Written by JonhatanHernandez of
  TeamQuetzal
  
  Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Late Show with Johnathan Hernandez!
  
  Monologue
  
  First of all, happy new year! I hope all of you will have a great 2018. The New jerseys are on and what do you think of them? I personally loved the new Movistar kit as well as Bora´s one. Team Sky is to reminiscent of last year´s TdF kit. I think Katusha and Trek sucked. But what about you? Tour down Under will soon start and the season is on its way. I personally cannot wait for the cobble classics and the Giro. Perhaps we will see Sagan win finally the Hell of the North. As for OCM this 2018 will mark the end of two eras. The end of Farruco´s domination in the Vuelta and great results in Germany and Bongo Longo´s inevitable farewell. Droz will also have the most difficult GT of his life with Sal Dambrosio and Gresham Witham posing great threats to his domination. But enough of this and everyone let´s welcome the one, the only, Henri Tolstokozhev from Ello Ello!
  
  Interview
  
  JHDZ: To start it off, how are you?
  HENRI: Well firstly, thanks very much for the invitation.
  I’m good thanks, I’ve got just over a week left before I return to uni so I’m enjoying the freedom whilst I’ve still got it.
  JHDZ: What made you discover OCM?
  HENRI: I was looking at buying Pro Cycling Manager but after reading the reviews I decided I’d look to see if there was anything else, enter OCM. I can’t deny I was very much overwhelmed by the game and I should probably apologize for the amount I bugged Oli (Spin Doctors) about basically every aspect but hopefully I’ve improved.
  JHDZ: Why did you stay?
  HENRI: Ultimately what I enjoy about the game is a host of things: I enjoy it’s slow pace (although at times I wish it was a little quicker), the community is very welcoming and I just really like the game’s design and mechanics. And I can’t deny I really enjoy the nerdier aspect of trying to figure the game out, be it through the NT selection spreadsheet I produced or my current projects of properly figuring out the hour record mechanics and trying to work out the time gaps for tours.
  JHDZ: Would you add anything to the game?
  
  HENRI: Personally I feel the game’s in a good position. We have small problems with it but I don’t see any issues that are particularly big. I think the game just needs some quality of life changes and to be a lot more forgiving to new players.
  JHDZ: What’s your favorite part of the game?
  HENRI: The uncertainty. Don’t get me wrong, when my rider is the best suited rider for the race with the best TMs and fantastic DP/XP/RS/TS I want to win. But, if the winner is always the best rider where’s the fun?
  My favorite race reports (well second favorite after a victory) are the completely unexpected top 9s, be it a breakaway or just a race that didn’t really suit the team. Now of course off days suck but without things like off days/good legs etc. the game would to me at least become stale.
  I

should probably mention training too since I definitely enjoy that part. I know I shouldn’t and do sometimes wonder where the team would be if I was shrewd with my money and only bought trained riders but at the same time I just like the risk and uncertainty that comes in training a rider.
  JHDZ: From where does your manager name come?
  HENRI: Well as many will have guessed, Henri Tolstokozhev is not my real name. The Henri bit is because my sister has a soft toy bear called Henri and I just liked the name. I then decided to find the most un-Henri style surname I could find and ended up finding some kind of list of Russian people on Wikipedia from where I picked this surname. It’s a bit odd having people in the game know me as Henri and send me messages saying ‘Dear Henri’ etc but it allows me to fake the team as having a manager: Henri and an owner: Tom (my actual name)
  JHDZ: Is cycling your favorite sport? If so, why?
  HENRI: Hmm, it’s definitely one of my favorites, probably alongside Rugby (Union). Last year I cycled from my home to watch stage 3 of the ToB (I ended up cycling something like 130km and even then I cut it short by getting the train home from Sheffield) so I do definitely really enjoy it. Until a few years ago I only really followed the Tour but then I started to follow it all year round, I don’t really get to watch a huge amount but I enjoy just reading the results etc. When I’m not cycling my main sport is probably rowing which I took up a few years ago at Uni and that’s great fun to.
  JHDZ: Rugby is very fun indeed. I´ve never seen rowing unless it´s the only sport available in the Olympics to watch. Who is your favorite cyclist?
  HENRI: This isn’t going to be a popular answer but I really like the British cyclists and Team Sky, so my favorite is probably Froome but I do also really like Dibben, Carthy and Rosa. I also quite like Orica (now Michelton) - Scott, especially Chaves. I also try to follow a few lesser names who I went to school with (Matthew Walls being the pick of them).
  JHDZ: It is popular with me hahaha. Tell me, who is your favorite OCM rider and manager?
  
