Campeonato de los Andes 2010

[Rockstar Inc]

if real-races are already designed and ready to ride, they shouldn't get another date than the real date...even if it's crossing with the "great anden tour", which still remains fantasy...but of cours fantasy with big afford and my respect for the designer...

[Cerro Torre RT]

I didn't talk to Rasmussen, but I decided not to design another Campeonato, no matter of whom may continue or not. In general, I agree with the little ape. I finally learned he is right, this tour is replaceable, if not even a have to.

[Robyklebt]

Yeah, but we don't want it to be replaced!!!!!!!!!! The ape demands a Cerro 2011 version! Looking some of the races I liked the 2010 version too, want 2011! Urganov!

[Lizard]

If it's a matter of "Do we want the tour again?" and how the community feels about it, I think everyone would like to see another Cerro-version for 2011. So it's up to you if you want to design a new one (of course, it's a huge pile of work...).

[Cerro Torre RT]

The work is not any part of the problem, it's the race that results of it.

Take this year, we have 5 field 1 races. 3 medium mountain, 3 flat stages. Of that 6, we had:

morning: everything controlled, due to Alkworld
15:00 : everything controlled, due to NoPikuze and Phoenix
18:00 : 2a group and gc attacks, 3a group (but not that early), 8a group, 9a group, 10a group and gc attack with a group with 5 of jps, 12a group and gc attack
20:00 : 2a controlled, 3a group, 8a,9a,10a controlled, 12a group with GC attack
22:00 : 2a group with gc attack, 3a group, 8a group with gc attack, 9a group, 10a group with gc attack, 12a group with gc attack

So basically, those non-mountain-stages have been either supercontrolled with very one-sided winners or the superchaos with gc-double, sometimes trible attacks or even of more guys. Both not what it was supposed to be. Only one tour has had a mixture, the 20:00. so one of 5, that's not good, my design failed completly. And as I do not see any possibility to fix that within the normal campeonato-structure, I don't want to create a race like that again. The only possibility I see is to shorten it to 8 days, 2 time trails and 6 hard mountain stages. But that wouldn't be a Campeonato, it is another tour.

[Luna]

And what exactly did you expect ?

[NoPikouze]

The real problem is the few number of (active) teams, and the active teams are quite "weak". (2 climbers, and only 2 classic riders for example)
Alkworld controls the medium stages with Gaurain's help, I think.
I do it alone but the first 100-150km nobody attacks. If someone did, it would probably become too difficult to ride 3 days in a row.

So the main problem is that there are not enough contenders, imo.

[Aixteam]

Stop the medium and flat stages .. Just HC , would be even better

[Cerro Torre RT]

I hoped for a mixture, yes groups on the flat stages but some "normal" medium stages which are won by action towards the end of the race. don't know how it was, but the 20:00 tour looked quite good, if only watching the results. What I dislike most is the often happining gc-attacking in uncontrolled medium stages. Sometimes it seemed to me they are more important than the HC stages. Not that I want to forbid it, I just hoped the races went in a way that they are not useful.

[Zauberlehrling]

The "advantage" of the 20.00 tour were the teams:
Three teams were (and are...) favorites for the gc: ZL, Lecce, Australia, two of them had also their interests in a sprint on o middle-mountain-stage: Australia and Lecce. So they had two interests, that there is no chaos on these stages: The stage-win and the gc.... and ZL was happy that he had sometimes a bit easier stages and could regenerate a bit.
This was just a lucky constellation for these stages.

[captain ahab]

well i am an outsider(i never took part in a campeonato so far,but i am thinking about it every year again ...) and i was just reading here...

but what is the problem?

that there are ar attacks for the general-classification on the flat stages?

ok,if that are group attacks(illegal or on the borderline to beeing illegal) that could ruin a nice tour ,i agree....but if that are just normal gc-attacks,what is the problem? isn't that supposed to happen,to make the whole thing a little bit more interesting ?

otherwise you could choose the team withe the best mountainriders with the best reg beforehand an declare him as the winner...

[Cerro Torre RT]

I don't see a problem if it happens once or twice a tour (20:00), but if it happens every easier stage. And looking at that, that happend in 2 of those 5 tours. In other both tours, we got one rider winning 5 of those stages, in another on 2 riders sharing all 6. Both are extremes that I do not want to create tours for. And as this makes 80% of the races that have been ridden, I can not be happy about my design of this year. Too, I don't see a possibility to change that, without changing of what the whole tour was like in the past years. And this leads me to the decission not to design it again.

