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Post by kurtinsc on May 2, 2013 11:50:19 GMT 1
Hello to everyone else in 3:1.
Looks like it will be a tough division. Looking through the teams, it appears my 88 career wins is 10th out of 12 teams in this division, so I've got my work cut out for me.
Also glanced through at everyone's trainer and found that only two (gegevert and the mothers of invention) have a mountain trainer skilled above 10. Lot of sprint and TT training in this group. Makes me think the sprints will be heavily contested but the mountain stages may be more selective for the overall race results.
My team is currently pretty cross trained across everything but downhill and TT. I have a lot of guys with decent skill levels in multiple areas... nobody is really single skilled on my team anymore.
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Post by gege on May 2, 2013 18:45:01 GMT 1
Hello everybody, hello kurtinsc good luck for everybody, this new season start with a lot of incertitude.
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Post by newborn on May 5, 2013 8:43:47 GMT 1
hello everyone,
i'm also mostlly sprint and TT trainer, but i have some hill just in case i would need it... Most of my riders are also cross trained, i have trained mostly flat and bought some nice mountain riders and later i trained mountain so my flat riders have some mountain on them and now i have trained a season sprint and TT for the new race engine
I have exactly 100 wins, but last season in division 2, i only had 4 wins, so i'm rather glad to be back in division 3, normally (according the international ranking) i would be the strongest team, but we will see where we end up.
Happy to see a forum thread :-)
So everybody good luck and i hope it can be a exciting season with near to 0 injuries for all trainers, so we can have a honest fight :-)
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Post by kurtinsc on May 6, 2013 16:11:53 GMT 1
I'm worried my complete lack of TT will be a huge issue for my team this season.
I just signed a new trainer (hill/DH) and will be training TT up to 15... but that's still 15 weeks before I can start improving my team in that area. I'm certain I won't be winning any TT stages, but reading about the impact of TT on regular stages in the new engine in the fun races (which I assume we're running under this year)... I could simply get dropped constantly on stages last season I'd have no issues with staying in the peloton.
I've got a lot of guys with 6 and 7 in sprint, but if they can't make it to the finish and can't stay away if they attack, it won't do me all that much good. I had some foresight in training sprint early when we switched away from the old engine... but I may have been caught off guard with the latest engine update.
The first week will tell a lot for my team. Really the first to stages of the TDU. If I'm not in contention for those stages, I'm going to be pretty quiet this year.
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Post by kurtinsc on May 8, 2013 14:13:53 GMT 1
Well, so far, so good.
Successfull series of attacks with a stage that suits how my team is trained best, and get a stage win. Long late hills still will work for my team apparently. I love 10+ km hill sections right before the finish.
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Post by kurtinsc on May 9, 2013 12:34:39 GMT 1
2 for 2 which is awesome, but the Batistoni injury sucks... 4 weeks is a lot of missed training. First injury he's had though.
It bodes well for my season, but I'm probably going to be a contender for stages much more often then for the overall of races.
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Post by kurtinsc on May 13, 2013 14:30:44 GMT 1
Reading the talk on the general message board, it sounds like my season may depend a lot on if the newest version of the engine gets rolled out or not.
If it doesn't, I should be able to win a lot of stages it looks like (especially ones determined by hilly sections). I don't think I'll do much in GC's, but I can pick up a lot of stage and 1-day wins. I may be able to compete for promotion.
If it does get rolled out, my lack of TT will probably mean I won't have much luck with breakaways... which will mean a much more meager stage win total. I should still be able to avoid relegation, but I likely won't fight for promotion.
I've got 14 more weeks until my trainer is up to speed in TT... at that point I'll be able to start adjusting my team to be better prepared for the next version of the engine. Until then... it all depends on which engine we are competing under.
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Post by newborn on May 14, 2013 10:31:36 GMT 1
it's quiet interesting, but i see that with the new calendar some weeks you need a lot of riders, or you have to leave some riders end at 60% or even 80% before the update, it's a lot of calculating, but that makes it fun.
for promotion, we will see, i think it will depend a lot of injuries (certainly in the grand tours, so we'll wait and see...)
