All Things Vital Downhill Fantasy

Spomer has to take extra time to rig it for me to place better cuz I absolutely bombed this round. All my underdogs went full underdog and a lot of the ol reliables held their ground this round. I'm just hopin everyone struggled about as much as I did...

Any update sspomer? 

Omg top 20 this round.   😮

It looks like that was the case. I also did poorly in elites but I still got 78th in the round and moved up in overall.

@sspomer Thanks!!!! Hope you had a good weekend brother.

Bad news:

I did kind of shit

Good news:

We all did kinda shit

Great news:

I'm virtually tied for points with sspomer for the second half of the season 

Kicking myselff; I had Goldstone and Hemstreet similar to the winner of the round, and swapped them out at the last second for a ton of cheaper riders. There were just so many low priced riders in the finals, I couldn't resist.

OOF i ate absolute dog sh!t, but ya luckily seems like almost everyone else did too. average and best possible score are very low. it was definitely a 'winners win' round, i guess experience helps, and almost none of the underdogs performed. sorry Zwar! lol

you can tell the usual strats didn't work because i didn't fall massively in rank despite such a crap performance. meaning people ahead of me probly struggled as well. and it was more so people low on rank that made some good gains if they went with the ol reliables. well played! on to da next 

I totally forgot about this. Just did my first week. 30th this week. We’ll see how much ground I can make up. lol!

I just figured out today that I won fantasy round 5! Still only 343rd overall, but it was a thrill to get first place for the round. 🤩

That was a great 15-rider roster. An economical win. I'd say that was the hardest round to do well in so far, and the average and best possible scores kinda reflect that. There weren't a lot of sniper underdog picks showing out in finals.

Alright spill the beans boys. Who is going Goldstone this round? I think he could easily 5peat. That being said, we've seen in previous rounds where he came in 1st place and the highest scoring team did not have him. Obviously it only takes a few cheap underdogs placing well to be a better deal, but placing all your eggs in one basket is also a risk. 

Obviously it's not a bad bet, but I never take Jacko. Cuz he's not like a 2nd place price guy or a 3rd place price guy going first... He's the most expensive pick on the roster going first. So despite the odds he wins, it's still pure risk in terms of... What else you could do with that 200k+ (As well as a single mechanical robbing you of 200k+, hence the diversify yo bondz method of just picking more riders.)

Also, even if you pick a good team, I'd assume a lot of other people are picking Jacko and then filling their rosters so ultimately you're more likely to just tie with other people in the top 5-10 or whatever. Gotta try to set your roster apart if possible.

Timed training always gaslights me because you see a lot of underdogs 'goin fast' but come qualies that tends to change pretty quick. The experienced vets know to build through out the week, and trust their race day speed in general.

So far not seeing a TON of opportunities to make a buck. It's been slightly in order in so far as expensive riders goin fast and cheap riders goin slow. Just thru TT. But as always the elite mens is gonna get exciting. On top of the fact that this is a shorter, smoother, almost flatter track... It doesn't suit Jacko's advantages even with a lead brick strapped to the bike. But I still think he takes it lol

Sooo... What's the call here Spomer? 

(juniors cancelled)

Sorry you have to deal with this :/

Recommend keeping everything as-is, same cut-offs and no changes, so people who are closely following race weekend are rewarded!

Well I can see... Keeping the format such that everyone has a lil deficit with juniors having to pick the cheapest ones so the system checks out.

But... Should juniors be earning points this round knowing it's just a win for whoever bothers to do the math? (This is big 'if the junior women hit the drop I HAVE to hit the drop even if I don't want to do it' energy lmao)

I'm kinda a fan of... Force people to pick one cheap junior so the system works, and then let them go ham on elites picks, that way you don't have to change anything... I'd assume there is enough time for everyone on a Friday evening to make relevant changes? (So every one has an 18k deficit from junior picks not earning points.) But I don't know what the back end of it actually looks like, for Spomer. I'm assuming it would be easy to just say 'all juniors earn 0 points' and elites earn points as normally, and the only sh!tty bit is everyone has a (negligible) 18k deficit to start. Since a single pick in each cat is needed to save team.

