October 2026

[Gipfelstuermer]

Final PDF
October 2026

Races to be designed:
Tour de Langkawi >>> Zappes
European Championships Road Race >>> Gip
European Championships ITT >>> AAD
Tour of Guangxi >>> ECS
Tour of the Netherlands
Tour des Paves >>> Schartner


Races to be checked:
Münsterland Giro >>> Zappes
Cholet Agglo Tour >>> Gip
Giro dell'Emilia >>> rsv flaschbier
Coppa Agostoni - Giro delle Brianze >>> Gip
Tour de Vendée >>> Zappes
Coppa Bernocchi >>> Gip
Tre Valli Varesine >>> Gip
Binche - Chimay - Binche / Mémorial Frank Vandenbroucke >>> Gip
Gran Piemonte >>> Zappes
Il Lombardia >>> Zappes
Paris - Tours Elite >>> Gip
Giro del Veneto >>> Gip
Utsunomiya Japan Cup Road Race >>> Gip
Veneto Classic >>> Gip
Chrono des Nations >>> Gip



Legend
BLUE = Designer found
GREEN = DONE

[Gipfelstuermer]

Noting I have seen the Eneco-Thread.

Open for discussion how to split between Guangxi / Eneco. 3 / 1 sounds reasonable but could be different and I'm not sure about times. Any suggestions welcome.

[Hoefs Cycling Team]

My proposal for Guangxi / Eneco—with a preference for designing the Eneco Tour (it’s been a while, though I’m happy to design other races too if I find it easy enough)—is as follows: 9:00 Guangxi, 15:00 Guangxi, 18:00 Eneco, and 21:00 Guangxi.

[NBeullens]

October is NC month i would say like 22th to 24th would be a good date

[Hoefs Cycling Team]

A new proposal for Guangxi/Eneco: 9:00 Guangxi, 10:00 Eneco, 15:00 (14:00/16:00) Guangxi, 18:00 Eneco (17:00/19:00), and 21:00 (20:00/22:00) Guangxi. I think Eneco deserves two editions. It’s a fun race where, with only five riders, there is less control.

[Yamaka Corse]

H 22 must be in. Last days I've discussed with many late night players and h22 Is in general our favorite time. H23 close Doors to players that must work early, h21 some of us work/dinner h21 voters usually can play also h20, h22 ones have only 1 slot

[Radunion]

21 h is okay for me, but too often early evening is used for a lower level tour. It would be nice to mix it up a little more. It could be morning, afternoon or late night as well. 22 h or later is a problem for people starting the day early.

[flockmastoR]

21 h is okay for me, but too often early evening is used for a lower level tour. It would be nice to mix it up a little more. It could be morning, afternoon or late night as well. 22 h or later is a problem for people starting the day early.

true. but latest version at 21h is a problem for people getting home late as well. It's always about balancing. Last month I can remember having exactly this complain (too little of the evening playable for late evening guys)

[Radunion]

21 h is okay for me, but too often early evening is used for a lower level tour. It would be nice to mix it up a little more. It could be morning, afternoon or late night as well. 22 h or later is a problem for people starting the day early.

true. but latest version at 21h is a problem for people getting home late as well. It's always about balancing. Last month I can remember having exactly this complain (too little of the evening playable for late evening guys)

That is not the point I want to make. The point is that there is a tendency to alternate races. So if the more important race has more edition almost every time the night gets the more important race. If there are many editions there is an early evening edition but very rarely 19 or 20 h, times that are popular. In the current case following the demand for late evening and going for alternating would disadvantage the evening, again. So why not give the Dutch thing to the late night, or if you do 5 editions in total, to the early evening?

[Yamaka Corse]

21 h is okay for me, but too often early evening is used for a lower level tour. It would be nice to mix it up a little more. It could be morning, afternoon or late night as well. 22 h or later is a problem for people starting the day early.

true. but latest version at 21h is a problem for people getting home late as well. It's always about balancing. Last month I can remember having exactly this complain (too little of the evening playable for late evening guys)

That is not the point I want to make. The point is that there is a tendency to alternate races. So if the more important race has more edition almost every time the night gets the more important race. If there are many editions there is an early evening edition but very rarely 19 or 20 h, times that are popular. In the current case following the demand for late evening and going for alternating would disadvantage the evening, again. So why not give the Dutch thing to the late night, or if you do 5 editions in total, to the early evening?

