It was time for the biggest event in cycling, the Tour de France. Quintana is unable to defend his title since he is without a team this season, so Froome is the huge favourite. He is looking to win his 5th TdF, catching up with the true legends in cycling. The only weakness I see is that his team Astana used most their great climbers at the Giro, Froome's only super-domestique is Porte (MON 79). On the other hand, many big names are missing this year, like Betancur, who just won the Dauphine, and Kwiatkowski, who won the Tour de Suisse. The only riders who can match Froome's climbing are the Frenchmen Pinot and Rolland (both MON 84), but they are weak against the clock and this year we have two flat ITTs of 47 and 49 km in length. Which is great for 8 Up's Birtz especially, and Bernar as well.
The first 7 stages of the 2019 TdF were completely flat. The prologue was won by Durbridge, the first mass sprint by Degenkolb ahead of Demare and Coquard. On stage 3 Ulissi in the rainbow jersey launched a late winning attack. A day later Sagan beat Kittel and Demare. Stage 5 was a TTT over 69 km and won by Astana, which already put Froome in the yellow jersey. The time gaps were large, FDJ was 34 seconds behind, 8 Up was 3rd, 58 seconds down. Rolland (Tinkoff) lost 2:37, Rui Costa (Lotto) 3:13, Pinot and Kreuziger (Ag2r) 3:31, Van Garderen (Quickstep) 4:38.
Sagan won the 6th stage, Demare a day later. We started stage 8 in Lyon and faced the first of three consecutive stages in the Alps. This first stage was 233 km long and took us across one high pass and then a smaller climb before arriving in Morzine accompanied by heavy rainfall. There were plenty of attacks in the finale and Porte was unable to help Froome on this day, who found himself in the third group.
Rolland won the stage ahead of Costa, Kreuziger, Birtz and Pinot. Olesen, Bernar and Hansen were all in the 2nd group, 1:02 behind, while Froome arrived with Poels as 13th, 2:02 down. Which, incredibly, meant that Birtz slips into yellow, the first GT leader's jersey for our team!
The next stage took us across the Telegraphe and Galibier and ended in Alpe d'Huez. Rolland was the strongest of the favourites and beat Froome by 22 seconds. Bernar, Birtz and Olesen were also behind Pinot, Contador, Van Garderen and Barguil, 1:13 behind Froome, who retakes the yellow jersey from Birtz. However, Rolland did not win the stage, the last survivor of the early breakaway did, our own Larry Warbosse (MON 77), who didn't just win the stage but also collected 78 points for the mountains classification and is looking to win the KoM jersey for us.
The final Alp stage featured two big mountains early on, the Cols du Lautaret and d'Izard, and ended with two smaller climbs. It looked very good for the breakaway, which included Boothroyd, for a long time, but the pace was too slow in the long flat section in the second part of the stage and they were caught on the crest of the large climb. A group of 15 riders made it to the flat final kilometers and Birtz with his SPR of 71 won the second stage in a row for our colours.
After the rest day a flat stage into Marseille followed, which was won by Degenkolb. Stage 12 to Toulouse was rather simple, 153.6 km, while flat except for one cat. 3 hill in the middle of the stage it was classified as hilly and thus a perfect opportunity for Barwell (HIL 74, SPR 72) to join the breakaway.
The peloton had no interest in chasing the 8 escapees, the gap grew to 15 minutes, close to putting our ex-rider Mannion into virtual yellow. Which prompted us to let our team work at the front of the peloton for a while, helping to keep the final gap just below 10 minutes. Late attacks split the escape group in two, with Barwell in perfect position behind Jungels in the finale and he easily won the sprint and the third stage for Team 8 Up.
Stage 13 was an ITT of 47 km. I had hoped Birtz (TTR 80) could finish on the podium, but he was only 11th, 44 seconds behind Durbridge. Froome (also TTR 80) was 19 seconds faster than Birtz and increased his lead. Bernar was 18th, 1:12 down, which was enough to move up to 3rd place overall, so we now have two riders on the podium behind Froome!
Next up are the three Pyrenee stages, where both our riders are bound to lose time, but there is another ITT on stage 20, might we even finish with a rider on the podium?
The first of the Pyrenean stages took us to Ax-3-Domaines via the Pailheres. Froome and Rolland attacked together 5 km from the top of the big climb, we were able to stay in a group with Pinot, Porte, Kennaugh, Kreuziger, Van Garderen and Barguil. The best climber of the group, Pinot, distanced the rest of us on the final ascent. But the time gaps were pretty small: Rolland won his second stage, he was 14 seconds faster than Froome, 43 seconds faster than Pinot, our group arrived 1:09 behind. That's fine, Birtz and Bernar remain on the podium.
