2013 CQ Game Classics Edition

[will10]

Team sent. 2999

 

[the asian]

I've gone with the no rider over 500 points approach, now I just have to hope that Cancellara and Gilbert won't feature. I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to pick my team but overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
I wonder how much the winner will score. I'd guess around 2000-2200.

Same here. I have Phil in my main game though.

 

[will10]

I couldn't resist Gilbert.

 

[Froome19]

8 riders picked with 1100 points still left. Don't think I will be able to squeeze Gilbert in..
If he would have shown more in Oman then maybe I would have reconsidered.

 

[search]

I wonder how much the winner will score. I'd guess around 2000-2200.

I seriously doubt that's enough, most likely there is no Boonen this year but last year with one race less (no Giro del Lazio) the perfect team would have scored ~4500 points (it was just a first approach, maybe there were even a couple of points more available):

FREIRE GOMEZ Oscar 522 562
BOONEN Tom 502 1090
BALLAN Alessandro 497 470
TERPSTRA Niki 401 332
POZZATO Filippo 301 370
GASPAROTTO Enrico 194 402
TURGOT Sébastien 150 282
VANMARCKE Sep 128 253
FAVILLI Elia 92 136
IGLINSKIY Maxim 83 433
FLORENCIO CABRE Xavier 74 103
PICHOT Alexandre 45 118

(first number is their value, second number the points they scored in the classics)

so I have gone with the approach that every rider in my team at least needs to be able to outscore his total value of 2012 just in the classics. It gets real difficult to make the right choice for the riders above ~300 points but it will be interesting to see how it turns out in the end...

 

[mutschi]

My first time doing this game so I took a real statistical approach. I copied the results of all races of the last three years into a Excel Table inculding the CQ points. Then I wrote a Macro that added up all the points scored by each rider. That gave me a ranking of the best performers in these races over the last three years. Then I added the 31/12/2012 CQ points next to these riders. That showed me the best historical values for the cheapest riders and left me with a list of about 30 riders. I eliminated the injured and retired ones. Then I highlighted the ones that showed good form so far this year. That brought it down to about 20 and after that I had to make some tough choices. A fair question now would be: "Don't you have anything else to do?" I am a taxi driver and have lots of time to kill sometimes - so this is a nice way to pass time.
Will this team win? Of course. How can it not win.

12 Riders (incl. Gilbert), 2999 points.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

My first time doing this game so I took a real statistical approach. I copied the results of all races of the last three years into a Excel Table inculding the CQ points. Then I wrote a Macro that added up all the points scored by each rider. That gave me a ranking of the best performers in these races over the last three years. Then I added the 31/12/2012 CQ points next to these riders. That showed me the best historical values for the cheapest riders and left me with a list of about 30 riders. I eliminated the injured and retired ones. Then I highlighted the ones that showed good form so far this year. That brought it down to about 20 and after that I had to make some tough choices. A fair question now would be: "Don't you have anything else to do?" I am a taxi driver and have lots of time to kill sometimes - so this is a nice way to pass time.
Will this team win? Of course. How can it not win.

12 Riders (incl. Gilbert), 2999 points.

\o/

Very nice mutschi. Will be fun to see how such a team performs. If I'm not mistaken, Skibby the bush kangaroo did something similar for last year's main game.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Quick update: We're now at 29 teams. Almost everyone have been very good at sending in a "correct" team - that means exactly 12 riders, not more than 3000 points and in the right formular. Of course there's been a few mistakes but no big deal at all and generally things have gone much easier than in the main game

Also thanks to everyone who have offered their help

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Team submitted - 2995 points. I've deliberately avoided riders who I've got in the main game.

 

[asdfgh101]

Didn't have enough time to do in depth research, will be happy to top 10.

 

[mutschi]

As all teams should be in by now and can reveal the best 20 performers for the 19 races in the last 3 years:

GILBERT Philippe 2202
BOONEN Tom 1915
CANCELLARA Fabian 1409
FLECHA Juan Antonio 879
LEUKEMANS Bjorn 875
RODRIGUEZ OLIVER Joaquim 844
POZZATO Filippo 747
IGLINSKIY Maxim 746
FARRAR Tyler 744
VOECKLER Thomas 714
VAN AVERMAET Greg 649
NIBALI Vincenzo 599
EISEL Bernhard 599
GASPAROTTO Enrico 587
SANCHEZ GONZALEZ Samuel 550
GERRANS Simon 540
SAGAN Peter 538
VANMARCKE Sep 528
TERPSTRA Niki 521
BRESCHEL Matti 518


First 4 are no brainers, I guess, but I was a bit surprised to see Leukemans so high up. The other surprises for me were Farrar and Eisel.

 

[Froome19]

Of those how many were viable choices though?

Probably only Breschel, Eisel, Vanmarke, Inglinsky, Gaspatto, Farrar and Pozzato. Maybe also Flecha and of course Gilbert if you are willing to take the risk with him

 

[mutschi]

Here is the same list but just for last year (2012)

3yrs avg yr 2012
BOONEN Tom 1915 638 1104
SAGAN Peter 538 179 508
IGLINSKIY Maxim 746 249 440
VOECKLER Thomas 714 238 431
GASPAROTTO Enrico 587 196 405
POZZATO Filippo 747 249 380
NIBALI Vincenzo 599 200 378
TERPSTRA Niki 521 174 371
VANENDERT Jelle 491 164 350
GERRANS Simon 540 180 322
CANCELLARA Fabian 1409 470 294
VAN AVERMAET Greg 649 216 286
TURGOT Sébastien 358 119 279
VANMARCKE Sep 528 176 268
RODRIGUEZ Joaquim 844 281 266
GILBERT Philippe 2202 734 238
PAOLINI Luca 511 170 233
BRESCHEL Matti 518 173 227
FLECHA Juan Antonio 879 293 221
VISCONTI Giovanni 275 92 215

 

[mutschi]

Of those how many were viable choices though?

