Signed Sagan to replace Pozzato long term.. He's crazy good. Never runs out of steam. I've decided to try the 'Historical Grand Slam' in one season. I don't know if he's good enough to compete in the cobble-races, but I'll try using Pozzo to help him. Definatly possible to get the 'Ardennes Triple', although he almost lost out on the first of the Grand Slam in Milan-San Remo as he got stuck in traffic up the last hill, but attacking with him and an another rider on the downhill worked out, as the other rider was able to act as lead out in the sprint.
Also going for 'Stage Hunter' with Boasson Hagen. Never attempted it before, but I recon it's possible due to his great recovery and overall strenght.
Cunego's contract expires at the end of the season and him being 33 I think it's time to look for a new GT leader. Froome, Nibali and Schleck are all free at the end of the season, and so to is van den Broeck and Contador, though they will be 33 next year.
The contract with both Lampre and Merida also expires. I have started a worldwide search, but haven't decided yet if I'm going to change sponsors.
Palini has turned out to be a fantastic sprint lead out in any sort of race. He has gained 'star'-reputation from all the 2nd and 3rd places in classics, and by mistake he also won last year's Il Lombardia
Cheers, I've renewed their contract on long term just at the right times, when they are out of form and before their reputation rise. Makes it easier to have a great team with on a medium budget. Do you guys do this too, or consider it a form of cheating?
I.e. right now Henao is on €24k p/week, but wants 60k to renew, Kelderman is on 13k and wants 40k, while Palini and Wackermann is on €5k but asking 25k. I have them for the next 2-3 years though
Oh, and I think you should renew in the last year. I think there was a bug with old wage + new wage counting up next season, but I'm not sure about it, could also be an earlier version/earlier patch.
I don't consider it cheating at all, but it's not something I would do, I just like to keep it more realistic and do it in the last year.
Btw guys, great that this topic became really active, it's great to read the experiences of other people in their careers, especially when you're bored as hell, there's 33 pages to read
I guess the Giro tickled everyone's fancy for the game
I haven't encountered that wage bug with a UCI team. There was some strange ongoings with my custom team when I started with a low budget and got bigger budgets after a while. First of there was a limit in the game to only double the wage expenses each season, even though the sponsor increased it by much more.. more annoying though was that when offering contracts to new riders it seemed to count the salary twice, but only for the time that it took for the rider to accept or reject the offer, if I remember correctly. I got the game last fall, so I haven't played it with the first few patch I guess.
Yes, Kelderman is pretty much fully developed now. He has one star left in sta/res/rec, in addition to a few stars in spr/acc/cobb. He was a great helper last season, and managed to get 9th in TdF and young rider jersey, despite being asked to do a lot of work (Henao placed 3rd). Also got 3rd in TDU, which he repeated this season.
Every season so far I've not prioritized tour de suisse/polonge/eneco. With the way I split up my team they come at such a bad time that my riders can't be in form for it without sacrificing form for the grand tours. Maybe next season I can split my team up a little bit more and have i.e. Kelderman in form for those tours.
Edited by eple on 02-06-2013 10:53
T3 (Pa-Ni/Tir-Ad, Flanders + Ardennes, TdSuisse, Pologne, Fall Classics)
Pozzato
Chainel
Keukeleire
Richeze
Søndergård
Cardillo
Visser
Iraola
* for Pa-Nice & Tir-Ad I split T1 and T3 up so I have a good GC-contender in both.
T4 (Tir-Ad + All big one-day races)
Sagan
T5 (All GTs)
Boasson Hagen
So this means for the tours mentioned I only have cobble riders. I guess a quick fix would be to put Kelderman or Krusjewijk in the cobble group, but that would mean a weaker GT-team.
Hehe, he would be wasting a lot of race days riding those cobbles and I guess it would not be very, what's that word... "re-al-is-tic"?
To cheer you up he just managed 2nd overall in Catalunya!
Cobbles with Sagan so far is looking achievable. In E3 Iglinsky attacked 70-80km before finish. The main group of strong riders caught up with the break, but Iglinsky kept them at 2 min distance until 15km, when I ran out of patience. I set Pozzato to dot and left Sagan in the group. Pozzo caught up with Iglinsky well before the sprint which caused him to just give up. The main group was chasing mad though and I let Pozzo take a breather as they caught up to him just before the sprint the. He had plenty of energy left to set up Sagan with an easy sprint win.
In Gent-Wevelgem the break was caught early at around 40km. A few guys attacked without gaining ground. At around 25km Boonen attacked and the group seemed unable to chase him. I had Chainel there and tried to chase with him, but Boonen kept increasing the gap. At around 12km I set Pozzo to dot at a high tempo with Sagan on his wheels. They quickly dropped the main group but Boonen would not quit. He kept the gap at around 35-40 seconds. I thought I would lose it as I approached the sprint, but as a last ditch effort I sprinted at 3km, with Pozzo only having a few bars left. At 2.5km I sent of Sagan. What a speed!!! Boonen must have been completely empty because he waited until 1km to sprint as Sagan was coming up on his side. He was empty aswell but I think his momentum took him past Boonen as he finished a few bike lengths ahead of him.
