Tag: procyclingstats

ProcyclingStats Favourite 15

by James Warrener, posted in Blog, News, racing, Uncategorized

Our friends at ProcyclingStats have given users of the site an additional feature to go alongside the mountain of data, quizzes and games on their website.

The favourite 15 gives you an opportunity to pick your favourite riders. Your picks will roll up to provide the top 500 riders of all time.

Full transparency… Here is my list above.

I am really happy with the list and think it reflects my love of the sport and of some of the key characters within it.

Naturally there is a bit of a bias towards British riders, based on my nationality. But there are some proper old school and hipster choices as well.

I am planning to explain the why is upcoming posts.

You can then decide if I was right to add Chiappucci at the expense of Miguel Indurain!!

PCS to revamp the ProcyclingGame for 2023

by James Warrener, posted in Blog, News, racing

Long time readers of this website will know that I have been playing this trading game online since its inception and have enjoyed it immensely.

There have been issues in 2022, which the games developers have acknowledged. The lack of a stop loss function to enable you to sell a rider on a certain date and time to take the best advantage of market pricing being the main thing that has impacted my success.

I just don’t have time to log in to the website the second a tour stage ends to sell a player manually. The previous version enabled me to signpost in advance that I wanted to take the current price for Stefan Bissegger after a time trial (as an example). If you forget or log on later you can lose thousands of Euro in value.

Some of the other key buttons, like understanding who is currently racing should you have some spare budget, haven’t worked or worked consistently. Its good to see the developers understand this and plan to improve things.

These are minor blips as opposed to fundamental reasons not to create an account and build your roster.

Below is the ProcyclingGame statement about their intentions going forwards.

2023 Game

With the 2022 season problems in mind, we already are looking forward to the 2023 season. We will apply the feedback and analysis results to the 2023 game, which we can already tell will have some major updates. Here are a few bulletpoints regarding the major changes.

– The interface will get a major upgrade
– Instead of a year game, the game will continue over the seasons. This will open up possibilities for investing in talented riders.
– Main ranking over money earned in past 12 months
– Prizemoney will be significantly lower so resource allocation will be relevant for a longer period
– No limit on number of riders on your team to increase strategies possibilities.

More details are to come as we will work out the new system. We hope that you will continue playing the game in to 2023!

I am looking forward to getting started with a new roster at the start of next year.

You can join up at https://www.procyclinggame.com/

2021 Procycling Stats game launched

by James Warrener, posted in Blog, racing

Regular readers of the site will know that I was a keen player of this game across 2020.

The purpose being you buy and trade pro riders with their price going up and down based on performance. You get money by their share price going up and from prizes, but of course there is the risk your rider tanks and their value goes down.

#RiderPurchase priceCurrent rider priceDays on teamAnalyze
1 VAN AERT Wout€ 955.000,-€ 955.000,-0Analyze
2 ALAPHILIPPE Julian€ 940.000,-€ 940.000,-0Analyze
3 VAN DER POEL Mathieu€ 910.000,-€ 910.000,-0Analyze
4 SAGAN Peter€ 800.000,-€ 800.000,-0Analyze
5 HIRSCHI Marc€ 680.000,-€ 680.000,-0Analyze
6 BARDET Romain€ 464.000,-€ 464.000,-0Analyze
7 DE GENDT Thomas€ 208.000,-€ 208.000,-0Analyze

Here are my riders for the early week of the season based on my initial EUR 5m outlay.

With the early part of the season (should it happen to plan) being week long stage races and one day classics I am looking at riders who have those skills to bring me in some cash.

My strategy being that once the Giro comes around I will be able to sell a couple of these for a profit or add to my line up with their prize money gains.

Its incredible to say it but Peter Sagan looks my biggest gamble at EUR 800k. He needs to get a spring classic win to justify my outlay on him or do something in a race like Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico.

Right, that’s enough clues as to how I am going to make some money, you can create your own teams here… https://www.procyclinggame.com/home

ProcyclingGame launches new version for lockdown

by James Warrener, posted in Uncategorized

I love a good fantasy cycling game and I have been playing the Procycling Stats prediction game (based on allocating riders in a star system like Hiet Nieuwsblad) for years.

Recently I picked up on their rider trading game, ProcyclingGame which sees you allocated EUR5m to buy and sell riders based on a share price and cumilative prize money. ,

Whilst the races have dried up, you are still able to trade riders and their prices are moving. I made a decent whack on Damien Gaudin of Total/Direct Energie this week so all is good.

However to make sure there is some level of pace to the game there is a new version called History-ProcyclingGame launching.

https://history.procyclinggame.com/index.php

It’s starting with the 2014 season so whilst you may know the results of the upcoming races, does the budget allow you to get the right people in for short term profit or the long game?

I hope you join in with this venture as it will be taking the developers a lot of time and effort to get up and running.

It’s all free and if you trade riders currently you can just use the same account log in and team name details.

My team is Deeping Dynamoes if you would like to track my progress.

Procycling Stats game update

by James Warrener, posted in Blog, racing

Whilst their remains a risk that a lot of upcoming races might be cancelled as a result of Covid 19, I am still busily predicting what I can to take my mind of global viral epidemics.

The last update I gave was about the riders I had picked the most over the life of the game (which is free to play by clicking here). However I have started the season in reasonable form based on my previous efforts.

Current stats

So I am currently picking 1 in three winners and here are my picks for the opening Belgian Classics… wish me luck.

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
Kuurne – Brussels – Kuurne

My logic being that G VA will be in fine form after the training races in Southern Europe and after the windy conditions of Saturday we might have a sprint on Sunday.

We shall see!

PCS game

by James Warrener, posted in Uncategorized

I am a sucker for a fantasy cycling competition and have been playing the Procycling Stats website one on and off for a few years now.

It is different to those where you pick a team based on budget and then make transfers.

It operates on the Flemish newspaper way of allocating riders a number of stars based on their likelihood of winning.

I have been looking back over the years I have been playing the game to get some statistics and the table below I found an interesting bit of insight.

PCS Top 10 picked riders and points contribution

Its clear that my limited success in the game has been my desire to pick GC riders based on their potential rather than ability to win!

Sprinters seems to be an issue for me as well with Bryan Coquard seeming a really bizarre pick for me, especially when I have picked him to win the same number of times as Alexander Kristoff!

I will be keeping a close on how this tally moves over the season and I expect those riders occupying the top 2 places to shift down the order!!!

Its seems bizarre that I have been so critical of Richie Porte and Alejandro Valverde only to see them picked ahead of a number of my favourite riders… time for me to change tactic perhaps?

If you would like a go yourself, its totally free.

You can sign up and join in here.