Suggestions for 2012 season

my top wish: Purists' league for each competition (gts and world tour) so there's still a decent amount of selection skill but we can choose not to bother with these silly spod-rewarding transfers and still stand a chance of winning something.

More spot prizes would be good too.

I dont know how viable this would be, but following on from thefatcyclist about the regional's

Why not have a look at LBS's in those area's and see if you can get a goody bag or voucher, nothing huge, but to promote the use of your LBS rather than online shopping

I agree with you GKam on the way the catagories are made up.every team should only have 1 team leader and should be represented in all disciplines. I thinks there was a situation similar to Radishack with Garmin if i remember correctly.

Little prizes, sponsors willing, for the regionals too would be nice. Maybe the company sponsoring that terrible ass advert could be one

The only thing I'd really like to see changed is to reduce lantern rouge points from 10 to 5. 10 is quite hard to get for any rider. Used it a lot in TdF and not much in the Vuelta but have a spare transfer today and it's tempting to use it for Veelers but it's a bit boring.

Wouldn't change much about picking teams or transfers to be honest but I think maybe make the points for position in the stage a bit higher for the top positions. At the moment it's better as the tour goes on to stick to GC guys or people who are high in several competitions (or lantern rouge) rather than take a risk on a stage winner.

So 30 for 1st, 25 for 2nd, 20 for 3rd, 18 for 4th and then as normal. This makes it less easy to just play safe, (which is the best way to be near the top).

I don't think that there should be much change to the number from each section, or the team limit. This mimics a real team, they don't have teams full of sprinters only, they try to win in all disciplins even HTC !!
As for the size of the groups, I would say contrary to too big they are too small. particularily the climers section, but that depends on the runners in every race. I do like my wildcard selection idea.

I would also like to see how my original team would have fared if I had been purist. Maybe a shadow purist league running in the background.

I would also exclude team time trials altogether, as they bias everything.

Dave in m useless opinion there is not much wrong with this league and I have played them all, the right balance of simplicity against complexity.

Maybe one other thing is a big final weighting in the gts for having the winner of the jerseys. Because like many people, I will not change much in my team for the Vuelta, because like today breakaways are going to be let away, and i'm going to look for points gained from the jerseay classifications.

If the pro's can do it?? yeah because they are under contract to their team

I dont think you should be able to pick more than 2, its a great rule, because if you went and picked a full team sky, like yesterday and sky went on to win, thats 40 extra just for picking them all, no no, everyone should be in the same position, 2 riders limit, else your going to have people saving transfers, using credits to get more and picking a different whole team every day, there is no skill in that

As for the limits on the number of riders from one team:

I'm all for letting us pick as many riders as we want from one team, except for the Team Time Trial Stage. Or maybe have up to 4 riders from the same team. The only advantage I see is the 5 points on offer if someone on the same team wins the stage. In my mind it might be fun if, forexample, I wanted to field the entire Sky team one day and could! I'd love it! On any given stage, other than the TTT, it really should be no big deal. And, If the pros can do it, why can't we?

I know you talked about a tour bonus for your riders you pick in the first stage according to their GC finishing place

What about the same kind of thing for an all round finish?

For example, If i picked Cobo on the first stage, Even if he lost and came 2nd to Froome, he's got more mountains and general points, so has the overall jersey just now in La Vuelta, How hard would it be to calculate that for the Giro and TdF?

Just the top guy i mean, so the guy who has the best GC, Points and Mountains combined

I'm about to swear - in fantasy football - yes i know we shouldn't use bad language on forums, but, in their game you get 2 transfers each week and if you transfer more players you loose 4 points for every transfer.

I think it was mentioned about extra transfers and losing points, seems a good idea though.

In the end the game runs well as it is and only needs a couple of tweaks.

How about a small prize for the winner of each stage, such as a pair of socks or signed memorabilia from teams which i'm sure Evans could get quite easily using their contacts.

TTT & GC points, that has what happened this year in Giro & Vuelta. You need to pick right team and know the team politics. I did well in the Giro, lousy in the Vuelta. Why not keep it.

GC finishing order points for starting line up. Is likely to significantly change the way people play the game and adds to the complexity. You need to sell it to me, what makes it good (and yes Cobo & Wiggins was in my Vuelta starting line up).

2 transfers per day is good and I want to keep it, I do really like the idea of being able program my transfers in days in advance (I have missed 3 transfer windows this year, mind you one was the day I beat everybody in a Giro stage - go figure).

The Halford's game is rubbish compared to this (and I have played the Halford's game as the SBS game for the last 3 years)

Keep the mountain and sprint bonus points as is, even though the Giro, TDF and Vuelta do them all differently. Giro heavily favoured climbers, TDF breakaways + sprinters bonuses.

and my previous post in another thread on same topic

+1 for rider values changing throughout next season based on performance during season. Just make sure when some riders rides rise in value, other riders decrease in value. (ie average GC rider value before Giro is 30, Contador dominates his value rises from 40 to 44, end of Giro his values stays at 44, average GC rider is still 30, even if other 20 GC rider drop 0.2)

Like the idea of same budget for everyone in Giro, TdF & Vuelta, it is about fairness. Banking points for World Tour add to complexity, which I don't really like. Plus is it really competition if your team is over 220 points competing against 175pt teams?

