The 'Posse plans on returning.

62RZ22: Con
62RZ23: Aus
62RZ24: Aus
Taiwos, Senator for Belacosta

Azul everyone, May has rolled around and you all know what that means - it's TCAT time! Welcome to season 5 of the Talossan Cycling Association Tour, starting as usual with the first of three legs playing out in Italy (except for some reason the first three stages are happening abroad, this time in Bulgaria.)

All Talossans are heartily invited to sign their teams up! Team registrations are now open, and instructions follow below.

Deadline

The deadline for entries to be submitted is 12:45 CEST (Cézembre Summer Time) / 05:45 (AM) TDT (Talossan Daylight Time) on Friday 8th May, 2026.


How to register

Step 1: Create a Velogames account

If you already have a Velogames account you can proceed with step 2.
You can create a Velogames account by going to velogames.com -> log in -> click here to register

Step 2: Register your team

While logged in to Velogames, go to the following page: https://www.velogames.com/italy/2026/entryform.php

Here you can submit your team. After submitting your team you can still make changes to your team up until the deadline! On your team page, which you can find by clicking visit team, you can also change your team name and jersey.

Step 3: Join the Talossan Cycling Association Tour

After you set up your team you can go to your team page (visit team) and under team management there should be a button called join league. There you can join the Talossan Cycling Association Tour by entering the following league code: 639289433

(You can access league scores and/or view who's signed up here: https://www.velogames.com/italy/2026/leaguescores.php?league=639289433)


Team information

Each team needs to consist of 9 riders, with a combined total cost of up to 100 credits. These need to include 2 all rounders, 2 climbers, 1 sprinter, 3 unclassified riders, and 1 wildcard (which can be any category).

Generally, the credits assigned to the riders are pretty close to the consensus expection of how these riders will perform. This means it is possible to do well without much research, though of course if you do want to research your team there are many resources online, such as ProCyclingStats, various preview sites, bookmakers, and the youtube channel Ow Do Cycling. It is possible to use less than 100 credits, but this is usually not advisable.

A full list of participating riders, categories and credits can be found here. These should be mostly definitive, but should any of your picks drop out before the deadline without you noticing, Velogames will autoreplace them.


Scoring & Rules

The rules for the competition can be found here. Note that we are only focused on the classic competition: 1 team that stays the same throughout the race.

The scoring system can be found here. Points are assigned daily for stage results, intermediate sprints, categorised summits, participating in breakaways, daily classification standings, and team assist points; and furthermore, a sizable chunk of points will be assigned based on the final classifications.

62RZ22 Contra
62RZ23 Abstain
62RZ24 Abstain

GV, Fiova

I have another coming out soon!

Today we posted again the amazing one-minute video crafted by our Seneschal about the history of our Kingdom, on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky and r/micronations

The goal of any Ziu reform should be to increase transparency in government and to give back power to the people, instead of centralising it in party bigwigs. Party lists are a simple way of ensuring transparency (even if the current laws concerning off-listers are way too lax), but still rest all power in the bigwigs as Françal rightfully pointed out.

I personally champion a form of Sequential Proportional Approval Voting as a voting system that is partyless, fair, and easy to explain and implement (feel free to ask me if you want to hear details), but any reform that furthers the principles of transparency and returning power to the people will do. Conversely, any reform idea that seeks to systematically deceive voters and trick them into helping people into power against the popular will is dead on arrival.

The Chancery is happy to await the outcome of His Majesty's request for an advisory opinion, and to revisit its decision if necessary.

I should restate/clarify that, of the 20 seats to be reassigned, while being unable to allocate all of them as directed by the Seneschal, the Chancery has nonetheless given 2 to Moinul Moin out of the 7 he was slated to receive, as he had been initially appointed as a Member of the Cosă upon the erroneous preliminary reallocation, and the Chancery believes that retracting such an appointment could potentially inOrganically disenfranchise him from enjoying the rights of that office.

It's even less democratic when the party leader just picks the MCs, unrestricted by any list.

I'm not suggesting we abandon party politics and I'm not explicitly commited to STV, but I'd like for everyone to consider shifting elections to focus more on individual candidates running for office instead of accepting them in bulk on a party list.

We should give the electorate the option to choose which candidate(s) they want to represent them while also forcing the candidates themselves to actually campaign for votes instead of relying on the party to carry them.

How is it democratic when we allow parties to curate who the candidates will be beforehand then present a list of people to the electorate as if to say these are your options, now pick. If John Smith likes MC A from Party 1 but also MC B from Party 2, why shouldn't he have the option to split his vote? What if John Smith doesn't like MC C from Party 1 because, say, they're not a very active public servant? In a party list, he has no choice but to vote for that candidate because he has no other option since Party 1 best represents his vote.

If we allow individuals to run on their own merits, then candidates would be compelled to defend their own ideas, campaign for their own success, and it'd likely discourage anyone who isn't really serious or committed to public service from running.