A player that can play h20 usually can play also h21 - h22 (in this case 90 minute x stage stage ends usually at 23:30)
I remember we talked about that during montreal classic and we both agree h23 is bad as 90% of the group that day seems agree

I don't think fight about this is a "thing" for me the most important slots are h19 and h22 and should always be both present just would avoid to mix late evening with night bc I see a lot of evening players play at night when other groups are "hard" while a lot of night player can only play at night so there is already a big disadvantage for the players of this field

[rsv flaschbier]

I designed Giro dell'Emilia

Slightly different in comparison with last year but with the same finish.

[Robyklebt]

03.10. Cholet Agglo missing. Like Münsterland could (should) be ridden on 02.10
04.10. Agostoni and Vendée both at 15h. In addition to Langkawi.
11.10. Tessile e Moda is cancelled (in preview at 12.10.)
11.10. There would be some Hong Kong Cyclothon there, (for the 12.) but not sure it's worth it since it seems to get cancelled or not ridden quite regularly.

After the real seaon, fantasy season: 1st week open for a fantasy tour. We do weird gymnastics to ride real races on wrong dates, but when there is a very open week we have nothing?
Also no GP Brescia in October this year, first of the fantasy classics

[flockmastoR]

After the real seaon, fantasy season: 1st week open for a fantasy tour. We do weird gymnastics to ride real races on wrong dates, but when there is a very open week we have nothing?
Also no GP Brescia in October this year, first of the fantasy classics

GP Brescia will be planned for 01.11.2026 on the Sunday after Tour de Paves as it was ridden the last years as well.

Open for adding a short tour (3-4 days) between 21.10.2026-24.10.2026

Will add a draft of the Offseason Calendar later today. Keep in mind that I was only asked today to do it. So it won't be perfect and I am aware that it is already a late start to work on it.

[Gipfelstuermer]

28th already, so it was time for the Final PDF.

- Guangxi 10-18-22 / Netherlands 15-20
- A few other changes

--> For Eneco... Do you wanna call it Netherlands, or what do we call it? Basically at some stage BeNeLux tour was called Eneco; but now BeNeLux Tour is called Renewi and so they came up with Eneco as the Ne in BeNeLux tour.... so no clue how to call this, without advertising for Eneco

[Radunion]

The traditional Dutch name was "Ronde van Nederland". I think this would fit nicely.

As predicted it gets the evening spot and the world tour race moves later into the night. I am not saying I am surprised.

[rsv flaschbier]

Guangxi at 10 - 18 - 20
and Netherlands at 15 - 22
would be ok

[drei.zehn]

We don’t ride EC?

[Gipfelstuermer]

We don’t ride EC?

Good point.

I think it is not very popular ingame with the National Teams and no limit on inscriptions... but it does not hurt either. So we can add them as an additional race, like we had last year.

[Gipfelstuermer]

21 h is okay for me, but too often early evening is used for a lower level tour. It would be nice to mix it up a little more. It could be morning, afternoon or late night as well. 22 h or later is a problem for people starting the day early.

As predicted it gets the evening spot and the world tour race moves later into the night. I am not saying I am surprised.

Somehow I need to understand your definition of early evening and/or evening. Whatever you refer to, it seems to include 19 (but not 18) and it seems to include 20 (but not 21). So if we have 5 editions, to me, it sits somewhere between early evening (18/19) and evening (20/21), whilst late evening (22/23) does not seem to interest you.

While I understand you can only ride 19/20, it is just normal that in those cases you only have one tour to choose. It is the same for someone who can ride only 9/10 or 14/15 or 18/19 or virtually any other 2h time period... because we rarely have two tours in a 2h period, even though it might actually have happened this year with the huge amount of tours offered. (If we had less players / less tours, it would not even be a debate.)

Now why put Netherlands (lower cat, no WT, ok... but tbh, it is cat 2 vs. 3 ... and seemingly perhaps Netherlands is actually more popular) at 20? Because some people might actually have more than 2h to choose from. So for example, for someone who can choose between 18/19/20 it is great, they can select. If you make Guangxi 18-20, they cannot select anymore.

Moreover, it is the first time we are having this Guangxi/Netherlands debate, so next year, if the calendar is the same, I would likely rotate it if possible.

