This is a continuation of a thought I had during this morning's stage. What would be the interest in having a full year Virtual DS competition?
My idea is to include a number of races like The three Grand Tours, mini stage races like, Paris-Nice, Rundfahrt, Swiss, BeNeLux, Tirreno-Adriatico, Crit International, Dauphine-Libere and Romandie.
I would have all the classics and some of the semi classics like, Het Volk, La Fleche, Ghent Welegem, Paris Tours as well as the WC's Elite men's TT and Road Race. Grand Tour winners would receive maximum points, Classics would be about 75-80%, moni stage races would be about 60% and semi-classics would be good for 50%.
We would pick teams of say 18 riders, and whenever your guys race, it would count toward your overall as well as race or stage results. Rather than building a team just for Grand Tours you would want to pick sprinters, one day racers and mini tour specialists. I have thought about a mid season transfer period (or more), but only if you lose a rider due to injury or suspension. My thoughts are if you laid out half your budget on Boonen and he's out after week one, you wouldn't have much interest in the rest of the season. This isn't fantasy football. There's no active/inactive list. No trades because you can pick who you want just like in the TDF or Vuelta VDS. I would also say that we would need a few volunteers to run this, since it could be pretty time consuming. I would propose that we update the results after each race or once a week during the spring when there's a bunch of races going on at once. There's a lot to consider and I'm only proposing the framework here. Thoughts?