Online cycling and/or baseball manager type timewasters?

[Sits]

I should start doing that with Unwin Treadwell.

Edit: meanwhile I have two trainees who are actually progressing OK at the academy. I’d already mentioned that hill specialist Daniel Niedziela has cracked the 200. Today Martim Vidigal went over the 190 hurdle. They’re making up for the bitter disappointment of Kurt Manou, who has now been sent on his way.

[matt j]

Excellent good.

Fox River recently had our two GD SP/GD FR riders both cross 190 (Brasher and Butnaru). Both are probably maxed (or very close) on their sprinting combination so will be left alone for a season or two to try and push up those totals through race training.

Mosbah is at 199, so just waiting for a few races there to get boosted. Really hoping to rollover the 86 SP to 90 in the next few seasons.

Hot shot talent Okereke has had his SP stat pushed to 74, so the team as a whole has an average of 70 SP.

[Sits]

Parallel to your SP, my CL average was over 70 until I brought two new youngsters in.

Which reminds me: this game effectively has two parallel dimensions doesn’t it? Climb Dimension and Sprint Dimension.

CL/DH/HL = SP/FR/TQ
Team Mate (CL/DH/HL/FR/CB) = Lead Out (SP/FR/TQ

Edit: I mean, I know when we set up we chose Climb team or Sprint team, but it was more the close parallels between the key attributes that struck me.

[matt j]

Yup, with TT (TT/TQ/FR) and Cobble (CB/TQ/FR/SP) kind of in their own universe. And then all the riders who end up kind of weirdly specialists in the middle.

But fundamentally, that Team Mates get 5 attributes and Lead Outs only get three explains the overbalance in the 'All 3/4' races towards climbing teams. (or so the forums say)

[Sits]

As with tours, on the whole. But that’s like real life isn’t it?

[Sits]

Yup, with TT (TT/TQ/FR)

No SP in the TT equation? I’ve not studied it closely.

[matt j]

Adding SP for the Time Trialers makes them prologue specialists. Quite a few TT races have 'some' Sprint, but the ones with a lot are the prologues. (Basically, having SP is nice for a TTer in this game, but you can win a lot of races with a TTer with basically none.)

[delicatemoth]

Advice sought!

Howard Moroney has maxed HL at 87. What, if anything, should I do with him next? He doesn't have the potential to be a hilly sprinter, his CL and DH potentials are both Small and I am tempted to leave him as is and use him as a pure hill helper.

http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/team/Man_2_Man#1

[matt j]

If he doesn't really have anything else in the average/good range, probably just throw a couple points at Climbing, as that seems to be the implied other skill that is of most use to hill helpers. If he maxes in the high 50s, you could throw training and DH and hope for similar. (e.g. near to a 60/60/87 rider )

No sprinting or flat road though? That's a shame.

[delicatemoth]

He's got Average SPR in fact, no FR or TQ. Maybe a HL+SPR of 148-157 would make a good breakawy rider.

[Levin]

What's his cobbling?

[delicatemoth]

Small.

[matt j]

Hmmm, an 87 HL, 60+ SP, 40+ is still a potentially handy hill sprinter. Not exactly suited for the rest of the squad, but handy. With a high overall max, maybe a useful rider on the hill tours?

Not a world beater, but handy at Division 4 and lower.

[Sits]

I can’t really comment on Hill Sprinters, but agree that CL will at least improve his usefulness as a Hill Helper. But I went this way with Thomas Hansson who got to 84 on hills but then maxed really low at 44/41/84 CL/DH/HL and an average of 38. In the end he wasn’t even making races as a HH so I released him.

[matt j]

It's a tough call tbh, the VG hill isn't quite worth abandoning (yet). But definitely have to choose a direction if training is going to continue.

[delicatemoth]

My current thoughts are that (assuming he can reach SPR+CL potentials) a HL 87 SPR 60+ CL 50+ and nothing else rider could make a good breakaway man as well as a reasonable hill helper.

[Sits]

Daniel Niedziela has now maxed out on his climbing credentials at CL 66 - DH 66 - HL 71 for a tidy total of 203.

He is only 22, and has been trained for around 105 points. He still has potential of SP Average - FR Small - TQ Good, so at an outside chance could be a monster, especially in tours. But I am going to be disciplined, get the others up in their climbing first, then maybe come back to him.

[matt j]

You always get the best responses in the OCM forum Sits. Amazing!

[Sits]

You always get the best responses in the OCM forum Sits. Amazing!

Thanks, to be honest they always seem to be forthcoming - plus they don’t all agree with one another which makes for great thread action. I am now getting lengthy PMs from Canadian Nippon about DH guides and Hill Helpers. Of course it differs to that I received previously from Erwin! Once I get my head round it I’ll share as he also writes at length about assorted LO roles.

