Currently racing the Giro in my first season with Sky. I'm on stage 18ish and Porte is 3rd on GC with Uran and Majka breathing down his neck.
The stage profile starts with a large mountain, then flat for about 80k with a large hill at the end.
During the ascent of the mountain Porte crashed along with Nibali, Uran and several others. As Nibali was in pink his Astana team came to collect him and Porte sat on his wheel to be taken back to the peleton and then make his way back through to the front. Everything seemed fine. There was no indication of injury and his energy bars remained full during the whole episode.
However, at the foot of the final hill his energy instantly started to drain and emptied in a flash. Nibali and Uran were unaffected and my weaker doms such as Pate and Knees climbed the hill easily. Porte drifted back and got dropped by the peleton on a hill.
My question I why did this happen? As I said there was no indication of any injury to Porte. He simply lost all his energy and got dropped. If it was an injury then surely the game should make you aware of an injury.
Coincidently I cancelled the stage and did it againand Porte crashed again. This time on his own and I had to relay him back to the peleton with 5 teammates. This time there was no issue and Porte went over the hill easily countering Uran's attack and finishing in a group with Uran and Majka to keep them behind him. This makes the issue in the original stage even more confusing.
When a rider crashes there is always a chance he is injured or has reduced capabilities, or is not affected at all.
when the rider has a "handicap" due to his fall, you will not see this indicated by any icon or whatever, you just see that he is not as strong as possible.
It can also take some days till he is back at full fitness.
however, with the PCM Career Explorer that I've made, you can load up the savegame, go to Cyclist -> Injuries and there you have an option "Reduced fitness due to fall" and there you see all cyclists that are currently affected by a fall, and how much it influences their fitness.
Seems a bit crappy that the riders can have injuries that you don't know about until the road goes uphill. Didn't the game used to show a red cross on the rider if he had picked up an injury.
If the rider who is 3rd on GC is that badly injured he can't stay with the peleton over a hill then the DS would know about it.
If it was clear it was an injury I would have taken it on the chin and changed my tactics to ride for Henao. It was just the fact that there was no indication of any injury until the end of the stage. You could argue that it is a bug if you class a bug as something which severally reduces the enjoyment/realism of the game
Are the CPU riders affected like this or is it only my riders? I've never noticed any 9others riders suffering similar symptoms despite crashing more often then my own riders.
CPU cyclists are also affected by this, I've seen it many times before. (you can also see in the PCM Career Explorer who's having reduced fitness from the AI teams).
The red cross only appears on "real injuries".
whenever they cannot race to their full potential because they are having issues due to a fall, the red cross does not appear and the game does not see this as a real injury.
Just a bit annoying when Porte's energy just disappeared for no apparent reason. Would still be nice if the game would give you a warning if your rider picks up an injury from a crash. Perhaps the game could add road rash and tears to the riders jersey and the more bashed up the rider looks the worse he has been affected by the crash Maybe an idea for the wishlist thread.