[captain ahab]

well,in that case you have to do it more tdf-esque...have the flat stages in the beginning and in the end of the tour...

so you'll get probably one or two sprinter-teams that will take part(only to win those opening stages) and will control those flat stages at the start(and probably losse 80% of there temas after the third hard mountainstage(will they have to pay the whole salary when they have only 3 or 4 riders left?...in that case,probably bad idea,cause then no sprinter team will do it...)

but you can never elimanete it totally,that a team that has the riders for it,will probably use a flatter stage for a gc-attack,when it knows,that another team is weak after doing loads of work on the mountain stages before-but,like i posted earlier,that makes the whole thing more interesting...

[Zauberlehrling]

Look at the flat stages in the andes: They are nothing for sprinters... there are normally several 6er, 7er or even 8ers. And to have the possibility to win two stages, no sprint team will take part in a 16-day-race.

[Cerro Torre RT]

I didn't talk about sprinter teams, I thought of teams with stron classic riders to look for that stage wins. But either one or 2 won all or nobody took care about.

[Robyklebt]

I didn't talk to Rasmussen, but I decided not to design another Campeonato, no matter of whom may continue or not. In general, I agree with the little ape. I finally learned he is right, this tour is replaceable, if not even a have to.

Just to clarify again (not that what you wrote is wrong, just some people here are too fucking dumb to understand anything that isn't exactly spelled out (and some don't even get it in those cases)):
In one of my long posts I wrote that it is replaceable, yes. Unlike real GTs. Simply because it's fantasy. But also because the 2 weeks climbers Bonanza is maybe a bit unfair to the other rider types. But then I would definetly be bored by a 15 day sprinter tour or a 15 day classic tour.... if a long specialized tour=climbers.

But I'm not saying it should be replaced (see above). Just that theoretically it could. But I'm for it to stay.

The work is not any part of the problem, it's the race that results of it.

Take this year, we have 5 field 1 races. 3 medium mountain, 3 flat stages. Of that 6, we had:

morning: everything controlled, due to Alkworld
15:00 : everything controlled, due to NoPikuze and Phoenix
18:00 : 2a group and gc attacks, 3a group (but not that early), 8a group, 9a group, 10a group and gc attack with a group with 5 of jps, 12a group and gc attack
20:00 : 2a controlled, 3a group, 8a,9a,10a controlled, 12a group with GC attack
22:00 : 2a group with gc attack, 3a group, 8a group with gc attack, 9a group, 10a group with gc attack, 12a group with gc attack

So basically, those non-mountain-stages have been either supercontrolled with very one-sided winners or the superchaos with gc-double, sometimes trible attacks or even of more guys. Both not what it was supposed to be. Only one tour has had a mixture, the 20:00. so one of 5, that's not good, my design failed completly. And as I do not see any possibility to fix that within the normal campeonato-structure, I don't want to create a race like that again. The only possibility I see is to shorten it to 8 days, 2 time trails and 6 hard mountain stages. But that wouldn't be a Campeonato, it is another tour.

Design it again! Ok, unless you don't want to because it hurts your chances for the dec tour (I once proposed not to let the designer of the Andes even participate, probably participation would be ok but hurt your chances still).

Your reasons not to design it: Either ultra controlled or GC attacks.

10-15 ultra controlled, which isn't always fun. But can happen. Will not happen every year I think though. It's probably the first year it has been like that, that the hill sprinters show up and control all. Could be the beginning of a new trend, more saw it's possible, more show up next year. But then a hill sprint team is not easy to build, lots of investment, not sure we will be overrun by hillsprinters. Plus the control of overcontrol is there in every race. Even the awesom Giro, afternoon Giro 10, only 2 stages won by an early escape finally. In the last few days, until then everything was controlled. Not by single teams, but by coalitions, sprinter coalitions, hill rider coalitions, climbers, etc. Not that much to do with the parcours, it's mostly dependent on the group. A risk that is there in all races, real or fantasy. The fantasy some designers have to design an "open" that will not be controlled is just a fantasy, that can work depending on the group. The same race can be completely open, chaotic, attacks everywhere or ultra controlled. Depends on the users. Now in the Andes single teams basically controlled everything, ok with help from the GC leaders. Which usually doesn't happen in other races that much, so there is indeed a difference. But an opportunity too, single teams, even with some help by the GC leaders always can be beaten. Need to invest something, and need to be able to hold your GC feet still so not to get everybody riding. This year that didn't seem to work in those 2 tours, maybe next year in a similar situation it will.

