Just finished Tour of Britain. I outsprinted Goss with Groenewegen once! I won the stage!
Right, I admit, Groenewegen was in top-form and already developed to 75SP(!!!), but still.
Made a nice move on the CQ ranking to 38th. Promotion time, unless both Atlas & Jamis take a small jump(within 40 points of me), and Champion Systems take a huge jump(210 points behind me).
They could only get that on the World Championships I guess, and luckily, I didn't select their leader(Bobby Traksel, I'm the Dutch manager ), so I don't see that happening
Will post my new team when the season ends. Expect some developed riders, but I aimed for that when I made my team.
I just finished my second season with In-n-Out Original Joe's No big signings apart from Roman Kreziger who won the WWRR for the second time ina a row, however, we are moving up and becoming Walmart Pro cycling (not Watmar ) Hopefully Talansky ca win the Giro this year after a second place last year. But Damien Goudin is now becoming a Cobbles favorite, I think he will win Paris - Roubaix, Kittel was injured so we wont have him for a while, so we will have trouble sprinting. Walmart wants us the get a top 3 at all the GT, dang!
Alejandro Valverde is on fire! He won Volta a Catalunya, Vuelta al PaÃs Vasco, Amstel Gold Race, La Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Tour de Romandie in one season...
Unfortunately, my team isn't Movistar, but Astana, so I had to settle for 3rd (Iglinskiy), 6th (Kessiakoff), 5th (Iglinskiy), 3rd (Iglinskiy), 2nd (Iglinskiy) and 2nd (Nibali) in those races. Nibali is ready for the Giro though, so the next big victory after Sanremo and Wevelgem is only a matter of time
Finally finished the Giro with Argos after a bit of a break and it was surprisingly successful. Mezgec failed to deliver a single decent result in the sprints, but Thomas Peterson stepped up and won the mountain jersey, in a fierce battle with ... Dominik Nerz Due to some ludicrous breakaways, he sacrificed a better overall position but still ended up 21st. And, most importantly, he finished one of those breaks with a stage win. All in all, more than I could have expected. Now on to the Tour preperations for Marcel Kittel.
Dominated the Tour du Gevaudan - Languedoc.(22/09 & 23/09)
1-2-3 on the GC and points jersey + team jersey.
It was simulated though, and they won it through form, probably.
Why did I simulate it? Simple. I wanted to race the WC RR.(Of course I won't simulate the WC's )
Winner of the WC ITT was Simon Spilak(76TT). The Netherlands had an awful form though, so did only get 17th(with Kelderman ).
RR was exciting, every big name showed up. I had a developed Weening(78MO) and Poels(78MO). It wasn't enough. Poels was in decent form though.
Yet, on the decisive moment of the race, where I wanted Poels to counter-attack, an annoying team-mate of Cancellara blocked me
Oh yeah, a certain Slovakian guy won the race. It wasn't Velits, though
Jesleyh wrote:
Dominated the Tour du Gevaudan - Languedoc.(22/09 & 23/09)
1-2-3 on the GC and points jersey + team jersey.
It was simulated though, and they won it through form, probably.
Why did I simulate it? Simple. I wanted to race the WC RR.(Of course I won't simulate the WC's )
Winner of the WC ITT was Simon Spilak(76TT). The Netherlands had an awful form though, so did only get 17th(with Kelderman ).
RR was exciting, every big name showed up. I had a developed Weening(78MO) and Poels(78MO). It wasn't enough. Poels was in decent form though.
Yet, on the decisive moment of the race, where I wanted Poels to counter-attack, an annoying team-mate of Cancellara blocked me
Oh yeah, a certain Slovakian guy won the race. It wasn't Velits, though
Jesleyh wrote:
Dominated the Tour du Gevaudan - Languedoc.(22/09 & 23/09)
1-2-3 on the GC and points jersey + team jersey.
It was simulated though, and they won it through form, probably.
Why did I simulate it? Simple. I wanted to race the WC RR.(Of course I won't simulate the WC's )
Winner of the WC ITT was Simon Spilak(76TT). The Netherlands had an awful form though, so did only get 17th(with Kelderman ).
RR was exciting, every big name showed up. I had a developed Weening(78MO) and Poels(78MO). It wasn't enough. Poels was in decent form though.
Yet, on the decisive moment of the race, where I wanted Poels to counter-attack, an annoying team-mate of Cancellara blocked me
Oh yeah, a certain Slovakian guy won the race. It wasn't Velits, though
Jurco?
Yup, that is soo obvious Edited by Jesleyh on 28-05-2013 16:02
Going for, say, 32th place on CQ ranking this season.
Trying to grab the Dutch & Belgian wildcards, and hoping for Vuelta wildcard, and maybe some French ones.
