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Deutschland Tour - Discussions
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 12-04-2024 20:24
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Yeah, I fully get that sprinting logic... Bol is a Top 5 sprinter in Vineyards and doesn't get a Top 10, Page isn't even a Top 15 sprinter here and gets 8th... I'll obviously happily take that point, but sprinting is just frustrating, even without a top sprinter.
Congrats to Cedevita, looks like Enger's best sprinting legs are back 
Otherwise, Bralirwa, Genii and Zwift perfectly executed the strategy I was hoping we would apply, as it feels like a KoM jersey would be our best shot at some good points. But yeah, breakaways haven't been our strength so far, looks like that continues even when we've no rider close to being a favourite ^^
Thanks for the report, good luck to those who didn't do well today for the next stages.
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 12-04-2024 22:30
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Ahlstrand in fifth is fine for an opening stage but we want more
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| tastasol |
Posted on 12-04-2024 22:33
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Safely through, so all in all good stage for us. Nice win for Enger, congrats to Cedevita. Always cool to see the Norwegian riders do good.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 25-11-2024 03:50
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| tastasol |
Posted on 13-04-2024 09:30
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Hmm, interesting. Stupid split if course, but the ITT not being super long, let's see if it can play a role. Some good prologue riders up front at least, but I don't have the full overview over their TT skills...
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 13-04-2024 10:09
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Wild. First the stage win, of course, which is a massive outlier result for Silvestre. And then the split. Looking at last year's result, a rider of Silvestre's or Enger's TT quality (the two best time trialists among those ahead) might lose something between 1'50 and 2'30 on the stage winner, maybe? With 1'40 on the main peloton thanks to the bonus seconds, this could mean a really good GC result. Obviously incredibly lucky, should it come to that.
That said, I really feel for the top sprinters. So far, this race unfortunately only underlines the bad rep of (at least PT) sprints this year.
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| redordead |
Posted on 13-04-2024 10:42
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Enger does enough to keep both the GC and points lead, that was pretty much the best I hoped for. As Cunego has mentioned, those splits are now quite significant with Enger and Slivestre being solid against the clock.
The race is turning out to be a lot more unexpected apart from a few of the top sprinters struggling again. Hopefully they do better in the final two stages.
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 13-04-2024 10:53
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Sprints in this game need serious help aye. Jakobsen outside the Top 10 twice when you've got guys who are lead-out level making the podium. Hurting big time 
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 13-04-2024 15:10
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Dang, for a second I thought AKA was making a run to steal the stage. Unfortunately , so were several others sprinters. 4th is still a lot better than most better sprinters have gotten so far, so works for me.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 13-04-2024 15:52
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Obviously a great result for Walscheid but that was ugly.
I think the 4 lane roads make it worse, one thing we can do is eliminate those.
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 13-04-2024 21:08
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Just have to echo the others, sprints are getting even uglier, although that didn't seem to be possible actually...
I mean, obviously happy for Page to take 3rd place, but that's a completely unrealistic result to be fair. The whole Top 3 is weird, and none of them should actually be there...
What's even worse though is that new "feature" with splits on flat stages. No clue who coded the AI, but that's definitely something you (almost) never see IRL, and in MG it's happening maybe every 4th flat stage. Really don't like that...
Congrats to Bralirwa anyway - on the stage win, and on an almost certain GC Top 10. I didn't think this could be one of the races that might be decisive for promotion, but it could well turn out to be. Yeah, Silvestre might lose 1,40" to the Top 3, but even that isn't set in stone imho. GC Top 10 for him looks safe if he doesn't get caught out on splits, and even Top 5 is possible - something completely wild. Looks like you just got the right riders for these kinds of really odd results, like Izagirre, Uwi, or now Silvestre. Makes me kind of regret I didn't go for Enger instead of Page in the offseason 
Thanks for the report. And commiserations to the team of the top sprinters (or even the good ones), really just a shame how these sprints play out. And yes, imho this is game breaking.
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| ember |
Posted on 13-04-2024 21:25
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Potts making it very clear that our goal for this race must be the KoM jersey. Nice to see him go 4/4 KoM sprints on stage 2, which hopefully means, looking at the final stage profile, it will take another breakaway featuring his stage 2 companions and not himself for Potts to not claim the jersey. Fingers crossed he's awake and mark them on stage 5! A pity to see all of Coquard, Ewan and Ahlstrand well outside the top 10 on that stage 2. Well done Silvestre and Bralirwa to capitalize on it. Congratulations, cunego! |
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 13-04-2024 21:45
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This race could and should have been great for us, but right now it looks like it might be a disaster. Up to Zmorka to make it all right tomorrow hopefully, but 1'40" is not a fun gap to overcome.
