I've made a guide for obtaining an unlimited budget in the Custom Team mode featured in Pro Cycling Manager 2009.

You will be able to find the guide by clicking here.

We said after our Fantasy Olympics last year that we would look to do more fantasy events in the future, and here we are. As the Tour de France approaches, PCM.daily is launching it's own Fantasy Game for the race.

And to keep it different from other fantasy games, we have taken a different approach to the points scoring systems which should hopefully provide just as much fun for you. Stage results mean nothing - it's all about a rider's position in the classifications at the end of each stage. Points are on offer in all classifications - overall, points, king of the mountains, young rider and teams, as well as points awarded for the most combative rider of the stage. The full scoring system is viewable by reading this article.

In terms of teams, you all receive an allocation of 100 points. There are different ways in which you could spend these points though. There are 9 riders who can score points in a team, but you may also wish to use your pts to buy one or more reserve riders aswell. Reserve riders come into play should one of your original 9 riders pull out of the race for various reasons (injury, fatigue, failed drugs test etc). You keep the pts that that rider has earned before his withdrawal, but if you have a reserve rider then he comes into your team meaning that you still have 9 scoring riders. Your 9 riders plus any reserves must not exceed 100 points though.

Speaking of the riders, the rider lists (including prices) have been made. Not all teams have announced their 9 riders and for those teams there are currently more than 9 riders available to be picked for now. These lists will be updated following further team announcements and you will be able to make changes to your fantasy team if you pick a rider who is then not selected for the race. The rider lists are sorted by both in team order and in cost order.

You can enter the game either by posting your team in the comments section below, or by PMing SportingNonsense. When you do, please use the following template:

Team Name:
Rider 1:
Rider 2:
Rider 3:
Rider 4:
Rider 5:
Rider 6:
Rider 7:
Rider 8:
Rider 9:
Reserve Rider 1: (Leave blank if none)
Reserve Rider 2: (Leave blank if none)
Reserve Rider 3: (Leave blank if none)

The Tour de France starts on July 4th, so your entry must be made by July 3rd (which is in one week's time). That is also the deadline for you to make any changes towards your team.

If you have any questions, rather than use the comments section for this article which is to be left for team entries, please ask them in the Fantasy Tour de France 2009 topic.

Good luck!

Edit: If you decide to change your team, you must do so in a new comment or else it may not be noticed.

So, you decided not to buy PCM09. You may have decided to wait until later. Or you may already have the game - either way, here's your chance to win Pro Cycling Manager 2009!

We've been given a couple of copies of the game by Focus, and in this competition, you can win one of them. You'll have to do an effort, though. It's rather simple: We want you to come up with an idea to improve PCM.daily. The crew will then vote for the best idea and, if possible, initiate it. As a 'thank you' for the idea, the winner gets the game.

Entires shall be sent to me in a private message. Last day for sending in ideas is on the 3rd of July 2009 at 13:00 CET.

Good luck!

In a PM received earlier today, long-time crew member Crommy announced that he withdraws from the crew of PCM.daily due to personal reasons.

Crommy joined us in April 2007 and has delivered several projects to PCM.daily with the Management Game being the best example of Crommy's great influence on PCM.daily's history. So it's without a doubt a valueable crew member that we're losing.

We'd like to thank him a lot for all the work he's done for the site and wish him the best in the future.

Concerning the Management Game, the game will now mainly be organized by SportingNonsense.

Well, basically, we can copy what we said earlier today:

A day earlier than what the rumour said: The first official patch for PCM09 has been released, upgrading the game to version 1.0.2.3. It mainly corrects a few minor issues, especially when it comes to online playing, but also adds some new functionalities, e.g. the possibility of creating groups (CTRL + a number). And although it isn't mentioned in the change log, I'm quite sure it also adds road tags to the game, a feature which were last seen in PCM07.

Good news is also that the databases which have been made so far are fully compatible with the patch. So are save games.

And yes, this time it really is official ;)

Another thing, I'd like to point out is that your save games may disappear. However, when launching the game, they'll be in My Docs/PCM/Database - Backup instead. So, if you want to continue a save game, move the files from the Backup to the normal Database folder.

If you've installed any DB before installing the patch, you may have to reinstall the DB.

But enough for now - here's the download link. The full list of corrections can be found by clicking "Read More".

Thanks to MarcoPRT for tipping us.