Talossan Cycling Association Tour Season 4 Leg 1: Dürres -> Roma

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

Hell yeah! The Cabana Boys kicking PTM down the list and bringing the party to the top three!



Take that Maritiimi-Maxhestic, the only awesome part of your province is the piece of Maricopa they stole during Reunision! That's right, I said it!

I'm coming for you next Belacostă!

[King Txec]

By the way, I love Florida Georgia Line and endorse the photo!!

-Txec R

[Tric'hard Lenxheir]

Someday I hope to understand how the scoring system works LOL

[Glüc]

Stage 12 Modena -> Viadana

The second half of the stage, through Emilia-Romagna and crossing the Po river into Lombardy, posed too few obstacles for the break, which included Pietrobon (GHS), to stay ahead of the peloton. So we got another sprint, and this time it was finally Kooij (REX/DED/EVC/MCB), who managed to win. Pedersen (PTM/GHS/CFA/CHX/BDC) came fourth, Groves (GHS/ATX) fifth and Fretin (BDC) 6th.

The two sprinter teams did well, especially GHST as they scored the most points again due to the combined score of Pedersen and Groves. BdC also did well along with the four Kooij teams.

Standings after stage 12:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	4861	+418
2nd	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	4411	+252
3rd	(=)		Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	4270	+366
4th	(=)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	4136	+267
5th	(+1)		BdC Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	4134	+374
6th	(-1)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4014	+148
7th	(=)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC) (EVC)	3983	+302
8th	(=)		Els Averatxeirs (ATX)	3733	+224
9th	(=)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	3727	+300
10th	(=)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	3653	+260
11th	(+1)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	3402	+299
12th	(-1)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	3253	+124
13th	(=)		Kinetic (KIN)	2983	+101
14th	(=)		The Manilows (MAN)	2751	+90

Finishphoto: Olaf Kooij (in yellow) was the fastest at the line today



Tomorrow's stage to Vincenza at first glance also looks like another one for the sprinters, but upon closer inspection the last kilometer is uphill and far too steep for most pure sprinters and may be more favourable to riders like Pedersen or Van Aert (who appears to be in good form again).

[Glüc]

Someday I hope to understand how the scoring system works LOL

If I have time this weekend, I will probably try to do some overview with examples of how points are scored.

In the meantime, if you're interested,
theres a lot of information about the scoring here: https://www.velogames.com/italy/2025/scores.php
You can find the actual results the scores are based on here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/
And on your team page (in your case https://www.velogames.com/italy/2025/teamroster.php?tid=73043) you can actually find the scores per rider over the various scoring categories and you can also look at the points per stage.

Of course it also a perfectly valid approach to just enjoy the show and see it as a black box where you put in a team and it mysteriously spits out a result.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

I'm coming for you next Belacostă!

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

I'm coming for you next Belacostă!

I laughed way too hard at this LMAO

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 13 Rovigo -> Vicenza

TCAT finally reaches Lücpäts (aka the northeast) with a fairly flat stage... except for a few bumps along the way as the peloton climbed the Euganei and Berici hills. The Marian sanctuary at Monteberico, just outside Vicenza, set the stage for a very steep final sprint, less than 1km long but at 7.6% average gradient.

Mads Pedersen prevailed over Wout van Aert for a fourth stage win this Giro - the two were likely the favourite duo and they didn't disappoint. Also top 10, Roglic, Tiberi and Gee, and seven other TCAT riders placed P14-P20 to also score some stage finish points.

Cyclohexane gets the daily win thanks to Pedersen, Roglic and Tiberi - the only other team with three riders in the top 10 was Kinetic with van Aert, Roglic again and Gee. No big changes in the standings, but PTM and VFL get very close to MCB and BDC respectively. Fieschă and Averatxeirs swap places - the latter looked very good at moments with Vacek following a Bardet attack with only a few kilometers to go, but they were regathered midway through the final climb.

Standings after stage 13:

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	5328	+467
2nd	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	4981	+570
3rd	(=)		Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	4624	+354
4th	(=)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	4614	+478
5th	(=)		BdC Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	4525	+391
6th	(=)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4519	+505
7th	(=)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	4326	+343
8th	(+2)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	4135	+482
9th	(=)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	4077	+350
10th	(-2)		Els Averatxeirs (ATX)	4018	+285
11th	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	3699	+297
12th	(=)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	3519	+266
13th	(=)		Kinetic (KIN)	3468	+485
14th	(=)		The Manilows (MAN)	3158	+407

Finishphoto: Maglia Ciclamino (points classification leader) Mads Pedersen, stage winner, edges out Wout van Aert (yellow jersey). Pink jersey (general classification leader) Isaac del Toro, in the background, finished third.

