I'm back again with my next story in PCM2015, this time using the 2016 Database released last week. In this story, I will use many of the tips that some of the readers of my previous story gave me near the end of it. I will be using paragraphs and I will play about with the brightness and positioning of many of the screenshots, so we don't get any dark screenshots. I will also show screenshots of the top 5s in the races I compete in and will show the top 5 of a GC in any stage race, I do at the end of it.
In this story, we'll be following the cycling career of another Aussie, Leo James Elliot, a 19-year old from Port Hedland, in the north, who hopes to be the next Australian winner of a Grand Tour General Classification, after Cadel at the 2011 Tour de France.
In the first post from Leo, we'll learn a lot about him, such as what his stats are, what kind of rider he is, who his cycling hero is (and you will be quite surprised when you find out who it is) as well as what teams he's been offered a contract to ride for, for the 2016 season. We'll also learn what his long terms aims are, what his favourite races are and what inspired him to become a cyclist.
I hope you guys enjoy this story and stay for its duration, because I know I will, and I hope this will be a great story of an inexperienced, yet talented young rider in the cycling world.
Spoiler
I, as a writer, am quite glad that the pre-season cups were removed as they weren't real so kind of spoiled the save. #GoRealRaces
Game Settings
Database Being Used: PCMdaily 2016 DB V1.1 for PCM 15 Game Difficulty: Normal Fall Frequency: 100% (as of now) Prize Money Co-effiecient: x1.0 Graphics Settings: Very High
emre99's stages Thread of the Week : Tour of California 2014 -Official PCM World Cup 2016, 10th best keirin player in the world PCM.daily Awards : 2 Nominee 0 Award
Daily Song Contest WINNER! With Foals - Mountain at my Gates with Greece! 1 like 1 girlfriend ''I call you the stage god. You are the stage god.'' -baseballover312, 15.07.2016
I'm writing to you from the Port Hedland International Airport, where I'm currently waiting for my flight down to Melbourne, from where I'll ride over to Ballarat ahead of the Aussie National Championships, as my last bit of major pre-race training.
Let me introduce myself; I'm Leo James Elliot, but just call me Leo. I was born in Wedgefield, just a few miles south of Port Hedland, on the opposite side of Stingray Creek. I'm 19 years old and I was born on the 27th November 1996. I am 174cm tall, weigh 67kg and have tanned skin all year round due to the amount of time I spend in sunny, hot Australia. So, I've got a few questions and answers from me to get you to know me.
What kind of racer are you and what stats do you have?
I'm quite a good climber, but I also have a strong time-trialling ability, so I think that I am more of a stage-racer than a pure climber, especially due to my lack of acceleration ability. My stats are shown in the second photo below.
What inspired you to become a cyclist?
I always remember seeing my first Tour de France on TV in 2002, when I was 5 years old. It was at the time Armstrong's third win, ahead of Beloki and some Lithuanian guy, while Ullrich was in awful form. I found the all the different kinds of stages very interesting, from the sprinter stages in the first week, to stages in Alps and Pyrenees, towards climbs like Plateau de Beille. I found it amazing how much these riders could go through, just to win a stage or two, or take the win in the Tour itself. As soon as I saw what riders could achieve, I wanted to go for it myself as well, and see how I could do in the professional world of cycling.
Who is your favourite rider, past or present?
This one will surprise you when you hear who it is. I've always loved Tyler Hamilton's riding style, even after he was caught for doping. I found it simply amazing how he managed to get through 3 weeks of the hardest cycling race in the world with a broken collarbone and even how he managed to take a stage win on the way, at the 2003 Tour de France! I remember that stage, Stage 16, from Pau to Bayonne, the day the Tour left the Pyrenees. It featured two first category, two third category and two fourth category climbs en route to Bayonne. Tyler was suffering off the back of the peloton on following a really fast first hour of racing. When he got back to the pack, he suddenly found form and attacked off the front on the second major climb of the day, caught the breakaway group and attacked the break towards the end of the climb. He went off the front for a long time and coming in to the final 20 kilometres, he had a lead of around 3 minutes. The gap would continue to drop, but he would still win the stage by almost 2 minutes and take over 6th place in the GC. What amazed me the most about this stage is that Armstrong and his other rivals all allowed Hamilton to go from so far out, considering that he was 7th on GC at the start of the day. I also remember asking my dad how far out Hamilton had went from and he simply looked at me and replied “Too far.” It was an amazing stage win for him.
