Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Fantasy Directeur Sportif Challenge

Not sure if you've seen it but in case you lot haven't, I've challenged TERatcliffe this year to pick a squad of riders and try and run a 'proper' fantasy team through the season.

We'll both be blogging about it through the year and the first posts are up (/blog).  Anyway, you lot are free to pick your own squads too and keep us all informed of how you're doing either on here or in the blog comments.  I've set up a league and if you've got any questions, let me know.

EDIT

If you want to take part the list of rider values you'll need is here http://db.tt/1rO7IFhq and check out my post here /content/blog/74271-big-unveil for rules etc.

RUNNING UPDATE:

World Tour Points - 1037 total / 851 based on top 5 riders

Fantasy points total: 2583

 

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

Add new comment

115 comments

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

Yeah, no point trying to force the purist thing on it. Pick a team per classic making whatever changes you want in between.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 replied to drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes
drheaton wrote:

Yeah, no point trying to force the purist thing on it. Pick a team per classic making whatever changes you want in between.

All good makes it easier in the spreadsheet as I can do a new tab for each race then

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

Yeah, no poaching, Talansky signed with me this season :-P

Just looking over my spreadsheet, and after an encouraging start, there's a huge hole with the early classics where I just have one or two riders entered per race. Seems like not many of the guys I picked for Classics are doing the early ones.

Then I hit Paris Nice, and Tireno and 22 out of 27 are in there.

Seems I may have misjudged how this part of the year works with the stage races and the one days. Having said that I've never really bothered with any races before April/May time, so it's all learning this year.

Next year, I think I need to review my balance of GC vs sprinters. Kittel, Cav and Appollonio aren't enough to cover the range of races and finishes. GC riders may be better for WT over the year, but my team goals are less aligned with WT points and more crowd pleasing ones and top 20 in GC doesn't float that many boats compared to a Sagan salute.

Maybe need to be haunting the u23 races and continental teams looking for the next fast gun.

Avatar
drheaton replied to robdaykin | 11 years ago
0 likes
robdaykin wrote:

Yeah, no poaching, Talansky signed with me this season :-P

Out of interest, thinking ahead to next year (already), how many team do you reckon we'd need to make a workable draft league? ie every rider exists once and can only sign to one team, we have a draft in the off-season then run a squad through the year in a draft league.

I was thinking somewhere between 12 and 24 but without going over the numbers (which I can't as I'm at work at the minute) I don't know how it'd work.

robdaykin wrote:

Just looking over my spreadsheet, and after an encouraging start, there's a huge hole with the early classics where I just have one or two riders entered per race. Seems like not many of the guys I picked for Classics are doing the early ones.

Then I hit Paris Nice, and Tireno and 22 out of 27 are in there.

Seems I may have misjudged how this part of the year works with the stage races and the one days. Having said that I've never really bothered with any races before April/May time, so it's all learning this year.

Next year, I think I need to review my balance of GC vs sprinters. Kittel, Cav and Appollonio aren't enough to cover the range of races and finishes. GC riders may be better for WT over the year, but my team goals are less aligned with WT points and more crowd pleasing ones and top 20 in GC doesn't float that many boats compared to a Sagan salute.

Maybe need to be haunting the u23 races and continental teams looking for the next fast gun.

For me this was the hardest part of picking my team, trying to get a balance between the classics, the sprints, the mountains and GC. I think I've done ok so far (thanks to some young GC stars) but I'm not sure I can sustain it through the year and I reckon I might have too many classics guys.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

It depends what races on the actual calender you were using, as to what riders you deem valuable. The more races the more teams. But id say possibly 10-12 is about right to make it somewhat competitive. But doing a draft means you wouldn't be credit limited

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

If it were a proper draft you could credit limit it, if you end up with more than the limit after the draft then you have to release some riders and pick up whoever is free. Either that or do trades. It could be a strategy, don't use of your limit in the draft and see who gets released after.

You could even keep it persistent over years, you get to give 10 riders a three year contract, 10 a two year and the rest one year. Whoever drops out of contract ends up in the following years draft.

Also if we forced the 150 credit limit on each race it would force teams to plan and to pick riders at a variety of price points. That would hopefully encourage planning rather than trying to load up on high value stars. Anyway, the more teams there are the more the high value riders would be spread around. 150 team limit also has the benefit of meaning all scoring can be done in game  4

Was thinking most fantasy races but maybe doing similar to this year where we do year end rankings based on accumulated World Tour points for your top 12/15 riders. Much easier to work out and covers you in case you don't pick someone in the your squad who goes on to win something.

