Introduction

You start with a 5.000.000,- budget with which you can buy up to 20 riders for your team. The goal of the game is to earn more money than the other players! You earn money if your riders score results and when riders on your team become more popular in the rider market.

Rules summary

The rules are explained in more detail below, but here are the bullet points.

• Startup phase from January 9th 10:00 to January 17th 8:30 in which rider prices remain fixed.
• Starting budget of 5.000.000
• Buy up to 20 riders
• Earn money by (1) prizemoney or (2) when your riders become popular in the market
• Buy and sell any time of the day
• When you sell a rider you pay a fixed salestax of 100,-
• You sell your riders at the price you bought them!
• You earn 10,- when some other player buys a rider that is already on your team for at least one day! On the opposite side you will loose 5,-!
• Invest in your riders by making them team captain and earn double prizemoney
• Domestiques earn 25% when their captain wins the race
• No information on todays sales and purchases available

How to earn money?

You can earn money in two ways, either through prizemoney or smart investing. You receive prizemoney when your riders finish top-10 in a race or when a teammate of a rider on your team wins the race (domestique). For the other way to earn money you have to invest smart. If some other player buys a rider that is at least one day on your team you earn 10,-. If you buy the riders before they become popular, you can make a lot of money. For example, if you bought Sean Flynn on January 17th for 119.000. When he suddenly scores some good results, other players start buying him. Let's say 100 other player buy him after January 17th. You now earn 100*10=1000,- on this rider.

Prizemoney

Riders score money for your team based upon their actual performances in races. In stage races, prize money is awarded for the leaders in the general, points, king of mountain or youth classification. In World Tour races there are additonal prizes for KOM sprints and intermediate sprints. The prize money is added to your cash position. To collect the prize money, a rider needs to be bought before the starting time of a race or stage and still be on your team at least 5 minutes before the finish of that race. For example, if you buy a rider at the morning of stage 4 before the stage starts and sell after the stage, you collect the prizemoney if that rider scores a prize. The starting times for races will be indicated at the race pages. The finish time of a race is the time when the first rider crosses the finishline. For the final GC the starting time of the first stage is taken as reference. For the prizemoney for the leader in the race, you need to have bought the rider before the start of the stage in which he took the lead. You can buy any active rider, no matter his level of racing.

Team Time Trials

For team time trials (TTT) there is a special prize scheme, which indicates the prize money per rider. If you have for example 5 riders from the winning team in the Tour de France, you would receive 5 x 500 = 2500 euro. There is no prizemoney for domestiques in a TTT. You can assign captains, prizemoney is doubled as normal.

Start of the game

The game begins with a startup phase. During this time you can buy and sell without salestax. After the startup phase, rider prices start to fluctuate. When the game starts, you pay 100,- salestax upon every sale of a rider.

Buy & Sell

You can buy riders at any time of the day. It is allowed to buy any rider if you have enough cash on hand. The maximum number of riders on your team is 20, but you may have less. Riders can be sold at any time during the day, but at every sale you pay a fixed salestax of 100,-. You always sell your riders at the same price at which you bought him. The only costs is the salestax.

How is the price of a rider established?

At the start of the game the rider prices are established based on rider popularity in 2022 and expectations for 2023. When the game starts, prices fluctuate by two factors. For every player that buys a rider, the price is adjusted upwards with 1000,-. For the every sale the price is adjusted with the same amount downwards. For example, if Remco Evenepoel is priced at 800.000 and 40 players buy him today and 10 players sell him. At midnight, his price is adjusted with (40-10)*1000=30000 and will be 830000.

Another factor influencing the rider price is the point total in the PCG individual rider ranking, which is based on the ProCyclingStats points of the last 36 months. Points in the last 12 months are counted at 50%, points in the last 24 months at 30% and in the last 36 months at 20%. As a rider matches the past results, his point total will remain stable. If he scores more points, the point total goes up and when a rider has a weak season, the point total goes down. For each point difference a rider wins or looses 500,-. For example, if Remco Evenepoel starts the 2023 season with a point total of 2000 and he ads a Giro win to his palmares, his point total would go up to e.g. 2400. He has 400 more points and his price will go up with 400*500=20.000.

Rider roles

You can earn extra by investing in your riders by making them captain.

You can invest in your riders by making them team captain for a specific stage or race. All prizemoney for your rider is then doubled. The costs are 25% of the prizemoney of the winner. The costs are computed together with the prizemoney. When your rider did not start, no costs are charged. Only the stage results, intermediate sprints and KOM prizemoney is doubled. Important! Prizemoney for final classification is never doubled! Also the price money for leaders is not doubled. For example, you invest in Remco Evenepoel as a captain in the Giro d'Italia. He wins the stage and earns 1000,- which is then doubled to 2000,-. However, you need to pay 25% of the 1000,- for the captain investment (25% of 1000 = 250,-), so in total you earned 1750,-.

When a teammate of a rider on your team wins the race, you earn 25% of the prizemoney. You don't need to invest upfront for this, it is awarded automatically. For example, if you have Tim Declercq on your team and Fabio Jakobsen wins the stage, you still earn 25% of the prizemoney of the winner, also if Jakobsen is not on your team.

End of the game

The game ends on the last day of the WorldTour at 10:00 (CEST) in the morning. The player with the most earnings wins the 2023 game.

Exceptions

• At unforeseen circumstances we hold the right to make decisions that are necessary for the benefit of the game. Such a decision will always be reported on the website, along with an explanation.
• Whenever a race is cancelled, the scheduled prizemoney will not be awarded, and no special refunds will be made for riders bought under the assumption of starting in that race.
• When a stage race is shortened, prizemoney for the final GC will be based on the finish time of the last ridden stage.
• In the tragic event of the death (or life threatening injury) of a rider, the value of the rider before the news was reported is refunded. All transactions after that point will be made undone, so there is no need to quickly sell in such a case.
• While it is perfectly possible to have multiple player accounts to pursue diverse strategies, it is not allowed to solely support a single team by buying the same riders. In obvious cases, we can take out the supporting teams.
• It can occur that a rider is disqualified from the result. In this case the already awarded prize money is recomputed. In some cases, this could lead to your cash position being negative. This situation will resolve itself when new prize money is awarded or once you sell a rider. Recomputation of prize money is done at the latest 3 days after the day of racing.
• You are free of chosing your teamname, however we don't accept any offensive names, political statements or URLs. In these cases we directly alter the name to a default name, after which you have the chance to modify your teamname to an acceptible name.