[matt j]

I'm always interested in seeing the high division or old timers hint at all their personal calculations. It's really a game of playing the spreadsheet isn't it.

Kavanagh got an excellent and unexpected podium today thanks to good legs (and a support rider in top form). May just have been enough that I can cling to Division 4 without panicking, and a podium in Faso Bittou - Koupela (tough, but possible) could give me a Division 3 bounce for a few days.

IoM rider Ross Mohler should cross into 70 SP / 70 TQ on his next training (in about 10 days), making him a serious NT option as LO. Rest of the team is in decent shape to put a solid selection into the Minutemen Tour (sign-ups start tomorrow) and then the Sicilian Tour later. I'm already eyeing the Division 4 end of season run, which I've gone on about before.

Mostly though, the income has been very good so far. Just cracked 100k in result money for the season.

Friendly reminder for delicatemoth for WT sign-up for:
http://www.cyclingsimulator.com/?pag...rg%20ITT%20(WT)

Sign-up closes in just over 24 hours, assuming we are in WT-B for this round.

[delicatemoth]

Ta. We actually have 6 riders who can TT now, though general DP is poor.

Perkis, Hugh Millar*, Tolers, Stenson, Pritchett, Snowden.

*debut

[matt j]

Good to see two of my once youth prospects getting the NT call-ups for this. (We all know this is Perkis or bust though.)

[Sits]

So here are some thoughts and some history from Robert Bouchard (Canadian Nippon) on various matters. Loosely based around advising me on tactics for a DH-heavy race later today, but he covers a lot including sprint races, his specialty:

So you consider DH Guide contributes all of his 10% on DH - correct?

Yes, Based on the manual and the old race script generator that we used to use to figure out if riders would win a race or not that still works somewhat even though some members recently stated that it has been banned isn't accurate.

Nick made other changes to make the race calculator impractical to use rather then banning it since all we did was collect the data from the race page and then have excel spreadsheet use a pivot table to calculate the order in which all riders signed up for the race would match the race profile; without calculating team mates or equipment.

Nick made it so that we could no longer just copy and paste the whole rider signed up part a the bottom of the page and have it line-up correctly into a excel. Can still be done but needs a few manual inputs but he then using our help to destroy our own race calculator added random events from Legs, TS and experience.

Riders TS is the amount of actually help that a rider will give to the team during a given event so if a riders TS is 78% then he is only giving 78% of his 10% to the team captain. This was also done to stop buy and selling riders between teams for quick one off races or tours then selling the rider back as TS only increase with the more rider races with the team as whole and doesn't do negitive activities. (I am going off topic)

But yes, TM give either 10% across some of the stats or 10% in a role.

Using sprinter since this is where I am more focused at the moment you have the following TM or roles:
Lead-out sprinter = SP
LO#2 = TQ
LO#1 = TT

Some managers here like to over complicate things so a lot of the debate is around what you asked about the Hill climber does all 10% go to one stat or are they split across multiple stats. The simple answer is no one knows fore sure. You can only read the manual for what it actually tells you and it clearly stats that yes 10% is given to one stat rather then the over complicated as below:

--- LO ROLES ---

LO 1: FR > TT > TQ
LO 2: TQ > FR > SP
LO SP: SP > TQ >>>> FR

--- TM roles ---

Pave Pacer: CB > FR > TQ
Hill Helper: HL >>> CL > FR

The manual stats that TT is more important then FR on LO1 and from experience I know this to be true. Since FR is the main stat for windbreaker. If any percentage is given to other stats then it must be very minimal. Reason why I think other mangers get confused by this is down to the fact that every rider is their own stats calculated against the race profile minus the 10% that they give to the captain. This means a rider with better stats that match a race profile will give the appearance that they are helping more when it fact they are simple matching the race profile well and having a good result due to matching the race profile.


What about the Hill Helper? It’s not is it? HL must be a larger part of the 10%.
Actually I think and know from the past as I ran a climb team that a lot of managers make a mistake of taking the name of the role too literal as it says hill helper but it actually doesn't mention HL in the manual but it does mention CL. I have for one have always used CL and if you look at other climbing teams they will have more CL then hiller within their team; Why? because CL is actually the stat used rather then HL.
This is another one that confuse managers due to the fact that climbers use the combination of the three stats being CL, DH & HL; these are usually important stats to have at least average to good when looking at climber the problem is you have different types of climbers as you will have a Hill specialist (VG HL), DownHill Specist (DH VG) and then the pure Climber (CL VG) but these are not captains; other then one off races as they don't cover key elements of most races or stages.

So in short I actually have hiller help coming from CL and not HL. When you think about it; it should also make sense since CL need help of other pure CL and not a hiller.

