Some rider stats from the game's archive file
Highest scoring riders by the criteria of this game while CQ has been in operation (excluding those whose careers were well established before 1999)
| from | to | points | popularity |
| DE LIE Arnaud | 2022 | 2024 | 4687 | 24/40 |
| VALVERDE Alejandro | 2003 | 2005 | 4603 | n/a |
| SAGAN Peter | 2010 | 2012 | 4487 | n/a |
| BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley | 2017 | 2019 | 4110 | 30/35 |
| POGACAR Tadej | 2018 | 2020 | 3924 | 16/34 |
| QUINTANA Nairo | 2012 | 2014 | 3892 | n/a |
| CUNEGO Damiano | 2003 | 2005 | 3770 | n/a |
| CAVENDISH Mark | 2007 | 2009 | 3587 | n/a |
| AYUSO PESQUERA Juan | 2022 | 2024 | 3303 | 38/40 |
| EVENEPOEL Remco | 2019 | 2021 | 3195 | 28/31 |
| BOUHANNI Nacer | 2012 | 2014 | 3043 | n/a |
| SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias | 2021 | 2023 | 3011 | 1/37 |
| KITTEL Marcel | 2011 | 2013 | 2934 | n/a |
| ALMEIDA Joao Pedro Gonçalves | 2019 | 2021 | 2876 | 16/31 |
| GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando | 2016 | 2018 | 2703 | 36/37 |
| SCHLECK Frank | 2004 | 2006 | 2682 | n/a |
| KOOIJ Olav | 2021 | 2023 | 2629 | 29/37 |
| ZINGLE Axel | 2022 | 2024 | 2534 | 9/40 |
| SEVILLA Oscar | 1999 | 2001 | 2528 | n/a |
| MOSCON Gianni | 2016 | 2018 | 2525 | 32/37 |
popularity is n/a for the years before the game started.
However, those are not actually the highest 20 scores: sometimes a rider can get a very high score while not yet at their game peak (ie, when they pass the 200 point threshhold during year 2).
So the best scores that have been achieved, while still available (or theoretically available, as some of these are before I started the game) for another year after it finished, are:
| VALVERDE Alejandro | 2004 | 2006 | 3673 | n/a |
| DE LIE Arnaud | 2021 | 2023 | 3211 | 1/37 |
| SAGAN Peter | 2009 | 2011 | 2712 | n/a |
| CUNEGO Damiano | 2002 | 2004 | 2549 | n/a |
| QUINTANA Nairo | 2011 | 2013 | 2401 | n/a |
| GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando | 2015 | 2017 | 2252 | 14/33 |
| AYUSO PESQUERA Juan | 2021 | 2023 | 2205 | 15/37 |
| BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley | 2016 | 2018 | 2055 | 2/37 |
| BOUHANNI Nacer | 2011 | 2013 | 2024 | n/a |
| POGACAR Tadej | 2017 | 2019 | 2015 | 0/35 |
| CAVENDISH Mark | 2006 | 2008 | 1994 | n/a |
| EVENEPOEL Remco | 2018 | 2020 | 1870 | 0/34 |
| KITTEL Marcel | 2010 | 2012 | 1860 | n/a |
| NIBALI Vincenzo | 2005 | 2007 | 1836 | n/a |
| VAN AVERMAET Greg | 2006 | 2008 | 1824 | n/a |
| ZINGLE Axel | 2021 | 2023 | 1745 | 0/37 |
| GREGOIRE Romain | 2022 | 2024 | 1732 | 12/40 |
| JAKOBSEN Fabio | 2017 | 2019 | 1676 | 0/35 |
| MOSCON Gianni | 2015 | 2017 | 1606 | 3/33 |
| VAN EETVELT Lennert | 2022 | 2024 | 1575 | 0/40 |
Which actually shows that I was in error when I declared Vauquelin as the highest scoring unselected rider: that is only true of those who reached the end of eligibility without being picked. Pogacar and Evenepoel have higher scores.
You will also notice that Gregoire and Van Eetvelt are going into the next round of the game: remove 108 from Gregoire's score, and 139 from Ven Eetvelt's, and their 2025 scores will be added to that (so LVE only needs 394 next year to overhaul Vauquelin as highest scoring never picked rider, or 580 to beat Pogacar's unpicked score)
We can take it further, and look at the best score when a rider is still in the first year of a cycle (not necessarily a one year score, but one in which years 1 and 2 combined had no more than 199 points) These were, therefore, points taken almost exclusively in the first year in which the rider made himself noteworthy.
| picked in Jan of | Scored nearly all his points in | points |
| VALVERDE Alejandro | 2003 | 2005 | 1781 |
| DE LIE Arnaud | 2020 | 2022 | 1496 |
| KITTEL Marcel | 2009 | 2011 | 1284 |
| AYUSO PESQUERA Juan | 2020 | 2022 | 1182 |
| MOSER Moreno | 2010 | 2012 | 1119 |
| HIGUITA GARCIA Sergio Andres | 2017 | 2019 | 1101 |
| NIBALI Vincenzo | 2004 | 2006 | 1046 |
| BOUHANNI Nacer | 2010 | 2012 | 1032 |
| JEANNIERE Emilien | 2022 | 2024 | 1017 |
| SAGAN Peter | 2008 | 2010 | 1016 |
| DEL TORO ROMERO Isaac | 2022 | 2024 | 1014 |
| GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando | 2014 | 2016 | 986 |
| EVENEPOEL Remco | 2017 | 2019 | 952 |
| CAVENDISH Mark | 2005 | 2007 | 943 |
| BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley | 2015 | 2017 | 925 |
| JAKOBSEN Fabio | 2016 | 2018 | 922 |
| GREGOIRE Romain | 2021 | 2023 | 892 |
| ZINGLE Axel | 2020 | 2022 | 881 |
| QUINTANA Nairo | 2010 | 2012 | 839 |
| MOSCON Gianni | 2014 | 2016 | 784 |
Note the remarkable fast-fading firework of a career of Moreno Moser featuring there. Any of these would have been a great pick eventually, albeit one that required foresight, courage, and patience, and maybe a bit of distrust in those you had otherwise considered. Only one of them was actually picked at that stage though: ValvPiti picked Sergio Higuita in 2017, and promptly said
I think picking Reyes and especially Higuita will prove to be a mistake, despite their talents, due to how the CQ rankings work. But its more fun to pick with your heart than your brain, especially in a 3 year long game.
Jeanniere and Del Toro are the newest appearing in that list: Del Toro was unpicked again for the 2023-25 edition, in which Jeanniere is a unique pick for Leadbelly. But in the 2024-26 version, the last for which they are eligible, Del Toro is near ubiquitous (40/42), while Jeanniere was not selected at all.
One more long-term rider stat that might be noted is the persistence with which hope was placed in some riders were selected.
Soren Waerenskjold was picked for 2019-2021, again in 2020-22, 2021-23 before finally putting himself out of availability while part of the just finished 2022-24 edition.
Aurelian Paret Peintre also was picked for 4 different cycles before he finally became, by the definition of the game, emerged, but managed to do so non-consecutively: 2015-17, 2016-18, then was overlooked in 2017-19 before another too-early-to-be-fruitful pick in 2018-21, and finally proved worthy of selection ( and went on to get a respectable 1106) in the 2019-21 game.
So your challenge for 2025-27 will be to avoid the premature Aurelien, while not missing out on the there-won't-be-a-second-chance Emilien.
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