Oh wow. For anyone who didn't get the memo:

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/qualifying-results-decide-finals-as-junior-racing-cancelled-at-the-andorra-dh-world-cup-2024.html

Watching this thread for further updates. Obviously a lot of us in here are keenly interested in attempting to win rounds/overall.

And just to be clear, as of now I'm just leaving my team as is until Spomer makes a decision. But props to anyone who runs the numbers on the entire junior field from qualies results to calculate max gain lol

I ain't gonna bother, particularly if it comes to pass that they are taken out of the fantasy for 'finals'

Could still be pretty interesting... Maximize the points with juniors and go for some wild picks in elites or just bring in a couple hundred points as a cheap bonus and go pretty much as normal. In total 795 points are awarded to juniors and with some finesse you could pretty easily pick up 500 points and still have some decent cash to gamble with in elite.

Exciting round either way, I feel like some absolute carnage is about to go down in finals.

FANTASY UPDATE

Due to extreme weather hitting Andorra tomorrow (Sat., July 12th), the UCI has decided to cancel Junior Men's and Women's racing. That means the qualifying results from today stand as the final results. 

Despite the cancellation, Vital Fantasy will carry on as usual—one rider from each category must be picked to submit a team. Points for Junior riders will be allocated based on their result in qualifying today, which is now considered the Final results from the weekend. 

I'll let everyone sort out strategy on how to pick Juniors since the results are already known. We know this isn't the ideal situation, but this was the best option due to the circumstances and timeline. Let us know if there are any questions. There is still 10+ hours to submit a Fantasy Team.

Official statement from the UCI via Instagram:

Due to the latest weather forecast from the Andorra Government, indicating electrical storms with lightning predicted, the schedule for the UCI Downhill World Cup on Saturday 12 July 2025, will not proceed as planned.

The revised race schedule is as follows:

• 8:00-9:00 AM CET: Combined downhill training session – Elite only

• 10:00 AM CET: UCI Downhill World Cup – Women Elite

• 11:00 AM CET: UCI Downhill World Cup – Men Elite

The Finals of the Junior UCI Downhill World Cup are cancelled. Following the article 4.11.010 of UCI Regulations, if the final cannot take place due to unforeseen circumstances, the last qualifying round determines the final result.

This safety decision has been made by the UCI, WBD Sports, and the local organizers to ensure the welfare of athletes, teams, marshals, volunteers, spectators, and everyone involved in the event.

LOC officials will begin mountain evacuation from 1pm CET.

Please ensure your personnel are safely indoors and that your tents and equipment across the paddock area are secure. 

The Elite UCI Downhill World Cup races will be streamed live on digital platforms (HBO Max, discovery+, TNT Sports, Eurosport and MTBWS TV). More information on Where to Watch is available on ucimtbworldseries.com. The cross-country training schedule remains unchanged (9:00 AM – 12:00 PM tomorrow). Further updates will be communicated if there is any deterioration in the weather that affects this revised schedule.

(dusts off my TI-84)

welp, 'if ya cant beat em join em'?

(Edit: while doing this, I feel like you don't need to bother cuz its almost directly related to pick trend which means everyone is doing it, which means you're only ever gonna tie everyone else doing this lol... dunno, we'll see)

I have 8 hours to figure out cost to points value vs possible points to cost.  🤣🤣

just ratio of points earned per dollar spent (basically assuming the qualies results will be the finals results, which never happens)

the points payouts can be found on the UCI results sheets. they're kinda wonky. every category spread them differently.

Alright I'm done. Trying to squeeze blood from a stone at this point of optimization. Good luck everyone, hopefully we get a sick race!!! 

Once I looked at the results there wasn't like a Jr who costs 10k who is set nice points haul.  

Ya it's not too surprising but the money is in the elites right now. There are a couple junior picks to round out your field, especially since we already know they will pay out. But if the elites were to finish as they qualy there are WAY more lucrative picks in those fields, unsurprisingly. Also they won't finish as the qualy, but we'll see lol

I think I'm done rollin underdogs in elite mens. I dunno if it was payin out in the early rounds but it just aint workin last 2 rounds. I think the experienced guys are really showing out later in the season.

Still love how unpredictable DH is. No matter what nerdy calculations you do on min-max fantasy values.