What are your favourite races?
Like every great cycling fan, I go bonkers when the Tour starts in the summer. However, my other favourite races include the Santos Tour Down Under, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and most surprisingly for you lot, the Strade Bianche, the race across gravel roads in the Siena province of Northern Italy. Spectacular scenery and gravel roads, what could be better for a setting of a one-day classic.
What are your long term goals in cycling?
I have multiple long term goals in cycling, many of which I decided upon years ago; I want to become the next Australian to win a Grand Tour and I want to become a World Champion, in either the ITT or Road Race. I want to win many Australian events, including both National Champs and the Tour Down Under, and I also want to win at least one monument. Hopefully, I'll be able to do that during my whole career.
What team will you be riding for in 2016?
At the start of this year, I got three options from three different teams; Drapac, an Aussie Continental Pro squad, Team Norda, an Italian Continental team or Avanti IsoWhey Sports, an Aussie Continental team. I want to join a team that wasn't too big, but was from a country near me, so you can guess who I chose.
Yes, you guessed right; I decided to join Avanti on a one year deal for €30000 per annum. I will be the best stage racer and climber in my team, and I'll be the fifth best time-triallist. However, I'll be the worst sprinter, classics rider and fighter in my team.
So anyway guys, I'll write to you in a couple of days time and tell you my very early racing season calendar, until the end of February and I'll also give you a look at who is on my team and our team's goals for the season ahead.
A climber coming out of Port Hedland is unexpected to say the least, he'll need to be taking as much juice as Tyler to make it thats for sure!
Good Luck with the story
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Hey guys,
I'm currently in our team's hotel's lobby for the Aussie National Championships, waiting on a couple of my team mates to get down here so we can have a last recon of the route for tomorrow's time-trial. My team have decided in advance that I'll be one of the early starters from our team, which should give me a chance to sit in the hotseat as holder of fastest time. Our team believe that our best shot at the win is my 24 year old team-mate, Sean Lake, who has quite a good time-trial in him.
First of all, I shall respond to some of my new fans I have gained over the past two days or so:
sutty68 wrote: Looks like he could grow in to a Great all rounder judging by those stats
Yeah, those stats that he has currently should help Leo with both his GT and Monument goals as long as he can improve his acceleration and solidify his climbing, time-trialling and punchy abilities.
Strydz wrote:
A climber coming out of Port Hedland is unexpected to say the least, he'll need to be taking as much juice as Tyler to make it thats for sure!
On your first point Strydz, I have one reply; sometimes the biggest stars come from the most unlikely places. On your second point, about Tyler specifically, I somehow doubt that I will ever dope during my career, as I want to mainly join teams with anti-doping programmes and views. I believe that I will be good enough to achieve these goals clean.
Secondly, as I promised in my last post, I'm going to give you a review of my team for the season.
For this year, our team leaders are Neil Van Der Ploeg and Anthony Giacoppo for the sprints, Joseph Cooper for the hilly one-day races and me for the stage races. We have quite a depth of team-mates for the season, as you'll see in the post below and we also have a few up and coming potential starlets, such as me, Ben O'Connor and Chris Hamilton. Ben is a promising 20-year old puncher and Chris is an already talented fighter who is also 20 years old. We also have a slightly older rider who is still expected to have quite a bright future; Sam Crome is a 22 year old Australian sprinter who is said by our team bosses to only get better season by season. We certainly have a strong team for the upcoming season in the Continental league.
Yesterday, I met all of my team's coaching staff for my season training planning. I am currently set to be training on my skills as a breakaway specialist, to improve my stamina, ability on many surfaces and gradients and my ability to recover as well as resist fatigue. I am set to do this style of training for most of the season, though in the winter months, I may be set to change about between stage racing, fighter and puncher/classics training. After this I went to the team doctors to meet them, where I had my pre-season check-up ahead of my début with the team at the Aussie Championships of the ITT. I seemed in perfectly fine health to the doctors and my BMI and body fat levels were near perfect according to them; not too much of a worry for me or my team.
