August 2026

[Gipfelstuermer]

Preview PDF
August 2026

Races to be designed:
Tour of Denmark >>> NML
Tour de Pologne >>> Zappes
Vuelta a Burgos >>> Tukh
Volta a Portugal em Bicicleta
Arctic Race of Norway >>> Skyzr
Czech Tour >>> rsv flaschbier
Benelux Tour
Deutschland Tour
La Vuelta >>> see Vuelta thread

Races to be checked:
Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa
Circuito de Getxo - Memorial Hermanos Otxoa
Cyclassics
La Polynormande
Bretagne Classic
Ronde van de Achterhoek

Legend
BLUE = Designer found
GREEN = DONE

[drei.zehn]

Is Portugal in the morning possible?

[Yamaka Corse]

There are 3 tours that end day 16th but the day 16th there is the Cyclassics, since is a cat 5. we must have a chose between do a tour or a cat 5 race or can we do a little change to manage that?

[Tukhtahuaev]

Started with Burgos now. GPX files on their site not 100% matching with the profiles, but should be close enough for a preliminary version

[IDF]

One edition for Portugal is really too low. Considering we don't have many 12-15 days stage races during the whole year.. could be nice to have at least 2 editions (one in the morning for example?).

[Tukhtahuaev]

Not sure if I would actually ride it, but in general I am a fan of 2 Portugal editions. Only questionmark is whether 6 editions in parallel would make sense or 1 edition from the other tours should be cut in each week

[Let's Go]

Also can we have the Portugal tour edition later since most Portuguese teams play during that time?

[Gipfelstuermer]

Good to have so much interest in Portugal already. Last year it was 22h already, so I changed it for the preview but if many people want it again, can be repeated. For the morning edition, based on current participation, I fear it will only be possible if we cut from the other morning tours (Burgos and Czech in preview). So we'd need more comments from morning teams if they'd really like that or not.

[schappy]

I am happy with Deutschland-Tour at 7pm, so every other programm i take how it comes.

[Radunion]

I think we are overdoing it this time. Usually I am for more real tours, but this time it is a bit much. Do we have enough teams for a cat 5 race parallel to three tours? On 22. and 23. we have 9 tour editions in parallel. I just do not think we have the numbers for it without giving out massive amounts of money, probably in the lower-cat tours.

I would get rid of Portugal and Deutschland. Deutschland is nice to have with so many German teams in the game, but we avoided it for good reason in the past with two important parallel tours. Portugal has a very special place in the UCI calendar. It is a big tour for small teams. No top team goes there, but for many small teams it is a season highlight. Still, it is not important enough in the real world to ride parallel to more important races.

We should do tours because they are important, not because a few teams demand them. Having too many tours just means teams earn more money, and I think there is enough money in the game. Giving away less money might be unpopular, but it is important to keep the game healthy.

If you want more tours, you can go for Limousin-Perigord with no other alternative for the Vuelta teams, and for our Poitou-Charentes with only the Vuelta in parallel.

[schappy]

More different Stage races are nice. And you have only 5 editions for the 3 stage races, So in the past we had often 2 stage races with 3 starting times at the same time, now only 5. Doesnt looks that much, it is of course more work for designer. But the Participation should be okay with 5 editions.

[DonOh]

Hi, i have made the Norway tour.

Tell me if anything is wrong, thats the first time i have do that ...

[rsv flaschbier]

I think we are overdoing it this time. Usually I am for more real tours, but this time it is a bit much. Do we have enough teams for a cat 5 race parallel to three tours? On 22. and 23. we have 9 tour editions in parallel. I just do not think we have the numbers for it without giving out massive amounts of money, probably in the lower-cat tours.

I would get rid of Portugal and Deutschland. Deutschland is nice to have with so many German teams in the game, but we avoided it for good reason in the past with two important parallel tours. Portugal has a very special place in the UCI calendar. It is a big tour for small teams. No top team goes there, but for many small teams it is a season highlight. Still, it is not important enough in the real world to ride parallel to more important races.

We should do tours because they are important, not because a few teams demand them. Having too many tours just means teams earn more money, and I think there is enough money in the game. Giving away less money might be unpopular, but it is important to keep the game healthy.

If you want more tours, you can go for Limousin-Perigord with no other alternative for the Vuelta teams, and for our Poitou-Charentes with only the Vuelta in parallel.

+1

[team fl]

I think we are overdoing it this time. Usually I am for more real tours, but this time it is a bit much. Do we have enough teams for a cat 5 race parallel to three tours? On 22. and 23. we have 9 tour editions in parallel. I just do not think we have the numbers for it without giving out massive amounts of money, probably in the lower-cat tours.

