Season 15

[wacco]

Vaessen gave his team the first stage victory this vuelta. Karl ended in the fourth place and is in the lead with more as 1 minute on the number two. It is looking good

[wacco]

And Karl also takes his victory and a sponsor deal. No chances in the GC

[kirin]

With half on La Vuelta done, my GC leader, Piñeiro, is currently on a not that good 5th place. The cobble stage was a dissapointment, even if the team had no specific domestique for it, since he couldn't finish over the leader Pires. Apart from the top 2 riders, there are a lot of contenders in less than 1 minute for the third place.

1    Lazare Pires   28   FrançaiseDesJeux   0: 00"   0   0
2    August Thoelen   27   Inglourious_Bastards   1: 16"   0   0
3    Brooklyn Marbley   31   Combuijs   2: 22"   0   0
4    Juan Carlos Palencia   27   ValeronIdolo   2: 25"   0   0
5    David Manuel Piñeiro   26   azerite   2: 28"   0   0
6    Jaime Roman   31   Fiestina   2: 39"   0   0
7    Maurizio Lorenzetto   27   FaltososDeChigre   2: 40"   0   0
8    Rafael Carlos Loinaz   33   Valderend   2: 47"   0   0
9    Alexey Ryazanov   26   Spitz   3: 13"   0   0
10    Julio Manuel Miro   29   Rekutxuteam   3: 31"   0   0

Surprising how the pure climber Miro is still on the top 10, but that will change after todays hill stage.

Also, for the end of the season i will list for selling most of my riders, including some of my GC ones

[wacco]

Just a 10 second loss for Karl and a nice 2nd place this stage. His first contender is 2 minutes behind. The last MMMMM stage we lost 44 seconds. So the overall victory should be possible.

[Vos]

stage 4 Vuelta ;
23º  Lebrun
Unexpected extra points in this cobble stage, because sprinter Lebrun has a cobbleskill of 62.
In climbsprint stage 5 he almost surprised ; 31º with a very low climb/dh combo of 14/5.

stage 6 Vuelta ;
4º  Kluivert
Very good result, because as planned, he had to do it without help.

[Vos]

stage 7 Vuelta ;
6º  Nyheim
A good result, despite he started in the 2nd group and was isolated in s1 and s2. It shows that flat counts in those 2 sections,
because to my surprise helper Macannazi ( no TC and just 94 form ) was in the break away group ( s1=13, s2=8 ).

Luckily in s3 his communication device worked again, and I could order Macannazi to drop out of the front and help Nyheim.
So they were both together in the s3 big chasing group of 25 on just 0:08" to the reduced break away group of 3.

In s4 all teamcaptains of the first 3 groups were isolated ;
a new front group of 3 (only later stage winner Miro kept his position in the front) was chased by a group of 4 on 0:09"
Nyheim was in the 2nd chasing group of 3 on 0:18"

s5, the brutal final climb to the Bola del Mundo ;
Just like in stage 2, it was a sprint-a-deux between Miro ( Rekutxuteam ) and Stegmaier ( IKIBASQUE ).
Again Miro won, so together with his solo victory in stage 3, he won all 3 mountain stages in this Vuelta.
0:20" behind these 2 topclimbers, Palachev finished as 3º by outsprinting Andres(4º).
On 0:31 Nyheim(6º) finished in a little group of topclimbers ; 5º Markhus, 7º Huard, and 8º Xavier.
And this was good enough to score a sponsor deal ( top 8 ) of 334k. 

[wacco]

Stage 7. Karl finished 3th with 38 seconds loss to the number two in the GC. But in stage 8 Karl finished 3th again and now has a very nice lead of 2m40 in the GC. With all the climbing stages I fought the vuelta would have been the most difficult to win. But the tour will be the closest one.

I expect some time loss in the TT but stage ten Karl should end in front again.

Second goal is the keep the 4th place with my second rider, but I think he will lose to much time with the TT.

After the vuelta I also expect to enter the top 3 in my division. Not that hard with only 5 teams competing but I started to play with stage 33. With the first races without one of my starting riders stage 37. So I am happy. Looking forward to division 2. It will be much harder and I am already starting with a younger population. The goal next season is to stay in division 2 with a healthy economy, promotion to division one should be after my 3th or 4th season.

[Aurora Australis]

Unfortunately no <22 jersey for me, for yet again another manager decided to sabotage their own 22 year old late season at 100% health to get it.  But I've just noticed that Nobby Licuria is at gold TT so that's a better reward (and apparently golden several races ago).

[Rico]

Unfortunately no <22 jersey for me, for yet again another manager decided to sabotage their own 22 year old late season at 100% health to get it.  But I've just noticed that Nobby Licuria is at gold TT so that's a better reward (and apparently golden several races ago).

"Sabotage" sounds a bit negative. I don't know how you see it, but that's how this game works I think. You sacrifice trainings to get some results. I know I had to sacrifice some trainings to compete in Grand Tours and I assume you had to sacrifice a few trainings to become World Champion.

Of course, the ugly thing is you have to sacrifice U24-trainings to go for the white yersey, but that's the price you have to pay I guess. I know I would probably pay that price, but I also know for the coming 15 seasons I won't be competing for a white yersey 

[Vos]

stage 9 Vuelta ;
4º  Millan
A good TT result as 5th favorite.

