How many days top cyclists do in a year??

[Dankobananko]

I have no idea cause i only follow Giro, Tour and Vuelta on eurosport. But for casual cyclist fan i dont know where should my team race and where to put my best cyclists?? Any help on that??

[fredingue]

Difficult to give an answer because a lot of things changed in 2013 compared with previous versons. So, so far as i did only one full year carrier mode with a small team, it's hard to say about leader's fatigue.

But, on a general view, "mature" cyclists may race 80-100 days a year, allthough, younger ones who don't have many training stars remaining may do it as well.

For racers ages 23-26 with some training stars, i usually make them do 60-80 days.

Young racers and future stars may not do more than 50 days a year (unless they are just average racers with low potential, in this case i may use them much more)

Same with phsysical level/fatigue with new system. A single race may be enough to gain a good physic (sorry i play in french so dunno what terms are used in english) before a big race, but you should manage your top racers to be allmost at the top before main goals.

Usually, the training graphics helps you to decide because it enables to see when the guy will rest and when his physic will be at max. So, when you have decided which race they will do, you may choose a training profile for each racer.

Let's say you own a top team. You mostly have to care about the leaders and sprinters.

Logically, Leader 1 and Sprinter 1 will have to concentrate on June and July, then you choose if they will add season start or end seasons races ( per ex, they will do Pars-Nice in March, rest in April and may that means few or no races but they may as well do Catalogne or Pays-Basque, your choice). Then they will either do Dauphiné or Tour of Switzerland. Then it's the Tour de France, main goal i suppose...Then rest again and may run some races in September and October.

Leader and sprinter 2 may do early season races, then joins their forces to cobbles men and punchers in april. Then they may do the Giro (possibly Romandie too), then rest in June and July. Then do the end season races like Benelux and Vuelta.

Of course, this is a very slight description, as you may modify this type of program according to other racers you get, but it is allways good not to have your best riders and sprinters fatigue at the same time.

Another thing to care is to balance your team, that means never two "same profile" leaders on the same big race (it can be done for 1 day races) because it may lower their motivation.
But you may use 1 Leader + 1 Leader-Sprinter for any race without penalty (if the leader is really inscribed as leader and sprinter as sprinter...)

For the rest, just concentrate on your sponsors main goals, look for the stages profile to decide which of your racers will do best there, and set up the programs this way (best riders do big races, lower ones do small races, big means high category like top tours and classics, while small means HC, 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2 races)

Of course it may not be simple with no experience, so my advice is you choose a very small team for your fisrt year, and just try to do your best. You may abandon and start a new one anytime you want to do best :)

Then see who is Leader, who comes next, try to figure out hierarchies in each category (mountain, cobbles...) and decide who has a good chance to win the race, then who will complete the team.

So, a typicall teams looks like

Leader : your best guy for the race usually a Leader racer
2 Free electrons : usually, good fighting spirit and good features for race profile, sprint abilities welcome. In Tour one of them may be used for Mountain top racers board
1 Sprinter : check boxes to do the sprints in Tours...
2 to 4 Teammates : some of them used to protect the leader, 1 or 2 with good sprint abilities may be used as pilots for the sprinter (check box)

[Dankobananko]

Thanks mate for great and indepth answer... I sent u friend request so maybe we can talk about PCM13 a bit more.

Cheers

[fredingue]

Fine, i hope you do well now :)

[whitesoxs01]

That is a great answer. I have played for 7 years on this game, and typically put your leaders in the major tours and whatever big races there are (Paris-Nice, you can go by how much you get when you win to see how big a race it is.) If you have cobble guys make sure they do those races. I don't have much to add to fredingue's answer.

[Sindre]

Some few races between March-June + one Grande Tour, maybe two. And perhaps the World Championship.