stages and Tours without TT
- Flat Classics, Stages and Tours without TT
- Cobbles
- Hilly Tours with TT (and hilly TT's)
- Completely flat Tours with TT (and flat TT's)
- Mountain Classics, Stages and Tours without TT
The results
Mountainous Tours with TT (and mountain TT's)
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Arroyo | Die Berg Komt Er | | 2 | Marzano | Kappa - ENI | | 3 | Rohregger | Magna-Ryanair | | 4 | Menchov | Barcelona - Estrella Damm | | 5 | Larsson | Vattenfall Cycling | | 6 | Moreno | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 7 | Scarponi | Kappa - ENI | | 8 | Niemiec | Team Credexbank | | 9 | Martinez | Kenya Airways - Barclays | | 10 | Mestre | Team PrivatBank |
Regular hilly Classics, Stages and Tours without TT
N.B.: Arroyo, Marzano and Westra were ignored for this category because they have limited race days and their main strength clearly lies in a different category.
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Weening | Team Gazelle | | 2 | Rodriguez Oliver | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 3 | Mehr-Wenige | Adira Isq-Project | | 4 | Scarponi | Kappa - ENI | | 5 | Furdi | Team Gazelle | | 6 | Sánchez Gonzalez | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 7 | Schurter | Sauber Petronas | | 8 | Ilias | Magna-Ryanair | | 9 | Grau | Barcelona - Estrella Damm | | 10 | Vorganov | Team PrivatBank |
Mountainous Hilly classics, stages and tours without TT
N.B.: Arroyo, Marzano, Menchov and Moreno were ignored for this category because they have limited race days and their main strength clearly lies in a different category.
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Rodriguez Oliver | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 2 | Scarponi | Kappa - ENI | | 3 | Weening | Team Gazelle | | 4 | Feillu | Risa - Ergon | | 5 | Sánchez Gonzalez | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 6 | Nieve | Barcelona - Estrella Damm | | 7 | Schurter | Sauber Petronas | | 8 | Talabardon | Allianz-BMW | | 9 | Furdi | Team Gazelle | | 10 | Mehr-Wenige | Adira Isq-Project |
Flat classics, stages and tours without TT
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Maksimov | Team PrivatBank | | 2 | Steegmans | Banco Nacional de Costa Rica | | 3 | Lay | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 4 | Peeters | JK Cycling Project | | 5 | Dekkers | Allianz-BMW | | 6 | Nelson | ANC Halfords | | 7 | Guillén | Banco Nacional de Costa Rica | | 8 | Kankovský | Team Credexbank | | 9 | Dall'Antonia | Mobil - Castrol Cycling | | 10 | Cardoso | Team PrivatBank |
Cobbles
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Maes | Allianz-BMW | | 2 | Steegmans | Banco Nacional de Costa Rica | | 3 | Thomas | Boeing-Vivacom | | 4 | Coyot | Allianz-BMW | | 5 | Østergaard | Die Berg Komt Er | | 6 | Sentjens | Team Gazelle | | 7 | Vangenechten | Team Gazelle | | 8 | Grashev | Boeing-Vivacom | | 9 | Sys | Kappa - ENI | | 10 | Kopp | Banco Nacional de Costa Rica |
Hilly Tours with TT (and hilly TT's)
N.B.: Rohregger has been removed from these results because he has limited race days and is clearly better off riding in other types of races.
