October 2024

[Gipfelstuermer]

Preview PDF
October 2024

Races to be designed:
Cro Race >>> OL
Gree-Tour of Guangxi
Tour des Paves (Any motivated fantasy designers? Taka to repeat?)
Tour du Faso
Kokura Castle Criterium

Races to be checked:
Binche - Chimay - Binche / Mémorial Frank Vandenbroucke
Elfstedenrace
Paris - Bourges >>> OL
Sparkassen Münsterland Giro
Giro dell'Emilia
Paris - Tours Elite
Coppa Agostoni - Giro delle Brianze
Coppa Bernocchi - GP Banco BPM
Tre Valli Varesine
L'EROICA (Eroica Gaiole Chianti)
Gran Piemonte
Il Lombardia
Chrono des Nations >>> OL
Giro del Veneto
Veneto Classic
Japan Cup Cycle Road Race

Legend
BLUE = Designer found
GREEN = DONE

[Gipfelstuermer]

Preview one day late, damn!

- For one day races, some minimal adjustments vs. Off-Season Preview
- Long stretch of real one day races in the first two weeks, so let me know your wishes for the proposed times (if any)
- Categories: Looking at the list of recent winners, perhaps up Emilia to 5 and down Paris-Tours to 4? Other suggestions?

- I propose 4 editions each for Cro, Guangxi & Tour des Paves, with lots of different times, i.e. something for everyone, but again you can share your wishes here
- Tour du Faso has been extensively debated, I think one edition in the evening is fair to test its popularity (if we can uncover the profiles and there will be a designer). Main programme with two smaller tours and three offseason classics (one in Nov.) during those days.

[olmania]

I can design cro race.
I will check the french one day races

[Radunion]

Even if I fear I know the answer already, I suggest Tour of Taihu Lake or Tour de Kyushu before Guangxi. The reason again is we should ride more real races outside Europe.

[olmania]

Tour de Vendée is cancelled this year, postponed to 2025.
Paris Bourges, same profile as last year it seems.
Chrono des Nations is the same.

no info yet about paris tours

[Hansa]

Tour de Vendée is cancelled this year, postponed to 2025.

i propose riding Coppa Agostoni - Giro delle Brianze on this day then and give Paris-tours 4 editions

[Radunion]

And Faso one edition will anger some daytime managers. If it is really mostly flat it could be fun or very frustrating depending on the teams there. My guess would be one edition could lead to a split or at least get close.

[flockmastoR]

Where is this 3 day fantasy tour coming from?

You didn't mention to add it and it was not in the proposed offseason draft, so I expect this is just an error.

If you are serious, I am against adding it, Pack another stage race in a month already packed with stage races.

And Faso one edition will anger some daytime managers. If it is really mostly flat it could be fun or very frustrating depending on the teams there. My guess would be one edition could lead to a split or at least get close.

If this is the case, you have another argument to demand a second edition next year. If angered daytime managers are around, they can articulate their anger here. Just speculations to the point.

Even if I fear I know the answer already, I suggest Tour of Taihu Lake or Tour de Kyushu before Guangxi. The reason again is we should ride more real races outside Europe.

I am against it, for obvious reasons. Lombardia is the October highlight. It deserves a highlight spot. And it makes a difference riding these kind of classics in fields with 16+ teams instead of 12. Races outside of Europe, yes, but maybe find other examples to be included.

PS: It would be a perfect example for a small stage race that is just ridable in lower divs, while the higher cat races are restricted to them. We had such things earlier in the game. Not sure we have the overall participation to reintroduce such things

[Gipfelstuermer]

Where is this 3 day fantasy tour coming from?

You didn't mention to add it and it was not in the proposed offseason draft, so I expect this is just an error.

I mentioned it here and maybe the explanation posted there helps to understand why I put it like that in the preview:

As an idea, what if we move the RSF classic from 30th to 31st and add a small 3-day tour from 28th to 30th, making the TdP & Off-Season classics main programme even more attractive as compared to TdF, but allowing TdF to take place with a limited number of editions (1 or max. 2). And there would still be a fair amount of days solely for one day races (8 in October, 8 in November).

PS: It would be a perfect example for a small stage race that is just ridable in lower divs, while the higher cat races are restricted to them. We had such things earlier in the game. Not sure we have the overall participation to reintroduce such things

Just to make sure, which tour do you mean with "It"? Just asking because so many different tours were mentioned in the post... Well, probably it could be applied to most cat1 off season tours, if we had enough players for that. If. Don't think we are there, yet? Otherwise, I like the idea a lot.

