With a trainer you can train your cyclists on a certain skill. You can choose per cyclist on which skill he will be trained.
To hire a (new) trainer, click on 'Training' in the table menu. Then click 'Hire new trainer' on your right.
If you would like to buy a trainer, there are seven skills for him to choose, ranging from 0 to 15. You have to train the trainer yourself if you want a higher skill.
The higher the number in a skill for your trainer, the better he will train your cyclists in that skill (if you have selected that particular skill for that cyclist). If you have a 20 flat trainer, your cyclists will develop faster on their flat skill than if you've got a 5 flat trainer.
However, the more skillful your trainer is, the more expensive he will be. So think carefully about the skills you want to train.
You will only train your cyclists at the skill you decide to train them on. That means you can only train one skill at a time per cyclist.
Training update is on Sunday evening, at 8pm. Your cyclists will raise in the skill selected for training. The amount of the raise will depend on your trainer's ability in the specific skill. In addition to the skill raise each cyclist in your team gains 20% fitness (up to a maximum 100%).
If you have selected fitness training, your cyclist will gain 20% fitness automatically + extra fitness due to training, depending on the fitness skill of your trainer. (For example: If you have a 10 fitness trainer, your cyclist will gain (20% + 10%=) 30% fitness, if you have selected fitness training.)
Cyclist who are injured do not receive training or improve in fitness. However, the moment a cyclist is healthy again, he will be back at 100% fitness, regardless what his fitness was during the time of injury.
The speed at which a skill improves varies greatly and depends on a number of elements. The value of the skill itself, for example. Training a skill from 5 to 6 goes a lot faster than training a skill from 15 to 16.
Talented cyclists will also gain skills faster than other, not so talented ones. Talent is determined by the future ability of the cyclist's skill. For more information about future ability, read the 'youthscout' section.
Future ability is a very important factor, but only when the skill has reached a minimum of 7. For skills lower than 7, future ability won't have any impact on the training. Once the skill has reached a value of 7, the cyclist's FA for the skill will be taken into account and this will determine if the cyclist is really talented enough to improve further.
Each skill has its own FA, so if you notice your cyclist not improving fast enough after reaching 7, there's a good chance that his talent lies elsewhere and you should consider training another skill. FA is different for flat, hill, mountain and downhill (40 points are randomly divided over these skills). TT and sprint are fixed at 15 both.
Age is also another important factor; a younger cyclist will develop faster than an older one. The skills of cyclists older than 35 years can go down, depending on their trainer, trainers mood, future ability of the cyclists etc. If those factors are high enough, the cyclist will keep on improving. But it might also be possible that old cyclists train slower, don't improve anymore or even lose skills.
Retirement There is a chance each season change that your old riders will retire.
On his 36th birthday => 1/16 chance to retire
On his 37th birthday => 2/16 chance to retire
On his 38th birthday => 4/16 chance to retire
On his 39th birthday => 8/16 chance to retire
On his 40th birthday => 16/16 chance to retire
If your cyclist reaches a next skill level, you will get a notification of your assistant in the 'News' section. Don't expect your cyclists to 'pop' every week. It takes at minimum 5 or 6 weeks (and sometimes up to 11 weeks) to reach a new skill level in the best circumstances.
Trainer Training
It is possible to train your trainer in any skill for a cost of 10.000€ for each training session. The trainer will increase in the trained skill by 1 point each session. The maximum for each skill is 20, if you train a trainer in a skill where their level is already 20 there will be no benefit.
Trainer Skill Decreases
After fixed periods of time the trainer will lose maximum 5 skill points in any skill, with a bottom limit of 15. In other words, a trainer with no skill above 15 points won't lose any points and a skill can't drop lower than 15.
A skill will decrease every season (16 weeks) after you hired the trainer.
Two examples:
- A trainer has 20 flat, 20 mountain and 10 fitness. So either flat or mountain will be lowered with 5 points, the fitness skill will not be taken into account as the difference is too high.
- A trainer has 18 flat, 20 mountain and 15 fitness. All three skills will now be taken into account, because fitness is within a range of 5 skill points. If flat is lowered, it will be lowered with only 3 points as a skill can't be lowered under 15.
Training (from in-game Announcement 9/30/2011)
We thought it would be helpful to explain some of the (new) concepts of training.
The biggest change compared to the old version is the FA or Future Ability. In the old version, FA was a hidden skill for cyclists that determined how fast they train skills. A form of 'talent', you could say. The FA still exists today, but now there is a different FA for each primary skill. This means that while a cyclist might have a bad FA for the mountain skill, he could still have a good FA for the flat skill. In the old version, you would have been stuck with one FA for all skills.
Another important change, related to this FA, is the speed at which cyclists gain skills. We have significantly increased the training speed of skills with a low value: any skill with a value below 7 will train as if the cyclist had an FA value of 20! Once the skill is at 7, the cyclist's own FA for that skill will be used.
Since you don't know the FA, there is always a risk you're training a skill that the cyclist isn't talented in. But this way, the skill can be trained at least to a value of 7. This will be important for the new race engine, that will be used from season 2 onwards (more on this in a later announcement). In this new engine, having a cyclist who is good in multiple skills will be important to get good results.
In the past, it was usually sufficient to have a high flat or mountain skill, and other skills were neglected most of the time. As this will change with the new engine, we wanted to promote the training of cyclists in more than just one skill.
Finally, we would also like to mention again that you can only hire trainers (and scouts) with a maximum skillvalue of 15. You can improve their skills by training them. Per week of training, the trained skill will increase with 1 point. But please take also into account that the wages are also recalculated every week, according to the current skillvalues. So make sure that you can afford to train your staff, especially in terms of wages! Wages of trainers and youthscouts can increase rapidly, especially when their skills become very high.
If there are still some things unclear or you have additional questions, you are free to ask on the forum