Oh, and a strange thing happened:
Accent Jobs - Wanty promoted to WT!!! Dafuq
Question: I've added 1 star to France as important country when making my team. (Netherlands + Belgium 2 stars). Also, I've added 2 good French guys.
Do I have more chance of getting a wildcard for French races now?
I'd really like to race Paris - Roubaix, Paris - Nice & Plouay. (Not TdF, this edition got like 150TT kms )
Edited by Jesleyh on 28-05-2013 19:07
Jesleyh wrote:
I've just started the second season of ING - Shell, I managed to promote. Here's the team. What do you guys think of it?
...
Oh, and a strange thing happened:
Accent Jobs - Wanty promoted to WT!!! Dafuq
Its a team that is still clearly developing, but is a classic PCT team
I've had Accent Jobs promote... they subsequently scored 2 points in the entire season
I've just started the second season of ING - Shell, I managed to promote. Here's the team. What do you guys think of it?
It seems like a fun squad to play with, it does not sound impossible to stay in the PCT level, but I imagine it will take at least 2 years to promote to WT. Hopefully the younger riders will continue to develop nicely.
@TMM
Still wasn't able to figure out where they got their points
But do you know if I have an increased chance of French wildcards(question I posted in my average-long post )
@Juszta
Thanks! It's certainly nice, and I hope Chainel has a good day in RVV/Roubaix(if I get the wildcards), I can get quite some points then.
And yes, my goal is to promote in 2 or 3 seasons.
And Kelderman didn't have his contract running out(and he's on 77/78 MO right now, develops nicely, without me having anything to do with that! )
Edited by Jesleyh on 28-05-2013 19:15
You need a proper leader or two if you want to get promoted I think CQ-ranking sums up the score of your 7 best highest scoring riders, so if you have 7 riders capable of winnings tours and one day races and spread them out over the course of the season, focusing on the races you have a chance of winning, you'll get promoted easily. I.e. Chainel might be able to get a top 20 in Paris-Roubaix, but if he's fit a top 5 in Dwaars von Vlaanderen or Omloop het Niewblad is conceivable and will give you more points, and the same goes for say Vuelta vs Usa Pro Cycling Challange.
I'm not expert but that how I did it with my custom team and I got back to back promotions
In my story Joker Merida was given a wildcard to Tour Down Under with Simon Clarke as the only reason I could find as to why, so I wouldn't rule it out quite yet
eple wrote:
You need a proper leader or two if you want to get promoted I think CQ-ranking sums up the score of your 7 best highest scoring riders, so if you have 7 riders capable of winnings tours and one day races and spread them out over the course of the season, focusing on the races you have a chance of winning, you'll get promoted easily. I.e. Chainel might be able to get a top 20 in Paris-Roubaix, but if he's fit a top 5 in Dwaars von Vlaanderen or Omloop het Niewblad is conceivable and will give you more points, and the same goes for say Vuelta vs Usa Pro Cycling Challange.
I'm not expert but that how I did it with my custom team and I got back to back promotions
I know most of this, but I'm not aiming for promotion yet. I'm just letting my talents develop atm, and settling halfway the CQ ranking(if you only look at the PCT teams).
Groenewegen will be a proper sprint leader later on, Olivier has the potential to be able to Top 10(maybe Top 5) a GT later on, and De Bie can maybe even win a big cobbled race later.
I've made my team with that in mind, I've selected some big talents at the start on purpose
And a certain Dutch young stage-racer from Amersfoort with definitely a huge lot of potential has a contract running-out at the end of the season. Guess who's at the top of my short-list?
Spoiler
Kelderman
@Atlantius Hope you're right. Joker Merida Edited by Jesleyh on 28-05-2013 19:43
Kelderman was 2nd in Catalunya (+1 behind Kwiat )
Uran and Henao 7th and 9th in Vasco
Sagan 3rd in E3 and GW, 5th in RVV and finally 2nd in PR... grrr
Various other .HC and .1 wins aswell in a nicely rolling season.
Also OPQ is soooooooooooooooooooo good....
Cancellara AVG80, Boonen AVG80, Kittel AVG80, Kwiatkowski AVG79, Costa AVG78, Van Avermaet AVG78, Terpstra AVG77 is just the flaming start!!!
8th April they have already clocked up 29wins!!!!!!
I can be a bit too methodical at times. Your way seems enjoyable though!
I had a surprise in my 2nd season with Lampre-Merida. Luca Wackermann was developing like crazy and I decided to try and go for the KOM jersey with him in Ciclista Catalunya. I sent him out on 2 breakaways and in the last one I had him race up all the hills and caught the peleton out. Look what happened
), so I don't see that happening 
