It's been a year since I've started my first, and thus far the only story, called "Columbia Train Of Destruction" on PCM09. Just like the year before, my idea was to start a story with a team that is a few years in the future (Columbia story was started in the 4th season), but this time I'll be playing with my custom team, ingeniously called Deda Pro Cycling Team.
So let's set it up:
I've started a custom team consisting almost entirely of Italian riders, and I focused almost entirely on Italian races, with a few jumps abroad to France, Spain, Portugal and Slovenia.
When I said mostly, I had to sign a couple of young Serbian riders because I've set my team's official nationality to Serbian (a mistake which was later corrected) Things started going too well, with my leader Riccardo Ricco winning a whole bunch of one-week races, and I feared that I'd be going ProTour too soon.
That's why, being denied a Giro wild card (My team was 2nd in the Continental rankings, 3rd best Conti team in CQRankings, but I was probably denied because of the nationality. Miche was picked instead lol), I've started racing smaller races where I tried to score some sprint victories with my main sprinter, Fabio Sabatini. Things were still going great, and the transfer season started.
I took a long shot, and tried to sign Francesco Chicchi as 2nd leader for the next season. To my amazement, he aggreed to a 15k/month contract as a protected rider, and I had to start thinking about going ProTour, or else I wouldn't be able to cover the costs of my team.
Again I took a few risks, signing a lot of talented riders without contract, and a few young riders as trainees. Dario Cataldo did an amazing job winning a stage and overall in Tour of Portugal, which moved me very close to BBox in the CQRankings, they were trailing me with about 400 points.
Ricco was on the run again, finishing his season with a podium in Giro di Lombardia(setting both nationalities to Italian probably helped me with getting the wild card for this one), Sabatini won a couple of one day classics in august and september, and overall, my team has finished the season with almost 30 victories, 2nd in the Continental Tour, 2nd in the CQ rankings (if you count Conti teams) 40 points ahead of BBox.
One of the most surprising events of the year was the World ITT Championship, where Tom Zirbel, riding his 1st race of the year, won ahead of Andreas Kloden and Bradley Wiggins. Since he had no contract for the next season. I've signed him to help me with the sprint trains and to strut in the rainbow jersey a little.
To summarize, my plan is to ride this season to the end, as I've already reached mid-march, writing short reports and bringing you closer to my team and to the heart of the story.
If I get a feeling that you guys would like to see a full-time story about an Italian based team with an almost entirely Italian roster, i will gladly do it.
Roster for the current 2011. season: Leaders:
Riccardo Ricco
Dario Cataldo
Fabio Sabatini
Protected riders:
Valerio Agnoli
Davide Cimolai
Francesco Chicchi
Andrea Grendene
Alessandro Donati
Filippo Savini
Francesco Masciarelli
Team mates:
Luca Barla
Riccardo Chiarini
Elia Rigotto
Adriano Malori
Christiano Salerno
Simone Stortoni
Francesco Tomei
Leonardo Moser
Luigi Sestili
Tom Zirbel
Young riders:
Radomir Bjekovic
Lucio Ossola
Alessandro Mazzi
Rolando Sallusti
Massimo Graziato
Andrea Zordan
For those who would like to see how I plan to write this story, check the Columbia Train Of Destruction story in the PCM09 sub-forum.
In the coming days, as I will be writing short reports until the end of this season, I will also present the riders who are participating, their stats, palmares, ambitions, goals, etc. My primary objectives will be to stay in the ProTour (probably won't be too hard), go for a Giro Podium with RR, and win the green jersey with Chicchi in the Vuelta.
Until next time, cheers!
Edited by Deda on 08-10-2010 17:42
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.
I'm one day late, who cares, let's finally get this thing underway.
Technical details:
Database: PCMDaily Expansion Pack V2.1
Evolution: 0.6
Difficulty: Hard
Random progress potential
The main focus of this team in the 2011 season will be stage races and sprints.
Riccardo Ricco is our number one choice for the most important races, he will be our leader for Giro d'Italia, and he will ride many italian one-week races hoping to be even better than last year.
His palmares from the 2010. season include:
- Giro della Calabria
1st place overall, 2 stage podiums
- Settimana Coppi e Bartali
1st place overall, points rankings, 2 stage wins, 1 podium
- Vuelta Castilla y Leon
1st place overall, 1 stage win
- Brixia Tour
1st place overall, points rankings, mountain rankings, 2 stage wins
- Giro di Sardegna
2 stage wins
- Tour Mediterraneen
1st place overall, 1 stage win, 1 podium
- Giro del Trentino
3rd overall, points rankings, 1 podium
- Italian National Championship
3rd place
- Giro di Lombardia
3rd place
- G.P. Costa degli Etruschi
2nd place
- Giro del Piemonte
7th place
- Urkiola Igoera - Subida Urkiola
9th place
- Milano - Torino
10th place
His main goal, as I've said, will be the GC in the Giro. Our sponsors demand 3rd place overall, but with a bit of luck and good team support, Riccard can push even for the win, we shall wait and see. After the Giro, he will get his rest to be able to ride end of the season classics finishing with Giro di Lombardia.