[flockmastoR]

I mentioned it here and maybe the explanation posted there helps to understand why I put it like that in the preview:

Not sure if an unknown 3 days fantasy tour saves anyone from participating in Faso and going to TdP.

Just to make sure, which tour do you mean with "It"? Just asking because so many different tours were mentioned in the post... Well, probably it could be applied to most cat1 off season tours, if we had enough players for that. If. Don't think we are there, yet? Otherwise, I like the idea a lot.

I was talking about the proposed stage races from Radunion that overlap with Lombardia, Taihu Lake or Tour de Kyushu. In general, add some minor category real stage races parallel to higher category one day races/stage races was the way it was done in earlier years, wasn't it? It can help newcomers, that can compete easier with other newcomers and it secures the important races from Bitibert tempo teams (no offence, just these kind of behaviour is comon when a lot of newcomer teams are around).

[drei.zehn]

Just noticed…

Shouldn’t there be NC‘s in October again?

[Gipfelstuermer]

Shouldn’t there be NC‘s in October again?

Good point! Monday, 14th October looks like a day for that.

[Hansa]

Just noticed…

Shouldn’t there be NC‘s in October again?

14.10. could fit for that maybe?

[Robyklebt]

Was waiting for this thread because I was going to make a point about times, mostly 18h.

But seems already quite ok in the preview. But Robyklebt wouldn't be the Donkey if he didn't make the point anyway:

So far 3 races at 18h this month: Participation:
11 on a Thursday parallel to the Vuelta
11 on a Sunday, 5 editions, second worst participation
17 on a Monday, 6 editions, 3 per race, the race that 18h got the more popular one, 20+17+17, while Matteotti got 9 9 7

There's another 4 races planned at 18h. Even if 19h+20 are stronger, that's simply too few for a time that is still popular enough really. Especially if the GT in parallel is at 19h, offer that again 5 times in September parallel to the 19h Vuelta, while only 1 18?
And it's not like 18 has been absolutely catastrophic these past months. 14x offered in August. 19 got 17.
7 races had 5 or less participants, 5 of them 18, but 2 19. (One of the 5 18 was an ITT) 15 races with 5 or less teams in total in August, 5 were 18h
July 27 in total, 8 18h
June: 12 in total, 1 18h
May: 38 in total, 3 18h
April: 15 in total. 3 18h

So in July clearly bad, close to 1/3, but absolute numbers 8 is high, in August 1/3 of races with 5 or less teams, but before that, pretty normal numbers. In May actually better than 19h in this statistic.

Let's look at July more closely, 16 races offered, only 1 had 10 teams, the rest under 10, 8 of them, so 50% 5 or less. Clearly bad.
19 had 16 races too, 5 with 10 or more, rest below 10 as well, clearly better, but not stellar numbers either.
August it was 4/14 over 10, 5 were 5 or less, The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 17th

Why? No idea, could be summer holidays? Could be anything. Checked for 5" for 2023, but numbers so much lower gave up immediately, plus much more 18h then, TdF was at 19h But usually the 18h numbers aren't especially bad, after 1,5 months of bad numbers (end of August then numbers went up again after all) cutting this much seems overcompensating. Go more towards 19h sure, but not as extreme as September. 7 for 18, 16 for 19h 1 for 17h (9 teams, did reasonably well actually, better than 8h with 6 teams) 11 with 20.

But ok, a first glance at the preview shows a decent number of races at 18h, 7 one day races plus Tour de Pavé, hoping there's some fantasy races too. Tour de Pavé helps a lot there. Without 18h stage races though it should at least have 10 one day races.

