Online cycling and/or baseball manager type timewasters?

[Sits]

Having been outbid on Ty Curran, I wanted to round out the dozen and saw this bloke in the pool. Clearly neglected - team is in D9 and abandoned I think - but might just prove capable of winning a few dollars in lower league TTs as a short term plan. Failing that I should at least improve his value once his RS of 30 gets up to par. He can also job:

Name: Engelbert Jung Nation: Germany Team: Lindfield Locknuts Age: 31 years Birthday: Day 64 Team Spirit: 30% Experience: Level 3 Lindfield Locknuts since 18/09-2021 Races on team: 0 Total races: 40

OCM Tour Rank: 4385 th OCM Tour Points: 0 Germany Tour Rank: 142 nd Races for national team: 1 Average Skill: 40 Release value: 66.692

Former teams: Team (End of contract) Telstra (11/9-2021)

Stats:

CL: None (41) DH: None (28) HL: None (29)

SP: None (29) FR: None (27) CB: None (28)

TT: Incredible (96) TQ: None (44)

[Sits]

So a little dig into his history tells me he’s not raced since he was 23.....

[matt j]

Has he been released lately? Weird.

At any rate, you can always keep him as a TT trainer or sell him as one.

[matt j]

Eventful day.

Perkis got leapfrogged by two riders who must have had good/super legs days, but picked up a third in the WT.

Mannes went out today for 155k (RV), so a good bank balance for a bit for Fox River (until training camp comes around again).

Nothing out of the BA race for my U23s. But Okereke got his first national team race for Senegal, and Abbas picked up a 3rd for Rwanda in WT D.

And a really, really good win for Kavanagh in Okavango, helped by 3 good legs days from his leadouts. Had a full train set up for this one, but no idea if it worked as I got no message about it in the overview.

[matt j]

Ha, I was going to mention that there was another 190+ Climber with nice side stats on the free hire list... but already gone. (António Passos)

As my riders start resetting top form, my tracking of RS loss says it's a bit higher than I said upthread. It approaches 1 per day, but not quite exactly. For 3 riders it took exactly 26 days to drop the 24 RS points required to trigger 'top form ready'.

[Sits]

Those free hire picks go quick don’t they Matt?

Anyway in Locknuts news, I have Engelbrecht Jung signed up for three TTs to try and drag up his terrible RS. I guess this is something Levin encountered but when you have a TTer and a “normal” team the rest just have to tag along on Practice mode. Don’t they?

And I am training Niedziela on FR now, his AV is up to 48. He is probably going to end up a rider best for tours so maybe that’s where we might focus a little more in future.

[Levin]

Yeah. I tended to use jobbers to keep their rs up.

[Sits]

Yeah. I tended to use jobbers to keep their rs up.

Thanks. I wonder what it would do to the game if you could enter smaller teams (as in U23) or even individuals to some TTs. I suppose all the mega teams could then just have a Perkis on the books.

[matt j]

So WT-D this weekend: a hiller, so a Vencil special and/or a lot of riders for breakaway?

[matt j]

Ken Moen - AV 44, but 70+ SP/FR on the hire list for just under 90k. Very useful rider for a sprint team.

[Sits]

So my RS 30 TTer had his first race. Did terribly which is to be expected, but his RS stayed at 30.

[matt j]

So my RS 30 TTer had his first race. Did terribly which is to be expected, but his RS stayed at 30.

Must be a 'round up to 30' situation. Gonna take a fair bit to get him back up.

[Sits]

Yes that’s starting to dawn on me. But I’ve sunk my money now. He just has to get dragged up a bit for me to bump his RV.

[matt j]

It's early, but I'm uncertain I'll remember tomorrow, delicatemoth WT tour sign-up, hiller race.

[delicatemoth]

Sorry about last week. Isle of Man team for Arabuko Sokoke Forest - Mombasa (0-1-1-7-8-0-5-0) is as follows:-

Illingworth (C); Ridsdale, Vencill, Crumley, Kavanagh, Perkis (Lead Out)

I included Perkis because I have read that TT is a skill relevant to lead outs. Special shout out to 21-year old Chalmers Lamar, called up to the squad after all of four races for his trade team. He narrowly missed the selection for this race.