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Larsson | Vattenfall Cycling | | 2 | Westra | Team Gazelle | | 3 | Niemiec | Team Credexbank | | 4 | Joeaar | Ekspla-Cision | | 5 | Fonte | Team PrivatBank | | 6 | Martinez | Kenya Airways - Barclays | | 7 | Soto Pereira | Adira Isq-Project | | 8 | Flens | Die Berg Komt Er | | 9 | Irvine | Adira Isq-Project | | 10 | Marque | Kenya Airways - Barclays |
Completely flat Tours with TT (and flat TT's)
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Flens | Die Berg Komt Er | | 2 | Larsson | Vattenfall Cycling | | 3 | Goddaert | Team Gazelle | | 4 | Westra | Team Gazelle | | 5 | Bret | Allianz-BMW | | 6 | Irvine | Adira Isq-Project | | 7 | Hacecký | Kappa - ENI | | 8 | Niemiec | Team Credexbank | | 9 | Rijntjes | Kenya Airways - Barclays | | 10 | Joeaar | Ekspla-Cision |
Mountain classics, stages and tours without TT
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Arroyo | Martinez | | 2 | Marzano | Kappa - ENI | | 3 | Moreno | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 4 | Menchov | Barcelona - Estrella Damm | | 5 | Rohregger | Magna-Ryanair | | 6 | Colorado | Boeing-Vivacom | | 7 | Cabreira | Adira Isq-Project | | 8 | Mestre | Team PrivatBank | | 9 | Ndbri | Kenya Airways - Barclays | | 10 | Martinez | Kenya Airways - Barclays |
Please feel free to discuss anything you have a different opinion on.
Edited by DubbelDekker on 23-01-2013 02:46
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 02:09
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2633
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Mountainous Tours with TT (and mountain TT's)
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Arroyo | Die Berg Komt Er | | 2 | Marzano | Kappa - ENI | | 3 | Rohregger | Magna-Ryanair | | 4 | Menchov | Barcelona - Estrella Damm | | 5 | Larsson | Vattenfall Cycling | | 6 | Moreno | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 7 | Scarponi | Kappa - ENI | | 8 | Niemiec | Team Credexbank | | 9 | Martinez | Kenya Airways - Barclays | | 10 | Mestre | Team PrivatBank |
I start with this category because it most resembles Grand Tours, the most prestigious events in cycling. It takes a special kind of rider to both be good on huge mountains and on 50km flat time-trials.
I don’t think anyone will be surprised about numbers 1 and 2. They may both not be the best time-trialists, but their superior climbing and resistance will more than make up for this. Between them Arroyo is clearly the better rider, but he’ll have to watch out for Marzano on the steep parts due to his acceleration being 10 points lower.
Number 3 was a no brainer as well. Climbing, Rohregger is as good as Menchov and Moreno. In time-trials he rips them apart though.
This is also the reason Menchov is 4 and Moreno is not even in the top 5; he gets beaten by an even better time-trialist; Gustav Larsson. First I ranked him much lower, but thanks to the comment section I realized that the differences on the mountains aren’t very large. Larsson might lose some time to Moreno in the mountains, but he will more than make up for it against the clock.
Moreno was actually quite close to not even being number 6 as I had a hard time deciding between him and Scarponi. My rule for this top 10 is that a rider can only rank above a clearly superior time-trialist if I am sure that he will be able to drop him on a mountain stage more often than not. And I think that Moreno will be able to do so right at the end of every stage. It will be extremely close though.
Przemyslaw Niemiec is another rider that I previously underestimated. He willl probably have trouble keeping up with some climbers that are not even on this list, like for example Nieve, Rodriguez, Rodas, Talabardon, Colorado and Cabreira. But he will compensate with his excellent time-trial skills.
Yasmani Martinez comes in 9th. His time-trial is one of the better, his climbing good and he is very fast at both steep parts and near the finish line. The only thing keeping him back is his relatively weak resistance.
And the last rider on the list is Ricardo Mestre. On the mountain he might actually be able to give nr. 9 quite a hard time, but his time-trial deficit of 5 points is too much to overtake him.
Edited by DubbelDekker on 23-01-2013 02:33
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 02:25
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2633
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Regular hilly Classics, Stages and Tours without TT
N.B.: Arroyo, Marzano and Westra were ignored for this category because they have limited race days and their main strength clearly lies in a different category.
| Position | Rider | Team | | 1 | Weening | Team Gazelle | | 2 | Rodriguez Oliver | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 3 | Mehr-Wenige | Adira Isq-Project | | 4 | Scarponi | Kappa - ENI | | 5 | Furdi | Team Gazelle | | 6 | Sánchez Gonzalez | Iberia - Comunidad Valenciana | | 7 | Schurter | Sauber Petronas | | 8 | Ilias | Magna-Ryanair | | 9 | Grau | Barcelona - Estrella Damm | | 10 | Vorganov | Team PrivatBank |
The hilly races were split up in two different types; the truly hilly ones (like Amstel Gold Race), and the ones in which you also have to be a good climber to succeed (like San Sebastian). This is the former.
