Havent bought the game yet, but have a question. Do you still get to sign the best young riders in the world as a continental-team or are there more competition for these riders?
Well, it's pretty easy to sign the top riders in the Youth World Ranking, just as long as you approach them on June 1 or close thereafter.
But that is not to say these riders will be of direct use to your team. Having played a few career attempts on extreme level with a custom team consisting of youth riders only, I've seen quite some of the top youth riders go by now. Quite some of them take a season or two to develop into a useful rider. F.e. once in a while a 73 sprinter might pop up, but his other stats (stamina, flat, etc) tend to need some time to work on.
Then comes the point of trying to keep the talent as his contract will generally run out after three years. Up until the point he starts compiling some results it's easy to offer him new 3 year deals, but after that it becomes more difficult to meet their salary demands with a young team.
To me this represents exactly the challenge that I'm looking for in PCM and the longer running sponsor deals (optional 2012 or 2013 upon choosing your custom team) allow for time to build your squad without being fired after one season. You will then need to find a balance between which rders you can afford to keep in your squad and which talents you, sadly, have to let go...
So yes, you can sign the top young riders with a tiny team, but should I manage a ProTour team, I'd rather focus on talent coming through the Continental Teams after a few years as these guys are much further in their development already and have proven themselves on Continental level.
Im looking for the exact same challennge in the game, but it is a bit unrealistic that you can sign the best young riders in the world, year in and out. So was hoping that would have changed in the ´11 version.