I would get rid of Portugal and Deutschland. Deutschland is nice to have with so many German teams in the game, but we avoided it for good reason in the past with two important parallel tours. Portugal has a very special place in the UCI calendar. It is a big tour for small teams. No top team goes there, but for many small teams it is a season highlight. Still, it is not important enough in the real world to ride parallel to more important races.

We should do tours because they are important, not because a few teams demand them. Having too many tours just means teams earn more money, and I think there is enough money in the game. Giving away less money might be unpopular, but it is important to keep the game healthy.

If you want more tours, you can go for Limousin-Perigord with no other alternative for the Vuelta teams, and for our Poitou-Charentes with only the Vuelta in parallel.

+1

+1

[rsv flaschbier]

I'll try to design the Czechtour.
Stage 1 is done.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Hi, i have made the Norway tour.

Tell me if anything is wrong, thats the first time i have do that ...

Thank you.

Some comments on optics, gravel and KOM
- Stage 3 and 4 you are missing the Norwegian flags.
- Some of the labels (cities/mountains) can't be read. You could shorten or reposition to make it readable.
- You have the gravel sectors as *, which is fine, but where they are longer than 3km, the 'standard' design is probably to change to ** from the 4th km to make them a bit more selective. But of course it depends. If you have any information about the gravel quality, then that could also drive the decision between * and **.
- The KOM categories seem to be HC, 1 and 2. For this kind of race, without checking their rulebook, in-game that would probably correspond more to 2, 3 and 4, i.e. HC becomes 2, 1 becomes 3 and 2 becomes 4. This is in terms of prize money and points.

[Gipfelstuermer]

I think we are overdoing it this time. Usually I am for more real tours, but this time it is a bit much. Do we have enough teams for a cat 5 race parallel to three tours? On 22. and 23. we have 9 tour editions in parallel. I just do not think we have the numbers for it without giving out massive amounts of money, probably in the lower-cat tours.

I would get rid of Portugal and Deutschland. Deutschland is nice to have with so many German teams in the game, but we avoided it for good reason in the past with two important parallel tours. Portugal has a very special place in the UCI calendar. It is a big tour for small teams. No top team goes there, but for many small teams it is a season highlight. Still, it is not important enough in the real world to ride parallel to more important races.

We should do tours because they are important, not because a few teams demand them. Having too many tours just means teams earn more money, and I think there is enough money in the game. Giving away less money might be unpopular, but it is important to keep the game healthy.

If you want more tours, you can go for Limousin-Perigord with no other alternative for the Vuelta teams, and for our Poitou-Charentes with only the Vuelta in parallel.

+1

+1

+1 on the money analysis (too much money = not healthy) but my conclusion is not exactly the same because as calendar planner I cannot change the prize money system, in which tours give more money than one day races and in which smaller groups give more money than bigger groups. So my objective here is not to manage the money distribution as that's responsibility of admins & community to potentially find a consensus on a reform. My objective here is decent participation, ideally for all races (short-term participation), and an exciting calendar overall (long-term participation). With the current plan, of course I cannot disagree that the two worries would be Cyclassics (low participation for a classic, even though it can be argued that Cyclassics are really not as prestigious as cat5 implies) and the two one day races on 23/24 (low participation even for fantasy race standards), probably we should at least think about if we can cut tours.

So, let's assume for a moment, we want to cut tours from the current plan, which tours to cut?

You suggest Portugal & Deutschland (based on category) but my impression is they might be quite popular based on the comments here and for Portugal also based on last year's participation (17 teams in one edition). Instead, how about cutting one edition Czech Tour and one edition Benelux? Only one edition for Czech Tour is low, but that way we give people various options and stage race designers are motivated currently. Only two editions for Benelux is also low, but Pologne (also WT / ingame Cat.3) is also drafted with only two editions, so I could accept it with the objective to offer lots of tours to choose from. Speaking in terms of ingame category, wer are really only comparing various Cat2/3 stage races.

Btw, Limousin-Perigord and Poitou-Charentes... if there were no Benelux (or no Britain in September) they could be options, too, but in this case, with many low-cat tours already, I fear adding them will leave one day races even worse off.

One more way out would be to have certain tours only for Div6, but I need to see how the Lippe Tour experiment goes first, as I am not really sure which tours at which time would work well for Div6 only.

[Bugatti]

there should be a second start time in Portugal, either in the morning or at 2 p.m.

Germany wasn’t included last year either. It’s a shame, considering we have plenty of German managers.