18: 3 groups, 3 GC attacks: Here not that uneven, even if 3 GC attacks are quite a lot too. IMO GC attacks are ok too... under some conditions. If the leader refuses to work, it's not a GC stage!!! IMO, attack. Everyday. No problem. Even if it's a flat stage, the GC leader should just control a little bit, put a guy in tempo when the first group goes, if somebody is interested in a controlled race, to show he will help a bit. If not, let them go. Then control the last kms again, with a nice green regmonster, just show you are there, you let early group win with 20 min, but don't want GC attacks. Then many managers won't do them either... and those who do, well, boring, can't win it in a real way, do it like that... But then some medium stages of course are ideal for GC attacks as well.. don't remember the Andes well enough to know if there were any there this year.

20: 1 group, rest controlled Mix, and different winners too, as you said ok. Maybe 1 more group would have been nice too, but wasn't to be.

But I think those 2 tours are probably the long term standard. Either no control, when on some days some GC guys can't resist, or basically controlled by a coalition of classic sprinters

23h you seem to have had GC attacks daily almost... IMO not much fun, agreed, probably the Andes I would have enjoyed the least.

So you say 1 of 5 acceptable...not enough. Mmh, disagree, I want to ride the Andes in 2011 after all, so design it! But IMO 23h was a special case, 10-15 was at least at 15h just a failure of the adversaries, can always happen. 10 probably harder with Alk with his stronger team and Gaurain forced to help due to 2 specialists like Samurai and Warriors who don't seem to know that it's possible to attack with just one or 2 riders. So logical for Gaurain to make sure those 2 don't gain time.

Then 18h too many GC attacks for my taste too (just from the number) but still ok. Looking at it like one, "your design" (as you say, but see above, no design can guarantee no overcontrol or no stupid GC attacks) failed in 1 of 5. In 1 ok according to you, 3 others still acceptable to me.

So why not give it another shot. No confidence in the community to race more "normally"? (Wrong question I think, I would answer no too, forget it)
change the format? Not a good idea, making it a GT in the sense of the dectour, balanced, would have me call for it to be replaced by a voted Novtour...
Less flat/medium mountain? No... ok, haven't followed the design that closely, if it's 6 flat/medium mountain every year, fix nr, then change it. Can be 5 one year, another year 7, etc, whatever looks good in the region you are etc, maybe some years even 8, then maybe harder ones etc. Think you probably have been doing that anyway, not insisting on exactly 6 of these stages per year.

I still think the Campeonato de los Andes has a future (especially since the name is grammatically correct now, hihi) and can be ridden "normally" depending on the participants. So give it another shot! If you really don't want to design another one... find a replacement again! If you can't find one who you trust.... bah, let's get one you don't trust.... after all the Andes are not only yours anymore, they are the communities too. And parts of it still likes it and wants to ride a nice, fairly realistic Andes in 11, 12 etc as well.

If we can't find anybody... grrrr.

[Luna]

If the gc teams think they don't need to control the scene they must be attacked, again and again. It's their responsibility to protect their chances. That's why teams start with 9 riders instead of 5. It's the usual dynamic of cycling. You have to watch out on every terrain. If not, you open the door for those who seek their own chances. And it's legitimate to use every gap that opens up. It's not a matter of profiles. It's the matter of the teams and their experience and knowledge. The tactics in RSF underlie an evolution that is not yet fnished. It develops year after year. If you stop laying grounds for learning experiences only because you don't like the actual state of tactical mind, then you stop the progression of racing culture.

Some say it's disgusting to send two flat riders on the road only to bring them over the approaching hill. But it's the responsibility of the teams to put a rider into tempo to control the field in the kms leading to that hill. It's something that had seldom be done in the past, but slowly the pelotons start to learn and more often closes the door for such a move in the crucial moments. It's developnig.

Some say it's disgusting to attack with the rider who apparently only is there to make tempo in the peloton in addition to another rider and subsequently builld a 30 secs gap. But again. The managers have to keep in mind that that might happen. If the race approaches a moment where such a move could be race deciding then you must put an additional rider into tempo to take control. If not, than it's the others fault, not that of the attacker. And even here, the managers are learning to keep an eye on it and more often you see teams putting an additional rider to the front on order to prevent the worst.

Some say it's disgusting to launch an gc attack on pancake flat stages. But it's not the fault of the attackers to take use of the situation. Who wants to keep the lead or the chance of overall success is obliged to watch carefully what happens and what options you leave to the enemies; on every stage, not only in the mountains.

I've not made any plans for my November schedule in 2011, but I prefer to have the Andes in the calendar again. Just because it belongs to RSF.

