With the cycling season of 2009. over, and me being bored to death, I've come to the idea of sharing a new PCM story with you folks.
What I have here in my 2012 Columbia Highroad career is a real death squad, aiming for success in almost every race me and my team take part in, mainly focusing on grand tours, monuments, and big pro tour stage races.
Let me start by briefing you with a little bit of history of our mighty squad.
I'm using the Daily 09 database final version, but I've later added some of the riders that have been banned for doping in the most recent period (2007 and beyond), and put them to their original teams, or the teams they signed contracts for before being busted. I've somehow felt that it would be more fun and the competition would be more difficult.
Among them are the likes of Vinokourov, Kohl, Schumacher, Ricco, Kashechkin, Sella, etc. what the heck, there's no doping in the video games world, so they are all welcome, and I felt no righteous prejudice when adding them to my game.
Seasons passed, victories came, riders evolved, some of them started to fade away, sponsors started expecting more and more, so basicaly, the most important goal of my team for this story will be to match the last season score of incredible 104 stage, overall gc, and points classification victories.
Let's go back to the history part.
In the last season, year 2011., sponsors set some pretty difficult goals for my team. And as you can see, we have delivered all 6 of them with some considerable style.
In order for my team to come up with all these remarkable feats, and many more, It is important to mention some of the key figures of the squad in the 2011 season:
Mark Cavendish:
He had 29 victories last season, some of which include 7 stage victories + points classification (in the rest of the text PC) in Tour De France, 4 stages + PC in Tirreno-Adriatico, 3 stages plus PC in Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, a remarkable win in Milano - San Remo, and so on. He finished 8th in the UCI Pro Tour rankings.
Sponsors will probably aim for another green jersey at TdF next season.
Our Tour de France job wasn't completed with just Cav's green jersey, we've also had Thomas Lovkvist as a leader for the GC, the first time in a grand tour.
Thomas Lovkvist:
In the final ITT, he managed to defend his 10' lead over Denis Menchov, and held onto the yellow jersey, a remarkable and somewhat unexpected achievement. I was hoping for a top 5 finish because I could afford him only 2 helpers for the big mountains, the rest of the squad was taking care of Cavendish and his lead-out men. On the wings of his TdF overall victory, Lovkvist also won the Tour of Poland GC, due to the fact that we literally destroyed other teams in the stage 1 TTT. He just did all that was necessary to protect his jersey. He also had top5 finishes in Criterium du Dauphine Libere, and Paris-Nice.
He finished 2nd in the UCI Pro Tour rankings.
As far as the earlier part of the season counts, we were almost unbeatable thanks to our Norther Classics department:
Martijn Maaskant:
Marcus Burghardt:
Stijn Devolder:
Heinrich Haussler:
Stijn Devolder won E3 Prijs Vlanderen Harelbeke by a margin of 3 minutes over the rest of the bunch, and was in great form, but he then had the worst of luck when he broke his wrist in a one-day race that was a sort of preparation for the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Luckily Burghardt, Haussler and Maaskant, in that order, won all 3 pro tour cobbles races that week, helping each other in the process. In addition to the cobbles season, all of them had great success afterwards.
Devolder won the Eneco Tour of Benelux and later became the World ITT Champion!
Haussler scored 2 TdF victories because he was in a slightly better condition at the start of the race than Cavendish, so he took the 3rd and 4th stage, later he won 3 stages and the PC in Tour of Poland. He finished 6th in the UCI Pro Tour rankings.
Maaskant and Burghardt, since my campaign in 2011 was based primarily on the GCs and sprint victories, weren't enjoing much free time in the stage races, but still they managed to bring home some nice victories, mostly one day races, and a stage victory in Challenge Vuelta a Mallorca for Maaskant.
With the addition of Johan Van Summeren this season, I think we will be unbeatable in the spring.
Then there comes the calm before the storm:
Kanstantin Sivtsov:
He rode 2 grand tours last season, Giro and Vuelta, and he rode them with style! 4 GT stage wins, 2 in Giro, 2 in Vuelta, plus he was the Vuelta GC leader and he finished it 3rd after overcoming 2 better placed riders in the stage 20 mountain ITT. An amazing season for the rider that in most cases rides for protection of our leaders.