Probably only Breschel, Eisel, Vanmarke, Inglinsky, Gaspatto, Farrar and Pozzato. Maybe also Flecha and of course Gilbert if you are willing to take the risk with him

Yes, and not all of them together, of course. But I got Gilbert, Pozzatto, Eisel, Vanmarcke - so I am happy.

 

[Froome19]

I took Breschel, Eisel, Vanmarcke and Pozzato. Though I have Gilbert in my main game and though I think he is worth the money I just couldn't face up to taking a rider who would take up 1/3 of my points as it would restrict my other picks too much and so make it less fun as it would be more difficult to pick the riders I want to see do well.

Did anybody else find that they took mostly cobble riders and not many ardennes riders?

 

[search]

Did anybody else find that they took mostly cobble riders and not many ardennes riders?

yeah, but I think it's just because there is more value in there as most of the ardennes type riders are generally also good in stage races/mountain stages and therefor too expensive

most of your numbers for 2012 are a bit off btw, mutschi, no idea why, but it's just a range of ~20 points mainly so not much of a problem

 

[J-King]

My first time doing this game so I took a real statistical approach. I copied the results of all races of the last three years into a Excel Table inculding the CQ points. Then I wrote a Macro that added up all the points scored by each rider. That gave me a ranking of the best performers in these races over the last three years. Then I added the 31/12/2012 CQ points next to these riders. That showed me the best historical values for the cheapest riders and left me with a list of about 30 riders. I eliminated the injured and retired ones. Then I highlighted the ones that showed good form so far this year. That brought it down to about 20 and after that I had to make some tough choices. A fair question now would be: "Don't you have anything else to do?" I am a taxi driver and have lots of time to kill sometimes - so this is a nice way to pass time.
Will this team win? Of course. How can it not win.

12 Riders (incl. Gilbert), 2999 points.

Very good idea! Although I don't think past performances should be the only factor that you take into account. There are other important factors such as age (Leukemans and Flecha), injuries (Langeveld, Nuyens, Roelandts) different focus in other years (Geraint Thomas), ....

 

[Froome19]

Very good idea! Although I don't think past performances should be the only factor that you take into account. There are other important factors such as age (Leukemans and Flecha), injuries (Langeveld, Nuyens, Roelandts) different focus in other years (Geraint Thomas), ....

Did you pick Roelandts? His price was a bit hefty thanks in part to his end of season boom and Olympics result.

As Search said it seems like a big key to the game is picking riders who score the majority of their points within the spring classics. So you are getting the most possible out of their costs.

Having said that I primarily just picked the riders I liked the best.

 

[The Hitch]

I just picked a bunch of well known guys that hit my eye. Ill see when teams get released if they are similar guys to what others opted for.

 

[Afrank]

Did anybody else find that they took mostly cobble riders and not many ardennes riders?

I found this, I looked all over for affordable guys that can do well in the ardennes. But the only really good one I found I would have to take Pippo out for, and I didn't want to do that.

I tried to take more chances and risks with my team. Picked a couple guys who I think have the potential to score big, but could end up not doing much. And I spent a hefty amount of points on a certain Swiss powerhouse (couldn't resist ).

 

[The Hitch]

I do not have mostly cobbled riders. Only half.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

I have a lot of unread messages waiting for me and I'm quite busy today, but I hope to be able to publish the teams later today.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Hmm, god damn I'm quick. Either that or it just turned out it didn't take that long. In any case, here's the spreadsheet with all the teams. Please send me a PM if you spot any mistake.

Classics edition:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dh7c7u68xnwi8bg

Edit: I had to edit one team which was above the 3000 limit. I don't like doing this, but I gave the team in question a heads up that the team was above 3000 points and I received a correction which still put the team above the limit. It really should be ones own responsibility to make sure the team is below the maximum, because I don't want to spend a lot of time reminding people about the rules when they are right there and available.

For what it's worth, the team was 20 points above the limit so I decided to swap Andy Schleck for one of the more popular zero-pointers, Jack Bobridge.

Edit 2: Regarding the spreadsheet, you'll notice that it's more simple than in the main game. The "points this week", etc. have been removed because the way I'm doing this, which most likely is a very bad way , it won't be possible to keep track of this. If anyone has a easier way of keeping track of the points than mine, feel free to send me a PM.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Here's my team - as one of the only 3 with both Gilbert and Cancellara

GILBERT Philippe
CANCELLARA Fabian
VANMARCKE Sep
THOMAS Geraint
NUYENS Nick
HUSHOVD Thor
ROLLIN Dominique
BONNET William
MAASKANT Martijn
COQUARD Bryan
SCHLECK Andy
FINETTO Mauro

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Mine is one of the very few Hushovdless teams.

VAN AVERMAET Greg
LEUKEMANS Björn
POZZATO Filippo
GATTO Oscar
BRESCHEL Matti
LANGEVELD Sebastian
EISEL Bernhard
CHAINEL Steve
MAASKANT Martijn
DOCKER Mitchell
RATHE Jacob
CAMMAERTS Edwig