The third and probably last terrain pack for the PCM10 stage editor has now been put up for download.

This pack makes it possible to use the terrain data from the entire Canary Islands, New Zealand, Nepal and parts of India, Bhutan, China, South Korea, Argentina, Paraguay and Chile.
Click here to see a map of what parts of the world the pack is covering.

The file can be downloaded by clicking here

The PCM.daily's 2011 DB won't be released before next week. CrueTrue has been ill the last couple of days. More info about this when CrueTrue gets well again.

With the 2011 season underway, PCM.daily is getting ready to release its first version of the 2011 DB.

We don't have any final details to reveal right now, but we're aiming for a release of the Public Beta this upcoming weekend. The final version is expected to be out the following week (between the 11th and 13th of February).

We're still open for suggestions for teams. The team list is pretty much unchanged from the Preview Edition, although we did add Columbia es Pasion (thanks to their Pro-Cont license and European schedule), RealCyclist.com and Christina Racing (to replace Designa Køkken). Motorpoint has also been re-added. Obviously, we've also removed disbanding teams and re-named teams which have had title sponsor changes (e.g. DHL -> BGZ Bank).

So, if you've noticed any strong team that fits with the Western Europe, British or American focus that we have, and which is not already in the DB, feel free to suggest it in the comments. We may not make any further changes to the teams, but making a suggestion has never hurt anyone.

Update (26/01/11): One of the questions that wasn't answered was whether the stage and graphics files for PCM10 are compatible with PCM11: In short, the answer is 'yes'. However, the accessories for gloves, socks, handles, leggings and bottles are different and have to be re-made.

Following on from our own exclusive first details of PCM11 last week, bubbadj87, a moderator of Cycling Manager Italia has landed an interview with Clement Pinget (aka freire) from Cyanide.

And thanks to CM Italia for providing a translation of it, we are able to find out some more small details about the new game. The key points are:

1. The new feature of changing sponsors has been explained in a little more detail, Cyanide hope to have over 300 different sponsors/logos/jerseys available with sponsors being partitioned into not only national sponsors, but regional sponsors. Furthermore, each rider now has a popularity value from the sponsors - that makes certain riders more expensive and sought after, even if they arent necesarilly the strongest (Voeckler being an example) - and this popularity value will evolve based on rider results.

2. The cyclist model has been revamped - an important step in the series according to Pinget. Presumably this is linked in with riders no longer being able to ride through each other - a feature which requires more attention from the manager now when approaching narrow roads or key climbs.

3. They are looking into the gameplay of attacks - specifically the problem of attacks in the mountains failing to produce key gaps. Although it does still seem Cyanide have issues in generating some of the reported AI problems that the community have found.

More news is still to come at a later date to do with Sprint gameplay and the changing of teams from season to season - but there will be no new features for the track mode, no cyclocross, and no one-rider only mode.

You can read the full interview in Italian over at Cycling Manager Italia, or click read more here to read the full transcript of the English translation.

The Cyanide Team has been pretty silent since they released the last patch for PCM10 a couple of months ago. I'm glad to announce that they are in fact still alive and working on this year's version of the game, Pro Cycling Manager 2011.

While they didn't have time for a 'proper' interview with lots of new information, we did manage to get a couple of interesting PCM11-improvements out of them:

1. Teams can get new head sponsors, including new team names and jerseys. So no more Team RadioShack in 2020 - in PCM11, RadioShack can pull its sponsorship, and the team can get a new sponsor with a new jersey.

2. Riders magically passing through each other? I'm sure most of us have learned to live with this, but we won't have to in PCM11 - it's gone! It can happen very rarely, Cyanide says, but other than that, no.

3. Another AI-thing - and compared to the other two points, this is quite minor, I guess - there will be a noticeable difference in the bunch depending on the pace. "When the pace is high you can see the peloton being more and more stretched, while it's a big large pack when the pace is cool," Clément Pinget. member of the PCM development team, explains.

He also assures that the sprint AI/gameplay is one of the highest priorities for PCM11, and that there will be several other interesting "surprises" that are yet to be revealed.