And what a leader we have:
Riccardo Ricco:
I guess this comes as a sort of an anti-climax for all those who expected someone clean or whatever, but as I said in the beginning, this is just a game and from now on I shall not focus on the doping part ever again in this story.
But what a game he has played this season!
After some warm up races in the April, when he won 3 Days of de Panne KOM jersey and Hel van Het Mergelland (we practicaly dominated it, but with the tight schedule, it was the best way to prepare my Giro department for the races to come.
And after that, victories after victories:
Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco - 3 stages and GC
La Fleche Wallone
2nd in Liege-Bastogne-Liege (lost it to Cunego by a horsehair)
Tour de Romandie - 3 stages, GC and PC
Giro d'Italia - 4 stages, GC and PC
Tour de Suisse - 5 stages, PC and 2nd overall
It was the most mountainous TdS I've ever seen, 4 stages that almost had the accumulated elevation of all the mountain stages in the Vuelta. If there weren't the 45km ITT on the stage 2 where he lost almost 4 minutes to the winner, Alberto Contador, and had he been fresher after the amazing Giro, he would have probably won it too. In the end, the margin was under 40 seconds.
But besides that slight "mishap", he went on to win the Italian Championship, and later in the season, after a deserved rest, Giro del Emilia and Giro di Lombardia.
The rest of the team looks something like this:
If youre asking, i'm playing on difficult, and the story will be played on difficult. All those who think this deserves extreme difficulty, have the right not to read the story.
In the next post, I'll focus a little on the other teams and the top riders so we can see what to expect from the next season.
Hope you enjoy the story, cheers!
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
How the heck is Cavendish 25 in 2012, though? He should be turning 27
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
The screenshots were made on 31st of December 2011. Beats me.. in any case, he isn't eligible for the U25 rankings since the 2010. season, so I guess the game has it right, just shows the wrong numbers..
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
btw, I forgot to say thanks isso and I've just realised that I've spent almost 2 hours writing this intro, my stupid numerical mathematics class starts at 3:15 so the next part of the presentation will be posted later today, probably after I watch the Club Brugge - Partizan Belgrade UEFA cup match
see you tonight!
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Nice presentation, I think I might have found my first 09 story to bother reading. It's good (in my opinion) that you've got the younger guys to come through, as well as the strong leaders, makes it more realistic than having 20 guys with 78 average or something!
Great Story. Its amazing you have great riders on your team. What is your budget? If you don't mind can you post up the contract salaries.
Edited by DiabloArmg on 22-10-2009 14:21
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
18 teams that will make the pro tour this season are:
Agritubel, Astana, BMC, Caisse d'Eparghe, Cofidis, Euskaltel, Fuji-Servetto, Garmin Slipstream, Katusha, Lampre, Liquigas, Quick-Step, Rabobank, Saxo Bank, Silence-Lotto, Columbia, Milram and Vacansoleil
I will go through their rosters alphabeticaly, list their top 10 riders based on the average score, and tell a bit about their previous successes, or in some cases lack of success.
For the purpose of me not writing one gigantic post for hours, and to give you the chance to actually read something new while I still write, I will divide this into four sections: 5+5+4+4.
So here we go
Agritubel
While Agritubel was still in continental tour, in season 2010. Pierre Roland notched up 14 victories and was the number one rider in cont. rankings. He won races like Tour of Qinghai Lake, Paris-Correze, had stage wins in Tour of Luxembourg and Tour de l'Ain, and won a handful of one day races. But when Agritubel got promoted, he was nowhere.
Offredo is a good cobbles rider, but Agritubel really doesn't have the team capable of competing with the big boys. He managed only a podium in Scheldeprijs.
As far as the big guns of Agritubel go, Voeckler, Casar and Di Gregorio are always somewhere, showing of their trademark fighting spirit. Casar actually had one of the best season of his career last year, finishing 2nd in Romandie and 3rd in Paris-Nice.
