I'm new to this game and wondering whether someone would be able to give me some tips with maximising the fitness of my riders. For example what sort of schedule should my main GC rider be doing in order to be in peak condition for the tour?
Cheers for any help
Well, usually people build their own custom fitness program and racing schedule. If you're new to the game, you might as well go with the one that the game gives you. Basically, you want to have your leader at level 6 fitness during the GT he's focusing on. Normally it's better to set this level 6 fitness either on the 2nd week or 3rd week of the GT, or both, since that's usually when the mountains are. What you need to avoid is getting your leader too tired before his goal. So, for example, if your goal is the Tour, you don't want him with level 6 fitness in the Giro for example; that's too early and will fatigue him by the time you reach the Tour, meaning that you won't be able to reach top fitness. For calculating the fatigue and fitness forms of your schedule, I like to use the Fitness Planner, since it gives exact values of what you should expect:
As for the racing season, it's a bit easier to plan imo. You need to have 15 race days before you can achieve the maximum racing fitness (20), and after 60 race days your maximum racing fitness will drop by approx. 1 point every 2 race days. So you don't want your rider to reach the Tour with a lot of days raced (max 40, since then he will still be at his best racing fitness at the end of the race) but not too little (at least 10 racing days going into the race). Since it's a fitness plan for your GT leader, you don't need to enter the race already with 20 points of racing fitness; you can enter with approx. 10 and the first 5 or so days, which should be mostly flat, will make sure that your leader has great racing form when the mountains come into play.
So, for example, a possible (and minimal) schedule for the Tour could be the Amgen Tour of California, in May, then the Tour of Luxembourg and the Tour de Suisse; that should get you with 22 race days, which is more than enough for the Tour. You could also do the AToC, then the Criterium du Dauphine and Route du Sud; there are several possible options, just take a look at the calendar ( 'schedule' in game) and you should find plenty of options
Usually, the riders who focus in the Tour also have a small period of good fitness (level 5) in the Ardennes; in that case you could start the season in late march, in a race such as Catalunya or Criterium International, then race the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and then the Ardennes. Or you could start even earlier and try to grab some results at Tirreno or Paris Nice. It really depends on what other goals you want to set to your season besides the Tour