[matt j]

Ha, Lamar is that one picked up by Levin . He could be a IoM beast for many years.

I'm still uncertain if TT for leadouts works in WT races. I'd hope it does.

[Levin]

Let's not be too hasty. I've had three riders max out much earlier than I was hoping for.

G Quintrell 39
C Trombas 40
E Munroe 41

[matt j]

Hmmm, not bad, but not quite?

Name: Humphrey Toth Team: Isle of Man Age: 20 years Birthday: Day 58 Team Spirit: N/A Experience: Level 1 Races on team: 0 Total races: 0

OCM Tour Rank: 4449 th OCM Tour Points: 0 Isle of Man Tour Rank: 35 th Top form ready Average Skill: 29

Potential:

CL: Average DH: Small HL: Good

SP: Small FR: None CB: Average

TT: Small TQ: None

[Sits]

Good summation Matt. A Nearly Man, with a great name.

[matt j]

I've not had much luck scouting for a while which has been disappointing. I suppose with the new 'ranked' echelons for the hire list, being up in third division means I'm not seeing much that hasn't already been picked up by the teams with better finances. I'll keep poking at the new U21 riders, but it's been a big disappointment for the last month.

On the other hand, we continue to push back our potential relegation from Division 3. This time Kavanagh comes through with a good legs day in a race that looked unlikely to bring any cash or prizes. Even with the rest of the team being flaky, and one support rider being injured, still he managed a 3rd. Lucky!

I put a team into the 3rd division Kangaroo tour, mostly so my Aussie could be captain there. But the next big targets are the two flat races we had reasonable success in last season (Windy City and the stage of the Brazilian tour). Approx 300 points coming off between now and day 75, so I need to get similar results to maintain table standing.

[Sits]

Meanwhile we’ve dropped down to D6 again but it’s pretty self inflicted. I need to build cash back up to do some more training. The DPs have slipped leading to diminishing returns so less racing lately and looking for TTs to try and drag Jung’s RS up. I did just spot the Yang Piang Race though, which HH has won in the past.

[matt j]

And on we go! WT results weren't fantastic considering IoM still has one of the best sprinters of all time as captain, Illingworth only managed a 6th behind riders from... <checks notes> Guinea-Bissau, Faroe Islands, Uruguay, Rwanda (sorry!), and Mexico.

Next WT race this weekend is a hiller with strange cobbles. One of those oddball races that maybe we have a good mix of riders for. Maybe?

Kangaroo Tour starts today, Fox River needs incredibly luck to get any points there.

Young-ish trainee Okereke maxed at only 73 FR, but that does bring him up to be a 219 sprinter. He's now the 2nd best on the team (passing Crumley), but probably needs some luck with race training to really get competitive. We'll see in the next few seasons what he can do.

[matt j]

My talent this round:

Ansel Sauer

Nation: Isle of Man Age: 24 years Birthday: Day 30 Experience: Level 4

This action costs 40.000 $.

Stats:

CL: None (29) DH: None (27) HL: None (29)

SP: None (43) FR: None (26) CB: None (27)

TT: None (28) TQ: None (32)

Potential:

CL: None DH: None HL: Small

SP: Good FR: Small CB: Good

TT: Average TQ: Average

Very close to being hirable, but that age is not great for me as I'd have to bring him up very fast.

On the other hand, GD SP/CB is pretty nice.

[Sits]

That age is annoying Matt.

I’ve broken my 190+ rule and bought a 180+ potential climber in Zvjezdan Bukal.

He has a classic 70/60/50 climbing potential but also Average FR and is only 20 so could be a decent all-round domestique. Plus he reopens U23 races for us, with Purdon and Hagenhofer who is trained to CL 75 DH 65 already.

[matt j]

Seems reasonable. Hopefully being able to pull up the FR makes him really useful.

I picked up a Greenlander 190+ Sprinter (GD/SM/GD). Not really a necessary purchase, but I'm still long-term trying to keep a full 6 riders in the U23 races. Eventual goal of having all 6 mostly trained for those races. A full sprint squad is almost guaranteed to get points in these races (with the right profile of course).

I also love seeing my small-country riders get into national teams....

A good climber should be similarly effective with a full squad of decent supports.

delicatemoth WT race this weekend, sign-up closes tomorrow. Hiller race.