Hope this explanation is understandable.

[drei.zehn]

We don’t ride EC?

Good point.

I think it is not very popular ingame with the National Teams and no technical limit on inscriptions... even though managers could just be sensible/pragmatic... but it does not hurt either. So we can add them as an additional race, like we had last year.

Nice

We do both races at the same day like wc or like last year, road and itt on its actual date?

[Radunion]

21 h is okay for me, but too often early evening is used for a lower level tour. It would be nice to mix it up a little more. It could be morning, afternoon or late night as well. 22 h or later is a problem for people starting the day early.

As predicted it gets the evening spot and the world tour race moves later into the night. I am not saying I am surprised.

Somehow I need to understand your definition of early evening and/or evening. Whatever you refer to, it seems to include 19 (but not 18) and it seems to include 20 (but not 21). So if we have 5 editions, to me, it sits somewhere between early evening (18/19) and evening (20/21), whilst late evening (22/23) does not seem to interest you.

While I understand you can only ride 19/20, it is just normal that in those cases you only have one tour to choose. It is the same for someone who can ride only 9/10 or 14/15 or 18/19 or virtually any other 2h time period... because we rarely have two tours in a 2h period, even though it might actually have happened this year with the huge amount of tours offered. (If we had less players / less tours, it would not even be a debate.)

Now why put Netherlands (lower cat, no WT, ok... but tbh, it is cat 2 vs. 3 ... and seemingly perhaps Netherlands is actually more popular) at 20? Because some people might actually have more than 2h to choose from. So for example, for someone who can choose between 18/19/20 it is great, they can select. If you make Guangxi 18-20, they cannot select anymore.

Moreover, it is the first time we are having this Guangxi/Netherlands debate, so next year, if the calendar is the same, I would likely rotate it if possible.

Hope this explanation is understandable.

I really feel like the late evening (22 h) gets all their wishes granted, even if it is just one one team asking for it. Compared to others I am quite flexible and can usually can do 19, 20, and 21. 18 h is tricky in the weekends and 22 h means I get not enough sleep. I still ride there if it is important enough for me, but I hate to do it often. You say you will rotate, but between races you never do. If there are 3 evening races (between 18 and 23 h) it feels like you alternate all the time, often meaning 18 and 22 for the higher cat race. 20 h looks widely popular in tours and in one-day races.

I know I usually post here when I am mildly annoyed and this does not help my case. But understand that it is tricky to have a calendar planer that rarely rides in the evening (18 h or later). Compared to the morning or afternoon where you only decide between two or three times (I will not discuss the wisdom there, as I do not ride there), the evening is long and has usually more participation than morning and afternoon combined.

I may share an analysis of tour times in the general discussion, but what I see so far is that 20 and 21 h only get numbers because they have lots of cat 2 tours and 19 or gets half of 18 or 22h (looking at all real tours this year). I do not think we should ignore this next year. For October, I understand the final is final, still I will always comment on changes that come unannounced and affect my plans.

[Robyklebt]

18 15 1 6 3 3 2
19 7 0 0 4 2 1
20 14 1 6 2 3 2
21 10 0 4 3 2 1
22 15 1 3 6 3 2
23 7 1 2 1 2 1

time, total, then the categories

19 can and should complain.
20? Less. Cat 2 races lots, but less cat 3 than other times. that is where 22h dominates.

The cat 4 stage races were nicely spread out.
Cat 2+3 is where Radunion is unhappy it seems. Getting the "shit-races" compared to the good ones. Well, category 2 vs 3, sometimes we're not ultra-scientific, logic on those anyway...

Edit: That's numbers January to September, excluding D6 only tour, including fantasy tours in January. Possibly including mistakes too, since it was a Donkey count during a race.

[Yamaka Corse]

I think we are missing the point, making a gamingzone war not considering some things..

As first is not just 1 player asking, a lot of says that h22 is necessary, just 1 came in forum (damn lazy bastards)

In second this isn't a fight between what a single player prefere to ride, I would prefere Ronde van Nederland but is unplayable for me, who cares?

The thing for Gip is to give everyone the same chances to ride high cat stages if we have every high cat from 10 to 18 others could never compete for higher ranks (I would also say who cares of useless ranks?) Again, some days I would prefere to ride some stages that are at h17 and not a classic against some 76 - 78 but I can't, who cares?

