with what racing fitness should a rider enter a grandtour, if he wants to go for the general classment, so the most important stages are in 2nd or 3rd week?
He asked about racing fitness, not overall fitness.
The racing fitness is build up rather quickly if it had been filled already in that season, so I guess you could start rather low, but I never pay grand tours with my conti-team
In most stage races the first week is mostly flat. So if you start with an overall fitness of about 85-95 you're fine. Form will rise to 95-96 in the second week and peak towards the end of week 2 - beginning week 3.
I like my riders to start with a fitness below 90, so they keep their top-form (99-98-97) longer in the last week. If you start with a higher overall fitness (above 90) it tends to drop to 95-94 in the last week.
And very often you'll find some very tough TT's and mountain stages in the last week so you want your GC riders in peak form.
Same to you, broerie. The overall fitness does not help at all. You have to tell us both composites.
geisterhome:
You should know that the training schedule is always applied even if a rider is in a race. Basically the training level represents the effort a rider is using when training or racing a race.
A grand tour always starts with some flat stages. A GC rider does not need full fitness in these stage but instead uses these stages to build training and race fitness. Race fitness is build automatically. Training fitness has to be set by you. To get an impression, look at the training schedules supplied with the game.
Example: It is not very clever to start a grand tour with a fitness of 77 + 10, because you will burn your rider if you keep him on level 6 for 3 weeks (but even worse, his fitness drops fast in the last week). But it is OK to start witch 72 + 15 because the race fitness will not drop unless your rider is above 60 race days and even if, it will not drop as fast as if you overtrain your rider.
pennant:
I am not sure if I understand your question. In this game each rider has an individual training schedule. You can select from various predefined schedules or create your own (CUSTOM). Read the manual to see how it works.
Also, you don't have to ask me twice,you will not get a faster response.
geisterhome:
I use my season planner tool, so yes, I create my own schedules.
But if you start a career with saxo or astana then I am sure the game selects a good schedule for the Schlecks or Contador.
There are some predefined schedules which give good training fitness for the TdF, so you could take one of these. If none suits your season goals or plan then you can "copy" one and modify it (you can only alter CUSTOM schedules).
Edited by Lachi on 17-08-2010 23:03