Stage 15 to Loudenvielle was a lot tougher, with six mountain passes, 4 cat. 1, 2 cat. 2. Warbosse wanted to attack on this stage for more KoM points. He succeeded and was very happy with the breakaway, his opponents were the aging Cancellara (MON 68) and Valverde (71) plus young Leppard (73). Warbosse collected the maximum available 50 mountain points and has a comfortable lead in the fight for the polka-dot jersey.
Winning the stage became questionable after Bardet (MON 80) managed to catch up with the early breakway – he and others had attacked when the peloton was already over 10 minutes behind! But while Bardet was exhausted, Warbosse had enough energy left for a final attack and he claimed his second stage.
However, further back our men really suffered. Once more Froome and Rolland attacked and gained nearly 2 minutes on us, Rolland moving up to 3rd in the GC, 55 seconds behind Birtz. We also lost 40 seconds against the riders placed 5th to 7th in the GC, Kreuziger, van Garderen and Pinot.
The final mountain stage finished in the ski resort Luz Ardiden. It came after the last rest day, everybody's freshness was back to excellent and so Warbosse attacked once more. Only De Marchi (MON 75) joined him, which allowed Warbosse to collect 66 more points, taking him to 194 in total, he will win the polka-dot jersey. He finished the stage in 4th place, he was overtaken by Rolland, Pinot and Froome, Rolland won his third stage and Froome will win his 5th TdF unless he crashes. Bernar, Olesen and Birtz lost 1:32, Rolland moves into 2nd place.
The last hills of this Tour came a day later, the breakaway consisted of 16 riders and the speed in the peloton was high and Birtz nearly lost contact at some point. After two thirds of the race the breakaway was only ahead by 2 minutes, but the peloton finally gave up the chase. Rohan Dennis went on to win the stage, Boothroyd was 12th out of 16. Our climbers finished comfortably in the peloton.
On stage 18 Degenkolb won his third stage of the Tour, ahead of Kittel and Demare, also taking the green jersey away from the Frenchman. Stage 19 went to a breakaway.
The final challenge for the GC candidates was a 49 km long and absolutely flat ITT. Froome was leading the Tour comfortably, but had not won a single stage, he changed that with a victory in the time trial, beating Durbridge by 19 seconds. Birtz was a strong 4th and Bernar 11th – which meant both our riders would end up on the podium!
Kreuziger was faster than Bernar, but he would have needed 27 more seconds to push him off the podium. Rolland's weakness is the TT (65), he really suffered, 5:32 behind Froome, dropping from 2nd place down to 5th, just a fraction of a second ahead of Van Garderen. Olesen managed to stay in the top 10 and Hansen's time difference to 14th was so great it didn't matter he finished 10:29 down on Froome.
The final stage into Paris was yet again won by a big breakaway by a large margin, Van Keirsbulck was this year's final stage winner. Thus Degenkolb wins the green jersey, Warbosse the polka dot jersey. Team 8 Up takes the top 3 spots in the young riders competition, Birtz winning ahead of Bernar and Olesen.
We also won the team competition, over 22 minutes ahead of Ag2r, Froome's Astana team was only 3rd, over 52 minutes behind. Of course the biggest result for Team 8 Up was getting Birtz and Bernar onto the podium. Froome wins his 5th Tour de France to become one of the greatest cyclists of all times. He is now 34 years old and his age is catching up with him, I don't think he can set a new record with 6 victories.
Cheers guys! I was pretty nervous going into the Pyrenees, but thankfully it wasn't a Tour for climbers with those long, flat ITTs.
Thanks to another hugely successful season our sponsor increases our wage budget from 309k to 442k. 14 contracts were running out and we would able to replace several riders with stronger alternatives. We did want to keep De Troch with his combination of COB and HIL as well as our best puncher, Romeu, who still has room to grow. Sadly, both of them turned down our offers, De Troch joins Lotto, Romeu moves to Sky. Birtz had improved to AVG 79 and asked for 51k which would make him our biggest earner, but up to June he didn't have many good results. We had no idea what he was really capable of when we offered him the contract. Now we're very happy to have kept him on.
We offered Herklotz 3k more than he asked for but he signed with Orica instead. However, both Schuermans and Mohoric will wear 8 Up's jersey next season. Schuermans offers MON 83, making him clearly our best climber, Mohoric is still young and can hopefully improve further. Romeu's replacement is Michel Koch, who offers excellent stats for one-day racing: HIL 80 FLA 76 STA 76 SPR 72. We have signed a third Swiss rider to take De Troch's place, 24 year old Jaton (COB 77 FLA 71 HIL 71 STA 72) with the hope he has more potential than Chene. The other new riders are between 25 and 27 years old, we'll have to wait and see if they can still improve.