[Cerro Torre RT]

I read your post to, roby, but as Luna's is a bit shorter, I quote his points, I think many things you mentioned will be found in here.

If the gc teams think they don't need to control the scene they must be attacked, again and again. It's their responsibility to protect their chances. That's why teams start with 9 riders instead of 5. It's the usual dynamic of cycling. You have to watch out on every terrain. If not, you open the door for those who seek their own chances. And it's legitimate to use every gap that opens up. It's not a matter of profiles. It's the matter of the teams and their experience and knowledge. The tactics in RSF underlie an evolution that is not yet fnished. It develops year after year. If you stop laying grounds for learning experiences only because you don't like the actual state of tactical mind, then you stop the progression of racing culture.

Refering to my race (23:00) the thing is: All GC Teams did those attacks. And the one who began that won the tour, with a giant advantage. Even without the time that was won there, Radler would have won by a quite large advantage. It's just like everybody told they are not capable of winning that tour and all of them made those attacks. I was the only one of the before-told favourites who didn't do that, and i didn't fight against it, too, because I would have been forced to do that every stage. So better give up GC than killing your team in such a shit. If it happens once, twice, not the problem, but it was just obvious it would happen often. A technical problem does promote this: the allowed splitted team attack which is tolerated by 90% (a feeling, no copunted number) of the community and supported by 30%. Which basicly allows to kill important riders of nearly every non-monstrous GC team with riders you don't need necessarily on the hard stages. With this danger in the backround, it does not even seem unlogically to me that a GC attack with few risk (you can give it up if someone chases to hard before all involved riders are dead, trying to control in the field with the rest, as it is not far from the finish then normally). And that is my big problem. If even I think it is a tactically logic reaction on our system, I can not imagine to build any profiles that work at least a bit against that, in that format of a tour.

Some say it's disgusting to send two flat riders on the road only to bring them over the approaching hill. But it's the responsibility of the teams to put a rider into tempo to control the field in the kms leading to that hill. It's something that had seldom be done in the past, but slowly the pelotons start to learn and more often closes the door for such a move in the crucial moments. It's developnig.

Especially that is really a problem of the system. As this tactic does only work on short hills, we just have to look at those in reality. What happens there normally is that Riders want to get into the hill in a good position so they are not dropped from the field or do an attack at the mountain. This just can not work in RSF because we have no position system. So the surcumstance that denies those attacks in reality is just missing in RSF, not at the users mind, but tecnically. There is just not much of a reason to ride in front of a mountain, you just higher the chances of that rider of beeing dropped. In reality, it is the opposite, you can lower the chances of certain riders to be dropped by working in the field. Again, I can understand that tactic, even if i hate it.

Some say it's disgusting to attack with the rider who apparently only is there to make tempo in the peloton in addition to another rider and subsequently builld a 30 secs gap. But again. The managers have to keep in mind that that might happen. If the race approaches a moment where such a move could be race deciding then you must put an additional rider into tempo to take control. If not, than it's the others fault, not that of the attacker. And even here, the managers are learning to
keep an eye on it and more often you see teams putting an additional rider to the front on order to prevent the worst.

This is something I do to, and i apreciate that because of another tecnical lack. And that is the possibility to foresee the tempo of a rider because it is shown before he does it. So this is, like the sec trick, one of the few possibilitys to help that problem to not tell your opponents perfectly what you are going to do. In addition to a position system where not every rider can get involved into the action imidiatly because he is just to far back in the field, and by that limiting the number of riders you have to watch for, you could abolish that look on the tempo before the km and solve that problem.


In conclusion:

Maybe i should have stated more clearly how I understand that process of tactic evolution. We have basicly a mixed community of guys that want races as realistic as possible, some of them looking for wins, some not, we have guys that are willing to use every tecnical and allowed possibility to win or only to get places, and we have guys that even go beyond the allowed. In this a community the second mentioned group is the drive of that evolution we see today, pushing it to the limit of what is allowed. So the group that looks for wins is forced to keep up in certain things. Most people that want to get successful look at the successful teams to learn what they got to do. So in the cause of time those successful tactics get common. The splitted team attack is one example that fits quite well to show that effect. I expect them to get more common in the next year. The sec tricks are another one, like it or not, nearly every climbing team that has the ability to use it (in terms of it's connection speed) uses it, because it is just necessary to keep up. As there is no way to change the community structure, the only way to influence that evolution are the race system and the rules. And first thing I have to say here, please Buhmann don't understand that I would blame you to be resposible for that. Those developments are nearly impossiple to foresee, and the amount of work to react on bad tendencies to prevent those problems is impossible to be done.