But since we really do have a lot of tours going on at the same time, we should reschedule a few.

We could have easily run these races in parallel with the Tour de France. Here, there’s a two-week gap with no races at all for teams that can’t or weren’t allowed to race for three weeks at the same time

[IDF]

there should be a second start time in Portugal, either in the morning or at 2 p.m.

Germany wasn’t included last year either. It’s a shame, considering we have plenty of German managers.

But since we really do have a lot of tours going on at the same time, we should reschedule a few.

We could have easily run these races in parallel with the Tour de France. Here, there’s a two-week gap with no races at all for teams that can’t or weren’t allowed to race for three weeks at the same time

Ofc we could have had these races instead of riding full fantasy one day races. Sad that the d6 tour-only is restricted, it was such a good profile.

Pologne/Burgos/Portugal : 5 editions among these 3 tours. Why not a 6th one, especially for PT and giving possibility to ride a "long" tour instead of the usual 4-5 days ones.

Same for Deutschland, why not giving a second date? Vuelta teams know that they will ride, so they will not be concerned by the choice between Benelux and Deutschland + considering the number of DE managers, bringing at least 2 dates should be ok even by keeping 3 for Benelux.
And idk about profiles of each of these 2 tours, but don't forget that it could attract different kind of teams between these 2.

And the money is not really the main problem here. It's normal that guys on tours win more (especially if they did results) than guys on one day races and to keep some attractivity on it. It's more about how managers optimize their own teams and how they could over/sub perform with it.(and it works too on one day races)

[Zappes Raiders]

I do Tour de Pologne.

Stage 1:

[Radunion]

In case we decide to keep all tours, go a bit more into the editions. There is not so much difference between Pologne and Burgos in team strength, so having the same number of editions is fine. This is more a morning/afternoon thing. As it stands now, the morning misses the option to ride a WT race. I would prefer Pologne a bit earlier (20 or 21 h), which would fit nicely with the demands for a late Portugal.

Between Norway and Czech, Norway has stronger participation in real life. Again, it is a question for the morning teams. I would see the option to do it 3-1 to give morning, afternoon, and evening the chance to ride the more prestigious tour.

Vuelta, as it will be a climbers' tour again and participation wasn't so good last year, I think we should go for four editions again. Benelux and Germany, taking one edition out of Benelux would mean forcing one time to ride Germany instead. Last year's numbers with three editions were fine, but not good. We can hope to get more teams in the morning and afternoon and not lose too many by offering Germany in the evening.

Different topic: As I mentioned before, money. I personally earn more money at one-day races. I am just worried that tours with <10 teams get much more money, making it easier to build very strong teams in the morning and afternoon. This is a calendar planning issue, as we should avoid such races. The same is true for one-day races if there are too many parallel tours. Maybe we should go down to three editions for one-day races on the critical days.

[Robyklebt]

- Tours: It doesn't matter how many there are, how many editions overall is the crucial points. If we were only riding Pologne, it would be 5 I'm pretty sure. So 2+2+1 Portugal makes 5. That fits. It risks to stretch the designer capabilites, but right now doesn't seem to be the case. So no problem there. (We could question the need for Portugal, but of course it's a nice present for our portuguese contingent, so including it is ok) Arctic-Czech if it was only one probably would be only 4, possibly even only 3 due to the Cyclassic. So here we end up with 5, which isn't ideal. I don't know the numbers we have right now exactly, so not sure if 5 is good, feeling says it's a bit much. Again cutting Portugal actually would make the whole thing easier, but not proposing that. Possibly cutting one edition of Czech or Arctic? Or take the risk... might work But this spot is the most critical. And no, don't change the real dates. Benelux-Deutschland 3-1 seems ok too, like with Portugal, maybe cutting Germany would make the whole thing easier, but giving the Germans their national Tour (or something similar) is fully ok.

-Vuelta: Radunion might be right, with the good parallel program, 3 cat 5 one day races, Benelux/Deutschland overlapping, presumably another tour (Britain or Maryland I guess) in September, plus the first few Italian autumn one day races... The Vuelta once again risks not being as popular as the other GTs. 4 might be enough.

-Vuelta times: There is no compelling reason to offer the afternoon GT at exactly the same time as 2025 again. For the third time this year. Same for the morning, but there at least it's 3 different times.

-One day races: instead of another 1.2 race nobody needs anyway, Philadelphia, 1.1, with Maryland happening a few days later a few PT teams should make the trip there. Same day as Bretagne, so move that to the monday, not the 1.2 race