Career - Prepare your cyclists

Objectives

Once your race calendar is decided, you must define the objectives of your riders. You can change the objectives up until January 6th of each year. For this, go to "Team" then "Objectives" to view or edit the races targeted by your riders. The choice of these objectives determines the training programme, across the season, which will allow them to reach fitness peaks at the right time.

In the "General" section, you have a summary of the objectives of your main riders: the leaders.

In the "Team-mates" section, you have the list of the team-mates of your main riders, that you can easily change by dragging-dropping the name of a team-mate from one line to another.

Team-mates thus assigned adopt a default training programme similar to that of the leader, in order to be on form at the right time.

And it is in the sections dedicated to the main riders that you can change the objectives.

1.Here you can change the objectives for your rider. All races are present; choose them according to their prestige and the interest they represent for your rider. You can make a quick evaluation of their interest by looking at the impact of the choice of race on your leader's satisfaction gauge. A happy rider will be more competitive.

2.You also define the role of your rider within the team for that period: Leader, Sprinter, Baroudeur or mere Team-mate - with the risk that his satisfaction drops.

3.This detailed menu also allows you to see if other leaders in your team are aiming for the same objective.

4.The fitness of your rider across the season, and his tiredness, is visible at the base of the screen. An icon displays a selected objective. If you choose objectives early in the season, you must set up good pre-season training, whereas you should treat riders far gentler if their first objective is at the latter end of the first period.

You must make sure that you bring your riders to peak fitness for their main objectives. When you change the objectives of your riders, make sure that they are in line with the objective set by your Sponsor.

The selection of objectives also impacts the mood of your riders. Assigning suitable roles to your riders is harder than it looks, and a disgruntled rider will train less well and will be less competitive in a race. Try to have your riders take part in races that appear in their objectives.

Fitness

You must learn how to manage your riders’ fitness to maximum effect throughout the season and during the stage races.

The riders are assessed on 4 criteria:

1) Preparation. This is the result of work done during training and races. It translates a rider's level of effectiveness. To obtain a good level of preparation, a rider must string together weeks of heavy load.

2) Fitness translates the rider's level of effectiveness. It is the addition of preparation and built-up tiredness. As long as tiredness is low or nonexistent, preparation and fitness overlap. When tiredness starts to become too great, fitness drops and the rider becomes less effective and does not ride to his full potential in races.

3) Tiredness. This must be maintained at a minimum level for as long as possible to enable the rider to compete effectively. Your role in keeping it low is to plan, from time to time, a few lighter weeks in the rider's training programme. After an objective, you can even envisage a week's "Break" to let the rider take a breather and thus reduce tiredness that has been built up during the season. At the end of the year it is rare to find a rider who is not tired. Seasons are long and there's comes a moment when it has to be accepted that it is impossible to race for a whole year without yielding to tiredness!

4) Freshness. This is a parameter that evolves daily and it is key factor during stage races. Effort has a direct impact on freshness and a rider who takes part in a succession of breakaways will see his freshness significantly impacted. Make sure that a rider has an excellent level of freshness before an objective.

You manage a rider's training programme and race schedule on the “Planner” page.

Training schedule

Axis and training style

You must manage the training of all your riders so that they progress in the domain that interests you. The Team>Staff menu lets you display the list of riders on your team (or other teams). Here you can also see your riders' stats (specialisation, fitness, ...).

Click on a rider’s name to open his data sheet. It is made up of 5 sections: General, Season, Training, Evolution and Career.

The “Your offer” tab isn’t accessible until the transfer period starts.

To look at, or to change, your riders' training, go to the Training section and assign an axis of training for the year as well as a trainer. Make sure you choose the right training for each rider in your team to ensure your sponsor's objectives dovetail with your team composition, and thus the rider's specialisation, preferences and fitness, as well as the races you want to see him ride in (or not), etc.

Riders and trainers also have affinities on training style (classic, state-of-the-art or ground-breaking); if they share the same style, training will be more effective.

1. The search bar allows you to quickly find a rider by entering his name.

2. Provides access to the different sections: General, Season, Training, Evolution and Career; with all resulting information.

3. Shows the current fitness level of your rider, his rhythm, his freshness, his level of tiredness and his satisfaction.

4. Shows the whole of the season, with expected fitness peaks and the events (races) associated with them.

Pre-season

On January 1st of each year, you will be asked to establish the pre-season training rhythm of your riders via the Team>Preparation>Pre-season menu. It will allow them to arrive more, or less, prepared for the start of the season. In a way this corresponds to the investment of the rider in his winter preparation.

