Starting The Game

When beginning a game, your team will have 12 cyclists and will be placed in the lowest division.

The first time you log in, you might want to check the team news. There will be two messages for you: a welcome message with links to the forum and the Wiki, and a message informing you that your team has a one year contract with a sponsor (one year means one season in Peloton).

Starting teams will always have a sponsor for 1 year. When the next season starts, you will be able to choose a sponsor yourself.

When you are a new player, you might want to go through all the different pages to see the different options and possibilities you have. The number of options and links available might seem overwhelming at first, but once you know the basics it will all make sense. When playing for the first time, it's important not to spend your money too fast. Even though your team will have 300.000€ in the bank (plus the money from the sponsor) and this might seem a lot at first, there are multiple ways to spend this money on and if you are not careful, you might bankrupt your team faster than you think.

Hiring a trainer

One of the first things you should do is hiring a new trainer. They cost a large sum of money, but you will need to improve your cyclists if you want to become successful in the game.

A common mistake made by new players is that they hire a trainer with different low skills, for example one with 5 flat, 5 mountain and 5 sprint. While this means that the trainer can train your cyclists in all three categories, having only a skill of '5' will improve the cyclists not very fast. A better tactic would be to focus on only 1 or 2 skills at first, but with a lot higher skill value. For example, 15 flat and 15 sprint (15 is the maximum when buying a trainer, but the skill can be trained further until 20). Such a trainer costs just as much as one with 2 different skills with only 5 points, but the cyclists will improve a lot faster.

Don't forget your finances, though! A trainer with 10 points for a skill will costs 200.000€ + a weekly wage of almost 20.000€. The bank balance can go below zero, even as far as -500.000€, but this comes at a price: the bank will charge you intrest costs, and if your balance is very low you won't be able to buy cyclists! When you are below -500.000€ at the weekly update (Sunday evening at 20:00 server time), your team will be declared bankrupt and the game is over.

Other Common Starting Mistakes to Avoid

Your start-up finances are not enough to hire a Youthscout. Don't hire one until you have at least 1.800.000€ available. Be patient…Peloton is a marathon, not a prologue. Hiring a Youthscout at the start of the game is probably the #1 reason teams go Bankrupt.

Something to consider when hiring your Trainer:
- Each initial skill level costs 20.000€. To train a single skill level costs 10.000€. Let's say you plan to have a Level 15 Flat Trainer. Two ways to do that are:

a) Hire a Flat-10 Trainer for 200.000€ (20.000€ x 10) and train him for 5 additional weeks for another 50.000€ (10.000€ x 5) for a total cost of 250.000€.
b) Hire a Flat-5 Trainer for 100.000€ (20.000€ x 5) and train him for 10 additional weeks for another 100.000€ (10.000€ x 10) for a total cost of 150.000€.

This will slow down your training program for the first few weeks of play, but will conserve some funds for other costs.

Try to avoid over-racing your riders. They expend a minimum of 5 points of fitness every day they race - more if you push them on the Tactics page. They only recover 20 points of Fitness every Sunday during the update, so it is easy to have a team of 12 very tired racers after several weeks. You may have to skip a one-day race now and then until you build up a larger squad. Your Trainer will train up to 25 riders at 100% each Sunday, so if you can afford 25, there is no penalty for having them.

Don't forget to set your Training! Check it every weekend before the Sunday Update to be sure it's correct.

Don't forget to check your Supporters before the Sunday Update and ensure you have some Merchandise for them to buy. This is easy income - don't forget.

Ask questions on the Forum!! http://peloton.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=pelotonnewbie

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