cycling4freaks.com

Final PDF
June 2024

Races to be designed:
Critérium du Dauphiné >>> OL
Tour de Suisse >>> OL
Tour de France >>> see dedicated thread
Voluntary: NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Switzerland >>> Hansa

Races to be checked:
Heylen Vastgoed Heistse Pijl >>> Gip
Brussels Cycling Classic >>> RKL
Grosser Preis des Kantons Aargau >>> Gip
Duracell Dwars door het Hageland >>> Gip
Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina >>> Gip
SD WORX BW Classic >>> Gip
Midden-Brabant Poort Omloop >>> Gip

Legend
BLUE = Designer found
GREEN = DONE

Some general points for June:

Le Tour: First Question: 4 or 5 editions? (see my comments below on record user stats). Second Question: Which times? 10 for the morning and 14 for the afternoon seem likely after those times missed out in the Giro. But please confirm if you want to ride at 10 or 14. I require one confirmation and then it's a done deal. For the evening, 18-21 would be a change from 19-22 in the Giro, even though I think 19-22 is much more popular (based on comments about the Giro). I don't remember anyone requesting 18, actually,... would even be open to 20-22 because of that... or, if you believe we have enough teams, the 5 edition version, with 18-20-22. Feedback very welcome!

Dauphine || TdS: As usual, Number of Editions to be discussed and Times to be discussed. There might also be a discussion about moving one of them to allow managers to participate in both. Normally, I am against it, but with only these two stage races in June and the TdS prologue, there is a possibility to make the prologue a first half stage on the next day. Only if there is a clear majority for this option (with me being neutral).

National Championships: Planned for Wednesday, 26 June, a weekday after the NC weekend and before the TdF. Any objections / better ideas for the date? By the way, you can design the real NCs as well! Last year, we had the real race for Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, if I remember correctly.

Fantasy Races: There are lots of spots for fantasy one day races in June! Let us know if you have any interesting / special ones, which would fit nicely.

Then, some positive developments leading to interesting questions. We saw a few records recently in terms of participation (in the React era):

- 91 teams racing on one day (7th May)
- >100 User Logins on 7 consecutive days (2nd May to 8th May)
- 127 active teams with points (8th May)
- First Field Split in the React era (3rd May)

That allows me to raise the following questions:

Time to go for 5 editions per one day race even on weekends/holidays? (when there is no parallel race) For example, 1st of May we had 60 teams in 4 editions.

Time to go for more than 2 editions with parallel stage races Dauphine || TdS the next potential example. If yes, go for 3+2 or 3+3? And which times?

Time to go for 5 editions for Grand Tours? The Tour de France the next potential example. For the GIRO, we have 9-11-16-16 teams (total 52, last year 43). The evening could potentially profit from an additional time. Depends on overall participation, too, of course. Last year, Le Tour was more popular (50 teams) than the Giro.

Le Tour: I would still go for 4 editions with more teams participating per edition. For the Giro, not all editions are even full with 10 teams. And I would still go for 9 am, even if we have the same time in the Giro. 9 just works best for me. Or even 8, but I doubt we find enough people there.

Dauphine/TdS: Leave the original dates and go for 5 editions. 2 Dauphine, 3 (with one of them in the morning) for TdS. Or even 6 - 9/14/20 for Dauphine and 10/18/22 for TdS

Why don't we add another tour in June? Tour of Slovenia or Belgium Tour take place from the 12th to 16th and are 2.Pro Tours. You could move them for a few days, so also Suisse-participants can join.

NC date is fine for me.

Also, thanks for the participation numbers! Once a month or something I check the overall number of riders and I had the feeling, that they decrease (from more than 3.000 to 2.850), but it's good to know, that the number of teams increases.

Would be great to ride both Dauphine & TdS! So we can go for 4 times and the guys who want to start at both are able to. And the managers has to choose one of the tours for there Form.
Maybe we can take the opening stage from TdS (5km ITT) as a half stage, to start one day later.

I vote for 5 editions for the Tour, just to see how it turns out

If there are no other stage races, than I would like to ride Dauphine & TdS next month. Prologue as half stage sounds like a good solution for that.

NC date is fine

Another vote for 9am Tour de France, mainly because of the length of some stages, where 9 am will collide less with lunch time

19 or 20h TDF please, very popular request every time and i cant remember a single vote for 18h GT ins the last years.