What would follow the very successful Tour de France? A double in San Sebastian! As soon as we hit the Jaizkibel for the second time the race got very hard and our riders just managed to stay with the top group of 34 riders at the summit, only Bunce (HIL 74 SPR 79) was dropped.
Further attacks followed, but none were successful. We wouldn't be able to win from such a large group, so we attacked with the team 8 km out. Our best punchers, Romeu and Mayordomo, separated from the others who stopped their attack and dropped back into the group. But Romeu and Mayordomo had the energy to stay ahead and win the race. Moser had to settle for 3rd place, De Vos was 6th, Hermanski 9th.
This year's Tour of Poland was a “real” stage race which started with two mountaintop finishes in Italy and finished with a flat ITT of 37.7 km, also offering two tough hilly stages. We brought three climbers with low fitness and no rhythm: Elissonde, Reichenbach and Brandtzaeg. They were joined by Gross, Romeu and Sepulveda who were to try their luck on the hilly stages.
Brandtzaeg escaped on both of the mountain stages and was first on all intermediate climbs before getting caught. Elissonde was 2nd behind Dan Martin on stage 1, with no time differences between the top 15 riders, which also included Reichenbach. But our top men cracked on the final climb of stage 2, Kwiatkowski rode away to win the stage and the leader's jersey in his home race, Herklotz was 2nd, Martin 3rd. Elissonde and Reichenbach finished 5th and 6th, 1:35 behind. Our punchers were over half an hour behind, so they are free to attack on the hilly stages.
On stage 5 the escape group formed immediately, 8 riders including our Sepulveda. However, it also included Fuglsang, who was only 12 minutes back in the GC. Kwiatkowski and his team did nothing to reel in the breakaway, the gap grew to over 16 minutes. Sepulveda followed two attacks from Fuglsang, they were slightly ahead on the last very short climb, Sepulveda attacked at the top and rode to victory.
Further back, with the tempo still inexplicably low in the final kilometers, I let my other riders attack at the same point, netting us 30 seconds over the leader. Kwiatkowski crossed the finish line nearly 12 minutes behind Fuglsang and retained his lead by just 15 seconds.
Romeu got agonizingly close to taking the next stage over 15 tough hills but was caught inside the final kilometer by the best riders, with Kwiatkowski winning ahead of Martin and Herklotz. Romeu collected 96 mountain points on the many hills and wins the KoM jersey. Elissonde is still 5th, Reichenbach 8th after this stage, but they won't do well in the final ITT.
Kwiatkowski got very close to winning his third stage in his home tour, but Jungels beat him by 4 seconds. Herklotz finish 2nd overall with a good ITT, Dan Martin lost 4:31 and dropped down to 6th, with Nibali jumping in to take the last podium spot. Elissonde barely managed to remain in the top 10, while Reichenbach dropped to 12th.
Kwiatek has jumped to the top of the WT individual rankings with that performance.
A hard fight just to get that 10th place, but this team can already do better...
The Eneco Tour had the usual mix of the tough uphill finish on the Mur de Huy, the short and hilly ITT of La Roche and a final stage with some cobbled sections. Team 8 Up brought a mix of riders, our captain Romeu (HIL 80 COB 66 TTR 69), Hermanski (HIL 76 COB 66 TTR 70), Bunce (HIL 74 COB 68 TTR 70) and three of our northern classics specialists.
The prologue was won by Phinney, stage 2 went to Sagan, stage 3 to Valdiviezo. Rui Costa was first atop the Muy, but Romeu was just behind him, losing no time. Sagan, Henao, Hermanski and Degenkolb were 20 seconds behind, Bunce 45 seconds. 13 riders lost 1:16, our other men were in the peloton of 62 riders, 2:13 behind.
Our 6 riders all managed a top 10 result in the ITT. Romeu won the stage 20 seconds ahead of Costa, which makes him the new leader of the Eneco Tour by 15 seconds. Hermanski was 4th and is also 4th overall, Bunce 7th on the day and 5th overall.
Sagan won the next stage and is only 39 seconds behind leader Romeu before the final stage with cobblestones, making him the favourite for overall victory. Rui Costa is evenn closer to Romeu, so he'll need to be watched as well. The stage winning attack was launched by Senechal 12 km from the finish line and Sagan missed the chance to follow him, while Demare and Dernies made the jump. Senechal wins the stage ahead of Demare and Dernies, no bonus seconds for Sagan, who was 5th. Our punchers barely held on with protection from the team mates, we all arrived in a group of 30 riders together with Sagan and Costa.
