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This year too we'll have our yearly competition for the December Tour. Designers submit their tours, managers vote in the forum, the winning Tour will be ridden as catgory 3 tour in december. And the runner up as a shortened January Tour, cat 2, in January.

As dictator of the december tour of course I decide the rules, they are basically the same as usual.

-Length: 10-14 days: Maximum 13 days riding. (That means you can do a 13 day tour without rest day or a 14 day tour with 1 rest day)
-No extreme tour, extreme as in unbalanced towards one speciality, flat, pavé, mountains TT etc.
-1 tour per designer
-Number of riders 6-9
-Maximum 1 day with half stages. (this rule might possibly change, I half remember the programmers saying that for the moment there might be problems with half stages, if that's the case, half stages might be forbidden)

Don't post your tours here, but in separate thread that I will open on the 1st of October. This thread here is for the rules (see above) criticism of the rules (see dictator), discussion of the proposed tours later on. Promotion of tours welcome, criticism too, the more the better.

Posting of the Tours in October, deadline is the 31st. Races that are posted in the early hours of November, before I open the voting will of course still be counted...

No active manager banned from participating. Here the rules changed a bit over the years. Used to be:

Andes designer not allowed:
Winner of the previous year not allowed.

Due to the low number of managers and thus of designers that was changed to
Andes designer can design a December tour too, but only 1 in three years. So if somebody designs the Andes for 3 years, he can only participate in the Dec competition in one year. A still a bit nebulous rule, if you design the Andes every second your you still can participate each year? Will have to rethink that rule in detail later on, but anyway, nobody disqualifed this year.
Winner of the previous year partly for the same reasons, lack of managers/designers, but also a miss by the Donkey when he didn't properly write that the previous winner was not allowed, so Tukh, that serial winner, had already submitted his tour when the Donkey realized the problem. So he won twice in a row, so now the rule is: If you win twice in a row you are disqualified from participating. (This rule will hopefully one day revert to the old one, but only once we have more active managers/designers)

Voting procedure:
First round voting from the 2nd to the 9th November. We shorten the voting period, used to be 2 weeks, seems unnecessary long.

The number of votes a manager has depends on the number of tours submitted:
Number of submissions/2, then rounded down. That means:
1-3 tours=1 vote
4-5 tours=2 votes
6-7 tours=3 votes
8-9 tours=4 votes.
But capped at 4 votes, even if we get more than 9 tours the number of votes per manager won't increase.

Second round: Normally the first 2 teams will advance to the second round. If it's very close, more might be in, decision would be made by a committee of 3 composed of people with no submission, appointed by the dictator. 1 week vote, only 1 vote per manager, regardless of the number of tours in the second round.

If there is a draw in the second round, the tour that got more votes in the first round wins. If there's still a draw the dictator will think about what other tie breaker could be used... Or just toss a coin...

Nice to have a competition.

I would like to participate, but fear to be disqualified again and perhaps better to put my energy into game development.

Hence, trying to explain this point:

Robyklebt wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 05, 2022 7:08 pm

-Maximum 1 day with half stages. (this rule might possibly change, I half remember the programmers saying that for the moment there might be problems with half stages, if that's the case, half stages might be forbidden)[/b]

At the moment I cannot guarantee that half stages will work without problems, because we have not tested them enough. In fact, if I remember correctly, they have not been tested at all since June, when we all switched to React and PHP was upgraded on the server by surprise. Maybe Alkworld is more certain about it, but probably not because of the lack of testing.

December Tour could be a test of course, but maybe it is too important to be a 'test'? We could also make half stages a priority for development and test them well before December Tour, but they are so rare and not really a crucial part of the game as compared to other things not yet perfectly implemented like showing bids in the transfer market, ingame fairplay committee, etc. So at the moment I don't think they should be priority. Unless others have a strong view that they are super important for the game or unless Alkworld says it is no problem and super easy to implement.

First tour on, wonderful, I will criticize it later. 3 times the same middle mountain stage, pah! But Design! Faye! Recovery!