Just thinking aloud really, it could be fun but don't know how many people would be interested.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

I think what you would find then is you are making it too restrictive, for example we've picked teams our teams with no other people picking and I still don't have a full team for P-N, so I think if you tried to employ the 150 credit rule it wouldn't work. By all means a credit limit on the overall to a degree (probably 700 id say, see why further down), as if you look at our teams, we don't have an awful lot of stars, but we do have a fair amount of 3 credit riders, and then when you think 10 teams, thats alot of 3 credit riders gone, without there being much choice.

Your talking very similar to the game I play on PROFSL, basically you have a budget and contracts. So its a bidding draft, which means you can stop as high as you want to go, and contracts can role over 2/3 years spreading cost out etc. So thats where trying to employ other limits when values are already set becomes very difficult. I think if you are using set values and say you couldn't go over 700 credits, so you effectively couldn't go out and have 30 guys of 25 credits it would work anyway as over 10/12 teams you would get a big enough spread of riders that people would think, oh Cancellara has gone (25 credits) your next pick, i want a classic guy who finishes high, so you go Santambrogio (8 credits) so it would all work out anyway

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

Fair point, there's a balance to be found between having enough teams to ensure that every team isn't full of stars and not so many teams that everyone is limited to having mostly cheap riders and can't field full/strong teams for most races.

We'll see how this year goes (the current format doesn't seem amazingly popular with only about 5 of us taking part) and have a look at the end of the year.

Personally I like the idea of picking a squad and running it for the whole year. It's finding a format that works for as many people to enjoy as possible.

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

alright, 19 WT teams with say 28 riders each gives a pool of 532 riders in total. In the preseason spreadsheet there are 1394, worth 9644.8 points in total.
There are 10 riders worth 30 or more, 40 worth 20-30, 261 worth 10-20.

So if we say 15 teams, each with 3 star riders worth 20+ points, and 10-12 worth 10-20. with another 15 or so under 10, then the 300 points is a little generous, say 280 points to pull things down, giving a total of 4200 points used.
If we say each team must have say 3 neo pros that brings us to 30 riders per team. Careful selection of non WT riders will help too because some of the Pro level teams like Caja, Netapp etc are getting invites and turning in good performances, expanding the available pool of riders.

At most I reckon you could have 20 teams, but you'd need to pull the points down, and someone would not have 3 'top' level rider over 30 points, so 15 seems fair, with maybe a random pick of one of the highest value 'star' riders when you sign up to avoid argument, and challenge you to build a team round that high cost rider.

My current team has 1 of those 30 point + riders, 5 at 20-30, 7 at 10-20 and just 5 at 3 points only and I'm pretty happy with the breakdown. The only observation is that sprinters are pricier 'cos these values come from the Fantasy game, not the WT points. If I picked again, I'd have a couple more 3 pointers to afford another well known sprinter. All my riders are WT, and I have a little overlap with all 3 other teams.

The other observation is that we don't pick the actual riders in each race, so maybe it would be an idea to have 20 teams, each allowed 450 points, and 60 riders. That would use 1200 of the riders and hopefully each team would get 9 in each race, being required to declare up front. 450 points is 30 riders at 300, 30 for 150 more, averaging 5 per rider.
To sort out who gets which riders, there are loads of ways. The fairest I can think of so far is everyone is assigned a top rider. You then have a pot of 'money' and can bid for the next 5 riders. Winning bid signs. Then new pot of money for next 5 and so on. Giving 12 rounds of drafts in total. Maybe that's too many, maybe 10 riders per draft for 6 rounds, or 12 for 5. First rider assigned avoids the inevitable bidding wars for Sagan or Wiggins or Cav. Or do bidding for riders over 10, and neo pros only, riders 3-10 in value sign for first offer after the bidding rounds complete.

Thoughts?

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

I think if your doing it as a draft rather than an auction per say then your way seems far too complicated and far too restrictive.

I don't quite get your first point  39 532 riders of WT means all the others are non-WT therefore in the main will not be selected if we are sticking to WT races, so obviously if you had 15 teams you are not leaving much choice for people if its a draft and made them pick certain riders within certain price brackets etc

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

Started off thinking WT only, then got distracted trying to work out the points breakdown, and forgot WT in the process of disappearing up my own orifice.