Congratulations to Bralirwa on the great stage win of course, and thank you Imladrik for the solid reporting as always!
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 13-04-2024 23:04
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Sh*t sprints is all I can say. Let's hope the time trial is better for our health
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 14-04-2024 00:57
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Can we vote to eliminate sprints and flat stages from season 2024?
. . .
Good effort from Abdul Halil on s1, happy as can be with that result with a good win for Enger. s2 though is a total dumpster fire - the three big dogs got screwed over and the second line of sprinters behind them somehow did too? Manninen, Abdul Halil and a few others had their wheels and would normally shoot out and contest the win, but this time around it was the third line of sprinters the usurped them to fight for the win - really weird, and resulted in a totally whacky top-10.
Gonna need a lot of testing in the off season to see if we can get sprints to an acceptable level - never gonna be perfect, but at this point I don’t see why you’d pay big bucks on a sprinter when they’re likely to just fail miserably. Congrats on s2 too Cunego, huge stage with potentially big ramifications for promotion. Thanks for the reports as well!
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| cunego59 |
Posted on 14-04-2024 07:14
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I've been thinking that some sprinting problems could be ameliorated with stage design. Both narrower roads and maybe including a bend in the final kilometer should help with the big disadvantage of being near the front at the start of sprints. Iirc, corners and bends were explicitly edited out of the finales of flat stages a few years ago because that gave too much of an advantage the other way, so it'd need some fine-tuning, but perhaps something we could try.
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| kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 14-04-2024 09:56
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cunego59 wrote:
I've been thinking that some sprinting problems could be ameliorated with stage design. Both narrower roads and maybe including a bend in the final kilometer should help with the big disadvantage of being near the front at the start of sprints. Iirc, corners and bends were explicitly edited out of the finales of flat stages a few years ago because that gave too much of an advantage the other way, so it'd need some fine-tuning, but perhaps something we could try.
On a side note: Could a reason for the weird AI actions also be that we play the races on 'normal' difficulty? I don't know if there has been some playtesting on this theme in the past years (or if the difficulty has any effect on the race AI whatsoever), but maybe this could be tested too.
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 14-04-2024 16:25
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cunego59 wrote:
I've been thinking that some sprinting problems could be ameliorated with stage design. Both narrower roads and maybe including a bend in the final kilometer should help with the big disadvantage of being near the front at the start of sprints. Iirc, corners and bends were explicitly edited out of the finales of flat stages a few years ago because that gave too much of an advantage the other way, so it'd need some fine-tuning, but perhaps something we could try.
Agree with both those things I just don't know how much they help. Doing it at any scale it time consuming. It would be great to have someone test the impact if I did it for one race. Also good to know where does the corner work best, I think just before 1k but not sure.
kandesbunzler26 wrote:
On a side note: Could a reason for the weird AI actions also be that we play the races on 'normal' difficulty? I don't know if there has been some playtesting on this theme in the past years (or if the difficulty has any effect on the race AI whatsoever), but maybe this could be tested too.
I don't think so, I think it makes all AI teams better or worse.
My additional idea would be to bump up FL for sprinters, because I think that helps. If we gave every 81+ sprinter +2 FL and 79-80 +1 that might help a little. Also creates more differentiation which I think helps since collapsing is more dramatic when there are 30 similar riders just behind you. (I would exclude strong cobblers from this to avoid impacting CO races).
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 14-04-2024 18:17
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From just my viewing this year, I think an even bigger benefit would just be having sprints that are at -1-3% gradients so riders don't expel energy as fast. Whenever there's a slight downhill it seems like way fewer of the top sprinters burn out to early, and leadouts actually work. And that doesn't come with the blocking/disruption problems of narrow roads and bends.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| jph27 |
Posted on 14-04-2024 18:39
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What an absolute disaster of a race for us so far. Kemboi not being bothered about sprinting isn't massively surprising given what we know about the sprint AI, but Cataford has absolutely no business being 55th in this TT field. |
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| Marcovdw |
Posted on 14-04-2024 20:13
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Grand Tour Champion
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Uhm Bjerg you ok? A shoe-in for white finishing that far down the order.
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