[Sir Lüc]

Tomorrow the stage looks similar in principle, with a long mostly flat approach all the way from Treviso to a hilly finale straddling the border with Slovenia around Gorizia. The finish itself though is flat, with two laps of a circuit including a short climb similar to today's finale in steepness and length, except the last summit is going to be a whole 8km from the end, so pure sprinters may?could?should? have a chance.

By sheer coincidence I should be in Treviso tomorrow morning, but I have no idea if I'm going to be present at the start. If I am I'm going to post pictures of course.

[Sir Lüc]

Stage 14 Treviso -> Gorizia/Nova Gorica (SLO)

Last weekend, the GC was torn asunder by Tom Pidcock crashing and holding up most of the GC favourites. This weekend, history repeats with a worse outcome: Giulio Ciccone (ATX/CHX/DED/EVC/MCB) sadly abandoned TCAT in a crash that held up most pure sprinters and also nearly all riders with GC ambitions... except for pink jersey Del Toro, Simon Yates, Gee, Poole, Pidcock and Carapaz.

Meanwhile in front, non-TCAT Kasper Asgreen was the lone survivor of a four-man breakaway that formerly included Martin Marcellusi (MCB), hence taking the first solo breakaway win of this year's Giro. Kaden Groves (ATX/GHS) won the sprint for second place among the 16 riders who weren't impacted by the Ciccone crash, with Olav Kooij (REX/DED/EVC/MCB) in third, Gee-Pidcock-Carapaz in seventh to ninth, Poole in eleventh and Simon Yates in sixteenth. Also scoring points, Cjovani's Filippo Fiorelli, nineteenth and first among a minute-delayed group that included Roglic, Ayuso, Arensman and Storer. A further minute more delayed, and taking even more significant blows in GC, a group of riders including Tiberi, Ulissi, Harper and Adam Yates.

Today's winners are the Talossaes Rexhitais, who have Kooij, Gee, Pidcock and Carapaz; close but no cigar for Velocostă (who still gain a place and have fifth within reach). Sadly though, the loss of Ciccone is going to be a problem for many of these resurgent teams, and all but Averatxeirs also have Tiberi, who lost five places in GC today. Cyclohexane was well and truly triple whammied with Adam Yates similarly losing three places and clearly losing his status as a potential Ayuso alternative within UAE to Isaac del Toro - who conversely is in stellar form and is definitely overshadowing his captain.

Standings after stage 14:                                                                     

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	5647	+319
2nd	(=)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	5058	+77
3rd	(=)		Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	5037	+413
4th	(+2)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	4836	+317
5th	(-1)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	4819	+205
6th	(+1)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC)	4814	+488
7th	(-2)		BdC Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	4718	+193
8th	(+2)		Els Averatxeirs (ATX)	4405	+387
9th	(=)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	4382	+305
10th	(-2)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	4245	+110
11th	(=)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	4198	+499
12th	(+1)		Kinetic (KIN)	3770	+302
13th	(-1)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	3742	+223
14th	(=)		The Manilows (MAN)	3287	+129

I did attend the start in Treviso and will be posting pics later!

[Sir Lüc]

I uploaded a selection of pictures I took in Treviso to an Imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/cEw1aLS

I also took many short videos, maybe I'll post some as restday fodder tomorrow.

[Glüc]

Stage 15 Fiume Veneto -> Asagio

A surprising outcome today after the chaos of yesterday. As mentioned by Lüc, Ciccone (DED/CHX/ATX/EVC/MCB) did not appear at the start today. A massive setback for the teams involved. We're back in Italy today, in the northeastern region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a very familiar region for one of your TCAT commentators. We're heading back to Veneto for a medium mountain stage with first category Monte Grappa along the way.