If we're doing it for WT points as the first priority, you have 19 teams worth of riders. Just becomes a question then of how you choose or allocate riders. If you want to give people choice, then you need less than 19 teams. Even 1
less gives some choice. The fewer the more choice.

I agree we need more than the handful of us already doing this, and to attract players it probably needs to be simpler than the spreadsheet I'm doing, and I suspect you guys are using. I don't mind the effort, since I'm learning a lot about the sport doing this, which makes it worthwhile to me.

The auction/draft mess and 60 riders are too complex and too many. We'll see how many riders we each get into each WT race this year, but I don't think at 28-30 you will fill your roster for every race, unless you pick heavily along the lines of a current WT team lineup, or are very good/lucky. For example I've been over for TdU and PN, but I'll be short for Tirreno, and I'm guessing for other races to come.

As for picking, if we can't just do as we did this year and we have to avoid overlaps, then we need some way to make it a fair process. How about I get first choice, since I'm going to come last this year  1

If we had say 12 team slots, what about each of us taking 1/12th of the riders available, so we split all the WT riders between us? Ignoring values, other than as a guide to 'quality'. Or is that what you mean by draft. I'm never sure how drafts work, since in NBA, the only sport I follow that does drafts (that I know of) it's a mystery to me how it works.

I still think a random allocation of the top n riders to teams could work.

Anyway got 9 months to iron this out, so no hurry. Anyone has a light bulb moment, please illuminate us all.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

I don't think its about having a full 9 riders or whatever it may be for every race, as having 6 could score you more points. Its more about your roster and in picking that is the skill to balancing it the best. Also we need a calender in place if we are going to score it fantasy wise, it doesn't need to correlate with on here as I would do the points manually. But knowing a calender in advance means I could try and ut together some kind of spreadsheet.

It think as a draft goes I had this in mind. (So forget the rider values for now)

So we have 10 teams. 27 draft rounds + 3 neo-pro rounds
Teams A to J
Round 1: Order of Picks: A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J
Round 2: B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,A
Round 3: C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,A,B
Round 4: D,E,F,G,H,I,J,A,B,C
Round 5: E,F,G,H,I,J,A,B,C,D
Round 6: F,G,H,I,J,A,B,C,D,E
Round 7: G,H,I,J,A,B,C,D,E,F
Round 8: H,I,J,A,B,C,D,E,F,G
Round 9: I,J,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H
Round 10: J,A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H

and that is repeated for 11-20 and 21-30

So every team rolls round in the order they pick. Also just because A goes first doesnt mean he has to Pick Cav or Sagan, he may choose to go Slagter, if he thinks he will do well. With a draft situation you often get quality going first but you also get people tactically thinking a certain rider may stay till round 3 or 4. So after round 1 a rider like Cancellara may be available, but A may not choice him in round 2, tactically thinking he may still be there in round 3. Its actually quite fun to do. Also latter on it rounds quality becomes less of an issue as they are more even so people choose favourites whereas the rider values may have then higher (I would choose Santambrogio over JTL in round 10 for example although Santambrogio would be much cheaper)

what do you think of that kind of idea?

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

Unless you organise a chat room with all 10 players, and do the picks interactively in a small number of sessions that translates into 300 posts/emails/online spreadsheet updates, each dependent on the last, and that could take a very long time to do. An auction could take even longer.

You could speed it up using software, but I suspect that might remove some of the fun element.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

That is also very true, would need a think  39

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

NFL draft works in a way that order is swapped each round so.the last in the first round gets first second round pick. I'll dig out the order later.

Fantasy NFL draft also can be automated. You give all the riders a preference (in order) and when your pick comes up you get the rider who's highest on your list and still available. It works but its not ideal as you don't have control over the balance of riders and might end up with loads of GC guys and no sprinters. Perhaps a half and half system could work? You automate a draft for 5 rounds or 12 rounds giving everyone a base to work from then manually draft the rest allowing you to fill gaps.

One thing I would say is that just limiting to WT teams removes riders like Voeckler from the equation. If you allow people to pick from any team but state we only run WT races then that adds to the pool of available riders and picking from a non-WT team would be at your own risk.

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

Also, on the automated draft you could specify a GC or PC cap so when you hit that limit on sprinters you ignore the top guy on your list if he's classified as a sprinter and move on to the next.

