Im sorry if this has been answered in the past but ive trawled the forums and I havent been able to find an answer to this.
But what is the optimum race fitness that a rider should be racing at to get the best out of his stats?
Its pretty obvious that the higher the race fitness the better they will perform but as I have a custom team and i didnt get a Giro wildcard I have had to spread my Racers throughout the season. But what should I be aiming at when my riders race so that they stats arent to degraded i.e 70's? 80's? or 90's?
I thought I was clever and set my training to level 6 at 9 different peaks...... Then I stumbled accors something called fatigue..... Ill have to reset all my training schedules again.........
Well, if I understood right, you had 9 weeks of level 6 through the season? Yes that's gonna kill your riders. Level 6 in fact should be only used when you have a really special goal in the year (for example, the cobble classics week for a cobble rider, or the ardennes for a puncheur). Generally, you can have 2 lvl 6 peaks through the season.
However, it seems you have a smaller team. In that case, I'd avoid using lvl 6 training weeks. There's little difference between lvl 6 and 5 (something about 4-5 pts) and lvl 5 causes much less fatigue. So, a decent sprinter from a CT team can do well in much more races at lvl 5 than he would do in 2-3 races at lvl 6. As for a helper, same thing, if you use lvl 5 he can be at good form in a lot more races.
Normally, a rider with fitness 90+ should be able to compete in most races if he has the skills to do so, specially in the smaller races. With lvl 5 + 20 racing day fitness, he will be in about 95 fitness, and can keep that for more than a month without problem.
6 to 9 peaks is definitely too much. I usually have my riders peak twice in a season, for instance at Paris-Nice and the Tour de France. Level 6 is very tiring, and I let them train 2 or 3 weeks at that level. 3 weeks should be an absolute maximum.
You can achieve good results by having 75/80 in training fitness (that is achieved at Level 5), but then your race fitness has to be near perfect. This means two things
- enough preparation races to raise the race fitness (about 10-12 days shortly before your objectives)
- but too not many races overall. If a rider has more than 60 days a year, his race fitness will decrease sharply.
My advice is to use the schedules in the game as a basis, and tweak them to your liking. They should give you an idea of how much workload you can put on a rider. In the schedule's editor, you have a very useful button called "fatigue simulator" or something. It shows the level of fatigue provoked by your training, and should stay at a reasonable level.
I personally find them a bit too hard on the riders, but it's up to you.
I attach an example of a training schedule I've used at the Continental level.
[img-r]https://nsm05.casimages.com/img/2011/06/26//110626121943487648383581.gif[/img-r]
Thanks guys that really helps. You have cleared up a lot of niggles i had about training, TBH I was very naive when i done the schedules, im busy re jigging them as we speak!
Lets hope I get wildcard for the Tour and Vuelta, or ill b doing them all again!!
The one listed in the photo above is quite similar to what most people use, I feel. Personally I wouldn't hve the last peak in the end. I try to get two peaks, usually one around March or April and another one around August.
Indeed, the last peak won't even be that effective, because the fatigue will make sure that lvl 6 fitness isn't even reached (fatigue won't probably let a higher fitness than 75). However, while not really affecting for a higher fitness value, that lvl 6 training week will affect fatigue, and I think the rider will have less training points than what he would do reaching lvl 5 only on that last week (which would also provide more resting for him before that).
Yes I agree that that last peak is not so necessary. I usually play it by ear at the end of the year and adjust the training level to maximize fitness.
