I am having huge difficulties with climbs in PCM11. Never had in PCM10, though.
On a climb I had Boasson Hagen (hill=73) being protected by Michael Rasmussen (hill=73). The climb was listed as "hilly" and I suppose it was about 12km with and average slope of maybe 7%. I was in a group of about 16 riders at the base of a climb, several of them had hill-stats between 70 and 76. At the base of the climb something happend. Boasson Hagen just suddenly "stopped" whilst everyone else continued up the slope. When he started regaining speed again he was a minute behind and was in a group with riders with hill=65-68.
I tried telling him to stay in position and even increased his effort to 85. When he was still losing time to the group he had left, I tried dotting him at 90, but he then started falling back again!
Rasmussen was still in the group with the main riders, but struggling to stay with them. I tried everything, I even dotted him at 90, but he couldn't keep up with the group, he was even being passed by riders with climbing stats around 65!
By the way; both riders has a form of 93 and a dily form between +1 and +3.
I've found that no matter what I do I can't keep up with riders who are half as good. Dotting a rider clearly doesn't work, neither does staying in position, has anyone actually gotten a climb to work like it should?
Let me try and raise some points here... Though it's tough to figure this situation out without having any heart rate info!
EBH has a lot of qualities, but in most DB's his climbing stat is (rightly so) not that high. And a hilly race with a climb of 12k (loooong) at 7% (quite steep) does require a mix of climbing and hilly stat. Please be aware that hilly stage in fact require both hilly and climbing stats, with the balance of the influence of both determined by the length and steepness of the climbs. There's a factor between 0 and 1 for each race, whice I'm sure you can find using editors if you'd like to. But just looking at the profile would be enough to give you an idea without spoilers.
Second point. Monitor his heart rate and make a choice as to how much of his yellow bar you'll want to use for the climb. HR's over 170 will result in the yellow bar going down, slowly at first, quicker at higher HR's, and an empty yellow bar means a rider riding at 65% effort no matter what.
So if this situation happens with EBH riding a high HR, eating up his yellow bar, then so be it. Too strong opposition for his qualities at that moment...
I don't know if this was the cause of the problem nor whether or not this bug has been discussed, but I've seen a problem/bug (that doesn't seem to be consistent), but sounds like it could have been occuring in your situation (Note: saw the same situation in PCM10).
Some times (although not always, which is why I say its not consistent), if I put a cyclist on "dot" and adjust his effort, it will have an impact to the rest of the cyclist on his team. Meaning, let's say I have my strong climbers at the front of the peleton (set to "stay w/group" climbing a hill/mountain, but my sprinter is struggling at the back, so instead of killing him by asking him to try to keep up, I'll set him to "dot" and lower his effort to 25, so that he'll drop off the back and hopefull join a slower group. When I do this, I'll often notice all of the rest of my riders on the team slowing down immediately, as if all of their efforts are now 25. To counter this, I have to put everyone else on "dot" and adjust effort to 55, 60 or something, then once I get everyone back to "stay w/group" everything seems fine again.
In your scenario, were you adjusting the efforts of other cyclists on EBH's team that were "on the dot or relay"? If so, you might have experienced the situation I'm trying to describe.
Edited: This isn't just related to climbs, its just where I notice it because that's typically when I start using the "dot".
Edited by StefanG on 15-07-2011 17:07
climbing a hill/mountain, but my sprinter is struggling at the back, so instead of killing him by asking him to try to keep up, I'll set him to "dot" and lower his effort to 25, so that he'll drop off the back and hopefull join a slower group. When I do this, I'll often notice all of the rest of my riders on the team slowing down immediately, as if all of their efforts are now 25. To counter this, I have to put everyone else on "dot" and adjust effort to 55, 60 or something, then once I get everyone back to "stay w/group" everything seems fine again.