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

My Paris-Nice is going ok so far, Bouhanni and Kittel hav picked up stages, Kelderman showed well in the prologue and both Westra and Quintana are looking strong. The only downside is my first major injury of the year losing Bouhanni.

My Tirreno-Adriatico team is:

Cavendish
Demare
Cancellara
Vanendert
Vanmarcke
Nordhaug
Sammy Sanchez
Andy Schleck

Looking strong with the leaders jersey after the TTT and a good chance of a result today. Overall though it's a much weaker team than my PN team with no real GC prospects in there.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 replied to drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes
drheaton wrote:

My Paris-Nice is going ok so far, Bouhanni and Kittel hav picked up stages, Kelderman showed well in the prologue and both Westra and Quintana are looking strong. The only downside is my first major injury of the year losing Bouhanni.

My Tirreno-Adriatico team is:

Cavendish
Demare
Cancellara
Vanendert
Vanmarcke
Nordhaug
Sammy Sanchez
Andy Schleck

Looking strong with the leaders jersey after the TTT and a good chance of a result today. Overall though it's a much weaker team than my PN team with no real GC prospects in there.

You have Devolder too

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

Man, how could I forget such a superstar...

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 replied to drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes
drheaton wrote:

Man, how could I forget such a superstar...

He got you 1 point yesterday  3

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes
TERatcliffe26 wrote:
drheaton wrote:

Man, how could I forget such a superstar...

He got you 1 point yesterday  3

My hero.

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

Paris Nice looking good. Stages from Talansky and Kittel, Izagirre got a podium. Other positives are consistent top 20s from Roche, usually in close formation with Sorenson (who I didn't shortlist).

Sadly de Gendt, Gutierrez and JTL have pulled out.

On a broader note, Iglinsky who I haven't shortlisted got a second and Fuglsang has pulled out. Voigt and Roy have both been in breaks, showing the team colours.

So all in all I'm happy. Talansky is developing nicely and van Garderen is looking solid rather than exceptional.

Tirreno has been as expected a bit of a let down. Ok Cav took the jersey in the TTT, but since then we have a problem, seems the guys aren't leading him out, instead some blokes from some O Meagre Farmer Blotto have been mucking about...  1

The other main positive so far is Dowsett. Excellent showing in the TTT and top 20 in a flat stage. Quite pleased with him. Roux has been in a break, showing the jersey, so he's doing the job I hired him for.

The big disappointment was Cancellara who seemed to be towing a load of dead weight round the TTT. In the form of Andy and the rest of Team Wireless House Cat's Road Trip who it seems he snagged on his rear mech and towed round the course.  3

Glad Andy finished Camaiore, but he looked unconvincing at Strada, and he needs to finish Tirreno. Just finish, anywhere in the field. Doesn't matter if he's 20 minutes down, just please finish a stage race.

Looking forward to pouching some WT points though, and hopefully doing some catchup.

Kittel may be redeeming himself, though there seems to be a dearth of top sprinters at Paris Nice. They all seem to be riding Tirreno. And Sagan... As DS I must talk to Cav again about his press conferences. Again.

Now I need to go and sort out JTL for the Classics. Really needed him to finish PN psychologically. Still top 10 at Amstel will make up for it.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

For Paris-Nice as far as WT points go Ive had a second from Gilbert and Iglinsky, a win from Kittel and two 5th places for Ulissi giving me 16 points, Just joping Ulissi can hang in for a top 10 finish and more WT points

As for Tirreno a win for Sagan and a 3rd for Greipel

Will do another blog to go up next weekend I think, so you can check out my team there

Again none of my neo-pros doing anything for me to write about. May do a piece on Kwiatowski, as he has been the best youngster show anything over these two races

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

I'll write up a blog post once TA is finished but Paris-Nice has gone fairly well. Stage wins from Kittel and Bouhanni along with a strong showing from Keldermann in the prologue and an 8th overall from Westra mean that I'm happy but I haven't scored as many WT points as I would have liked.

I'll need to check but after Paris-Nice I think I'm on around 87, it leaves me 6th overall in the WT rankings sitting between Movistar and Radioshack but over 100 points behind Sky in first place.

If Sky win TA too with Froome then my aim of beating them looks to have gotten off to a bad start.