This is the category I find the most interesting, because it’s the one my team focuses on the most. In my opinion the following four riders are the biggest favourites for these races: Rodriguez Oliver, Weening, Mehr-Wenige and Scarponi. Their hill and stamina stats are all within 1 point difference. They also all have their strengths and weaknesses (by which I mean abilities that significantly differ from at least two others), but they weigh up so well that making a ranking out of them wasn’t easy. After careful consideration Weening got the top spot because I think his weakness (60 SP, while the rest are all 65/66) is compensated for by his strengths the best. (+1, +3 and +6 RES; +4, +9, +9 ACC)
Mehr-Wenige, for example, has 3 more points in Flat and he sprints way faster than Weening. But Weening has 6 more resistance and 4 more acceleration. In this type of race I don’t expect the favorites to sit back and wait for a final sprint. And when the pace is high for a long time, such a difference in resistance starts to really matter.
Rodriguez is also a faster sprinter than Weening and he has only 3 less resistance, so he should be able to stay with him even under tough conditions. But does a higher top speed really matter when you have a 9 point acceleration deficit?
Rodriguez finished second before Mehr-Wenige thanks to his wonderful support team.
Scarponi became number four, but he is very close. Like Rodriguez he suffers from a low acceleration, which will hinder him when the shit really hits the fan. But he won't be dropped easily. His hill stat is 1 point lower than the rest, but he has a resistance that is only 1 point below Weening.
Weening
strengths
- 75 resistance
- 71 acceleration
- Lieutenant that is a top 10 favourite himself.
weaknesses
- 60 sprint
Rodriguez
strengths
- Lieutenant that is a top 10 favourite himself.
weaknesses
- 62 acceleration
Mehr-Wenige
strengths
- 74 flat
weaknesses
- 69 resistance
Scarponi
strengths
- 74 resistance
weaknesses
- 76 hill
- 62 acceleration
Numbers 5 and 6 are the two super helpers Furdi and Sanchez Gonzalez. I think Furdi has a slight edge because of his +3 FL, +2 STA, +2 RES, +5 SP, +4 ACC. Together this should be enough to compensate for Sanchez Gonzalez’ +1 HI.
Then there’s two guys with a hill stat of 75, who both have the problem of low flat (67) and stamina (67, 68) stats. But because we’re in the CT, where races above 200km are rare, and because most of these races shouldn’t be too flat, Nino Schurter and Perikles Ilias got place 7 and 8. Also, Schurter has this amazing 80 downhilling, which could be helpful now and then.
Now we skip two other riders with 75 hill: Sergiu Cioban and Tarik Chaoufi. 66 and 65 resistance just isn’t enough. Even on this level. So for places 9 and 10 there is a very large number of 74 hill riders to pick from. I’ll keep it short: I think Jordi Grau is an overall very decent offensive rider with a great acceleration stat. And number 10 Eduard Vorganov: I think this quick guy will finish first of any group he manages to hang on to and that sometimes this will be a pretty decent group as well.
Edited by DubbelDekker on 18-01-2013 18:15
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| CountArach |
Posted on 15-01-2013 04:43
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Grand Tour Champion
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Great idea mate, I will be interested to see the rest.
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| Avin Wargunnson |
Posted on 15-01-2013 06:09
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World Champion
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Really nice idea to make something different, the first two are cool, so keep them coming! 
Maybe only thing i would not be totally agreeing with is giving Niemec "only" place 10-15 prediction in stage races with TT. I believe he can be much more succesful than that, with his great TT and secondary stats. Of course it is yet to be seen how PCM12 is for the man-game.
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| ggDonovan |
Posted on 15-01-2013 11:09
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Breakaway Specialist
Posts: 897
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Happy to see two riders in the two first categories.
Really nice reports and very original!
Congratulations!
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 15:16
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2633
Joined: 20-04-2008
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Thanks guys!
@Avin; I gave the TT stat a relatively low importance because of the low amount of long time-trials in C2 mountain tours. But you might be right that it is a bit too low.
On the other hand; if you compare him with the guy right above him: Mestre.
