AUSTRALIAN NT - Season 20

[Aurora Australis]

AUSTRALIAN NT - Season 20

Perth City : Swan River Cycling Loop - 6km, 10km, or 18km - Western Australia

Welcome to season 20.  Australia is golden and besides Vos or one of several other Aussie managers being in this position, or if WiC came to Australia, it would be hard to see how Australia could be shorter priced favourites to win the NT title for the third season running (well we could have a 2nd flat-TT race but anyway).  I did notice that we're void of any cobblers younger than 25, so if anybody is training cobbles get your international scout to Australia for almost guaranteed NT selection in upcoming seasons.

But anyway, current Australian cyclist rankings below.

[Aurora Australis]

Race 1

Selections :
Gerard Shields   31   Quickstepbronx (captain)
James Bush   24   Antequera
Zack Walkins   31   azerite
Fergus Emerton   27   Artxube
Herbie Fredickson   30   Quickstepbronx
Nate Gailes   24   Cabrasverdes
Danny Gill   24   ICSluj
Rob Mitchell   22   Valderend (3/4 XP)
Michael Odom   Manicomicos_Cycling_Team   25 (current final selection, may be changed for XP cyclist)

Prospects: First, I was curious on the changes from last season, and the good news is that we have three 24yos slotting into the team for the next 7 or 8 seasons, with James Bush looking like being the next hills captain.  Rob Mitchell's progress might make Bush into a super free-role cyclist, but that's for the future.  This season we're seeking a better result than last season, with a podium expected.

Results:
9th   James Bush      0: 23"   130 points
When a 22-year-old Rob Mitchell can keep up with everybody, a team captain racing aggressively should have been able to.  Luckily we had Antequera's star hiller to save us from a complete disaster.

[Vos]

The NT calendar looks very nice, and versatile, even with a flat-hills-climb race in it.
The just 24yo Walter Muller ( Villavante ) is the current best hillsclimber in the CFF ranking.
I gave him his debut a few seasons ago, but I cannot remember if he has a good flat skill, what is needed for this NT race 6.
And no problem if Muller has no flat skill, because I suspect that the 32yo Martin Hunter ( Manicomicos_Cycling_Team ) likes this race a lot.

And it is fun to see the u23 Dream Team with 7x Australian TT specialists.
Also Australian ; nr 7 hills, nr 8 climb, and nr 5 tours.

I expect that the individual NT world championship will be decided by a lottery among the 7 NT race victors.
Hopefully an Australian can win a NT race, so he will join this lottery and maybe even win it.

Have fun and good luck this NT season, Aurora Australis !

[vlominck]

 Walter Muller no tiene llano....tiene exactamente 30...jajaa

[ophiuko]

As vlominck said, Walter Muller doesn't have any flat so he is not suitable for the NT race 6.
I would like to add, to give Aurora some extra info, that last season Martijn Heiblok won that stage in Tirreno Adriatico, and the one with most victories is Lazare Pires. So basically it looks like that good GT riders are more suitable than hillclimbers, unless these hillclimbers have a lot of flat. In other words: mountain is the most important skill, and then flat might be more or equally important than hills. And aggres. may not be so important. It will be a hard selection though.

[Aurora Australis]

If Gerard Shields was a real cyclist, he'd be..., well let's have a look at the u24 Aussie team instead.  I did consider removing the Cobble section & having either TT-Hills or Hills-Flat there, but the TT-Hills are my five (minus Billy), followed by catapunchimpon's two, closely followed by PDM's two (so pretty much like TT-flat with slight rearrangement), and the flat-hillers are already in the pure-hills list, so you can look at the lack of cyclists under the cobbles column (we really need to offer cash incentives for cobbler teams to send their scouts downunder, what's the budget for that?....... no budget? and against the rules to undertake bribery? ......, well can we recommend cobbler teams to send their scouts here anyway?  Yes?  Good, we'll do that).
Anyway, the u24 team.

