Rules

[Garfield]

Summary
This is a fantasy league in which you take over one of 20 World Tour teams, then bid for up to 30 riders in a series of auctions, and give them multi-year contracts within your total salary cap.

Salary Cap
Each team can spend €5M per year on salaries.

FA Bidding
Bids are in format of total contract value. The minimum bid is €30k and the minimum increment is 10% (or 5% for bids starting from €2M) of the last bid, rounded up to the nearest €10k. Incorrect (too low) bids will be automatically understood as the lowest correct bid. Note that the number of years does not need to be listed until the bid is won. The resulting salary will be the final bid divided by number of years, rounded up to the next €10k. The winning bid will be the highest total contract amount.

Each player is auctioned in a separate thread at the ProFSL website that may be started by anyone, but please follow the template. There is no limit to the number of players that can be auctioned at one time or the number of bids for a player. You cannot at any point make bids that (if all successful) would take you over 30 riders, would exceed the salary cap, or would leave you with less than €30k per neo-pro you have already drafted. A bid on a player is considered final when it has been no post in the thread for 48 hours. This means that no other GM has bid higher on the player of interest.

Contracts
Bidding will be done for players before the league starts and as well as during free agency each following winter. You will be bidding on the whole amount of the contract. Example: If a team bids €3M for Cadel Evans, then that declares that the entire value of his contract is €3M, and they can still choose between 1 year €3M, 2 years €1.5M per, or 3 years €1M per. If he retires earlier, tough luck. Contract guidelines are:   

Salary range, Maximum Years
€200k or less (per year)   = 1 year
€210k - €990k  = 2 years (that's why you see so many "420k" bids)
€1M or higher = 3 years (that's why you see so many "3m" bids)

The highest bidder has the right to further increase the offered amount of money, if e.g. it lets him offer a longer contract.
He should post his wish here directly after the auction expires.

Example:  Astana sign Andy Schleck for €2.4M. Based on this amount, they are only able to sign him to a contract up to 2 years, because if Andy's total salary was broken down over 3 years, it would only be €800k per year, not the €1M that is required for a 3 year contract.  Nevertheless, if the bid was won at €2.4M then a higher total contract amount can be awarded. In this case, even after the auction is over, Astana can decide to increase the final bid to €3M and sign a 3-year, €1M contract.

Neo-pro draft
Neo-pro is a u23 rider who never spent a full season on a WT or pro-conti team. Only neo-pros are eligible for draft, and no neo-pros can be bought in an auction until the draft is complete.

The draft consists of 2 rounds in snake order. The lower you finished the previous season, the better your 1st round pick. Exceptions: the team who won the Prediction game gets the first pick, while a new team entering the game gets the last 1st round pick (and consequently the first 2nd round pick).

1st round picks are signed to guaranteed 2-year contracts. 2nd round picks - 2nd year is optional. All salaries are €30k.

You have 48 hours to make your pick by replying in the respective thread. Your clock starts ticking after the preceding pick, a post forfeiting said pick (which is allowable in order to save money and roster space), or right after the previous clock expires (which equals automatically forfeiting that pick).

Trades
A teams can at any point take over another rider and his contracts, as long as it keeps them within the salary cap.

Releasing players
You cannot get rid of any contract during the season.
After each season, you may scratch 1 contract from your team, announcing his name before the auctions start.
You cannot bid on the player you have dropped from your team in the same offseason.

Free agents
A team can at any point during the season start an auction for any rider on the free market. From February 1, please send a PM to everybody in such a case, and the clock increases to 96 hours.

Scoring
Automatically, all riders on each team score points if they do well IRL.

Points are scored in UCI WorldTour events, HC races, World Championships, European Championships, and the Olympics (RR, ITT, TTT) only, but according to the CQ ranking scoring, and not to the UCI WorldTour scoring. CQ ranking rewards riders for finishing well in classics, stages, stage races, but also for keeping and winning jerseys.

All these points are added up in the individual ranking. The final score of each team will be equal to the sum of the points scored by their riders in the calendar year (when nominated for races). The ranking of teams in the unlikely event of a tie will be determined by the place of their best rider in the individual ranking.

Predictions
Once the auctions dry out, we organize a round of guessing regarding both racing and fantasy results.
After the season, we add those up. The winner gets the 1st neo-pro pick, the runner-up gets to drop a second contract.

Pro-Continental teams
Pro-Continental division is a lower division composed of teams compete among themselves to fight for promotion, and for the order in next year's draft: since the overall first pick is awarded to the winner of Predictions, the Pro-Continental Champion is awarded 2nd pick in Round 1 and 1st pick in Round 2, the runner-up - 3rd pick in Round 1 and 2nd pick in Round 2 etc. for all promoted teams.

During a live snake draft, Pro-Conti teams each sign 30 riders who didn't land a World Tour contract. Each rider signs a €20k 1-year contract.

Promotions and relegations
Starting from 2017, if there is a Pro-Conti division with N teams, the following season N/2 (rounded up, maximum 4) of them will get promoted, while the same number of World Tour teams is relegated. If any remaining World Tour teams are orphaned, the best relegated team automatically returns, followed by the second best etc., then followed by the best not automatically promoted Pro-Conti team etc.