Other point about times: IMO still a good idea to limit parallel times. Stage race at 15h, offer more one day races at 14h or 13h or the occasional one at 16h. During the Vuelta in 15 days in August we had 5x 15h. 7x 14h (including 1 that was parallel to Pologne (in total in 7 days Pologne we had 3 same time races, 14h too) In September 8 days Vuelta, 4x 15h. 19h Vuelta had 7 19h 1 day races in August. 22h Vuelta had 6 22h 1 day races in August. 9 had 4 one day races, but BEnelux at 9 too. Al in Augut.
You get the point I guess, minimize those same time races. There might be people that simply can't at a certain time, let' say 15h, but could at 14h. So they won't start the Vuelta, but then are still stuck with too many races that start at the same time, and finish late, which presumably in this example is the problem. No need to go to 0, but...
See Cro race, 9, only 1 other 9. Good. 14, 3 more 14, over 6 days that too much. Go for 15 more often, 13 a second time if you don't want too much 15, add one 16.... ok, bad for me, but I'll deal with it... 19 just one double, good, 22h gets 3 again, and I see that 22 is the one that is most difficult to "avoid", last one day race at 21 a bit early, 23... don't know if now it had recovered a bit, your job to check.... But for example Paris-Tours being a rather long race (with a mintact that right now really is 20km too short, designer RKL seems to have been intimidated by the brainless-squad there) might be ok at 21 for the last edition.

Other things:

Fantasy classic race on the 31st: 9-14-20-23.
While parallel Faso at 20. Far from ideal I think.

Stage races for low categories. Of course. Once we have higher numbers, the "reality fanatics" will surely agree with me that we can't allow Division 1 teams NOT to ride a WT race, so Cro race in the future should be from D2 down. And stuff like Faso D6. But I fear we don't have the numbers for that yet. But maybe would be worth trying to put in an edition for just the newcomers on 1 or 2 days in October, fantasy race of course, time probably towards the evening, but then make the evening race only for D1-5. Something like "fantasy 1 day race on a day we don't have any stage race": 10-15-19-22 Make the race at 22 only for D1-5, add a D6 at 21. Or the same trick with 19+20. Once or twice in October. The problem: We have only 2 days with fantasy races and no stage race parallel. Because we now have the feeling we have to fill every hole with a tour. 1 of the 2 days of course is disappearing too now.

Next: Eroica, put it to some other date. It's energy sapping usually, so don't put it a day before a cat 4 race. Either during the Pavé tour, or just after (both not ideal either) or then 28-29-30

You didn't mention to add it and it was not in the proposed offseason draft, so I expect this is just an error.

Ok, I didn't write you this in the many very concise PNs when I gave up the calendar job: FL offseason previews are excellent. But not even close to binding. Look at it, say aha, hope people talk, then do whatever you feel is good, November-January is the time you can almost be a dictator, well Pokemon was, others just half ignore the preview (not the discussion though) and have fun putting in the tours whenever they feel it fits. Which is was Gipfel did here. Protest here if you're against it, but "not in the offseason preview" is not a valid argument. FL preview is non-binding, an important principle of the calendar coordination work!

I'm against this additional fantasy tour btw. The reasoning actually is reasonable, but after having 3 fantasy Tours in-season, I'm on a campaign of principle against fantasy tours in general, especially those that weren't in the fantastic FL preview (fuck principles on that one now)

[flockmastoR]

If you are serious, I am against adding it, Pack another stage race in a month already packed with stage races.

I think this next sentence made my protest against it clear. Of course, the preview is not binding. But for me, this 3 days stage race came out of nowhere, that's why I asked if this was discussed anywhere.

[Alkworld]

I saw you planned the NCs during my vacation. As there have been a few issues still last time, I recommend doing it when I'm back, unless Gipfel feels confident he can fix everything. I'm back from Oct 28, maybe do it early November?

[Hansa]

I saw you planned the NCs during my vacation. As there have been a few issues still last time, I recommend doing it when I'm back, unless Gipfel feels confident he can fix everything. I'm back from Oct 28, maybe do it early November?

4.11.then?

[rsv flaschbier]

Binche - Chimay - Binche / Mémorial Frank Vandenbroucke with the same profile as last year.

Just a question: the last km should be cobble. Is this possible or are there known bugs (ms on cobble)?

[rsv flaschbier]

Elfstedenrace

Seems to be different than last year. Maybe the same track, but this year ridden clockwise.
I don't think we need a new profile for this race. I found this in the technical guide:

23. HEIGHT PROFILES
The north of the Netherlands is a flat area. The course is completely flat. Because there are
no height differences, it is not usefull to place height profiles here.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Binche - Chimay - Binche / Mémorial Frank Vandenbroucke with the same profile as last year.

Just a question: the last km should be cobble. Is this possible or are there known bugs (ms on cobble)?

No bug expected for a cobble finish.

Now the only question, did the designer (RKL) avoid cobbles there to avoid a bug or for some other design reasons?