Thus Romeu wins the Eneco Tour ahead of Rui Costa and Sagan, Hermanski is 4th, Bunce 5th, who also wins the white jersey and our team topped the team classification.
Thanks, DiCyc. A shame that Romeu refused the contract extension. Both Bunce and Hermanski celebrated their best results in the World Tour so far with these top 5 finishes.
As expected or feared, the results just keep getting better and better as the season progresses. Romeu wins San Sebastian and the Eneco Tour and now we race the easiest of the WT one-day races.
For the Cyclassics we brought our two sprinters Hita and Bunce (both SPR 79), De Troch and Juul Jensen from the cobblestone team and the best punchers for a flat course. The Waseberg featured the usual five times, including the three times in a row not far from the finish line.
I set the team on the dot as we reached that critical phase, adjusting the effort between 60 and 72 to stay near or at the front of the peloton, going up to 80 on the last climb and then my usual tactic to attack with the whole team. And it worked beautifully again, the hard difficulty level made no difference here. The rest of the peloton was only 28 riders strong and couldn't organise a chase, we overtook the 5 escapees and for the first time in this career we took all 8 top spots, Hita winning ahead of Bunce and Mayordomo. The peloton couldn't even catch the original escape group.
Since the late team attack worked so well in Hamburg, we tried it again in the GP Quest, only replacing De Troch with Foure. The 6 escapees had nearly been caught and Bardet had already attacked and gained 30 seconds when we attacked 20 km from the finish line and relayed at 90. We caught Bardet and the breakaway and attacked again, leaving Bardet behind who tried to follow but ran out of energy and was swallowed by the big group. Bunce won ahead of Gross and Romeu.
well to be honest I don't like the tactics played at Cyclassics and Plouay, that's not what cycling should be reflected in a story in my eyes...I'M sorry for the critic, but I'd prefer to see some real cycling tactics in a story if it has the ambition to be at least partly realistic...
No need to apologise, I totally understand. I'm afraid I just can't play any other way and I wrote at the beginning of the story "realism be damned", knowing it would go this way. Well, not knowing for sure, I hadn't played on hard before and had hoped it would stop this nonsense. But by now it seems certain that this career will end up pretty much like the last one I presented.
I find not abusing the AI weaknesses just as illogical, along the lines of "today I'm feeling generous, I'll let somebody else win". Admittedly, I wouldn't have to tell anybody, I could present the story as if I did my best - which would make a better read, but frustrate me personally. So I'll continue playing my way, fully aware it's not a good story.
I hope we can agree that the core of the problem is the bad AI. I'd much rather face a real challenge than win like this, too. The Ardennes races are tough, so is Il Lombardia, so are the cobblestone races... why not these races?
I hope croatia14 is still following this report and wonder what he (and everybody else) will say about this strange Vuelta. Let me paint the picture.
The course: A very unusual variant with just three, late mountain stages, 7 hilly stages, an opening TTT and a long flat ITT on stage 17.
The favourites: Top favourite must be WT leader Kwiatkowski (MON 83 HIL 84 TTR 78), followed by Betancur, who is even stronger on mountains and hills, but lacks TT skill. That's also true for the other good climbers like Dan Martin and Schuermans.
Stages 1 to 13: Team 8 Up won the opening TTT by 11 seconds, Bernar was wearing the red jersey until stage 4, when Betancur took over. The Colombian won that stage 42 seconds ahead of a larger group, he also took stages 8 and 11, gaining another minute on our best riders. But then came the final hilly stage, a day before we finally reach the mountains...
Stage 14: 10 riders formed the early breakaway, their advantage was kept under 5 minutes the whole day, as we hit the cat. 2 hill 50 km from the finish line it had melted to under 3 minutes. But then, inexplicably, the peloton came nearly to a standstill. 39 year old Valverde went on to win the stage from the breakaway, the peloton arrived over 20 minutes back.
We decided to try an attack with our best riders just to see what would happen. The reaction was swift and violent, Henao, Yates, Ulissi, Poels and Kiserlovski joined our men and counter attacked, nearly leaving us behind. We held on, though we couldn't keep up with Ulissi, Henao and Simon Yates on the final uphill section, 4 km @ 11%. Bernar, Birtz and Olesen lost 44 seconds, Hansen an additional minute.