I didn’t realise the aim was to bring the captain close to the exact race profile. I thought it was just for the overall points generated across the team to be the maximum.

If you look at the race results you will see that usually only one rider from each team will place in the top 10. This is due to the way the game mechanics works with all riders giving the comparable to 10% of the abilities to the Captain. While they all lose 10% comparable making it harder for them to score. This means the team of five riders are sole their to boost the captains stats by 10% to the given areas as discussed above either directly to or combined across the key stats.

This is why you also see specialized team doing very well like my team for an example: I run a very average sprint captain but due to the strength of my sprint train, I am able to pull him higher up in the standing of most races.

Depending on the race profile depends on whom I first run as my captain as I have a hill sprinter Bitao 206 , Watts is my average sprinter at 209 or Jarvinen my TQ sprinter.

My lead-out train then consists of LOS, LOS, LOS boost whomever the captain is the highest aspect of the race profile (SP) then I either add LO#2 (Jarvinen) or another LOS if the race isn't TQ heavy. I will always run a LO#1 as he reduce wind, and fatigue on my captain while placing the train towards the front for the sprint finish.

When I ran a climb team I ran HL Helper, HL Helper, DH Guide, DH Guide and either straight wind breaker or WC as I really only had four riders trained. Three of them were 210 climbers, with heavy focus on CL & DH with HL being at least average.

So I should always be looking for an 8/8/7 or 7/7/6 type race for Hagen?
Yes, but no. I wouldn't limit myself in such a manner since you can boost his stats based on the TM that you have selected to aid him during events. But he is limited due to only being Good in CL and Good in DH. So you need to find the right team mates to boost these two stats to give him a better chance during the races. You can equally boost his CL & DH based of teams roles so races that are close to each other in CL & DH, he should do well in. If CL is higher then DH then you need more Hill helpers and if DH is higher then CL then you need more DH guides. As a 217 climber he should do well in most climbing or downhill races as long as he has the right support from his team mates. But yes, due to the fact the closer he matches the race profile the more likely he is to win the event. He is a very good rider similar to my older rider in Bob Lepage that held number one status here for a few years but with my team he didn't do very much due to lack of team mates but with the right team in division 1 he dominated and once again the game changed due to this rider and transfer rules.

Finally - I assume I should not consider Lonzo Obregon as captain for this race, based on his VG DH?

I did consider this but when you look the race profile with 7 CL (24%), which is the second highest stat in the race it means Hagen Hunzberger matches the race profile better at 49.61% compared to Lonzo Obregon then look at the TM options and Lonzo Obregon can only manage a 62 compared to Hagen Hunzberger 64-66 options.

If you had a good CL and Very good or better DH then He would have been the choice for this race. Remember is the sum of the whole race profile that determine what how much and the stats that a rider will use during a race as they are weighted based off the race profile.

[Sits]

There’s more. I asked a question and I feel there was some moving of the goalposts! My bold within RB’s quote:

Sits:

I have thought of something else re. Hill Helpers. If they help with CL, how could team mates help if this race had HL 7 or 8? I have another rider (Daniel Niedziela) who has Good HL. Would he not be a Hill Helper, to get Hunzberger closer to the race profile on HL?

Robert Bouchard:

Short answer he would help as an hill helper as I believe that Hill helpers actually might be a combination of the two stats so the 10% could be combined over the two CL & HL (as the manual states that a Hill helper helps set the pace on the hills but a Mountain climber could assist on short hills suggest that I might have this wrong as Hill might be the dominate stat in Hill helper and secondary is CL.

That being said Bonuses and percentages are given based on race profile so a climber during a mountain stage will give more assistance then a hill climber during a mountain stage.

Example:
7 CL 4 DH 3 HL

Climber at 99 will give 2.05pts at 5% versus 1pt for a Hill at 99

It gets more complicated if you you think it weights heavier towards hill say 70-30% split then at 99 climber at 1.2 versus the same at 1.2. This has me really believe that it is split 50% - 50% so the race profile determines the actual strength of the Hiller helper main stat. This would suggest that you would want a really good rider across both stats (CL & HL) to really maximize the overall amount of the 10% given or do you focus more on one stat per TM so running a very strong CL and a very strong HL.

And here I said short answer. LOL!! So conclusion that it is determined by the race profile but the 10% would be assumed split across the two climbing stats. This make Dennis Albrecht perfect for mixed CL & HL races as he will give a bigger bonus then Aurel Neagoe but Aurel Neagoe will give bigger bonuses when you have higher Mountains like the example given above.

However right or wrong they may be, I continue to be overwhelmed by how forthcoming some managers are.

[Sits]

Hunzberger was 19th and had an off day. Best downhiller Obregon also had an off day. So there you go, I’m none the wiser.