Mario Vogt 50K wage? Are you kidding me? That is amazing. The ones I have that are similar costs the double in average. Getting Herklotz down 250K is absolutely brilliant mate. I know he isn't worth 500K +, but I wouldn't have dared offering that little, as I would be affraid of him snubbing the deal. Well done mate, well done!
Ouch, Ciolek and Kelderman got really greedy I see... Herklotz still a bit much (but did well to cut your losses) - in fact he's 200k more than Meintjes. I'll also relish in the fact that Augustyn is 10k less than Nerz. Edited by aidanvn13 on 08-05-2015 19:35
I don`t get Vogt. Even Thomas Koep went up last year with far lower stats and did not accept 50k wage.
This year my maxed riders like Krieger went up again as also Olivier.
Vogt must be one underpaid rider, who clearly is no longer happy with Puma. Obviously he is looking to join another team now.
Edit: Obviously I missed that you screwed him. Edited by roturn on 08-05-2015 19:44
@Jesleyh: Sorry mate, you gotta have a personal talk with Wilco as I have no idea either what happened there.
I probably could've gone a bit lower in round 2 and still get him, but the threat of having to pay him another 70k more in round 3 if that failed was waaaay too big to go risky there.
By the time I'm ready to sell him, he most probably won't be 80 hill anymore anyway, so this should actually be pretty irrelevant for you either way
@SotD&roturn: Yeah, I am pretty surprised he's still that low, though that probably just means he'll skyrocket next season after probably getting no significant results again.
It's pretty hard to go lower than the 31 points he scored in 2014 though, so he's not really worth much more anyway at the moment
And he's actually not even the highest OVL rider on my team on 50k, that's Bol.
Regarding Herklotz, this is by far not the first time I'm dealing with those overpaid talents, so I was kinda confident to apply the same method as always, and an accepted round 1 offer shows there was no doubt it would work.
Not getting level 3 certainly helped, I admit that.
@aidan: Well I don't think the Herklotz-Meintjes comparison is fair at all, and you know that just as well
To be fair, Nerz scored 342 points more than Augustyn last season...just saying.
@ember: I tried, I really tried.
I still think that's a reasonable wage to pay for a very regionally focused team like...hmmm...what was that Norwegian team called again?
Some of your riders are painfully cheap :-p Though you will most likely have the same problem as me next season, so you better promote and get the extra wage cap ;-)
I guess we will talk during transfers anyway, we are always open to loaning riders
Heine wrote:
Some of your riders are painfully cheap :-p
Yeah, Ciolek and Kelderman overshadowed that a bit, but indeed, I was really happy about the new 50k guys and the whole group of Lander/Bongiorno/Daniel who are all a 77 main stat with still one gain left.
Heine wrote:
Though you will most likely have the same problem as me next season, so you better promote and get the extra wage cap ;-)
Yeah, I'll probably have 11 or 12 riders above 100k wage next season, so I really need the $$$
Heine wrote:
I guess we will talk during transfers anyway, we are always open to loaning riders
If anyone manages to splash out an offer for one of these riders that makes us consider a transfer, I am very impressed.
And you may want to double check if you really don't end up over your budget with it.
Most probably staying unless a great offer or swap appears
Here we have the extended core of the team for years to come.
Luxury domestiques/leadouts, co-leaders and an outright cobbles leader in Daniel as well as a top TTer in Sütterlin.
Noone is in any real danger to leave, but if you possess one of the riders we would love to sign the most and express interest in a rider on this list or have lots of money around, don't be scared away now.
We will at least talk about things, of course.
Maxime Daniel is in this category purely because I already know some teams that would kill for him, we would really need to have a better - or at the very least similar - replacement for him already signed or included in such a deal to part ways.
That is not entirely out of the question though!
Last but not least, Ringheim is slightly highlighted here as we could see him be a great fit for a certain PT team, and if we are in need of some money (which we very well might be), we would not be too reluctant to see him go to that great project.
Likely staying; may be for sale, most probably available for loan
Patrick Bercz
4.00, PT
€50.000
75 SP
Christian Mager
3.52, all divisions
€50.000
72 HIL, 69 MO
Clement Chevrier
3.88, all divisions
€50.000
71 MO, 70 HIL
Barry Markus
4.00, PT
€50.000
75 SP
Dylan van Baarle
3.93, all divisions
€50.000
72 TT, 68 HIL
Victor Shishelov
4.01, PT
€50.000
76 FL, 69 TT
A general comment regarding this category first: While there are 6 riders mentioned here, we don't expect to loan out more than 3 or 4 of these riders in total due to the nature of the loan cap and our projected roster size.
