Pro Cycling Manager 2012 Diary: Recap and Conclusions

Going in, I knew that this year Tour de France was ill-suited to the abilities of my Radioshack Nissan Trek, mainly because of the 100 kilometers of time trial which favored riders like Cadel Evans and Bradley Wiggins.

I also had bad luck, with one early injury taking away Fabian Cancellara, my main time trial rider and one solid helper for the mountains, who also wore the Yellow Jersey for seven days in the real world.

Later on the bad luck was compounded by bad choices from me as manager of the team, mainly when it came to laying the ground work for the final attacks on mountain stages.

In two stages I failed to adequately bring water to my main riders before the big climbs of the stage and there was also a moment when I lost time protecting my leader, Frank Schleck, rather than aggressively responding to the attacks of my rivals.

Despite this, I managed to get one mountain top finish and two, rather surprisingly, sprint victories for my team, which is a good performance considering the circumstances.

On the one hand, I could have done much better and I often though back at the stages to see how I could have improved my performance.

On the other hand, the way I rode Le Tour de France with Radioshack Nissan Trek was very similar to how the real world could have done it if they chose to use a line-up similar to mine.

This is a good sign for those who love cycling and simulation games because if shows that Pro Cycling Manager 2012 has a solid grasp on the fundamentals of the sport and allows fans to live their dreams and, within the realm of possibility, change the way the big races happened in the real world.