Addition to the rule above. If of course a race gets over 50% of the vote in round 1, (which is unlikely if there are more than 3 tours) then no second round necessary.

Dec tour proposal with Roby mintacts, bah

#saynotorobymintacts

Very nice concept Roby, but do the helicoptors flyiing 100% CO² neutral?

6 riders.

Stuff of nightmares for everyone who wants control. So obviously the morning will love it

Just to make some other guys compete maybe! I am also working on it so go go go!

Go Chense go!

Thought we would have 5-6 ones easily this year, with the new and eager designers.. .but somehow still only 2.. so go go everybody, otherwise we have to ride the Design Tour for sure, be it January or December!

I already prepared the routes of my tour, but needed a break putting stages in the editor after Andes, will start putting them in the editor this weekend

My Dezember-Tour ist done!

I am working at the presentation.

So it will still come next week.

Happy Donks

So 5 Different Options sound good. Looking forward to the voting

Atlas. Absolutely beautiful. And brilliant Chense marketing because I couldn't find how many riders he allows after skipping through the presentation the first time. So tried another 2 times and while I really learnt something about his tour, I still don't know how many riders. Tired though, so pretty confident I'll find out tomorrow morning!

Quick wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:18 pm

Atlas. Absolutely beautiful. And brilliant Chense marketing because I couldn't find how many riders he allows after skipping through the presentation the first time. So tried another 2 times and while I really learnt something about his tour, I still don't know how many riders. Tired though, so pretty confident I'll find out tomorrow morning!

Pretty nice answer so i am pretty nice and added in the presentation and you get a special answer Its a 9 guys tour!

Quick wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:18 pm

Atlas. Absolutely beautiful.

Tukh? Is it you, Tukh? Is Quick = Tukh or Chense = TTV = Tukh? And then why isn't it called Atlas II? Or Atlas Nostalgia, like the SPIH Nostalgia in 2017! There obviously I stole the idea and concept from Roby. It was meant as compliment but of course seemed a bit like plagiarism too! Now TTV stealing from Tukh. Compliment or plagiarism? Will look at the profiles later... maybe this Atlas is as good as the one in 2018! Then it might receive my vote!

The next tour is online - Californication! Enjoy!

The pavé you put in there looks buggy, -3 or more downhill there is a bug. Talking about Californication...

My tour is online. Sorry Lenny, I didn`t know we are on the same Island.

Roby: where can I find the link, or how do you do this, the picture with the km`s ? Would be better than explaining the km`s like I did.

Laugenspitze wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:55 pm

My tour is online. Sorry Lenny, I didn`t know we are on the same Island.

all good, happens when everyone is designing in secret

Laugenspitze wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 30, 2022 7:55 pm

Roby: where can I find the link, or how do you do this, the picture with the km`s ? Would be better than explaining the km`s like I did.

http://www.radsportfreaks.de/radsport/p ... ension=c4f

replace madagascar22_01 with your savenames without the .c4f

A handful of participants, nice. I have an organisational question: Could you edit the first post in the presentation thread to include links to the differnet presentations? Otherwise it's a lot of scrolling. Lazy me gets frustrated and bored by that easily, which would be a clear discrimination for the late entries...

We might want the early entries

Pretty good choices, thanks to all participants!

FL... forgot it yesterday. Will do it today!

I will start the slightly biased rating of the tours


my base rating rules, opposite is a -1:
start rating 5/10
some form of map +1
at least 3 flat, 3 hilly, 2 mountain, 1 TT stage +1
overview of that stage combination +1
clear description of climbs +2 (+1 instead if only link to profile + km list)
not all flat stages purely flat +1


Design Tour:
map +1
stage combination +1
overview of stage combination +1
profile + km list +1
not all flat stages purely flat +1
6 riders unusual and interesting +1
10 days too short for a Dec Tour in my oppinion -2
Roby mintacts -2
total: 7/10