Banking transfers, makes it more complex. Only way I would say yes is 2 unused transfers can be banked as a single transfer. And you can only bank max of 2 transfers.

Only 2 transfers makes you plan ahead, while you all where working on your Alp D'Huez strategy, I transferring in riders for the Grenoble TT (who could climb JC Peruad anyone), that is why I finished 7th overall in TdF (brilliant TT performance, too bad I picked Spartacus instead of Tony Martin, expecting afternoon rain, but went from 13th to 7th overall that day).

Again I like the simple 1 GC 1 PC 1 KM 2 AR 4 DS. 2nd choice 1 GC 1 PC 1 KM 2 AR 3 DS + 1 your choice any more adds complexity.

Other changes I would like to see:

Increased points for the classics, currently the winning rider gets 20pts if rider wins 1st day of multi day race the usually get 35pts, 20 for win, 10 for 1st in GC and 5 for leading sprint classification. Suggestion top 25 finishers in one day race get points from 25pts for 1st to 1pt for 25th. Logic, points at end of classic (325pts) roughly equal points for end of stage in multi day race with finish, GC, sprint, mountains and young rider points (310pts), Advantages nice and simple. Disadvantage 6th place in a one day race = 1st in GT stage.

Alternative 1st 30pts, 2nd 28pts, 3rd 26pts... 9th 14pts 10th 12pts, 11th 10pts, 12th 9pts ... 20th 1pt. Logic = stage + GC points.

Lantern Rouge is over valued, once a GT is on it is easy to pick the Lantern Rouge, they rarely change from stage to stage. Suggestion decrease the value of Lantern Rouge from 10pts to 5pts. Also award Lantern Rouge points for the last rider to finish a classic.

One final thing i thought off that really came to light in the TdF this season

Is it possible to change riders category's for each race??

So to avoid having 3 riders in the GC: Team leaders, ok, so Radioshack didn't do well with the 3 they had in there, BUT you didn't have that set up with the Schlecks?? But you have it just now with Geox, Sastre and Menchov are GC, so why not the Schlecks?

A bit of consistency with that would be nice, either have only 1 GC team leader per race, which would be better in my eyes or make it fair, If Sastre and Menchov are GC, then i see the Schlecks should be aswell?

[EDIT: we already have that]

Somebody suggested weighting the classics' finish line points as if they were the opening stage of a tour (finish line points plus GC points), so 1st gets 30, 2nd gets 28, 3rd gets 26 and so on til 10th gets 12, 11th gets 10 and as it is now from there on down to 20th gets 1.

I hope you get your team selection code from early in the season up and running again Dave, a bit of flexibility would be helpful

I think your going the wrong way manolo, thats just making the game dull

If you decrease the points for mountains and sprints then your taking the thrill of trying to work out who might go in the break each day, if you reduce those points, people will just load their team with people in the GC to gain more points

For TEAM time trails, why should a rider who's worked his ass off in the opening half of the TT not get points for finishing with the team? thats the whole point of it being a TEAM TT the team works in whichever way the feel is right

Also, giving GC points for an opening stage TTT isn't right because then you benefiting from the team deciding a certain person crosses the line first, thats not a good idea

As far as how points are awarded during a stage:

I would suggest:

1. Stage PC: Each sprint have 3, 2 and 1 point available for 1st, 2nd and 3rd

2. Stage KM: Have the following points available.

HC: 5,4,3,2,1
Cat 1: 4,3,2,1
Cat 2: 3,2,1
Cat 3: 2,1
Cat 4: 1

It makes sense to me to bring the pints down just because an attacker could earn more points than the stage winner if there are a lot of mountains, but I think most people feel the real prize, and therefore the most points should go to the stage winner. On a mountainous stage, a rider could accrue a lot of mountain points, yet not wear the climber's jersey at the end of the day, which I think is more prestigious than just getting a lot of points, yet the leader of the KOM, at the end of the day only gets 5 points? I'd rather the rider get less points along the way.

3. For Team Time Trials: If your rider does not arrive with his team to the line I propose he get no points - or the amount of points the team he matched times with.

4. I'd also like to see the points available for the GC standing from the first stage, the Team Time Trial. In my mind if you get to wear the leader's jersey after the stage, why not award fantasy points for it?

carrying transfers over: noted

also mooted: extra transfers could be available, but you'd pay for them. So you get your two, but if you want to make a third it'd cost you 10 points or whatever, and maybe even more for a fourth...

So no GC points for anyone else but who you pick for stage one? not high five'in that idea

You might aswell just become a pursuit player