Mestre has +1 MO, +3 RES. Shouldn't that be enough to drop Niemec on nearly every mountain stage? Or do you think riders will remain very bunched up in mountain stages?
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 21-11-2024 22:55
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| FroomeDog99 |
Posted on 15-01-2013 17:22
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Nice preview, and some good choices. Though I think you are maybe over estimating the effect of resistance in PCM 12  |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 17:54
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Hmm, good point. I do value that quite highly indeed.
Has someone ever really tested how much effect resistance has?
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| Spilak23 |
Posted on 15-01-2013 17:57
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DubbelDekker wrote:
Hmm, good point. I do value that quite highly indeed.
Has someone ever really tested how much effect resistance has?
Di Maggio proved last year that resistance is not important for punchers. It plays a role though on longer timetrials and mountains.
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 18:13
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Wow, that would be quite an eye-opener. Are you sure? Can we definitely conclude that from Di Maggio's performance?
Because that would be a major case of Cyanide logic. Resistance influences the yellow bar (or whatever color they changed it to) and if I play the game the yellow bar is one of the most important things to watch.
It is true that in hilly classics sometimes an empty red bar (and thus acceleration as back-up stat) is the bottleneck keeping a rider from performing better. But that is only if the leaders stay calm until the very end. If they start attacking 20km from the line, you are going to need plenty of yellow. And then resistance should be an important back-up stat.
I'd like more opinions on this.
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| Pellizotti2 |
Posted on 15-01-2013 18:21
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As far as I know, resistance is more important in PCM12 than in 11. Not sure about this, but I think so.
And of course - nice work with this, DD!
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| Spilak23 |
Posted on 15-01-2013 18:51
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How I see it, hills require a strong effort ( heart rate around 180) for a multipe short times while mountains require longer, less hard efforts (170 -180 heart rate) so I think accelaration is more important for hill races while resistance is more important for mountains.
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| Miguel98 |
Posted on 15-01-2013 18:55
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Not even a single rider on those top 10's.  |
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 21:26
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Small Tour Specialist
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Spilak23 wrote:
How I see it, hills require a strong effort ( heart rate around 180) for a multipe short times while mountains require longer, less hard efforts (170 -180 heart rate) so I think accelaration is more important for hill races while resistance is more important for mountains.
I agree that resistance is more important for mountains than for hilly races.
But I'm not so sure it is not important at all. When the heart rate is 180+, the red bar runs out faster than the yellow one indeed, but the latter does empty pretty fast as well. So after a few of those short efforts it might still run out.
But maybe Cyanide chose to only apply the resistance bonus to the yellow bar (making it empty less fast) in the medium effort range. If they did that, your theory is correct.
Does anyone know whether this is the case?
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 15-01-2013 21:31
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Miguel98 wrote:
Not even a single rider on those top 10's.
You've gone for depth instead of one or two big leaders. If I'd make top 20's you'd probably be in them a lot.
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| CountArach |
Posted on 15-01-2013 22:08
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Resistance is way more important in PCM12. That's why the daily DB lowered everyone's resistance stat by 4 or 5.
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| Smowz |
Posted on 15-01-2013 22:15
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Have one guy in the top 10 or four guys in the top 40. I know what I'd prefer that said its a choice you can make.
One great guy can nab your goals and make you successful. Whereas four or five decent riders can get you a steady points supply but will struggle to nab goals and give you that winning feeling too often.
The punchaer category looks very equal to me, Arroyo should win a couple of races in mountains - but I can easily see Weening for example not winning at all. That said I am sure one of his team-mates could step up .
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 15-01-2013 22:17
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CountArach wrote:
Resistance is way more important in PCM12. That's why the daily DB lowered everyone's resistance stat by 4 or 5.
Well I hope the ManGame DB doesnt need that, because nobody ever mentioned it til now!
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| CountArach |
Posted on 15-01-2013 22:24
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SportingNonsense wrote:
CountArach wrote:
Resistance is way more important in PCM12. That's why the daily DB lowered everyone's resistance stat by 4 or 5.
Well I hope the ManGame DB doesnt need that, because nobody ever mentioned it til now!
I think it is because the choice was made before the Daily DB.
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