On the bright side, if we take 500 World Tour points as being the amount I need to get in order to avoid 'relegation' (15th place or higher at year end usually guarantees continuation of a license, last year 15th was Saxo on 401 but they under scored heavily so I expect it to be higher this year) then 87 from two and a bit races is strong and I shouldn't have too much trouble getting to 500.

Avatar
TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
0 likes

I have you on 83 WT points and me on 77. Will email you the spreadsheet after Tirreno anyway

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

errrrm. I am reading the right page aren't I?

http://www.uciprotour.com/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template3/layout.as...

That is the WT table so far? Because ignoring Iglinsky (4 points) I appear to have 192 WT points from TdU (30) and PN (162) with Talansky on his own worth 92. That puts me 2nd overall, 1 point behind Sky after 2 races, though after 3, nowhere near I suspect. Which b****rs up my assertion that I'd come last.

As for Fantasy 382 points only in PN, so waaaaaayyyyy behind.

TA I haven't been tracking Fantasy Points because it's a Premium competition and I'm using my girlfriend's account (tina's tourers) for this.

I'll look at WT points when UCI post them. Should be easy, I think it's just Cav for me unless Dowsett turns in a fantastic TT tomorrow. Assuming TTT points are awarded to individuals not to all members of the team, so Dowsett won't get WT points for Movistar being 2nd.

Have you noticed that the Fantasy DS league has quite a few teams on it... Of which 2 of us seem to be actively having a go at this.

Avatar
drheaton | 11 years ago
0 likes

Yeah, I'm not sure if the others are following the rules or if they just join any league going but its more fun as a forum exercise really, the league is just for keeping score.

I'm lacking someone who can win a race at this point. I'm beginning to think going Wiggins over Froome may backfire, I expected Froome to try and win everything but I thought Wiggins would have at least rode a decent race by now! Unless he wins the Giro and is very strong at the Tour I think Froome may be the better bet both fantasy and WT point wise.

Despite being crap at the fantasy classics they may be my saving grace having Boonen, Gilbert and Cancellara. Although the spectre of Peter Sagan is looming large  39

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

I deliberately steered clear of Wiggins/Froome because I think other riders will sacrifice themselves to stop Sky winning, and both riders have weaknesses.

Contador has already tried riding off the front of the Sky train unsuccessfully so far, but I'm anticipating we will see lots of different tactics tried out to either disrupt, or use the train. I am concerned that Froome is tactically weak (see TA), where Wiggo's mountain time trial may not be able to contain an in form Contador in the high peaks. See Froome clearly being able to ride away from Wiggo on a couple of stages last year.

And whilst Contador and Sky are kicking each other about, van Garderen, Talansky, de Gendt, Roche and Fuglsang should all be sat waiting for an opportunity to pinch a stage or valuable seconds. Which is why I steered clear of Contador, Nibali, Valverde and JRod in favour of having 5 decent chances of a podium instead of 1, 2 or 3 pricier and maybe out of form potential winners.

As for Wiggo winning this year, I think Wiggo last year used the pre-Tour races to get a benchmark for where his and the team training level had reached. I don't think any of the races before the Tour were important to the team to win as races, just as practise for the Tour. That is not to say Wiggo is not proud of winning them, nor to say Sky disrespect those races in any way, but if they had not won them all I don't think they'd have been crying too many tears. This year the Giro is earlier in the year, they have good reference data on Wiggo's fitness and Froome's. The team tactics are proven and are being rolled out to the newer riders, and there seems little need to show their hand before the Giro. And with Porte winning PN, that sends another message.... This guy is a DS in our Grand Tour lineup. Imagine the team leader, and fear us  1 Which may well provoke the kind of reaction I'm betting my season on.

Purely on WT points though Wiggo is going to be worth maybe 3-400 on his own, regardless of win or podium or top 10 even.

All of which aside, didn't Talansky do brilliantly. Some real brave riding there. WIth a slightly different team around him to help more in the mountains he might have beaten Porte. Be interesting if he's racing California this year.

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

As for the Classics... Cancellara, Iglinsky, JTL, Voigt, Dowsett, Rasch, maybe de Gendt could all feature for me, but I too have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of silly celebrations from Sagan. He looks in imperious form.

Avatar
robdaykin (not verified) | 11 years ago
0 likes

Sudden daft thought. If Sky seriously want to win a Classic they should get Wiggo to ride as a DS in one of the Spring races.

Pages

Latest Comments