For me, the original goal was to have a playable slot for late night players, no matter what category, just make the game playable 30 days on 30 for everyone, (this month I could play only 20 stages on 28) only 2 days I was lazy + 1 day WC already removed from count. Is ok? Yes it is, could be better? Ofc, having races from 22 - 24 but h23/24 are though for h 19 - 20 ones to play (that I care) here is why I say h22 is Not negotiable also when I came from work at h21,30 and need to eat, the dog has to pee, family things, won't complain about (again, who cares?)

Don't know why radu has switched from that main goal to a category one, I don't care to be honest, I wish everyone could play after work not during. I wish everyone can play sit on a sofà/chair not during dinner from the telephone.

As last, every number the ape reported is okish but don't take count of who's playing that time.

If you check you can find Radunion play from 19 to 23
If you check you can't find motorizzati corse do the same (ok I did the time trial yesterday h12 but it was a 30 minutes stage played from phone)

Now check the playing time of rfm, pokemon, beullens, than check fb, kaiba, imperdor, kelme and many other what you will discover is that
H22-23 is a +1 slot for some but can be the only playable for others, I won't complain about that time slot if I was an h19 player that could chose between 2 stages and not accept only the one in my time



My ideas are few and trying to be nice for everyone not making a war on other times but trying to allow everyone to play the better as possible.

0 - H22 is an anchor for many and need to be protected not moved to h21 untill we are going to move h 8-10 too at h 11 - 12?
1 - No more h23 would help "early morning" ones, also h22 ones sleeping schedule maybe h24 I don't see by much time, it was here 15 years ago but not necessary right now I think.
2 - H18 can be shifted to h19 with no huge problems, no sleep loss, no work problems eccept you have to go work at nighttime but in that case is still playable at h 12 - 17 I guess
3 - Would be possible to try 21,30 and 22,30? exotic but 30 minutes can help both sides maybe?

Edit: check first 7 days of october and tell me who should complain..

[Robyklebt]

0 - H22 is an anchor for many and need to be protected not moved to h21 untill we are going to move h 8-10 too at h 11 - 12?

8-10 are 3 times. 22 is one. Also 9+10 are good times, good participation, 8 is developing, 11+12 are ok, but clearly worse. Your internal BS detector really should have gone off when you wrote this. 22 Anchor for many? Sorry, if somebody really can only play at exactly 1 time, then that's their problem. A certain flexibility is necessary. Also in one of the polls, that not everybody answered, sure, 21+22 got exactly the same number of votes.
In September
22h 13 races got 174 participants, average 13.4 per race
21h 10 races, 161, average 16.1 per race.
22h of course had the Vuelta (12 participants) so some of the 22h might have been there.

In August:
22h 19 races, 268 participants 14.1 per race.
21h 13 races, 205 participants, 15.8 per race

Your point 0 is just complete absolute bullshit, sorry. You are doing exactly what you claim you don't. some war against other times, 21h in this case. You prefer 22h, so you declare it to be some unique time that needs special protection. It isn't unique. If anything 21 needs protection from the extra races 22 gets. Despite having worse participation. But in fact 21+22 are both very strong times that both should get, and as far as I know mostly get a lot of races. You are doing yourself no favors with bad argumentation like point 0

1 - No more h23 would help "early morning" ones, also h22 ones sleeping schedule maybe h24 I don't see by much time, it was here 15 years ago but not necessary right now I think.

Cancel 23, they are just riding Langkawi with 16 teams, that isn't that bad. This is of course a race that ideally we wouldn't have ridden at all, since it's on the wrong date, Again, the whole argument makes little sense, 24h is possibly ok, because it would be more compatible with a 22h race too is what your basically saying. (actually not really understading what you're saying about 24h in the end, but that was my best guess) So not only 21 needs to be cancelled but 23 also. Yes, you'll now say you don't think 21h needs to be completely cancelled, just 22h protected, same thing in the end. In the end it comes across as: No more 23h because then 22 can't be offered, no more 21 because then 22h can't be offered.

