April 2018

[Robyklebt]

For simplicity's sake I think it's logical to put 11h as part of the morning, and 16h afternoon. Of course in the morning it's a bit of a special time, since it's too late for many office workers. So I regard it as morning, but as nr 3 priority morning...

The slightly puzzling thing (to me at least) though is: Participation at 11h is actually good. March PN at 11 had the most participants of any morning tour. Partly because PN is somehow more popular than TA too of course, might have had even more teams if it was at 9 or 10, but 10 teams for PN is good (considering our low numbers of course) anyway.
February too, 6 morning tours, 11 with a combinded 16, 9 only 15 and 10 11. January only pavé tour with 5... but ok, Pavé often disappointingly bad. But in general 11 has much better participation than you'd expect, so while in theory I find FLs argument very convincing, in practice the expected negative effect of the break at noon doesn't seem to be there. Why, I don't know... shift work? Many from Portugal (haven't noticed) UK? Later break time in other countries? No idea. But since the numbers are there, I don't think we can simply dismiss 11h as "not really morning".

Interestingly though for 16h the effect seems to be there (not going to check, but at least in the past it was often the case) And same for 17 (which is early evening, early evening, NOT afternoon), the most overoffered time in the history of RSF, it was always much worse than 18-19 (not checking again, but at least used to be) but was often offered for years.

Generally I view those 3 times, 11-16-17 as no 3 in their respective timezone (?). So offer stuff, but for important things rather go to 9-10/14-15/18-19. But actually in the case of 11 it maybe should be viewed as equal to the 2 others.

But since we should spread times around, 2 reasons, 1=races at the same time increases the likelihood of bugs (although I'm not fully convinced after all , one at 9, one at 10, one at 11, will still be 2 races running at the same time, but ok, better safe than sorry), 2=better 9-10-11 if there's 3 things than 9-10-10. Just because I like to put it together as morning, doesn't mean every manager has time the whole RSF morning.

And otherwise I think spread it around a bit is good, and give priority to people who post their opinion here (in a timely manner, you all have to work on that), like 9 has had a good active lobby in the forum in the last years, so the 9 fans got a bit more I think, rightly so, simply because they let their opinion be known. But again, posting in on the 28th or so is late, when the proposal was put on on the 15th.

[luques]

Tour of the Alps in the morning please!

11h isn't in the morning?

That's a common misconception: Although at an 11h edition you start in the morning, the main part of the race (finish) will be most likely after noon, which is not morning anymore. So for players who tend to have lunch at 12h or even at 12:30 or have other duties at noon, even though they have time to ride in the morning (until noon), this time does not apply. Hence, actually no, although 11h is a morning time, a race that starts at 11h is not entirely a morning race. Like 17h is afternoon technically, but races that start at 17h will most likely end in the evening... (true for most 16h races as well).

Yes understand your point, just didn't know for how many the situation is like that, as in Italy rarely the lunch break is before 12:30, most common is at 13, while for students often is 13:30.

But then I guess will anticipate a bit Alps and postpone to 11 Asturias (ridden mostly in the weekend so shouldn't be that much an issue and so 11 guys will have something.)

[Golden State Team]

Tour of the Alps in the morning please!

11h isn't in the morning?

My bad, 11 is totally fine

[Gipfelstuermer]

One more thing which is more a question of RSF principles or philosophy: Do we prefer 2 parallel tours with 2-3 editions each or do we prefer 1 tour with 5 editions? What makes managers happier?

Like with Alps and Croatia, managers will complain "I want to ride Alps, but I only have time in the afternoon!" or "I want to ride Croatia but I only have time in the morning!". Would it be better to only have Alps? Managers would complain "Why is there only Alps? I can't ride it with my sprinter team."

Would be interesting to hear your opinion.

[RS Coesitz]

One more thing which is more a question of RSF principles or philosophy: Do we prefer 2 parallel tours with 2-3 editions each or do we prefer 1 tour with 5 editions? What makes managers happier?

Like with Alps and Croatia, managers will complain "I want to ride Alps, but I only have time in the afternoon!" or "I want to ride Croatia but I only have time in the morning!". Would it be better to only have Alps? Managers would complain "Why is there only Alps? I can't ride it with my sprinter team."

Would be interesting to hear your opinion.

My opinion: big tours more often than small ones, if there are only small ones, the can be spread. My team is a bit more allrounded than other ones, but it´s also ok for me to have other goals than winning stages or the GK. Sometimes green, red, white or simply going into groups and see what is possible is nice too and there does not need to be something which fits best on my team.

But about the other point: I agree that 11 isn´t in the morning. I always prefer riding at 9h, that´s really a morning tour. 11h is more noon than morning for me.