They have a good chance to stay in the pro tour this season.
Astana Cycling Team
They were the most active in the transfer season, notching some very good deals. They brought Menchov from Rabobank, Nibali from Barloword, Schumacher from Milram and Breschel from Saxo Bank.
Menchov is as solid as ever. He won Criterium du Dauphine Libere, and came 2nd behind Lovkvist in Tour de France. Nibali, having spent the last season with Barloword, focused his whole season on Giro d'Italia, and if it weren't for R.R. he would have finished 1st. He won a stage and came second 4 times, including the overall GC. Schumacher is always there when it comes to TTs and hilly classics, while Breschel is yet to shine having scored only 1 victory in the last 3 years, the Danish Championship.
Menchov will definitely be there at the TdF again, but so will we!
BMC
They are the new blood in the pro tour this season, and judging by the riders they brought in, they plan to stay. Kessiakoff was good in almost every race he took part of with Fuji-Servetto last year, he won Volta ao Algarve overall, and came second in a TdF stage. Markus Fothen is really growing into a force to be reckoned with, he finished 5th in the 2011 Vuelta riding for Milram, and he is still improving. Vandevelde will finally have the opportunity to be a leader in some big races, he didn't really show anything while riding for Garmin in the last 3 years. There are also a couple of good sprinters here. Wyss, Baumann and Heymans will definitely have something to say in the sprints this year.
Caisse d'Epargne
They lost Valverde, but landed in the ageless Leipheimer who came 3rd in the Dauphine, and 5th in the Tour de France. Not bad for a 38 year old bald guy. Caisse also brought to their squad the amazing Juan Angel Gomez Marchante, who is the reigning back to back overall Vuelta winner. Marchante also won GP Ouest France - Pluoay, and came second in Vuelta Castilla y Leon, all that while riding for still continental Cervelo Test Team. Rigoberto Uran had only four wins last year, 3 of them in Tour de l'Ain, and one in the Columbian ITT Championship. Now that Valverde is history, he can finally shine in the Ardennes. Igor Anton has grown to be a top notch climber too. He won a stage in Dauphine, came 3rd overall, and pulled some nice top 10 places in TdF. Had he been the leader, he would have probably done much more.
With their strong mountain squad, next season promises them to be an important factor in all the Grand Tour GC competitions.
Cofidis, le credit en ligne
Julian El Fares is still young, but he obviously has problems competing with the big boys, just like the new Agritubel stars. While Cofidis was in the continental tour, El Fares notched 8 wins, including Tour of Poland, and was 6th in the continental rankings 2010. Last season, something just wasn't right for him. To make him a friend, the team brought in another relatively young gun Markus Eibegger, who also came 6th in the cont. rankings, in the year 2011. So with a bit of luck, two of them might have a chance of pulling some nice victories. Along with Thomas Rohregger who is yet to win anything in his career, and Michale Roggers whos experience might prove a blending catalyst for the younger guys, the lady luck might just shine on Cofidis this season, like the yellow sun on their logo.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
The departure of Samuel Sanchez has left a deep wound in the Basque team. Last season, they scored only 213 pro tour points, and were only 40 points above the relegation zone. Mikel Astarloza has set a pace of 2 victories per season, and has maintained it for 3 years in a row. The only thing is that his list of other top 10 results is growing shorter and shorter as the time goes by. With 32 years of age, this is probably his last season on the top level. Koldo Fernandez de Larrea has also maintained his pace throughout the career, only difference is that he hasn't won anything, managing only 6 podiums in 3 years. Probably a last chance to pull something so he could get a decent contract next year. Amets Txurruka, the best climber on the team, is restricted to hunting the KOM points, but since the 2010. Tour de Suisse, he always fell short. Euskaltel's biggest problem is that they havent really got the manpower to provide their leaders with a chance to do anything more than struggle against relegation.