2 - H18 can be shifted to h19 with no huge problems, no sleep loss, no work problems eccept you have to go work at nighttime but in that case is still playable at h 12 - 17 I guess

Here regarding stage races Gipfel clearly over compensated a bit, agree. 1 year, or maybe 2 years ago there was the "18h is bad, don't offer it" panic. Of course 18h is a perfectly fine time. But shifting a bit back to 19h regarding stage races (haven't checked 1 day races) seems a good idea. Of course 19 suffers from 20 as well, more 19 means 20 is less. In theory you could offer something like 10-15-19-20-22 and see how it goes, but is it really good to offer the same race at 2 adjacent times? Somehow not, then 19-21-23 is better. 18-20-22. With parallel stuff then of course, you have 18-20-22 then parallel is... 19-21. And you're unhappy because you can't ride the one day race at 22h. So add 23h at times But sometimes then that's too much. You need to start seeing the whole picture not be stuck on this imaginary uniquess of 22h. But yes, on stage races 19 is now clearly under represented. (Of course, see above, the 18-20-22 line is one reason, also the tendency to give some extra race to 20 when in doubt)

3 - Would be possible to try 21,30 and 22,30? exotic but 30 minutes can help both sides maybe?

You're stuck on your obsession with 22h again. Because that wouldn't solve your problem, 21h30 and 22h30 means 23h30 and 20h30, 19h30 and 18h30 etc. etc. as well. And you're stuck with the same problem, you can't expect every race at 21:30 or 22h30. But if the admins think it's worth doubling the available starting slots, why not, it doesn't really change that much though

Edit: check first 7 days of october and tell me who should complain..

Easy: Everybody. The preview came on on the 22nd. I checked it, wrote down the IMO worst things, (but skipped some stuff, we're late anyway, keep it simple)

Instead of starting a debate about general principles, what you need to do is look at the preview, hoping it's on earlier than the 22nd, look at the times, and criticize specific proposals. And then hope that Gipfel sees it, hope that he gives an indication of what he plans to do in the final draft, so that you still can complain if he changes all around to make it worse etc.

Supporter of specific times that should complain? 21h 4x, 22h 3x, 23h 1x, but has Langkawi first. The stronger time, 21h, gets 4, 22h 3. Seems fine. 1-1 on cat 4. 2-0 for 22h in cat 3. 21 then gets the fantasy race (I assume, since ingame it says 21, for the rest I only look at the final PDF, hoping it's final this month...) and 2 cat 2 races. Maybe would have been better if for the cat 3 it would have been split, but ok, doesn't seem to be a big problem for me. Don't see anybody who should specifically complain in the evening. Earlier maybe 19 can be unhappy? Also Münsterland Giro fans, 8-17... one "off time" ok, but 2? 9/10-17 better, or then 8-18

If you look at the whole month, 21 has reason to complain though, 22h, again,as we established, the weaker time, gets the 2 more important stage races, 21h only the 4 day fantasy race nobody really cares about. Here Libya and Pavé same time, Guangxi the other would be more sensible. Ok, with Libya coming in late, we couldn't complain about that, in the original preview Guangxi was at 21. One example where Gipfel adapted (Libya and Netherlands in) and then adapted something else (Guangxi times) and the result is worse than the preview. Without any kind of communication about that change before it was made final, and I repeat, worse.

The one thing that is critical is when there is a tour at 22h, and then we fear to not have the number for 5 parallel races. Then often the last race is at 21h, which is indeed early. We can add 22h some days, but then it's 18/19/20-22, 2 problems, 1 double 22, which is ok sometimes, but generally for a parallel race a different time is better. Second problem of course that then 21 doesn't get anything that day. And yes, it's a uniquely strong time that needs immediate protection from 22h Or then add 23h.
You have any sensible solution to that? Only one I can think of is demand less 22h stage races, more 21h, to have the last one day races offered at 22h more often. (But it still could then be 21-23 on some days)

[Radunion]

Here are my stats for Jan. - Sep. (total number of editions and average number of teams, splits count as two editions). For tours there were two splits, both at 20 h, which biases the GT participation numbers a bit. Morning and afternoon is still a bit worse than the evening and there is a case for less 18 h tours. For one-day-races, 20 h looks really strange.
tours:

Screenshot From 2026-09-30 22-07-03.png (47.77 KiB) Viewed 672 times

one-day races:

Screenshot From 2026-09-30 22-04-27.png (76.05 KiB) Viewed 672 times

I guess we could move the discussion but as the calendar is already final it should be fine here.