Earlier today, I also went to meet my team manager and directeur sportifs to plan my early season racing schedule. I got quite a few options; after the National Championships, I do have the option of racing the New Zealand Cycle Classic and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, or I can go back to very hard training over the rest of January until the start of February, where my team directors are offering me a place to go to the Herald Sun Tour. The week after the Herald Sun Tour, I have the option of going to the Valley of the Sun Stage Race, my first ever outing to the USA as a pro cyclist. Finally, at the end of February, I am given the option to go back to Australia to race the REV Classic in Cambridge, Australia.
After a short discussion with my team bosses, we decided that after the National Champs, I will go away and continue my hard training in the Adelaide, Melbourne and Ballarat regions of Australia. Then I shall stay in Melbourne to race the Herald Sun Tour, which will be my main aim of this section of my season. I shall then go across to the USA to race in the Valley of the Sun Stage Race and then I shall return to Australia again at the end of the month to race the REV Classic.
Anyway, in about five or six days, I shall write to you telling you how I fared at the National Champs, in both the time-trial and the road race, as well as informing you as to who your national champions of Australia are for the 2016 season in road cycling
Hey guys,
After a brilliant weekend of racing here in Ballarat, with the National Championships of Australian for my team Avanti-IsoWhey, I'm now preparing to go out on my first ride of my huge training programme for the early section of the season. I had good rides in both the TT and the road race, finishing in a top 15 place in the time trial and a top 20 place in the road race. So, lets get started with the reports of my debut racing weekend for Avanti;
On the 8th of January, I had my first experience of top level professional cycling, the Australian National Individual Time Trial Championships. The course was 44.8 kilometres long for the time-trial and it was flat for the first half of the route, although there was a rise and descent during the second half. As previously mentioned, our team's best hopes for the time-trial were me and Sean Lake. The main favourites to take the crown included wearer of the 2015 Tour de France's first maillot jaune, Rohan Dennis, his new team-mate at BMC who had recently joined from Sky, Richie Porte. Luke Durbridge and Michael Hepburn of Orica GreenEDGE, Cameron Meyer of newly-formed Dimension Data, Mick Rogers of Team Tinkoff and Trek's new signing and ex-Aussie road-race champ Jack Bobridge were all considered as the favourites of the second-order if the BMC boys were to fail. I wasn't considered as a favourite though I was considered to be able to set a good early pace.
When I got to the start, my mind was racing and the adrenaline was pumping through my veins, I still was struggling to come to terms with the fact that I was about to start my first National Championships ITT against WorldTour opposition. As I lined up in the start, with my tightfitting aerodynamic skinsuit and aero-helmet on and my TT bike complete with full disc wheel and time-trial extension bars leaning up next to me, I could hear the cheers of the excited Aussie crowd. I could still hear them quite loudly, even though I had my team radio on the maximum volume in my ears. The crowd were really excited already for early starters; I wondered what the atmosphere would be like when the big favourites departed. I was wearing the number “63” dossard, which signalled that I was the third last man in my team to go. As I rolled down the start ramp, the noise of the crowd was deafening. However, after I left the town of Burumbeet a few kilometres later, I finally had some form of peace and quiet, although every so often, I would ride on past a few cheering, cycling-mad fans, who kept the noise levels up. As I went through the first checkpoint at Langi Kal Kal, I heard my time being relayed to me from my directeur sportif in the follow car behind me. I had went 3rd fastest at the split, 20 seconds behind Adam Phelan(Drapac). It was time to begin to increase my pace, before the start of the climb.
The second of three sections of the course was by far the hardest, due to the mid-length, yet relatively gentle climb, though there was a steep spike before the second checkpoint. I felt brilliant and as I increased my pace, I came closer and closer to catching the man who had set of a minute in front of me, David Tanner of IAM Cycling. I did manage to catch, three kilometres from the summit of the climb and then, as I approached the summit, there were yet more fans there cheering me and my fellow competitors on towards the summit. However, towards the end of the climb, I started to feel like I had used too much energy on the climb, but I still managed to get up there and take the fastest time, with a time of 45 minutes and 3 seconds. I was over the moon about this! Later on, even Richie would fail to beat my time, but by only 6 seconds. After him Bobridge, then Rogers and finally Dennis all managed to beat it.