[luques]

One more thing which is more a question of RSF principles or philosophy: Do we prefer 2 parallel tours with 2-3 editions each or do we prefer 1 tour with 5 editions? What makes managers happier?

Like with Alps and Croatia, managers will complain "I want to ride Alps, but I only have time in the afternoon!" or "I want to ride Croatia but I only have time in the morning!". Would it be better to only have Alps? Managers would complain "Why is there only Alps? I can't ride it with my sprinter team."

Would be interesting to hear your opinion.

As for me both solutions have their pro and con.

For the solution 1 tour 5 editions, the pro usually is the partecipation while the con is the lack of different tours, there isn't much variety.

For the other solution (which is the one used at the moment) pro and con are reversed, more type of races, less players per race.

What is preferred by managers of rsf? Hard to say. I think the second one, truth is that I rarely found managers in a 3 teams tour complaining, most of the time were other people not playing it complaining about it. While the players were perfectly fine with it.
Instead, many were complaining about "only climber tours" or "why we are not playing all the calendar".

And yes one problem can be "why that tour is not at this hour" but with the forum and pdf uploaded so early I hope most of the people will express their opinion soon enough.

Probably something on the system part should be made also to really set a difference between tours (yes there is a difference of points, but what is the real advantage to get points?).

Anyway open to read some new ideas if someone has.

[Robyklebt]

Cat 4+ races for which stuff can be found should be all online.
Same route for Amstel and Brabant, as far as I understood, but didn't analyze Amstel too deeply... hope not to be wrong.

Ah, probably need to say the magic words: Open April Luques. Or something like that.

[Robyklebt]

Donkey doing Sarthe.

[Moscow Team Pro]

Sorry guys but start Vlaanderen is 11 and 16? Sunday is Pasqua, why not 9 and 15? And 19, 21, 23? My propose is 9, 15, 18, 21 and 23. Sorry.

[CircleCycle]

GP Adria Mobil (I know 1.2 so not important) on 01.04. looks same track as last year
Maybe put it instead of some fantasy race later in April.
as for tour of the alps. When I drawed, there was no information available about the categories of gpm, so I made just a random guess, which was wrong at some point. Could you correct it before putting it online? Thx!

[Robyklebt]

How about you correct it?

[luques]

Sorry guys but start Vlaanderen is 11 and 16? Sunday is Pasqua, why not 9 and 15? And 19, 21, 23? My propose is 9, 15, 18, 21 and 23. Sorry.

While for 16 probably is ok, it's true that (at least in Italy) there is lunch of Easter usually, so most of the people will be busy between 12.30-14.30, what about other nations?

In case of change anyway it should be made before tonight.

[CircleCycle]

How about you correct it?

difficult from mobile phone.....
if you are not in a hurry to put it online, I can do it tomorrow

[Robyklebt]

Not in a hurry at all.

[Joy]

Croatia in the morning please?
thank you

[luques]

April over, Vlaanderen in the weekend anticipated at 10h in the morning, rest stays the same.
Alps anticipated at 9 and Asturias postponed at 11 (it's in the weekend so people won't have work I hope).

Unfortunately not possible to put Croatia in the morning, there is already Alps (that seems to me got more requests) and the classics in parallel.

[Robyklebt]

Can you update the PDF too?
For people who only look at that in a hurry tomorrow or so...

[CircleCycle]

Not in a hurry at all.

Changed everything according to the infos at flammerouge. Decided for very long mintact on 3rd stage. If you want to set it different, just go on, I had no idea where it does make sense on that stage.

[Pokemon Club]

Donkey / Luques wrong mintact for PR. Km 210 instead of 203.

[Robyklebt]

[Gipfelstuermer]

FR, 13th until SU, 15th! By the way.

[Robyklebt]

GP Berras on..

Slight problem, reality it's 13-15, on the PDF 12-14, wrong. So now wrong 12-14 at C4F too. Not ideal, actually pretty horrible, worst option of all, now you can ride the moneytour and the pointrace (Berras+Amstel)but ok, PDF is PDF and once finalized decisive. Probably Donkeys fault too, actually, grrr.

[luques]

Actually it's no error, basically it was to not overlap with Amstel, otherwise for sure it wouldn't have 4 editions (maximum 3).

Then could be good or bad but it was intended.

[Robyklebt]

Oh? Wasn't from my proposal but you changed it in one of the updates
Excellent, then not my fault! (Because it's bad, the worst, exactly why I'm opposed to change dates, don't make perfect lines like in reality have to chose, glory or money.)
But stupid Donkey (and everybody else) should have checked closer, grr, missed the change.

[Robyklebt]

Romandie on. (at least on flamme rouge, can't find it on their site)
Gipfel said he'd do it....
But if it's ok with him I'll do it, so he can concentrate on the Giro. If he insists to do Romandie ok ok too.