Fuji-Servetto
Fuji-Servetto has focused completely on the hills and mountains. Alejandro Valverde, approaching the sunset of his career, comes to a little less attractive team then Caisse to peacefully ride his last seasons. Due to the inevitable work of nature, his abilities have decreassed and from his punching aggressive style he has started to focus much more on the stage races and grand tours. My guess is that Fuji will focus on the Vuelta. The reason for that is the addition of Carlos Sastre to the squad, who was the main helper for Alberto Contador in the last year's Tour de France. Still with a bit of kick in his legs, we can expect him to do a great deal of work for Valverde, or possibly for Cobo. Cobo was quiet in the last two seasons, after a stage win and KOM jersey in 2009. Vuelta, he is yet to produce a podium finish. Based on the results in the previous years, we can say that Fuji-Servetto is yet to show it's true potential, and we shall wait for the mountains to see what they can do.
Garmin - Slipstream
This is the do or die season for Garmin. A team with no real stars has tried to fill in the gaps with some riders that are in the closing stages of their careers. Thor Hushovd, who won only 2 races last year, has come to a team where he can no more say that he is the best in his field. There are other sprinters who are not really better then him, but the fact is that Thor isn't who he used to be any more. And as for the cobbled races, Garmin is nowhere near the other good classics squads. Kim Kirchen is also nearing the end of his career, and his age of 33 is the only real reason why I have not given him a contract extension. To be fair, he did win the Amstel Gold Race last season, but he isn't getting any younger, and his legs are starting to feel less and less explosive with every passing month. Rosseler and Tuft, the last remaining good time trialists in the team, are also hitting the old age and it is only a question of time when this team will inevitably drop to continental tour. Matthew Lloyd, last year's Tour Down Under winner, and a new addition to the squad, Angel Madrazo, will try to keep them in the big league, and I really doubt they can do anything more than that.
Katusha
Katusha will probably be one of our great opponents for the green jerseys this seasons, although after leaving Milram, Gerald Ciolek hasn't produced any victories last season. They have 8 sprinters with a sprint stat over 75 so that certainly beats me, but the big question is will they be able to deliver in the way we did last season. I certainly hope not. Then there is the Katusha mountain department, led by Andrey Kashechkin and David Arroyo. Same as the sprinters, mountain crew has failed to live up to their potential too. Of all the climbers, only Karpets and Deignan managed to snatch a victory last season, mainly because Kashechkin was badly injured for better part of the year and rode only 20 race days. Samuel Sanchez is the newest addition to the team, with the aim to wreck havoc on the hills of Europe again, and repeat the last years near total domination in Paris-Nice, where he scored 3 stage victories and came 1st overall, while riding for his previous outfit Quick-Step. His main helper will be Antonio Colom, who didn't even manage a podium place in the last 3 years.
This is the team that has a lot of potential and many great riders, but for some mysterious reason they have managed to fail at everything.
Lampre - N.G.C.
This team is similar to Katusha in the sprinters department. Either they don't always send a good squad to help their main sprinter Mirko Lorenzetto, or the forces of cosmos aren't really on his side when it comes to delivering victories. On the other hand, Two best riders have a totaly different problem. No team mates. Robert Gesink is the only decent grand tour rider, and when I say decent, I meen great. The downside is that there are only a handfull of riders that can manage to stay with him on the climbs and protect him in a GC campaign, that is why he focused on KOM competitions, which he won in Tour de France. He is also the current Dutch champion. The same story is with Alessandro Ballan. Noone can go alone and ride the cobbled clasics hoping to do somethin other than merely finish the race inside the time gap. Ballan and Enrico Franzoi are actually the only two riders on the team that have COB stat in the green zone. This is a team that's badly in need of strong lieutenants that can help their leaders to victory, they really have enough water boys.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
Liquigas are, in a way, victims of transition. In the first season, The contracts of Nibali and Pelizotti were up for renewal, and both of them switched teams. Nibali to Barloworld, Pelizotti to Columbia. In second season, they have also let Basso go to Quick-Step. From then on, it has been a struggle to keep up with stronger teams, which resulted in the last years 16th place in the pro tour with only 200 points, 160 of which were won by Roman Kreuziger. He won a stage and came 4th overall in Tour de France, but really hasn't done anything that good in any other race. The rest of the team seemed like it didn't exist. Francesco Masciarelli managed some decent results in the Italian continental races, but nothing worth mentioning in this article. Sylvester Szmyd was much worse. In the classics, Manuel Quinziato, almost all on his own, landed some top 10 results on cobbles, including 8th place in Paris-Roubaix and 9th place in Gent-Wevelgem.