So because of that, we reached a level of tactic development that got very far from what I whish it to be. On the single kinds of races, that means:

flat races:
What hurts here is the mass sprint system. Beeing introduced to solve the simple "order by sprint value" system we had before, it developed basicly into a tactic that is about abusing noobs, the rest beeing a lottery. I didn't foresee that developement, too, but it showes that this system is just too simple to get a mass sprint that is even close to reality. Due to that, I don't want to design flat races any more as I consider them to be bad in most cases as they normally result in a mass sprint. Due to the same reason I don't want to design a december tour as it contains too many sprint stages.

medium races:
The problems here are smaller, most of them based on the missing position system and the fairness rule which allows splitted team attacks. The sieving bug (I'll tell more about that on the mountain stages) is another part of it. What hurts me most with those is the flood of 70-70-70 riders, those that win the sprints, can follow anybody, but even can't be told to be tempo alone because they are not capable of dooing that, so basicly are destroying every group they are in. Not that I can tell that to be unreal, it just makes a lot of interesting profiles to get superboring races, as we widely miss the difficulties to predict how good a rider will be in this exact day that we find in real races. So same as flat stages, I don't want to design those any more as they result in boring races too often that they would be worth the work.

mountain stages:
largest problem here is the sieving bug that allows riders with very few power to stay in groups by turning on fighting while others that are very much stronger at that moment are sieved. Especially with 0 power riders that hurts, as they can fight for free, while the ohter endangoured ones don't want to waste their power. The predictability of the results is another thing that is not nice, even if it is not unrealistic, just not at that high percentage. The effectivness of splitted team attacks is another count, which hurts extremly during tours. So as the last point, no designs of such races from me, too.

Time trails and Team Time trails: They are superboring by definition, as only a day form in addition to only seeing intermediate times could provide any kind of excitement. Just too boring to design them.

Tours:
Normal, unspecialized tours consist of too many sprint stages and so a too high amount of bad races by definition. Specialized tours are either overspecialized, lacking the same problems like the comparable one day race, or suffer the unlucrativity to bring on a team for those out of the raw stages. It is only good if you got a superteam that can do all the job on its own, and those teams are only lucrative if you are alone or with only one partner. So those tours even combine the problems special for the terrain which I mentioned above with some more resulting of the race's composite. Sure you can not take a single field of a race to be representive for all of them, but the split 5 field 1 races does tell something, and the result does not look good.

My goal is to design profiles that lead to good races in average. And due to what I have written above, I do not see a possibility to achieve that on any kind of race. So what I do is to design no races no more in total, no matter if it is one day, a december tour, a short tour or the Campeonato.

Due to the same reasons, I don't have the capability to search another person that will design a good Campeonato. As I have no idea what it has to look like, I don't know any criterias to do such a selection. Because of that, I have to hand over that decision to others that are more optimistic in estimating the tactic's development than me, as they can maybe set criterias on which a selection can be based.

And EDITH says: Before there are questions how I can decide generally what is a good race and what's not, you may understand that this does not count in that case. It's clearly what I understand to be a good race. As I put my work into them, selfish as I am, I like to see that kind of good races as I unterstand them to be.

[Robyklebt]

Very insulted that you answer to Lunas post grrrrrrr!

Anyway:

The splitted team attack is one example that fits quite well to show that effect. I expect them to get more common in the next year.

Disagree. Why should it get more common next year? The splitted attack, 2+2 has been around forever. Without big increases. I saw no increase in 2010. But a lot of it depends in which group you ride. Morning with Samurai and Warriors is a mass attack festival. And very boring. The point is, it hasn't increased, and I really see no reason why it should. It's sometimes used, (Actually I think almost everybody has done it, pretty sure I have, don't remember when), but often it's newish, but not new new teams. Very often those teams though leave the 2+2 attack behind at some point, try it with other means, get a stronger team, take more risks, realize they will be chased harder with 4. A select few don't, but most do. So I really didn't see an increase so far, and don't expect one either.

But ok, don't want to go into a technical discussion, might do that in your other thread... (could be very short!)

Basically here my goal failed, have you design another Campeonato de los Andes... bah.

So what's the future of the Andes?

[Cerro Torre RT]

Counting together my participation at the Vuelta, the Pave Tour, Tour du Jura and Campeonato de los Andes this year, it seemed to me I saw more in that 4 tours as in total the years before at RSF.

And what will happen to the Campeonato? Simple answer: I don't know.