Gl, have a custom team with a few of the same riders. Riccò is a very enjoyable rider and should easily get you a top 3 in the Giro, probably even get the win.
2011 edition of the Giro has a flattish 40km ITT on the last day, but the amount of climbing should be enough to secure at least a podium. Nibali will probably destroy everyone in that stage.
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.
Two persons whose performances were integral to almost every success my team has had in the last season were Dario Cataldo and Francesco Masciarelli. When they had to work, they pulled like there is no tomorrow. When they were allowed to go for their own glory, they produced some very good results.
When Ricco wasn't around, Dario Cataldo was the main choice for the stage races we took part in, while Masciarelli tried his luck in the one-day races.
Between themselves, they've accumulated 5 wins including the overall GC and 2 stage wins in the Volta a Portugal and a good amount of podiums and top 10 finishes.
Two of them will be needed even more this season, and when they get their chance, it will be at the much higher level, and the opportunity for them to shine where the big boys ride will most certainly be a huge factor in their continuing development as riders and future team leaders.
Stats:
Their goals for this season will include doing the bulk of work for RR in the Giro d'Italia and other Italian races, but after that, they might even get a chance to ride Tour de France in a free role and try to go for a stage win, or if they remain in good form, the king of the mountains classification.
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 to conclude the core of the Deda Pro Cycling team, we'll round it up with the sprinters department.
Francesco Chicchi, Fabio Sabatini, Elia Rigotto and Andrea Grendene are planned to ride the bigger part of the second half of the season, starting with Switzerland in June, continuing with Tour de France in July, Eneco Tour and Tour de Pologne in August, finishing with a quest for the Green jersey at the Vuelta which is not an unrealistic goal for our top sprinter, Chicchi.
Fabio Sabatini should also be thanked for the great season DPC has had in the 2010 season, finishing his season with 7 victories, most of which were one-day races in August and September. He also won a stage and the green jersey at Tour de Slovenie. Andrea Grendene was his most valuable helper and team mate, without him the things would have been a lot harder.
Francesco Chicchi is the most important addition to the Deda Pro Cycling Team roster for the 2011 season, he will be expected to perform mostly in Pro Tour stage races and try, with a bit of luck, and a lot of hard work from his team mates, to be there at the end with the best of them.
Unless anything unexpected happens, and if my boys stay injury-free, the plan is to send them to both TdF and Vuelta and try to grab as much wins as possible.
Rigotto - Grendene - Sabatini - Chicchi will hopefully be our winning formula for this season.
Stats:
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.
Of course, they aren't the only riders in the team, but to be realistic, they are the only ones who can make respectable results in the Pro Tour races. To back them up, we have fielded a squad consisting mostly of promising young riders with a bright future ahead of them.
According to the estimates of our experienced team of scouts, Lucio Ossola and Rolando Sallusti are future Grand Tour contenders and their progress will be closely watched not just by me and you, but all the other teams in the caravan.
Nizzolo and Cimolai are the backup to our sprinting department and they will be expected to give their all in support of the team mates until they reach a level where they will be able to compete for their own.
Agnoli was a great team mate in the last season, his help will be even more appreciated this year. Be that mountains or hilly classics, his efforts were always towards his leader's goals, and he admitted last October when it all finished that it was very frustrating how all the hard work wasn't enough to score even one victory. He came very close to it one time, losing Tre Valli Varesine breakaway sprint to Davide Ricci Bitti of ISD. A shame.
The most unlikely addition to the 2011 roster of Deda Pro Cycling Team was the American world time trial champion, Tom Zirbel. Stunning the field in Geelong last october with his victory wasn't enough to secure him a contract for the 2011 season. If I hadn't signed him, I would probably regret that decision for the rest of the career.
Mentioning all other riders who put their heart and soul into this project would take very long time. Riders who started with us in 2010 but weren't good enough for a contract extension were Luca Wackerman, Darko Milosevic and Moreno Moser, good luck to them in the future, they took part in making the future of Italian cycling, and they also deserve to be mentioned in this introduction.
Here are the stats of the support crew: Edited by Deda on 10-10-2010 18:06
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.
As you've probably noticed, there was neither time nor money to be in the market for some good cobbled classics riders, although Enrico Franzoi was an option when we became close to the PT promotion. He signed for ISD in the early september.
DPC has signed a few riders that were out of contract who have potential to be good (not great) northern classics riders in the future, but these races obviously won't be an integral part of our plans in this season, and obviously the next few.
If all goes well, good Northern Classics riders should be expected to join our team as early as the 2013 season, but whenever we decide to strengthen that part of the team, 2 years is a long, long time..
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.