U24 Cyclists

Btw Vos, the NT individual jersey, when cyclists are equal on points, is decided by most NT caps, so an Aussie wouldn't get it in that situation.

[Vos]

Btw Vos, the NT individual jersey, when cyclists are equal on points, is decided by most NT caps, so an Aussie wouldn't get it in that situation.

I did not know this, and the very first time I read this on the forum.
But I assume you are right, because it sounds like your convident about this.
I had this situation once before, but I cannot remember in which season and who the cyclists were. Maybe it even was in CFF2.
To me this is not a fair way to decide who gets the jersey ; a lottery would be more fair.

[Vos]

I found it, I had this situation in season 10, see quote ;

And maybe Australia wins the individual world championship ?
Because the 7 NT race winners are on a split number 1 with 300 points, and CFF gives Richard Levin the nr1 position.
But I clicked all 7 cyclists, and nobody has the individual NT championship jersey yet of season 10. Maybe it will show after the update.

After the update Yannick Pierre ( Belgium ) was "awarded" with the individual NT jersey.

But I have no idea who was more experienced.
I know that Levin had a very good xp ( thé favorite xp cyclist to all Aus. NT managers ).

[Aurora Australis]

It was actually discussed in the Aussie Season 12 thread, as a result of the Aussie Season 10 thread, and a more detailed discussion somewhere else that mentioned the cobbler with 20 something NT races (who won the jersey).

[Franky]

Fraser Kitchens #2 in the U23 TT DT 

[thorboassonarvesen]

It was actually discussed in the Aussie Season 12 thread, as a result of the Aussie Season 10 thread, and a more detailed discussion somewhere else that mentioned the cobbler with 20 something NT races (who won the jersey).

"the cobbler" you mean the one and only Bram Travin !!!

[Aurora Australis]

Race 2

Selections :
Jason Furey   31   CajaRuralZamora
Dudley Iverson   29   LottoStelvio
Norm Bush*   28   HTCHungria (switched to leader)
*weather bonus

6 more selected.
Ryan Henderson   33   TeamMajer
Colin Mount   33   Teka
Martin Wilson   25   WinterIsComing
Henry Footman   24   BLOEMENAANDEMITTE
Barret Ryan   23   RajenKujen
Garret Woods   22   Zatarra (3 gale wind, need extra backup domestique: Plus needs to be raced, don't let a potential team leader be unfulfilled)
Des Brown      24   Villavante

Prospects: Last season Bush overperformed into a 10th place finish.  There are far better climbers out there, but we'll seek to defy them with another high finish (must beat Allan Tuum).

Results:
5th   Norm Bush      0: 29"   180 points
It was better than my expectation at the start of the race, and any points missed by Furey not keeping up with him into the last section is minor.    More importantly, no NT teams have gained a major advantage.

[Aurora Australis]

Fraser Kitchens #2 in the U23 TT DT 

He just needs a bit more racetime in him.  Of course your likely next training specialty for climbers is going to be useless for him, I would have loved to have brought him back after having completed my team's flat training, but he's no longer suited to my trainings either.

[Franky]

Fraser Kitchens #2 in the U23 TT DT 

He just needs a bit more racetime in him.  Of course your likely next training specialty for climbers is going to be useless for him, I would have loved to have brought him back after having completed my team's flat training, but he's no longer suited to my trainings either.

As I said before...I'm a bit disconnected from the game in the last months... so, I forgot to run in a lot of races...

[Aurora Australis]

Before we look at the next NT race, let's have our first look at how the 19-year-olds are progressing compared to the 20-year-olds.  Just several notes.  OphiukoCT is buying hill-sprinters, and TeaMetal is buying hill-cobblers, so promoting in that area is a sound plan this season.  Of course I'm hoping to have further luck in this, because I'll be spending everything on 19-year-old TTers in the following two seasons.

U21 Cyclists

see attachment