Who those guys will be depends on the interest shown and the exact direction our transfers go.
All those riders are still (some far, some less far) from reaching their top potential, which makes them a slight burden towards the salary cap for now considering the clear goal for 2015 is promotion to ProTour, and we will need 20 highly competitive riders for that.
Obviously they all will be good riders when maxed though, so we would like to keep them around or just loan them out for now.
The second column indicates the current xp levels and which divisions we are looking for in a loan deal. We expect each loaned out rider to gain an experience level, so please keep that in mind when showing interest.
It is also possible that they could take part in swap deals for riders we are interested in, or sold if a good offer comes in and money/cap space is needed.
Definitely for sale
Thomas Bontenackels
76 TT, 72 MO
€120.000
Mickaël Delage
73 SP, 73 HIL, 74 FL
€55.000
Bontenackels and Delage have been informed that their results last season may see their future in Team Puma - SAP in danger.
Both riders underperformed and especially the German might have too high wage demands for the basic domestique work he did.
We see Delage fitting into a CT team very well, remember that a very similar Thiago Nardin nearly won the individual standings there in 2013.
He can be a great asset in not overly selective hilly races or, the other way round, in hard sprint stages.
Wherever he doesn't have the chance lead, Delage is a very reliable first leadout man to any sprinter as well, he is certain to be in full energy mode when the sprint preparations start.
Bontenackels is a great TT leader for a CT team that can also hold his ground in the mountain stages if defending his GC position after the TT is necessary. He should be among the strongest TTers in the division.
Alternatively, he is a great domestique for a PCT and even for a PT team who look to strenghten their TTT squads, but don't want to give up a roster spot to a rider that ONLY can ride TTs and is of no real domestique use otherwise.
Edited by cio93 on 09-05-2015 14:22
Last but not least, Ringheim is slightly highlighted here as we could see him be a great fit for a certain PT team, and if we are in need of some money (which we very well might be), we would not be too reluctant to see him go to that great project.
I like the sound of that!
We'll surely talk during transfers, I'm yet to decide though if it will be in German or English after last season's transfers Edited by ember on 09-05-2015 16:35
The first week of transfers wasn't as hectic and exciting as it used to be in earlier transfer seasons, but that was always going to be the case with our roster core being basically complete now and no incentives to swap our leaders.
Therefore, only 5 permanent deals have been made.
First of all, we want to thank Thomas Bontenackels, Mickaël Delage and Jo Kogstad Ringheim for their efforts and dedication they displayed while riding in our jersey.
Bontenackels demanded too much in renewals to be a part of the team's future, and after some desparation regarding his trade out already started to set in, we found the new CT team Akzonobel - Statoil as a great team to trade him to as he should be allowed to lead the team in TT-dependent races and maybe can achieve a goal or two of theirs.
We felt Delage slipped down our internal priority list in race selection and strategy planning too much for his talent and versatility, so we didn't want him to stay in a helper role as the 6th or 7th man in our lineups.
He should have a much better chance at repeating some of his great results of the past at In-n-Out Cycling Team p/b Carrefour.
Ringheim only left because both the rider and the team were well aware of how amazing of a fit he'd be at his new team, so we made it quite obvious early on that we'd want Aker - MOT to be his home for the future, and luckily ember already had the same in mind.
We are happy to support such a great project and will follow their fight for survival with their unique approach closely.
We will continue to watch the performances of our former riders and want to express our gratitude towards the involved managers for the smooth and enjoyable negotiations.
With most of our budget focused on training (more about that later), there never were going to be many team-to-team trades for new riders.
Puma's Free Agency adventures however were far and in between so far as well as there were only a couple of high priority targets on our lists, and most went past our available cap space without our involvement.
To drop a few names, those were Keinath, Teunissen and Groenewegen amongst others.
Luckily, one rider we particularly focused on ever since he joined the ManGame did not skyrocket as much as we feared and we were able to secure him.
Nikias Arndt has always been a great prospect, especially among the Germans in the game, as he combines excellent climbing and above-average puncheur abilities with a great sprint that is only rivalled by Taylor Phinney himself among the great mountain goats.
A big weakness is is TT which will be very detrimental to his GC potential, but we like to see the positive side of it, and that is the fact that this combination makes him a very potent challenger for KoM jerseys in the big tours of the future.
His development isn't quite finished yet which certainly helped to keep his price tag down a bit, but with 4.99 he is obviously close enough to maxing out that a single HC classic will do the job.
