Most Combative Rider Award

enrique wrote:

This is such an interesting topic...

daddyELVIS wrote:

Why do they always give the combativity award to a guy who breaks away at the start of the race...

drheaton wrote:

... Whatever the prize is called though it's pretty much guaranteed that, except for in exceptional circumstances, the breakaway will get it.

Well, that did not happen yesterday. Greipel got it...

drheaton wrote:

It's the one who shows the most fighting spirit, you can argue that by going for the stage win riders like Chavanel are more aggresive but you need real fighting spirit to try and sustain a break for as long as possible and try and keep the inevitable at bay...

drheaton wrote:

... The prize is so subjective...

And this from Cyclingnews.com:

cyclingnews wrote:

... Zero out of ten for judgement from L’Équipe

André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) was a bemused recipient of the Prix de la Combativité for stage 6’s most aggressive rider. Given that there had been just one breakaway during the stage – Luis Maté’s short-lived early effort – the judges’ task was not an easy one, but L’Équipe haughtily awarded them 0/10 for their decision.

LÉquipe wrote:

“André Greipel wasn’t the most combative, he was the strongest. You shouldn’t confuse the two things, otherwise the prize would go to the winner of every stage,” ... “The most combative rider yesterday was Mark Cavendish. In the space of a few kilometres, [after his crash] he closed 40 seconds on the peloton after chasing back on through the convoy of cars.”

And, that (!) my friend, is why we should get rid of the Combativity Prize in this competition...

Arguments will now be heard from opposing counsel...

i can't really understand why you're wasting your time flogging this particular dead horse. but i guess your time is your own to waste as you see fit

enrique wrote:

This is such an interesting topic...

daddyELVIS wrote:

Why do they always give the combativity award to a guy who breaks away at the start of the race...

drheaton wrote:

... Whatever the prize is called though it's pretty much guaranteed that, except for in exceptional circumstances, the breakaway will get it.

Well, that did not happen yesterday. Greipel got it...

drheaton wrote:

It's the one who shows the most fighting spirit, you can argue that by going for the stage win riders like Chavanel are more aggresive but you need real fighting spirit to try and sustain a break for as long as possible and try and keep the inevitable at bay...

drheaton wrote:

... The prize is so subjective...

And this from Cyclingnews.com:

cyclingnews wrote:

... Zero out of ten for judgement from L’Équipe

André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) was a bemused recipient of the Prix de la Combativité for stage 6’s most aggressive rider. Given that there had been just one breakaway during the stage – Luis Maté’s short-lived early effort – the judges’ task was not an easy one, but L’Équipe haughtily awarded them 0/10 for their decision.

LÉquipe wrote:

“André Greipel wasn’t the most combative, he was the strongest. You shouldn’t confuse the two things, otherwise the prize would go to the winner of every stage,” ... “The most combative rider yesterday was Mark Cavendish. In the space of a few kilometres, [after his crash] he closed 40 seconds on the peloton after chasing back on through the convoy of cars.”

And, that (!) my friend, is why we should get rid of the Combativity Prize in this competition...

Arguments will now be heard from opposing counsel...

Yeah, you're not making much sense.

My quote says that its pretty much a definite that it'll go to a break except in exceptional circumstances. Yesterday was exceptional in that there was no real break meaning it had to go to someone else. Once you remove the break from the equation the who gets it? No doubt you'd complain if Cav won it or anyone else, you just have a dislike of the prize.

Take today as an example. Bakelandts was a deserving winner of the 10 points, he was aggressive, combative and tried hard to get away.

What you're proposing is that we scrap a prize you don't like because on one stage out of 21 you don't agree with the winner.

enrique wrote:

My hero, Gkam! I learned how to interact on the forum from him. I owe him my 'Irritability' factor! God knows how he annoyed the crap out of me last year! If asked, I would would accept the Gkam Memorial Award for Most Irritating Poster for 2013!

Erm, thank you. I think I've got a few people interacting on the forum. When I used to raise points. It was a fairly new game and things were still getting worked out.

This is going back to 2011 and earlier.

The game is fairly settled now and I am also part of the team running it. So I can't have been that irritating

Quite a number of my suggestions and comments lead to things happening, some people would improve on my original thought and Dave would then put his touch on it and enacting it into the game.

One other reason I continued to post "provocative" thoughts and statements back then was to actually get people onto the forum and chatting, it was quite a dead place back then, there were only a few of us, maybe 10 who would be using this part of the site.

Now I'm not being big headed, but I feel that the forum has steadily grown over that time and a small part of that might be down to me

So carry on making comments and suggestions, one day you might hit something that will work. But don't expect the warm loving friendly comments that normally come with the forum when you start new threads day in day out with grumbles

That's my "beef" with you, not really a beef as such, but do you need to keep starting new threads?? Try and keep it contained to one

Gkam84 wrote:

enrique wrote:

My hero, Gkam! I learned how to interact on the forum from him. I owe him my 'Irritability' factor! God knows how he annoyed the crap out of me last year! If asked, I would would accept the Gkam Memorial Award for Most Irritating Poster for 2013!

Erm, thank you. I think I've got a few people interacting on the forum. When I used to raise points. It was a fairly new game and things were still getting worked out.

This is going back to 2011 and earlier.

The game is fairly settled now and I am also part of the team running it. So I can't have been that irritating

Quite a number of my suggestions and comments lead to things happening, some people would improve on my original thought and Dave would then put his touch on it and enacting it into the game.

One other reason I continued to post "provocative" thoughts and statements back then was to actually get people onto the forum and chatting, it was quite a dead place back then, there were only a few of us, maybe 10 who would be using this part of the site.

Now I'm not being big headed, but I feel that the forum has steadily grown over that time and a small part of that might be down to me

So carry on making comments and suggestions, one day you might hit something that will work. But don't expect the warm loving friendly comments that normally come with the forum when you start new threads day in day out with grumbles

That's my "beef" with you, not really a beef as such, but do you need to keep starting new threads?? Try and keep it contained to one

Didn't we have an Enrique Q&A thread?

letsgoup wrote:

I think we should award Enrique a Combativity award for being, er, combative. I love his posts. Or I love the reaction to his posts. Have you all considered he just says things to wind everyone up. He cannot be serious surley

+1

I enjoy your threads Enrique and you are not the only one who has been known to raise the backs of other subscribers on occasion. You often raise legitimate points but I have to agree with the majority on this one - it is an official award and that should be reflected in our game, subjective or not.

The pedant inside me does request that you reduce the quotations and the icons though. You are on a rocky road to matching Gkam with his smileys and commas.

chiv30 wrote:

If you want to have any credibility you should be playing the premium , otherwise you really shouldn't be asking for game changes.

I'm not so sure this is correct, I think it's the way enrique poses his points that's the problem, pretty much as TERatcliffe highlights.

Constructive user feedback is good, whether the user is paying or not. The keyword here is constructive. I like that enrique asks questions and makes points, this is afterall a forum for debate. I don't think it's right that we attack enrique for voicing an opinion.

Enrique, take the time to read TERatcliffe's points and consider this next time you post. You'll (hopefully) find a more receptive crowd and be able to build a discussion.

Back on topic - personally I like the subjective nature of the combative award. It rewards excellence and points to an achievement that cannot be summed up simply by saying I came first, second or third. It says: today this rider was special beyond the boundaries of the race and here we honour this special effort with our judgement.