  HENRI: My favorite rider would probably be joint between: Wysong and Hannity for pretty obvious reasons. Outside of my own team my favorites would probably be: Jeremy Dooley, Farruco Alonso, Edi Bacilieri and Henning Olufsen.
  In terms of manager I’d have to go for Oli (Spin Doctors) the help he gave me at the start was incredible and his knowledge of the game is amazing. However I do definitely need to mention both virenque (Mapei Bianchi) and Adilson Silva (Team AEK) both of whom I message pretty regularly. I’ve always found it a bit weird that my three most contacted managers are all top division purely sprinting teams.
  JHDZ: Any plans for the future of your team?
  HENRI: Many. In the very short term I want to defend the RotM YC with Hannity (if this comes out after RotM then I’m delighted to have achieved this feat/disappointed to miss out but proud of the team) then I want to rapidly train William Rymes, with at least half an eye on going for the ERD YC again next season.
  Once that’s done I’m hoping that my young group of self-trained riders: Pilarski, Iancu, Lincoln, Rudi and Billy will be enough to take the team to

further heights and hopefully establish the team as a division 2/3 team. I was following the Norway Tour recently and saw Pizarro (a rider Hannity beat in RotM) finish 2nd there so I’d very much like to once again better Pizarro and win the Norway GC with Lincoln in a few seasons time.
  On top of that I’d like to train riders from slightly more obscure nations (to try and collect national jerseys) and I have half an eye on trying to make the Isle of Man a stronger nation.
  
  Higher Lower
  
  The rules are simple. I´ll give the guest a word or subject and he will have to guess if it has been googled more or less. Let´s go!
  
  JHDZ: "Nepal Earthquake” has 74,000 average monthly searches, is "Christopher Columbus" googled more?
  HENRI: Hmmm, well the Nepal Earthquake was a while ago now so I'm going to go with Columbus
  JHDZ: Right! “Calais Jungle” has 33,100 average monthly searches is "Antidepressants" googled more?
  HENRI: I'm going to go for antidepressants since 33,100 doesn't seem that high for a worldwide figure. Plus of course I very much doubt the Americans are searching for the Calais Jungle.
  JHDZ: Correct! “Derren Brown” has 74,000 average monthly searches is "Stolen Generation" googled more?
  HENRI: I won't lie until I just googled it I'd never heard of the Stolen Generation so I'll have to go for Derren Brown
  JHDZ: Excellent! You are on a streak! “Prostate Cancer” has 301,000 average monthly searches is "iPhone 6s" googled more?
  HENRI: Well, you give the number for the iPhone 7 later in the questions and so using that as a reference I'll go for the iPhone 6.
  JHDZ: Well that is my bad hehe “Leicester City” has 2,240,000 average monthly searches is "Buddhism" googled more?
  HENRI: Leicester City. Purely because I assume that Buddhism will mainly be searched in the local language (assuming these figures are only for the English spelling in the search)
  JHDZ: Correctamundo! “Green Bay Packers” has 1,500,000 average monthly searches is "Hoover Dam" googled more?
  HENRI: I'll go for the Green Bay Packers
  JHDZ: YES, YES AND YES “Eczema” has 1,000,000 average monthly searches is "Madden 16" googled more?
  HENRI: I've heard of Madden but don't know what it actually is and since it's a year old hopefully it's not searched for as much so I'll go for Eczema.
  JHDZ: My god right again! “Heart Disease” has 110,000 average monthly searches is "The Beach Boys" googled more?
  HENRI: Well God Only Knows but Wouldn't It Be Nice if it was the Beach Boys, I have a Good Vibration on this one.
  JHDZ: Oh no! You almost had a perfect game. The opposite was the correct answer. “Vodafone” has 13,600,000 average monthly searches is "Big Brother" googled more?
  HENRI: Vodafone, I feel Big Bother the TV program has had its time.
  JHDZ: “IPhone 7” has 20,400,000 average monthly searches is "Rihanna" googled more?
  HENRI: Pfff, iPhone 7?
  
  JHDZ: Yes! 9/10 that is an almost perfect game you are good at this my dear. A huge applause for Henri and I will see ya, on the next one.