Alongside Garmin, this is one of my bets for the pro tour relegation spot this season.
Quick-Step
Quick-Step has made a good balance of riders in all departments. Good sprinters, great climbers, decent time trialists, solid, but not great cobbles squad, and Damiano Cunego to rampage the Ardennes. In terms of consistency and solid results, Cunego is reliving the second youth, and has a great chance to fulfill his ambitions as a leader of the hilly classics team this year and with the help of Giovani Visconti repeat his success that came while riding for Rabobank. Ivan Basso, current Italian ITT champion, is the leader for the general classification in stage races, but in recent years he hasn't had much success in grand tours. Main reason behind that is the fact that Sella, Seeldrayers and Basso, Quick-Step's best climbers, have rarely had the opportunity to work together, their team managers decided that doing solo attempts was much wiser. In the sprints, they have Simone Ponzi and Wouter Weylandt who are very good, relatively strong cobbles team led by Leif Hoste and Frederic Amoriso, previously mentioned climbers and puncheurs, and even Dominic Cornu and Kevin De Weert as the teams best time trialists.
A balance of power? We shall see.
Rabobank
This is the team that probably has the biggest chances to beat my death squad in the Flanders classics. They've brought Cancellara from Saxo Bank who enjoyed a bad 2011. season and hopes for a new shot at world domination. Other good signing in cobbles section is Ricardo Van der Velde from Garmin, who felt that he has grown much greater then the team that once was one of the best. With help from Nick Nuyens, Niki Terpstra and Coen Vermeltfoort, they will have a chance to ruin my plans for total domination in the spring. The signature of Alberto Contador is probably the biggest transfer of the season, and Rabobank have had to bring him in order to replace the before mentioned Levi Liepheimer, who spent a season with the Dutch team. Along with him came Rodrigo Garcia from Miche - Silver Cross who will probably be a major infulence in the Contador's TdF campaign. As far as the sprinters go, Tom Leezer has grown to be one of the best, and with Theo Bos as his lead out man, he can hope for a lot of victories this season. In hilly classics, the stage is set for Christian Pfannberger.
Definitely one of the strongest teams today.
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
When it comes to the one day races, Saxo Bank is the team to look at. It was a busy transfer season for them. With Fabian Cancellara and Matti Breschel leaving the squad, new blood was needed in order to help out their biggest star Filippo Pozzato. While still riding for the Katusha squad, Pipo was amazing throughout the season. in 2010. for example, he scored 5 victories including Paris-Roubaix, Gent-Wevelgem and Vattenfall Cyclassics, 6 more podiums, and another 20 top 10 finishes. Thats when he switched to Saxo Bank, where he won only Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, and Volta ao Algarve KOM. Andy and Frank Schleck are in bit of a hibernation the last two years. They are active only in the spring, no grand tours, no big races, just the Ardennes and that's it. I really struggle to understand why. Two of them have a combined total of 56 race days last season. I really haven't tracked their progress, but surely both of them being injured for the whole season would be a heck of a coincidence. At least it gives the young Jakob Fuglsang an opportunity to be the leader at some big races, including the TdF, where he finished 10th overall last year. Chris Anker Sorensen has returned after spending two seasons at Cofidis, probably to replace Gustav Erik Larsson who went to OUCH.
Edited by Deda on 23-10-2009 21:49
If offense is the best defence, does it mean that defence is the worst defence?
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord will delete my browser history.
and I've just realised that I've spent almost 2 hours writing this intro, my stupid numerical mathematics class starts at 3:15 so the next part of the presentation will be posted later today, probably after I watch the Club Brugge - Partizan Belgrade UEFA cup match 