For each rider you must set the intensity of pre-season training from among the following levels: Low, Normal, High, Very High.

Set the pre-season training of your riders based upon their personal objectives as well as those of your sponsors.

Setting a high pre-season training rhythm means a better level of fitness for January 2nd, and this is ideal for a rider with race objectives that are early in the season, but there is a risk of tiring the rider more quickly a little later on in the season.

Setting a low rhythm is more suited for riders who have race objectives later in the period. You must increase the Intensity of their training later on, via the planner.

NB: vary your rider's pre-season so that you have a good balance between riders who are on form early and other riders who will be held back for later objectives.

Planner

Available as of January 2nd via the Team>Planner menu, the planner allows you to manage the training rhythm and the race schedule of each of your riders, week after week.

It provides an overall view of the fitness and schedule of each rider and it allows you to register each one for a race according to his level of fitness and tiredness.

1) Information on the selected rider: with details of his fitness and tiredness across the whole year. You can add races to his schedule and modify his training programme, as well as duplicate his programme or schedule for another rider by dragging and dropping his panel onto another rider panel, and vice versa. You can also open the detailed panel of several riders simultaneously.

2) The list of your riders: click on a rider in order to display his details in the box below. You can organize the list of your riders by dragging and dropping their panels above or below each other.

3) The races in which you are registered: to add a race to a rider's schedule, click on it and slide it onto the race bar of his schedule.You can navigate the schedule week by week using the yellow arrows on each side of the race calendar.

4) The curve showing the evolution of your rider's fitness over a month:

As long as tiredness is under 50%, it won’t show on the chart and fitness will overlap preparation. Once the rider becomes too tired, the tiredness curve will rise, and the fitness curve will drop.

5) The rhythm of training and your rider's activity by week: it is for you to adjust his rhythm for optimal preparation and minimum tiredness on the eve of the big day. You can adjust the intensity of training on 4 levels.

NB: races are also taken into account in your rider's weekly activity: Each race day occupies 1/7 of his week, approximately 14%. If a rider has a race on each day of the week, it will be occupied to 100%, just like a week of hard training.

NB: a week at 100% is very useful to progress fitness, but it is the build up of work over several weeks that counts. A succession of high intensity weeks will lead to your rider building up a high level of tiredness, leading to a negative impact on fitness. You must therefore, from time to time, inject breaks and quieter weeks, in order to balance a good preparation with an acceptable level of tiredness.

6) Upcoming races: you can click on the yellow icon to get more details about a race. Stars show sponsor objectives. You can also see a counter of riders registered for a race. If it’s red, you are still lacking registered riders to take part in a race.

Fitness Peak

As well as the general fitness of your riders, you can also apply yourself to preparing their fitness peak.

The fitness peak works on a simple points system. Each rider has a fitness peak gauge to be filled, and it appears 8 weeks before the start of an objective.

The fitness peak is triggered when the rider has filled the gauge, but if he has a mediocre overall fitness level he will never reach this maximum.

The rider scores points by:

daily training (automatic)
taking part in races
taking part in training camps

Races and training camps are more productive when it comes to filling the gauge, but they tire the rider much faster. You should make sure that you do not overdo things!

The fitness peak is a significant strategic asset to ensure that a rider is competitive during major races such as the Grand Tours. It is difficult to prepare fitness peaks for your riders. If you notice that one of your riders is behind schedule, you should step up his training; send him to a training camp and/or register him for races so that he earns more points. If, on the other hand, the rider's fitness peak will be triggered too soon, you should reduce his training tempo and remove him from one or two minor races.

Once triggered, the fitness peak will increase the probability of the rider having a good "race-day condition". A rider with a fitness peak will have less chance of suffering a negative race-day condition, and will receive higher race-day condition bonuses during the period.

Warning: a fitness peak is no magic wand, so if you tire your rider out through training in order to trigger a fitness peak, his tiredness will be too great and his race-day condition will be impacted negatively.

Training camps

In order to prepare your team well, increase the skill of your riders and ensure optimal fitness, you can consult and organize training camps. From time to time check the training camp in the Team>Training camp menu. Training camp let you prepare your team for races, increase their skill and have excellent fitness. Over the year, there are several different types of training camp with different characteristics. Itfs up to you to choose the right training camp at the right time, in accordance with your calendar. In particular training allows you to prepare your team for big events (major tours).