auscyclefan94 said:
I really do need a good start especially all the riders I have riding at tour down under and the nationals.
btw, I like all the analysis The Hitch has done. I hope to have a look at his team & him to look at mine!
Sure.
Ill start with cons cos i always prefer bad news out of the way first
1 Bad buys.
a Obviously Cadel. I know you had to buy him being ACF and all but he had a very good last season and the game is about finding riders who will improve next season. Since he always has a good season we can expect him to match his total or even gain 200 points but thats a lot of money to spend on a 15% gain.
His 2009 total was 1912 but bare in mind 400 of that was from the worlds which he wont do next year. If, like you predict, he wins LBL the Tour and the Vuelta, then his total would be around 2000. But that is highly unlikely.
b The other guy you went big on does have more of a room for improvement, but, well who knows what Anton will do. If he does well at Giro and Vuelta i suppose that could be an increase of about 50%. But Anton as i say is a risk. We dont know if he would be able to perform on top form for 2 gts.
So Anton could be a pro could be a con, but most likely will be a slight improvement.
c Van Armeret at 632 had a pretty good season. I dont see him doubling that. An increase of 300 or so is possible though.
2 Your biggest con is that you didnt tap too much into what one might call into the boulevard of broken talents.
Soler, Duarte, Gerrans, Schumacher, Cobo, Kashechkin, Di Luca, all cheap and good and popular picks which you missed out on. Problem is a lot of other people did, which puts you at a disadvantage if as expected they perform.
3 Another one is that you only picked 29 riders. Thats not to say 29 riders is always worse than 33. Just like having 9 riders finish a ttt is usually better than 7 but Garmin did well with 5 in TDF09. Also 29 isnt that low, since some chose only 29 but as ingsve says its better to spread the risk and the potential for reward.
Pros
1 You did manage to get Vandevelde

. Pellizoti Haussler and De La fuente. All from the same boulevard mentioned above. And De la fuente isnt that popular so if he has a good season, you gain on others. Id add Ballan who at 474 has lots of potential.
2 You have a lot of youngsters who could break out. None of them are overly popular so if they succeed you succeed. Most of them should get similar totals to this year at least, if they improve.
3 In fact many of your guys are unique or unpopular, which means that any great season on their part provides a bigger reward to you, since others have not picked them.