For the first time ever my team has just 12 cyclists, on purpose, as preparation for next season.
So I have enough space for another attempt to set up a mini youth team aside.
For now ; because there is always a possibillity that I buy too much the next few days,
although I'm not rich, what might be an advantage for me not to get a too full team with my buying moods.
By the way, this is the only preparation, because also for the first time ever, zero cyclists are on training camp for next season.

First the final 4 races of season 15 ;
@ stage 10 Vuelta = Hopefully flat sprinter Lebrun can survive the s3 hill, and score a few points. It will be difficult.
@ Lombardia = Beck will be the teamcaptain, but I don't expect points. Perhaps he can surprise me by finishing top30.
@ WC TT Austria = Just one contender ; Millan. His 4º place in stage 9 Vuelta is promising, but there might be more good rivals in the WC.

@ WC ( hills ) Portugal = The current world champion Kluivert is of course the teamcaptain.
But 12+ races ago I failed to buy a good helper, so his chance to be the world champion again is very small.
And probably his world champion title of previous season ( with team QuintoYtapa ) was already surprising.

Luckily Kluivert is not entirely without help, because he gets help of ;
the best Spanish pure hills specialist who never was selected for the Spanish NT. 
At the moment he is just a few places below Kluivert in the golden hills ranking, so I have the nrs 9 and 14 to compete in the WC hills race.
Thé problem is that helper Rubiera has exactly 50 health in the final race of this season, and he is not allowed to rest of his manager.
So, let's see how this goes, I have zero experience in racing with 50 health. Hopefully he is good enough to help 2 sections.
More importantly ; it is now certain that Rubiera was a good training project and a good investment of 3,6M (+20k, just for fun, he has TC too).

[ophiuko]

More importantly ; it is now certain that Rubiera was a good training project and a good investment of 3,6M (+20k, just for fun, he has TC too).

Just some proof that I don't lie with my simulations 

Egoitz Rubiera    Edad : 21    Sueldo : 852
Resistencia : 55    Sprint : 32    Montaña : 26
LLano : 61    Pavés : 14    Tecnica : 82
Descenso : 78    Colinas : 83    Agresividad : 81
Crono : 22    TraEqui : 31    Experiencia : 4

Rubiera, if trained at 100%, could be like this:

Egoitz Rubiera    Edad : 24    Sueldo : 852
Resistencia : 88    Sprint : 37    Montaña : 31
LLano : 83    Pavés : 19    Tecnica : 87
Descenso : 87    Colinas : 99    Agresividad : 85
Crono : 27    TraEqui : 36

This simulation would be in top10 of DT by pure hills right now

[Vos]

For sure your simulations have high respect and high value to me, Ophiuko.
In the case of Rubiera, I saw it after I bought him ( otherwise I paid more ), because I did not read the Spanish forum back then.
But it was great to see right after I bought him, because you made me aware of that forumpost the day I bought him.

The doubts I had about training him, was that I had no clue how good the competition was, when I bought him at 21yo.
And the season after, he was the nr 8 in the u23 DT. What did not made my doubts dissapear.
Also I had doubts because he could not train perfectly in my team, I knew that already when I bought him.
Although he decided the training schedule and I tried to train him as good as I could, but that was not perfect.

But with good(but not perfect) training and his good talent rating, he overtook many other hills specialists by now.
And the 23yo hills generation is very good, what was a bit misleading to me in how good Rubiera would be.
At the moment the top 5 of 23yo hills specialists are ranked as this in the golden hills ranking ; 2º, 8º, 14º, 16º, 20º.

Your simulation seems accurate to me, the only difference is that I trained flat much less high and downhill higher.
What is also a difference in the amount of training sessions, in your perfect scenario he could have trained more and I agree with that.
He is not trained perfectly in my team, mainly due to my racing staff with a high number on resting.
That is a waste of a few trainings per season, and probably I made a few rare other training mistakes too.

But it is a game of choices / setting priorities ; the 1A championship was more worth to me than training Rubiera perfectly.
Also a disadvantage of training in my team with racing staff ; Rubiera has extreme low experience.
Luckily he had already 4 xp gained in your team. Thanks ! And also thanks for selling him, I'm really happy with Rubiera.
Anyway, it is good to see that he is very close to what he could have looked like if he was trained perfectly.
It seems I did not mess him up too much, that is a big relief to me. Another thanks for posting this, Ophiuko ! 

[wacco]

Karl wins the vuelta with almost 4 minutes ahead.

3 grand tour victories with the same rider, he jumped to the second spot in points in our division.

The next stage he will be a helper. Before going on a TC for his last efforts next season.

I am still 1000 points behind the number three in the division. Getting on the podium will be very hard I think.

[Vos]

Karl wins the vuelta with almost 4 minutes ahead.
3 grand tour victories with the same rider

Impressive and very nice 

stage 10 Vuelta ;
17º  Lebrun
JGMTeam made this ( little windy / 1 stripe ) race very hard, and it went like this : 28 - 19 - 11 - 12 - 6
Lebrun started good in the front group, but dropped in s2.
Despite full power in s3, he dropped even further to the 4th group on 0:41", but with many energy he returned to the 2nd group in s4.
In s5 he could not follow the high pace and ended up in the 3rd group. At least he won the sprint of the little 3rd group on 0:47"

Next season will be much more important for Lebrun, because as it seems now, he will be my sprint teamcaptain in Doha ( Qatar ).

[Aurora Australis]

Finally, not 2nd to an acheivement.
King of Time Trial
Teams 1