NC i designed switzerland

my preferred TdF times are 20 and 21


if we go for 5 editions it might even be more effective to go for 19-21-23 than 18-20-22

For me ID like to ride both TdS and Dauphine. I know there's the day overlap, but such a waste to have to choose. Can't one of them be altered for a day? half stage ootion sounds terrific

5 times for TdF would be great e.g. 9:00-15.00-19.00-21.00-23.00?

I will try to Design tour de Suisse if I have time the next days

Chemnitz Pro Cycling Team wrote: ↑

Mon May 13, 2024 1:30 pm

Le Tour: I would still go for 4 editions with more teams participating per edition. For the Giro, not all editions are even full with 10 teams. And I would still go for 9 am, even if we have the same time in the Giro. 9 just works best for me. Or even 8, but I doubt we find enough people there.

Dauphine/TdS: Leave the original dates and go for 5 editions. 2 Dauphine, 3 (with one of them in the morning) for TdS. Or even 6 - 9/14/20 for Dauphine and 10/18/22 for TdS

Why don't we add another tour in June? Tour of Slovenia or Belgium Tour take place from the 12th to 16th and are 2.Pro Tours. You could move them for a few days, so also Suisse-participants can join.

NC date is fine for me.

Also, thanks for the participation numbers! Once a month or something I check the overall number of riders and I had the feeling, that they decrease (from more than 3.000 to 2.850), but it's good to know, that the number of teams increases.

I agree with the point about Slovenia and Belgium. I'd prefer to see real small tours in the calendar (even with only 2-3 times) than only fantasy races with 5 times a day. Especially at this time of the year !

Also, Dauphiné and Suisse have very similar profiles : plenty of hilltop finish and a bit of TT for the GC.
It would be nice to offer other tour options/opportunities, even if different dates. As Gip mentionned the participation is higher recently, and traditionnaly goes up again when summer comes; that could make sense to offer more tours and have the option the choose between tour or one day races more often !

Slovenia and Belgium offer a bit of diversity for tours. Slovenia has one hilltop finish, 2 flat and 2 hilly stages. Belgium has no details yet but should be a mix of flat/light hilly and maybe one TT.
There are also other interesting tours, but lower categories : ZLM (no details yet, but one ITT and probably mostly flat stages (with pavé ?) and a light hilly one maybe); also Austria (lots of mountain again, maybe not ideal), Lithuania (interesting as it's a tour where sprinters could win the GK, that's not usual !), etc. but too low category I guess ?!
Slovenia, Austria and Lithuania tours already have details online, which means easy to design them early : always a good point !

About the number of editions of Dauphine/TDS : why not, but as the tours are superspecialized (for climbers mostly), I am afraid many teams won't have any interest to take part (especially TdSuisse with 3 editions! only mountaintop finishes and ITT this year except one stage). What about leaving it to few editions each and having a smaller tour (with 2 editions ?) overlapping ?

26th of June, I won't be able to ride NC this time But more seriously, I'd say it depends if you want to plan small tours between the 17th and the 27th of June !

Intermediates will need to be updated/added when details will be available about them.

lennylenny wrote: ↑

Mon May 13, 2024 7:14 pm

my preferred TdF times are 20 and 21


if we go for 5 editions it might even be more effective to go for 19-21-23 than 18-20-22

+1 with that. I vote for 5 editions for the Tour. More popular than Giro there will be more participations there.
And 19h 21h 23h will be good as well

+1 for the option to ride Dauphine + TdS with the halfstage option for the prologue.
5 times for TdF
14h for afternoon edition OK

If we get 5 Editions for tdf (not sure i want that the big fields are more attractive in my opinion) 20h should get an edition vecause it missed out for years now and it was (one of) the most popular times back then.

Also 18h could get their edition then and let 19h miss out

18-20-22(23)

Another vote for 18h edition.

I am okay with 5 editions too. I would suggest 10h, 14/15h, 18h, 20h and 22/23h

I would prefer only 4 editions for TdF, but as I won't ride any of the evening slots, my opinion not that important. Either 9,10 or 14 probably ok for me, ideal actually 13 I think, but that's unlikely to happen

Neutral on whether Suisse and Dauphine should overlap or not. If we have an overlap, I would like to see another tour after those two have finished, preferably Belgium to have a bit more diversity.