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Post by kurtinsc on May 15, 2013 13:01:18 GMT 1
Congrats to gegevert. He dominated the final stage, sweeping the podium for both the stage and the race (and moves into first overall in the division because of it).
Barker is a decent climber but not great (and a bit on the heavy side), so taking 4th was a pretty good result for me. Atzeni was actually the rider I brought for the GC of this race, but after a flat/fall causing massive time loss in stage 1, he became a helper.
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Post by gege on May 15, 2013 17:46:55 GMT 1
Good surprise for me The two mountains were late in the race, I thank they are many group before the peloton but no, in the first mountain my cyclists come in the first peloton, and in the second mountain, 2 of them escape and the last win the sprint.
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Post by kurtinsc on May 23, 2013 0:42:56 GMT 1
The league is looking to be quite interesting. We've got seven teams who've won a race or a jersey and no team who's won a jersey type more then once. While I won 5 of the first 6 stages, once we got to stages with mountain sections playing significant roles (or to mostly flat stages), my run quickly ended. It looks like we have a lot of teams with varying capabilities... which should make the whole season fun.
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Post by kurtinsc on May 23, 2013 19:36:38 GMT 1
The league is looking to be quite interesting. We've got seven teams who've won a race or a jersey and no team who's won a jersey type more then once. While I won 5 of the first 6 stages, once we got to stages with mountain sections playing significant roles (or to mostly flat stages), my run quickly ended. It looks like we have a lot of teams with varying capabilities... which should make the whole season fun. And with the Mothers of Invention (GREAT name... love Frank Zappa) winning today, that makes eight.
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Post by newborn on May 25, 2013 12:27:46 GMT 1
what a race today, my 5 riders always in front of the peloton and always chasing the break-away's, and then finally we caught them and Olivier and Clarebout take 1 and 2 in the sprint. For myself a great victory because i am from Gent :-)
And now we still have the second place in the division in sight... (curious about the Giro in a few weeks...)
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Post by kurtinsc on May 25, 2013 13:42:19 GMT 1
what a race today, my 5 riders always in front of the peloton and always chasing the break-away's, and then finally we caught them and Olivier and Clarebout take 1 and 2 in the sprint. For myself a great victory because i am from Gent :-) And now we still have the second place in the division in sight... (curious about the Giro in a few weeks...) I was hoping Rosa could do what he did on stage 2 of the Tour de Med, but apparently on a full blown flat stage with lots of flat riders pulling, he's not good enough to get away. The peloton must have been less vunlnerable to a flat attack since it's loaded with other flat riders. I'm not sure I have a reasonable strategy for any truly flat race. I don't have a lot of riders who can keep up in flat sections and successfully get away on small bumps like G-W had, and I'm simply not near the same levels with flat sprinters as the best in this league.
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Post by newborn on May 25, 2013 18:42:19 GMT 1
what a race today, my 5 riders always in front of the peloton and always chasing the break-away's, and then finally we caught them and Olivier and Clarebout take 1 and 2 in the sprint. For myself a great victory because i am from Gent :-) And now we still have the second place in the division in sight... (curious about the Giro in a few weeks...) I was hoping Rosa could do what he did on stage 2 of the Tour de Med, but apparently on a full blown flat stage with lots of flat riders pulling, he's not good enough to get away. The peloton must have been less vunlnerable to a flat attack since it's loaded with other flat riders. I'm not sure I have a reasonable strategy for any truly flat race. I don't have a lot of riders who can keep up in flat sections and successfully get away on small bumps like G-W had, and I'm simply not near the same levels with flat sprinters as the best in this league. actually Oliver, who won today, doesn't even have great flat skills, but he has sprint skill 8 so that helps i guess for now i have a lot of multi-skill riders, no experts (my highest skill level is 1 rider with 11 mountain) so we'll see where that leads us
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