No GC points?

I think GC points are low
I think GC points are low enough, as for a sprint for example a J-rod who is top GC is not going to be in the sprint, so has 10 points. Yet anoyone finishing higher than 11th will score the same or points….so the logic is you will always take out J-rod for say Cav for example. The only time i think the GC points make a difference are when there are multiple mountain stages together, and thus banking on some GC points maybe more beneficial, but more often than not on a stage like that, the GC guy will be high up anyway on the stage, so why would you take him out. I dont think you purely base your decision on GC points, its a combo of GC points and transfers, and the riders in the race at the time

So you have hesjedal and J-rod 1 and 2 on GC, and you have 2 transfers. but alot of the sprinters have left (s17) but you have a GC rider not scoring. You gonna bank some GC points for 1 GC guy, and bring in Cav, then you bring in say Kristoff for your DS as he is sprinting well. In most peoples minds the same tactic would take place regardless of GC points.

Whereas in the ToC it was completely the other way, with 2 transfers left for the last stage, even if you had Gesink on GC it was pretty much a gurantee Sagan + Haussler would top 5, so if you had to axe Gesink for one of them you would have done regardless of GC points.

Your not gonna be high up just purely banking on GC points every stage. So I think the right balance has been struck at the moment

What you’re forgetting Gkam
What you’re forgetting Gkam is riders move the other way, just look at Txurruka who was an expensive KM/GC guy last year and is an average priced DS this season.

I think consistency is key now. The game had changed a lot over the past two years, I think it needs to settle down and just be tweaked slightly but overall it should remain unchanged.

Re the breakaways, I think on mountain stages in particular people go after the breaks because they know if you get it right its 40-60 points for the right rider. The key to being, and staying, at the top of the table though seems to be playing it safe. Boosting breakaway points might change things a little but, as someone said to me, as soon as you start chasing breaks you know you’ve lost. Chasing breaks might work 1 or 2 days out of 5 but you’ll drop a lot of points on the other 3 days.

Also, picking breakaway riders is already instrumental in having a winning team, you need them to win spot/stage prizes and through a three week tour you need to pick at least a couple to win, in the end the difference between me and first place was having two of Rubiano/Golas, Rabottini and Pirazzi on their big breakaway days, and I already picked a couple like De Gendt. Just because the winners picked up their breakaway points early in the race doesn’t make them less valid than ones picked up at the end of three weeks.

Lastly (sorry, kept thinking of things as I was walking to the bus) the TdF had two intermediate sprints on stages last year, giving extra breakaway points to riders if this is still in place would be a bit overkill in my opinion.

If you really wanted to add
If you really wanted to add unpredictability to the Grand Tours maybe they should pick a random placing lower down the league before the start of each Grand Tour, eg. 500th or 777th or whatever, and say that the team that finishes in that particular position at the end of 3 weeks will get the top prize! I mean, each day you’d have the teams above that placing dropping their star riders for lower point scoring options to try to drop down the league whilst those below would be able to continue picking the star riders in the hope of getting closer to the lucky position, whilst those who find themselves in or around that placing on a particular day would be totally flummoxed as to what to do next! 😀

Joking apart, I think the current format is more user friendly than last year and it seems to strike a reasonable balance between luck, skill and judgement so it should at least be maintained to the end of the year without any major overhauls.

Planning GC vs Stage is one
Planning GC vs Stage is one of the most enjoyable aspects! There were some stages in the Giro where it was better to have Nieve/Cunego for example than Uran/Intxausti/Basso who were higher on GC. I think the current balance makes it more than one dimensional which is good, as you have to foresee stage placings against likely GC placings and mix and match for the optimal team 😀 Love the current format 😀

I have to say that I prefer
I have to say that I prefer the points weighting this year to last, the bigger gaps higher up the placings and higher points in general is a good step and encourages you to go after stages as well as GC points rather than being able to rely more on the jerseys.

I’m not however a huge fan of breakaway bonuses, yes there’s skill involved in picking the right guys but for me it comes too much down to luck. It’s skillful to pick 9 of the top 15-20 finishers on a stage but picking a couple of the guys who make it up the road can sometimes be more luck than judgement. Having a 5 points award (as opposed to the 10 points on offer in the classics) for me might work as a middle ground and be a good bonus for those who get in the break but for the dauphine those breakaway guys will get plenty of KoM points regardless so it’s already something teams will go after.

What I don’t want is for the game to go back to being weighted in favour of picking breakaways as it was last year (because of lower stage finish scores). I remember stages of the TdF last year where the guys in the break were getting more points than those winning the stage and teams around me failing to pick any of the top 5 or 6 finishers but still beating me. In my opinion the most points on offer should always be for the stage winners. I like the points just how they are.

londonplayer wrote:

This changed to 4 star riders + 5 ds’s. Why not go one step further and just allow players to choose any 9 riders? Afterall, you’re restricted to a budget of 150 points so you can’t choose the best riders even if you wanted to.

I do like this idea, trying to weigh up whether to pick 3, 4 or 5 stars would add complexity and be another variable. Especially for the classics and probably when the Olympics come around this would really give some variation in teams if they’re able to pick 5 or even 6 medium-low priced stars.

one thing we’re considering
one thing we’re considering is changing the weighting of points. we’ve already done that to an extent: last year the stage winner got 20 points, this year it’s 35. One option would be to knock the GC/jersey points down a bit, say 5,4,3,2,1 for GC and 3,2,1 for the other jerseys.

breakaway bonus is back for the Dauphine as there’s no intermediate sprints. but we’re also considering it for the tour as well. extra points for the tryers.

like drheaton says though, you’d have been mad to bin hesjedal or j-rod even if there weren’t any GC points. would it have made that much difference? The people who win, win because they choose the right riders at the right time. robacairns subbed in de gendt and he soloed to victory; that wasn’t the only good decision he made. It might be hard to catch those leaders but no GC points wouldn’t have necessarily made it any easier. If you have a few bad stages and someone else doesn’t have any, then they’re going to win no matter what the scoring system surely?