The stage started with a big break. They never got that much time however and on the Monte Grappa there was an attack out of the group of favourites including Del Toro, Arensman (REX/BDC), Carapaz (PTM/VFL/REX/EVC/MCB) and Gee (REX/KIN/ATX/EVC). The attack didn't succeed, weirdly because teammates of Del Toro were pulling the chase, but the resulting acceleration in the group of favourites resulted in the gap with break getting smaller and eventually they were caught, but not after Fortunato (GHS) got another heap of KOM points on Monte Grappa. More attacks followed and a new break formed, including Scaroni (REX/DED/EVC), Bardet (CJO/PTM) and Fiorelli (CJO). This break succeeded, with Scaroni being the first TCAT rider across the line in third place. Behind them it was surprisingly Roglic (CJO/PTM/GHS/CFA/DED/MAN/CHX/KIN/MCB) who struggled and lost time, along with Pidcock (CJO/VFL/REX/DED/KIN/BDC/EVC) and Ulissi (REX/ATX/EVC). Both Roglic and Pidcock dropped 5 places in GC. Roglic is now nearly 4 minutes behind on Del Toro, which makes it unlikely the favourite at the start will take home the pink Jersey in the end.

Els Talossaes Rexhitais scored the most points today. Velocostă are in an unfortunate position now as without Ciccone they cannot score more points than REX on any future stage, since the remaining 8 riders are shared by the teams. (They could still technically win overall as long as they are ahead of REX in the standings and Arensman doesn't score enough points to bridge the gap.) Still they scored the second most points today and climb to the fourth place in the standing. Cyclohexane had a bad day and lost their second place to the Cabana Boys. However, without Ciccone it will be difficult for both teams to keep their spot on the podium. GHST keep a comfortable lead, but with relatively few riders at the top of the GC standings they could still lose on end of tour points, so it's not decided just yet.

Standings after stage 15:
 

Pos	±		Team	Pts Ove	Pts Today
1st	(=)		Gordon Hiatus Support Team (GHS)	5858	+211
2nd	(+1)		Maricopa Cabana Boys (MCB)	5200	+163
3rd	(-1)		Cyclohexane (CHX)	5153	+95
4th	(+2)		Esqipă Velocostă (EVC) (EVC)	5143	+329
5th	(=)		Port Maxhestic AC (PTM)	5108	+289
6th	(-2)		Velociposse Florencia (VFL)	5024	+188
7th	(=)		BdC Caçeirs dals Mailintzarăs (BDC)	4882	+164
8th	(+1)		Dirnalaiset Mortescu (DED)	4607	+225
9th	(-1)		Els Averatxeirs (ATX)	4581	+176
10th	(+1)		Els Talossaes Rexhitais (REX)	4539	+341
11th	(-1)		Cézembre Fieschā (CFA)	4366	+121
12th	(+1)		Naziun Cjovani (CJO)	4057	+315
13th	(-1)		Kinetic (KIN)	3926	+156
14th	(=)		The Manilows (MAN)	3418	+131

Tomorrow: rest day. Hopefully some time to more thoroughly answer Tric'hards question and also have a look at the current standings in the various classifications as we enter the final week.

[Glüc]

Right, a quick restday refresher on points, a look at the current standings and a look ahead to the final week.

During a grand tour, riders, both individually and as part of a team of 9 try to compete for winning one or more of the 21 stages and winning several classification, with the winner of the general classification, whoever completes the grand tour in the least amount of time, being considered the overall individual winner.

For TCAT points are scored by the 9 riders in the following ways, which can be divided in three basic categories:

Stage points
*Stage result
*Breakaway points
*Intermediate sprints
*Summits
*Assist points (stage winners)

Daily classification points
* Daily general classification
* Daily points classification
* Daily king of the mountains classification
* Daily assist points (team classification)
* Daily assist points (general classification)

End of tour points
* General classification
* Points classification
* King of the mountain classification
* Assist points (Team classification)


(1/5)

[Glüc]

Stage points
Every stage, the most points, 220, are awarded to the rider who crosses the finishline first, who is considered the winner of the stage. The rest of the stage top 20 also get points, but fewer obviously.

For example, if we look at the points gained by Dirnalaiset Mortescu in stage 15 we can look at the result of the stage here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15 and see that one DED rider finished in the top 20:
Scaroni, who finished in third place, scoring 160 points.
The remaining DED riders finished outside of the top 20.

DED stage 15 points: 160

However, points can also be scored along the way; to encourage riders to ride a bit more actively the giro awards points for the points classification to the winners of three intermediate sprints. Specifically in the giro the top 3 of the last of these also gets a small time reduction for the general classification. 15 velogames points are awarded to the winner of each of these sprints, with the top 3 also getting points.
As we can see here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15-points if you click on "today" DED rider Kooij came third in the first of these sprints and scores 5 velogames points.