Now to do the same in Ronde Vlaanderen
Cancellara was riding Cataluyna btw, but I guess he'll there for the big races.
Edited by eple on 02-06-2013 14:01
Just finished Giro with Saxo-Tinkoff Bank. It was an amazing GT for our team and our leader Kreuziger. 3rd GC overall + 11th stage and top3 on 7th, 8th and 18th stages.
Bennati rode well too with two stage wins: 1st and 5th and a top 13 on 12th stage. Majka helped Kreuziger and still, finished in 3rd on young jersey.
Oh, and i think i'll have a new main sponsor for the next year. UniCredit offered me about 3.000.000€ (less than SaxoBank already offer) but the country is important for me. Denmark hasn't that much talented riders as Italia, and so i may change the sponsor, letting some old riders go.
btw, just a quick review of my best results, so far:
Recently started a career with Blanco, already won TDU, Tirreno, a stage in Paris Nice and Catalunya and the E3. Just had Gent-Wevelgem. Quite weird race there. On the first Kemmelberg, split the peloton to 70 riders. On the next it became 20. It became a sprint with an exhausted Boonen, Sagan out of shape, Degenkolb and Vanmarcke. Degenkolb won, but we should be terrified about no2. It was bloody Sinkeldam! How, I dont know, all I thought was WTF. Vanmarcke came 4th, Boonen was 3rd. Currently up for the last stage in Catalunya
After getting 2015 year with Movistar,i totally lost motivation.
Won Vuelta and TDF in these 2 years,made Quintana one of best climbers,won WC with Valverde,got Degenkolb,who developed next year in real beast and there i stopped.
I thought to start career with Lotto or Argos this time,or maybe NetApp , any suggestions (i would really like to get some )?
So, i started this team some months ago, and now i reached at the half of my first season. Until now, everything is going supergood. Here are some of my important results:
4 stages Giro di Italia: Degenkolb (3) + Martin
7th Overall Ranking Giro: Kloden
1st Ronde Van Vlandereen: Burghardt (dont ask how... im still shocked )
2nd Milano - SanRemo: Degenkolb
1st Overall, Points, Mountains rangkings Tour of Luxemburg: Degenkolb, Nerz + 4/5 stages won
Mountains ranking: Bayern - Rundfarth, Tour of California: Nerz
+ I almost won the Giro points ranking, but Deg cracked on the last mountain stage, and got DQ, for delaying (
+ lots of top 10s in other 2.HC / 1.HC races
In the second part of the season my main objectives are obv, a good classification in Vuelta: Kloden will be mah meen, and ofc Deg and Tony to snatch victories, Thus there will be The tour of Pologne im invited, and ill try my best in Late season classics.
Despite the good results, im a bit sceptic about the future. I mean Deg is hell of a rider, and Martin covers my TT and stage victory needs, but my only GC rider is Kloden, who is basically a dinosaur ) Im thinking of signing a GC rider, who is the nationality of mystill unkwnown co-sponsor
admirschleck wrote:
I thought to start career with Lotto or Argos this time,or maybe NetApp , any suggestions (i would really like to get some )?
I've been playing with Argos for a while now (I'm @ Le Tour now) and it's mostly quite fun. Degenkolb is a total beast, but I'm not too happy with Kittel. His bad resistance and stamina stats stood in the way of really great results so far (only Top 5s in the first Tour stages). As for stage races and hilly classics, you really need to have some patience. I brought in Linus Gerdemann, that helped a lot. Otherwise, your best climber is someone like Peterson (or in my case Barguil, who's developed to 77 MO by now), so you have to go for breakaways rather than GC. If you're fine with that, Argos might be the team for you.
I thought Barguil had at least 74mo/hil.
I am the guy that prefer mountain stages,so i would probably try with Lotto this time,having great riders in every field.
I love realism in PCM: Henao wearing the pink jersey in the Giro, but still working for Wiggins (5 minutes behind in GC). Also, Nibali taking over the jersey in the first time trial, just like what happened in the real Giro. So I'm happy so far, Astana and Nibali are on schedule for victory!
3rd season of Lampre career is going well. Sagan has been fantastic, he will be my first rider to score 1000pts in the UCI tour. He has won basically everything he's partaken in... except for L-B-L! Gilbert was too strong. There's still a few classics left, and if he manages to win Il Lombo he will have managed the Mini Slam in one season. He couldn't have done it without Pozzo though. Next season he will be gone, but I've secured Lars Boom as his right hand man.
Boasson Hagen manged 2 stage wins in both the Giro and the Tour, in addition to the green jersey in the latter. I'm about to start the Vuelta with him in good form, so I think I have a great chance of getting the stage hunter exploit.
I still haven't been able to win Tour de France. This season I rode my team to the brink of collapse trying to protect the jersey and win seconds for Henao. I was dreading the 20th stage, which was a completely flat 60km + TT. Closest rivals were Froome, Contador and Nibali, but he had a few minutes lead. They all crushed him though. Froome beat him with 3:30 and Henao dropped to 4th place with only a minute from 1st to 4th
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