Dauphiné-Tour de Suisse 1 day overlap has been there since the TdS went down to 8 days. Before it was 2 days overlap I guess. What is different now, why change now? Just because something has been like this in the past, doesn't mean it can't be changed, but there should still be a good reason for the change. For me that is not here, in reality riders (not teams) have to choose which one as well. Allow big teams both (bad idea too at such short notice) ok, that I can get, allow the same riders to ride both, no.

As for the stage racing hole after the TdS? Leave it. Certainly don't put in a real race at the wrong dates. If you find a good fantasy stage race for summer, that I could deal with. Good to motivate a newish designer to get into designing more. Ask one of the newer boys and girls to design a 4 day stage race. I'm less opposed to fantasy tours in season (the next whole will be in September, as usual (or whenever the WC is)), than arranging the UCI calendar to make perfect lines for stage racers, stage racing teams. Think about the minority too. The ones that prefer 1 day races to stage races. Have them have fun with bigger groups for these 2 weeks, instead of offering the stage racers their fun, and diminishing the one for 1 day racers. By minimizing the participation there (well, ok, a select few probably have more fun in 4 team groups)

But if you really must have that stage race, make it a cat 1 fantasy stage race.

Ah, more general: Once we are up to 800 active users (optimistic as usual) then I'll be FOR regular fantasy stage races (cat 1) even during the season. But limited to the sausage division (in this context it means "the rest", usually i just mean all the divisions below the one I'm in ) Designing little stage races is fun and motivating too, give the users this little fun in summer as well (mostly new ones I propose of course) But ok, the 800 active users are probably a few months away, but just in general.

Robyklebt wrote: ↑

Thu May 16, 2024 2:47 pm

Dauphiné-Tour de Suisse 1 day overlap has been there since the TdS went down to 8 days. Before it was 2 days overlap I guess. What is different now, why change now? Just because something has been like this in the past, doesn't mean it can't be changed, but there should still be a good reason for the change. For me that is not here, in reality riders (not teams) have to choose which one as well. Allow big teams both (bad idea too at such short notice) ok, that I can get, allow the same riders to ride both, no.

Since 2020, the Dauphine-TdS overlap is only 1 day.
Since 2022, we have had this 2-week stage race gap end of June in-game. (Btw, I agree with the points you mentioned regarding that.)
In 2022, TdS started with a regular stage.
In 2023, TdS started with a 13km ITT.
This year, TdS starts with a 5km Prologue.

The discussion was there last year already (see June 2023 thread), if not for longer. Anyway, last year, the discussion happened way too late because people only started replying to my offer after the 25th (too late). No clear majority, no change to the real calendar.

Now this year, the reason it is up for discussion is the combination of the Dauphine-TdS overlap with the 2-week stage race gap afterwards, resulting in max. one week of stage racing per team, and the relatively easy solution of moving the Prologue. Making the 5km Prologue a half stage should have close-to-zero impact on the race because even at 100%, the energy consumption for 5km should be lower than 2x Reg for almost every rider.

Regarding the comparison to real life World Tour: As you say, on the one hand, riders can't ride both (even though helicopter flight from Pleteau des Glieres to Vaduz could work^^). On the other hand, teams can ride both (actually they are obliged to ride both). In RSF, it would be difficult to allow teams to ride both but prohibit riders from riding both. That would be lots of implementation work and it would favor big teams a little bit. So if we allow teams to ride both, it will have to be allowed for riders to ride both, too. But there will still be various incentives (energy & form) for teams to bring different line-ups to the two stage races.

My 2 cents:

TDF: As always i am pro 19 (preferred) or 20 (still okay) ...18 might not fit as always
I personally would still say 4 editions maybe the evening would even get a field split then what could be good for newcomers starting because of TDF

Swiss/Dauphine: Clearly no overlap for me - keep it at the real dates (but even might not ride one of them so my vote shouldnt count that much)

Other Tours: Yes one more or less sprinter friendly tour (doesnt need to win gc but at least chances for stages or ciclamino would be nice)

NC: Not very tempting for me with my actual team but if its 26th i am fine

Dauphine in the afternoon would be nice for me 13/14/15 ok

In case that could be useful for a bit of diversity in June, here's the design of the lowcat Lithuania tour :

Same as 2023 if I see it correctly.

voting for 5 editions of the tour

prologue as half stage is a nice idea
should be possible to ride dauphine and tds imo

Brussels seems to be slightly longer, probably just a change early, double Muur-Bosberg there. I can do the adaptation once it's on la flamme rouge (right now they want a free account on their Flanders site to show me more, I refuse)