We welcome Nikias here at Team Puma - SAP, and provided he doesn't start to show ridiculous wage demands at some point, we don't see a single reason why he shouldn't stay in our team for the next decade.
Name
Age
XP
Focus
Wage
Nikias Arndt
24
4.99, pot6
Mo, Hil, Spr
€ 300.000
Fl
Mo
Hil
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Cob
Spr
Acc
Fig
Dow
Pro
71
77
74
56
76
75
70
63
71
73
59
63
56
Our second and already final signing for this week 1 recap is another German rider that we quickly added to our shortlist as soon as he was discovered in the new DB.
Sascha Weber isn't quite as young as Arndt, but still within the upper limit of our "as young as possible" philosophy.
He is a double threat of a much less unique kind than Arndt, but that doesn't mean it is any less valuable.
A good cobbler is a cobbler that is far from useless in the big parts of the season that don't contain any cobbled races, so just like Maxime Daniel, our designated cobbles leader for the future, Weber also sprints very well.
That obviously helps to finish far up in the small groups and thus above his pure cobbles potential in the important races, and it also allows us to use him as a leadout option for both Ciolek and Demare in the future.
Weber's XP level is "only" 4.00, so we won't be able to provide him with a stats upgrade next off-season, but for a wage of €60.000, his stats are already good enough to make him a great addition.
Once maxed, he will be a household name in our lineups year round.
Name
Age
XP
Focus
Wage
Sascha Weber
27
4.00, pot3
Cob, Spr
€ 60.000
Fl
Mo
Hil
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Cob
Spr
Acc
Fig
Dow
Pro
72
57
67
59
73
69
67
74
75
75
60
66
62
We agreed on 3 loan deals so far in transfers, and all of them are Puma riders being loaned out to CT teams to make them develop just as well as they would in our team, but without us having to pay their wages for this year.
Clement Chevrier and Christian Mager temporarily join and support Bontenackels at In-n-Out in a triple deal, a rare occurance in this game and definitely a first in the history of Team Puma - SAP.
Thank you to maxime86 for making that possible.
Dylan van Baarle will ride for the relegated BelarusBank team next season and help them where he's needed.
Thanks to Ste117 for the fast and uncomplicated negotiations.
All three riders will reach XP level 4 and return as valuable riders wherever we'll ride next season.
The probably last rider we will sign this transfer season just finalised his contract.
Patrick Bevin is the first rider from outside of Europe we ever signed, but with the team going for promotion and then a longer PT stay than last time, we cannot and don't want to fully keep the regional approach, especially this late in transfers where fitting riders from target countries are becoming rarer by the minute.
We also hope to make our sponsors more known in New Zealand with this move, a country that mostly consists of Becherovka fans until now.
Our team was always lacking TTT depth, so he is the perfect addition for the future. He also can climb really well for a TTer, so his versatility in GTs will make him far more valuable than a pure time trialist.
He needs another level to max out, but we won't loan him out for the season as we expect him to help us in most stage races we enter.
You forgot to mention those Oz fans in Kiwi land! Bevin was tough to miss out on. One of my favorite riders irl. Will follow him closely. He really should have been maxed this year though
You forgot to mention those Oz fans in Kiwi land! Bevin was tough to miss out on. One of my favorite riders irl. Will follow him closely. He really should have been maxed this year though
I'm sorry...he just fitted who I still needed too well to miss out on him just because of his nationality.
And at least now it's easier to get him down from that wage next year.
So... Will Puma make the dreaded promotion spot this time around? It must certainly be of utmost importance, looking at the potential wage increase of several (and likely to stay I might add) riders.
I assume that Nerz will be trained, otherwise you have a great weakness looking through the GC riders available in the PCT. That part of the league is really heavy this time around with riders such as Contador, Keizer, Marquez, Abal, Berhane, Valls, Talansky, Rujano, Brajkovic, Machado, Eastman, Intxausti, Faiers, Sella, Kiserlovski, van den Broeck and possibly Kwiatek.
Bevin looks really similar to Nathan Brown who I signed just one step up the lvl ladder also agree with Sotd that Nerz looks like he will be trained that or Ciolekk will hit 85 sprint
Herklotz still a bit much (but did well to cut your losses) - in fact he's 200k more than Meintjes. I'll also relish in the fact that Augustyn is 10k less than Nerz. 
.JPG/220px-Lens_-_Paris-Arras_Tour,_%C3%A9tape_1,_23_mai_2014,_d%C3%A9part_(B044).JPG)