DED intermediate sprint points: 5

Riders can also score points for the King of the Mountains classification by being the first to pass several summits, which are categorised by the difficulty of the climb leading up to them. 15 velogames points are awared to the first on category 1 summits, with the top 5 also getting points. (30 points are awarded to the winner of the Colle delle Finestre in stage 20). Here (click "today") https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15-kom you can see there was one cat 1 summit in stage 15 where Scaroni passed in third place, which scores 6 velogames points

DED summit points: 6

Then, velogames awards teams who pick attacking riders by giving 20 velogames points to any rider who is in the break (defined as a front group with 30 or fewer riders at least 5 seconds ahead of the peloton) at the halfway mark of the stage. No DED riders were in the front group at the halfway mark.

DED breakaway points: 0

Finally many riders don't actually ride to win the stage themselves but to help their teammates*. Therefore, velogames also awards a maximum of 8 points to riders whose teammates finish in the top 3 of a stage (provided the teammates do finish the stage themselves). Ciccone is a teammate of the stagewinner of stage 15 Verona. However, as Ciccone didn't start the stage, DED gets no points for that.

DED assist points (stage winners): 0

DED therefore scored 160 + 5 + 6 = 171 points from the stage itself. However, as we can see DED actually received 225 points yesterday, so we're still missing some points.

_{*Obviously these teams are completely fictional and the only real teams are the teams from the Talossan Cycling Association Tour}

(2/5)

[Glüc]

Daily classification points

Apart from winning stages the other goal of many grand tour riders is to win in one of the classifications, each represented by a particular coloured jersey. The overall winner is determined after 21 stage, but during each stage the current leader in a classification will wear the corresponding jersey and also get velogames points after every stage.

The most important classification is the general classification, which for the Italian leg of TCAT is represented by the maglia rosa, the pink jersey. The general classification is determined by adding the times of each stage (minus any time deductions won in sprints), which determines the overall winner of the tour. Winning a lot of stages doesn't guarantee a win in the GC as winning at the very end in a sprint doesnt gain you many seconds while you can easily lose minutes on a long climb or a Time Trial. To win the GC a rider needs to perform consistently and this usually favours climbers who can also time trial. The person leading GC gets a daily bonus of 30 velogame points with the top 20 also getting daily points.

As we can see here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15-gc Dirnalaiset Mortescu currently has 3 riders in the top 20: Tiberi in 7th place, which scores 14 daily points, Roglic in 10th place, which scores 11 daily points and Pidcock in 16th place, which scores 5 daily points.

DED daily GC points: 14 + 11 + 5 = 30

To win the GC you need a strong team to support you. Therefore teammates of the top 3 in GC are also awarded a maximum of 8 daily points. DED has two teammates of the current number 2 in GC in their team: Kooij and Affini. They both get 4 daily assist points.

DED daily assist points (General classification): 4 + 4 = 8

One of the two important side classificaton is the points classification, which is represented in the Italian leg by the maglia ciclamino, the mauve(?) jersey. Points are won based on a riders position in a stage finish, with more points being awarded for flat stages, and on various intermediate sprints. This classification favours sprinters, who have a fast finish which allows them to score points. The current leader in the PC gets 12 daily velogames points with the top 6 also getting points.

DED has currently one rider in the top 6 PC: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15-points. This is Kooij, who is currently in second place, which scores 8 daily points

DED daily PC points: 8

A third classification is the King of the Mountains classification, which is represented in the Italian leg by the maglia azzurra, the blue jersey. Points for the KOM classification are scored by being the first rider to arrive at various summits. This classification favours pure climbers with an attacking style, because they need to be in front during mountain stages, not just at the finish. The current leader in the KOM gets 12 daily velogames points with the top 6 also getting points.


DED has currently one rider in the top 6 KOM: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15-kom. This is Scaroni, who is currently in fifth place, which scores 2 daily points

DED daily KOM points: 2

Finally, there is the teams classification, which is a bit confusing, but it's basically adding the times of the top 3 riders of each team for each stage. Riders whose team is in the top 3 of the team classification get a maximum of 8 daily assist points. You can find the team classification here: https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/giro-d-italia/2025/stage-15-teams-gc. DED has one rider in the currently first placed team and 1 in the currently 3rd placed team, scoring 6 daily points total.

DED daily assist points (Team classification): 4 + 2 = 6

This results in the DED being awarded
30 + 8 + 8 + 2 + 6 = 54 daily points.

171 stage points + 54 daily classification points = 225 points, which is exactly the amount of points DED received yesterday.

Of course, the real point of these classifications isn't to be leading them halfway through the competition, but to win in the end...

(3/5)