But where were Kwiatek, Schuermans, Martin and the red jersey? They simply didn't react. Betancur attacked on his own with 10 km to go and in the end lost 7:32 to Ulissi, nearly 7 minutes against our best riders. Martin and Kwiatek did even less, Martin and Schuermans lost an additional 5:40, Kwiatkowski 37 more seconds. Betancur dropped down to 9th, 5:44 behind Ulissi.
So that's it, the race is nearly decided in 8 Up's favour before we even visit the mountains. Ulissi has taken the lead after this stage, but his climbing and TTR won't be good enough to hold onto the red jersey. Our men are 2nd to 5th and only have to fear Henao in the mountains, but he's too weak against the clock to challenge Birtz and Bernar for overall victory. Unless one of them crashes the two men from Luxembourg will decide the Vuelta between them. What a great success, but once more only made possible by the dodgy AI.
Sorry, but i am with Croatia14 here, a story where you always win with relative weak rider, it not much fun.
If you are too good for the AI, either up the dif. to Extreme or cut down on the pause button or both.
That is not "letting the AI win", that is just making everything more fun, for yourself and the readers.
Im not saying it turns me off to a point where i can't or won't follow, just giving my 5c on the problem with the AI. It is all up to You it is your story.
NB: I never played PCM14, but in all my different PCM's I have never seen that weird AI as you just described.
Edited by Tamijo on 27-10-2016 16:56
Thanks, Tamijo. I'm afraid I won't change the way I play, as I've said a few times, the only way I see myself playing (and maybe reporting on) a realistic, varied game is by using automatic mode. In my many seasons with PCM 14 I don't think I've seen something like this 14th stage before, either.
That weird stage proved to be as unfortunate for Betancur and Kwiatek as feared, because both of them distanced our riders easily in the mountains and Kwiatek won the ITT on stage 17, these two should have decided the Vuelta between them and 8 Up could have been happy with a podium finish.
Stage 15 was flat until the final climb up to the Lakes of Covadonga. Ulissi's Tinkoff-Saxo did nothing to follow the breakaway, while his team mate Chernetckii did nothing in the escape group. Which was unfortunate for the other riders including our Elizondo, because he was also the best climber in the group and he easily won the stage, Elizondo was 2nd.
Betancur attacked early on the final climb, Kwiatkowski was able to catch up to him, they finished 16:25 behind Chernetckii, gaining between 15 and 73 seconds on our best climbers. But Bernar reclaimed the red jersey, taking about a minute from Ulissi.
Boothroyd had already won stage 9 and claimed victory again on stage 16 to Cotobello, also putting him on track to fulfil the sponsor objective of winning the KoM jersey. Betancur and Kwiatek attacked on the penultimate climb and gained back over 2 minutes on our riders, who also lost time on Henao. Martin and Schuermans weren't in top form, losing an additional 3 and 5 minutes respectively.
Birtz has reached his TTR potential of 81, but Kwiatek won the ITT on stage 17 ahead of Phinney, Birtz was 3rd. Bernar rode a good TT, he was 7th, 49 seconds behind and retains the leader's jersey by 4 seconds over team mate Birtz. Henao is now 3rd, he lost 2:21 and overtook Olesen (3:30), while Hansen dropped to 9th place.
The final challenge was the mountaintop finish Bola del Mundo. Boothroyd attacked to secure his jersey, nobody joined him, nobody chased him, he won his 3rd Vuelta stage by a margin of 15 minutes.
Henao's Katusha set the pace as we reached the foot of the final climb, Betancur attacked soon, he was 2nd on the day, 90 seconds ahead of Schuermans, Kwiatek, Bernar, Birtz and Olesen, with Hansen losing more time, but not as much als Poels, so Hansen ends in 8th place.
Degenkolb was the best sprinter, he won 4 stages and the green jersey ahead of Demare and Betancur. Boothroyd takes home the polka-dot jersey.
In the two Canadian WT races we didn't initiate any attacks, just followed our opponents. In Quebec our 8 riders were part of a group of 15 who would decide victory between them. Our best riders, Romeu, Mayordomo and Bunce, ran out of energy before the sprint even started and had to settle for 10th, 11th and 12th. But Gross, De Vos, Hermanski and Paramos had more left in the tank than riders like Rui Costa, Landa and Froome. However, our ex-rider Kevin Carter, who joined FDJ at the start of the season, overtook everybody to win his home race ahead of Gross and our Canadian, De Vos.
In Montreal we were able to conserve our sprint energy, at the cost of letting Bardet escape 5 km out. We would have needed 100 more metres to overtake him. But Hermanski, Gross and Romeu finished 2nd to 4th from a group of 34 riders.
The (simulated) Tour of Britain finished on the same day and our Sepulveda won ahead of Cobrelli and Daan Olivier.