Calexico:
map +1
stage combination +1
overview of stage combination +1
profile + km list +1
not all flat stages purely flat +1
no intermediate sprint on stage 5 -1
up to 79m below sealevel on stage 6 seems unrealistic -1
kinda Robymintacts -1
total: 7/10

Atlas 2022:
no map -1
stage combination +1
overview of stage combination +1
clear description of climbs +2
not all flat stages purely flat +1
Gravel sections are interesting +1
kinda Robymintacts -1
total 9/10

Californication Tour:
map +1
stage combination +1
no overview of stage combination -1
no description of climbs -1
no mintacts given -1
total 4/10

Madagascar:
map +1
stage combination +1
overview of stage combination +1
clear description of climbs +2
not all flat stages purely flat +1
story +1
-2 extremely long transfer on rest day
-1 very cold weather on first 5 stages
total: 9/10

Madagascar Boababs:
map +1
unsure if actually 2 mountain stages -1
no overview of stage combination -1
kinda descriptions of climbs +1
not all flat stages purely flat +1
-1 no mintacts given
total: 5/10

New Zealand South to North:
no map -1
stage combination +1
no overview of stage combination -1
clear description of climbs +2
not all flat stages purely flat +1
up to 106m below sealevel on stage 1 seems unrealistic -1
Gravel sections are interesting +1
short mintacts on flat stages +1
total: 8/10

My comments:

Design:
Innovative, special, unpredictable (until stage 1). That's all not necessarily positive. With only 6 riders managers need to make choices. GC? Stages? GC by escape? 10 days positive, with our low numbers better shorter, only 1 weekend used good too. Better 1 day race participation in the not used 4 days. Or can add a 3 day tour somewhere.

Stages: Flat is flat. Don't know what Lenny was smoking when he claimed otherwise. 5 times flat. Too much? But with chaos in race or in sprint not unlikely, a team dominating the sprints seems difficult.
Middle mountain: As GC stages quite good. Otherwise rather shitty, for stage wins all look bad.
Mountains: Flat-Mountain finish. Twice. Boring.3+11 km. But 2 stages and possibly KoM for climbers, so there is something.
GC: TT guys. Incl. 60 mountain. But suspect a 70 mountain 75+ TT guy will win it.

Will have less to say about other tours, know them less...

Calexico 2022

What a dumb name. 2022? Yeah, we know the year.
Rest... Nothing wrong with it. Nothing right either. AAD race style transferred to designing. Do nothing and win! It gets one of my votes. Like the early GC block 2-3-4. But think a second block at the end is missing. 9+12 good, but not enough GC looks decided after stage 4. GC for classic TT guys normally. Of course monsters like Mor still win. But after that looks more for Schwackhöfer than Trakhtenbrot.

Tour of Atlas 2022

What a dumb name. Who knew it was 2022?
This one is more for climbers. Stage 2 nice, GC block 4-6 very nice. (Stage 5 great middle mountain stage). Here too second block missing a bit. Nice stage 11, but 12 is probably too easy for real GC action, unless the leading team has weak helpers. And even then, with a stage win for classics probably possible...
Biggest problem here for me the sprint. 5, but 2 of them, stage 1 and 3 to me seem highly unlikely for flat sprinters. Generally hilly tour, lots of 60-80 and classics. Stage 7+13 safe for sprinters. But 2-2 makes 9 difficult for them again, 2 safe ones, 2 unlikely ones... That makes it likely fewer flat sprinters start and thus 9 looks harder than it would as a 1 day race. Still gets my second vote.

Californication Tour 2022

What a dumb name! 2022! AD or BC?
Sprint? Do we have sprints? 1 stage. Possibly. Depends on how steep the 2 cat 4 are. And of course it's 249km long. So no, no sprint with flat sprinters. And that's all I need to know to not give this my vote. But but but some stages there are chances! No, not in this Tour. There will be no flat sprinters, what for? Possibly 1 stage? In other Tours maybe some of the other stages possible, but not here. So no need to write more, even if there would be more (positive and negative).

Rest from home not mobile like until now