While Omloop Eve is drawing ever closer, there were some rumblings over on my 5 to watch post over the last week about a possible U-25 VDS league. I jumped all over the idea (originally proposed by Lopex) and created a spreadsheet and a few simple rules. I will task myself with all of the score keeping as a lot of the scoring relies on the FSA DS scores but all of this will be explained in full.

The whole purpose of this game is to give some of these younger guys some attention. All riders 4 points and above are excluded from this game. No Sagan, EBH, Phinney, etc. I want to give a the spotlight to younger guys who aren't priced quite as high but still have a ton of talent...Trust me, it will be fun!

With that, lets go to the flip and get all this explained! =]

Riders List

Here is a link to the spreadsheet

Please let me know if there are any mistakes...The age limit is that the riders must have been born on 2/25/1987 (Omloop Day) or after to be able to make the cutoff. I originally had it to where they had to of been born after 10/15/1987 but this adds a few more riders to the mix. If you want to add any continental riders, just ask and I will make the necessary changes.

Rules

There are not a lot of them...in fact, there are only 3 simple rules

1. You have 13 POINTS with which you can choose your 10 RIDERS.

This amount is specified so that you may choose up to 3 two (2) point riders and fill in the rest of your team with 1 pointers.

2. You must use at least 4 riders from Professional Continental teams

I'm sure gs will love to include all of her Topsport and Landbouwkrediet boys

3. You must use riders from 5 different countries

Example: You can have 6 Belgians but to make a valid team you need to have riders from 4 other countries to complete your roster.

The last two rules are to get more variety within teams and again, to get some lesser known riders to be picked up.

Scoring

For scoring, FSA DS points will apply for this game. Creating and keeping my own scoring system would be too much work at this point. I am wanting to give this game some excitement though so I am adding a bonus points system for the top U-25 racers for each FSA DS calendar race.

Here is said bonus system:

Grand Tours

Stage: 30

Overall: 150, 100, 75

Monuments & Worlds

100, 75, 50

Top Stage Races

Stages: 20

Overall: 60, 40, 20

Top Classics

50, 30, 10

Best of the Rest

Stages: 10

Overall: 50, 25, 10

One Day: 25

Minor Stages

Stages: 5

Overall: 25, 10, 5

One Day: 15

Example: If Juraj Sagan was to win a Giro d'Italia Stage...his 80 FSA DS points for the stage win would be counted plus 30 bonus points for being the first U-25...so 110 overall for his win.

Please please let me know about this bonus point system...I just want to make sure that it isn't skewed to far in one direction or one set of races or if I need to increase/decrease for some races.

How to submit

Send an email to u25vds@yahoo.com...make sure you follow the simple 3 rules.

Choose 10 riders with 13 points...Make sure you:

1) Have a maximum of 3 two (2) point riders

2) Have at least 4 riders from Professional Continental teams

3) Have at least 5 different nationalities represented

IMPORTANT: Submissions will be taken until 9 p.m. Eastern US time on Friday, February 24th! You have 10 days =]

If there are any questions, please let me know!

P.S. FrenchKheldar just reminded me of something...Don't forget a team name when submitting!