Coming down the descent from the climb, my worst fears were realised; I had went over my limit and I could see Tanner coming back towards me on the flatter roads. With just 4kms to go, he caught and passed me; I had learned the hard way not to go too fast on a climb in the time-trial, as you could soon lose lots of energy as a consequence. I eventually came in about 30 seconds after Tanner crossed the line, but I had went 30 seconds faster on the course than him. Compared with the other times, I came in 4th, in 1 hour, 3 minutes and 23 seconds. I had went 48 seconds slower than the provisional best time, set by Phelan. By the end, I had slipped all the way down to 13th place, 2 minutes and 18 seconds the new Australian National Time Trial Champion, Rohan Dennis! Congratulations to him. Even though I didn't get a top 10, it was still a very good ride for my first TT champs of Australia and I was fastest man in my team around the course. A very good sign. Bring on the road race!
Three days later, the road race was to begin in Ballarat on its traditional circuit, which included the climb of Mount Buninyong, which was set to be a key part of the race for the Green and Gold champions bands. Before the start we sat down and studied the race profile; it was 18 laps of the famous Ballarat circuit, and of course, our main focus was directed towards the climb of Mount Buninyong. Mount Buninyong is a short, medium difficulty climb in the Ballarat area; it lasts for 2.4 kilometres at an average gradient of 5.8%, although there are spikes of more difficult gradients that can be up to 8% for a hundred metres or so. However there is also a false flat in the middle of the climb, between two different sections, that averages around 3.5%.
The main pre-race favourites to take the title were defending champion Heinrich Haussler of IAM Cycling, former national champion Simon Gerrans and his team-mate Michael Matthews from Orica and ex-Aussie time-trial champion, Richie Porte, of BMC. The secondary favourites include: Simon Clarke(Cannondale), Nathan Haas and Cameron Meyer(both Dimension Data), Caleb Ewan(Orica) and finally Tinkoff team-mates, Jay McCarthy and Mick Rogers. The main aim for our team at this race was to get one of us in the breakaway group and work from there. Our team leader for the day was going to be Chris Hamilton, our 20 year old baroudeur. For this race, I was going to wear my team's jersey, with the number “142” dossard on my back.
At the start, I was once again very nervous, as it was my first ever National Championships and I didn't honestly know what to expect in terms of the speed of the race, how long I would be able to survive and when the favourites would attack. I felt brilliant at the start of the day I got into 2 breaks which didn't last, before managing to force myself to attack to get into the one that would stay away. I was in the break with only one other rider, Karl Menzies of United HealthCare. We stayed away from lap 2, around 15 kilometres into the race and lasted until the last lap, with 5km to go, when we were got by a sole attacking favourite.
Over the whole day, we built a maximum lead of around 7 minutes back to the peloton with just under 100 kilometres to ride, and with 20 kms to go, we still held around 1 minute over the chasing pack. On the climb of Mount Buninyong on that penultimate lap, I tried to attack my fellow member of the break, but unfortunately for me, Menzies was just too strong and managed to stay with my acceleration. I almost got dropped on the descent, but I managed to pull myself back on the flat before the climb, when I tried to have my last hurrah!
On the final climb of Mount Buninyong, with just 9km to go, I tried again to drop my breakaway partner, this time by trying to force a very high pace, but sadly he was up to the mark. Soon we were joined, with just 5km to go, as Michael Matthews had attacked on Mount Buninyong and powered across the twenty second gap up to us in 2 kilometres, as by this point my companion had stopped working and I had almost cracked. Matthews soon left us again, in fact just 500m later, and with 3.5km, we were caught by the chase group. By this point I was suffering too much to continue with this group, so I just dropped straight out the back of the group and continued on at my own pace to finish in Ballarat, hoping to get the top 20...
And I managed it! I finished in 19th place, 1 minute and 51 seconds behind the winner and new Australian Road Race Champion, Michael Matthews of Orica-GreenEDGE. I also managed to finish as the best rider in my team, after the abandon of a couple of my team-mates, including powerful sprinter Neil van der Ploeg. Meanwhile, my team leader, Chris Hamilton had crashed and was surviving the rest of the race in a group which also included Jack Bobridge of Trek and Matthew Goss of ONE. Yet another very good showing from me on the Australian Nationals scene, especially being only a first year pro!
I'm gonna be away for a few weeks with a very busy training schedule ahead of me to get a rapid improvement of fitness and abilities going, as well as my limits for suffering but before I leave, I'd like to share with you my new stats following my busy weekend of racing:
I'll next write to you either before the start of or after the end of the third stage of the Herald Sun Tour, which will be my first ever stage race! Look out for a good performance from me and my team there.
National Championships ITT
