I wanted to ask, as someone who only watches the TdF and sometimes the occasional Vuelta if there's any good resources out there to learn more about how to plan an entire season and things like which races are usually raced in preperation to the bigger stage races.
Would like to get into the career, but finding the whole calendar very overwhelming...
Edited by Mithrillian on 12-08-2018 19:06
''The thing I love about PCM is that no other game requires a guide where the sentence "Acceleration does not mean acceleration" is used.'' - cactus-jack
Criterium du Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse for the Tour de France
Vuelta al Pais Vasco for Liege-Bastogne-Liege
Tour of Romandie for the Giro
and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and other Flemish races for the Tour de Flandres, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix
Interesting. Is it usual for riders for say the TdF to only ride one single race before the TdF itself? I heard somewhere that riders would ride about 80 race days, so what else do they do?
''The thing I love about PCM is that no other game requires a guide where the sentence "Acceleration does not mean acceleration" is used.'' - cactus-jack
They don't ride just one race before the Tour, most GC riders participate in let's say 4 stage races before the Tour (eg Algarve, Paris Nice, Romandie and Dauphine)
Criterium du Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse for the Tour de France
Vuelta al Pais Vasco for Liege-Bastogne-Liege
Tour of Romandie for the Giro
and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and other Flemish races for the Tour de Flandres, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix
Interesting. Is it usual for riders for say the TdF to only ride one single race before the TdF itself? I heard somewhere that riders would ride about 80 race days, so what else do they do?
My TdF leaders usually ride some races in the early season (e.g. Oman, Abu Dhabi, Tirreno-Adriatico), then something like Luxembourg, Aargau, Suisse, Tour de France, San Sebastian in the mid season and in the late season Tour of Britain and a bunch of Italian one day races building up to Il Lombardia.
Real-life example, this was Geraint Thomas's season before Tour.
Volta ao Algarve
Tirreno-Adriatico
Paris-Roubaix
Liege-Bastogne-Liege
Tour de Romandie
Criterium du Dauphiné
National ITT
It also depends on who you have in your squad. If you're preparing a Grand Tour for one of the favourites, then any stage races, with similar profiles are the best option. You don't want to use them too much, so that you don't burn them, but what I usually do for someone targeting the TDF is:
Tour of Oman
Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico
Dauphine or Tour de Suisse
TDF
I might also do a little stage race between Paris-Nice and Dauphine