So, I started a career with Roubaix Lille Metropole and in our first year we were able to advance to the Continental Pro League behind the legs of Denis Flahaut. We signed John Gadret to a subsequent one year contract and picked up a couple of U23 riders the following year. Gadret got pissed off at us early in 2013, so I could not re-sign him. So, we decided to run him into the ground (currently at 73 days raced thru 8/31) to achieve the best possible results. This strategy, along with 17 victories from our two U23 pickups (John Blake and Rafail Frolov), has launched us into 1st place in the Continental League and #1 among Continental teams in the Superprestige rankings.
To make a long story short (too late?), we are going into 2014 with all probability that we will be a CWT team. That's great and all, but I am not sure we have a sizable roster to take on such an endeavor. I have signed a few more U23 guys and got a couple of established riders to join us for 2014, but we are still looking at a roster of ~21 guys heading into 2014 (Flahaut is retiring and Gadret can go f**k himself).
My question is this: how many guys does it realistically take to run a CWT season. Do I need to sign s few more $2k guys? My sponsor is a real tightwad and I'm near my "maximum allowed salary for 2014".
My biggest concern: I don't want to run a bunch of riders into the ground trying to run a CWT schedule. What's the best way to handle this?
Oh, and please don't point me to the "Tips and Tricks section in the top left corner". I've looked through that s**t and it's probably the worst tips and tricks section on the Internet. Other than that, I think you guys have done a pretty good job with the site.
If you have not that many riders, then either reduce the races your team participates in or don't send a full squad to the races. But nothing speaks against filling up the roster and using up the whole salary budget. But maybe you should look for a better rider first.
Oh, and please don't point me to the "Tips and Tricks section in the top left corner". I've looked through that s**t and it's probably the worst tips and tricks section on the Internet. Other than that, I think you guys have done a pretty good job with the site.
The tips and tricks section has a load of great tips for the racing.
It is not good for career, but thats no need to get all angry.
A lot of work would have got into it.
I know i still use it for some hints, and a lot of new players find it very useful as well.
So im going to point you to it anyway... use the tips and ticks section
to answer your actual question, you need at least 25 riders to run a proper CWT season. 28 if you only want 1 GT per rider. You could do it with 20-21 riders but 10 are going to be next to useless come september/october
if you want to you can edit the teams budget, or edit the team out of the wt
Also, I don't think "running a rider into the ground" is actually possible. I mean, having 100 race days doesn't harm the rider's development, afaik. The rider's fitness gets worse after 60 days, but well, that would be a pill you had to swallow.
Another possibility is using your worst riders (sign a couple bad riders) in every race possible. you won't have much use out of them but at least you get to the number of riders that have to be at the start of every race.