2022-2024 Emerging Riders CQ Game

[RedheadDane]

I'm telling you guys: Juntunen is gonna be the next big thing! Just you wait.

 

[Squire]

Who did you consider, but omit, and you were surprised to see that he is not one of the 115 riders that someone else fancied? On those grounds, I will propose Sam Welsford (and perhaps those 4 from the Good in 2021 team) as likely to feature in Collective Ignorance. Who do you think will be there?

I put forward Niklas Märkl, Samuel Watson, Marco Frigo, Mattia Petrucci and Lennart Van Eetvelt as candidates for the collective ignorance team.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Odds and ends

If we were to rank the teams by the number of career points their riders had before the game starts (obviously less than 200 for each of them), we would have:

1	RedheadDane	2610​
2	LukasCPH	2507​
3	Scrooll07	2294​
4	RoteLaterne	2113​
5	JonEzeitza	2011​
6	Rufs	2006​
7	Otoxiep87	1995​
8	Del1962	1896​
9	Repre	1880​
10	Armchair_Cyclist	1879​
11	Fivezzz	1859​
12	Greenedge	1851​
13	Salvarani	1846​
14	DevilsElbow	1818​
15	AmisVelo	1755​
16	Madrazo	1752​
17	SafeBet	1733​
18	EdkDeus	1649​
19	Squire	1618​
20	Nakazar	1614​
21	Bonimenier	1578​
22	Kazistuta	1538​
23	Bminchow	1513​
24	Comodoro	1496​
25	Cordi	1494​
26	Skidmark	1467​
27	Riverside	1447​
28	Nathanptz	1392​
29	Blues_in_the_Bottle	1386​
30	LosBrolin	1385​
31	JumboVismaFan	1353​
32	Ray10	1272​
33	Laarsland	1256​
34	Josedin	1235​
35	EvansIsTheBest	1227​
36	Nyssinator	1111​
37	Koronin	1029​
38	Vladimir	1015​
39	Berflamand	845​
40	Leadbelly	731​
	CollectiveWisdom	1630​
	CollectiveIgnorance	0​
	MainGame2022	1118​
	Goodin2021	2969​

I'm not sure that that demonstrates much other than propensity to go for riders who have already established themselves a bit. No surprise that the Good in 21 team outscores everyone, something of a surprise that RHD and Lukas get as close to that score as they do. Leadbelly's score reflects his self imposed handicap of only having riders with a maximum pre-game career of 100 rather than 200.

Inter Forum Challenge
Eight of our players represent (by virtue of submitting their teams there) Team VeloRooms: AmisVelo, Cordi, Josedin, Leadbelly, LukasCPH, Otoxiep87, RoteLaterne and Scrooll07
Everyone else (apart from me: strictly neutral of course) is on the CN Forum team (31 of you).
Inter-forum rivalry is determined by mean average score.

Last year we had a group who additionally represented Equipo Parliamento Ciclismo, of whom I think only 4 remain (Cordi, Comodoro, Jon E and Josedin: have I got that right?) I can include them again, but are there any other Spanish/Iberian players who would like that team expanded to include them? Anyone else think they can claim a group identity with a minimum of say 5 from the entrants to put up an average score? Scandis? Anyone other than myself and (I assume) Del old enough for a "Rebellin is a youngster" team? Have we ever identified a large contingent of any particular profession on the boards? And collectivity you care to propose, put it up here and if you can get a group of at least 5 and I'll include them. You will still be on your forum's panel, and you can be in more than one group, but even if your team turns out to be a flop, it will give you something to cheer for.

Team similarity
Obviously the higher popularity teams are the ones most similar to any other team, but the maximum co-incidence in selection is 13 (Amis Velo and Bminchow, the two most popular teams) but also Rufs and Scrool07.
There are also several overlaps of 12 riders:
Amis Velo with Armchair, Bonimenier and Fivezzz
Bminchow with Fivezzz and Skidmark
Devil's Elbow with Squire
Madrazo with Squire

In terms of similarity with Collective Wisdom, Bminchow and Amis Velo each have 15, then Cordi (14), Skidmark (13, also the Main Game selection) and Fivezzz and Squire (12 each).

Despite omitting Ayuso, Leadbelly and Koronin manage to find some common ground with everyone else, even each other (they share Akessandro Verre, also picked by Riverside) except that Leadbelly and Redhead Dane find no common interest at all: their teams are totally mutually exclusive.

Amis Velo, Cordi and Squire draw equally on the Main game team, with 12: Redhead Dane has just 1.
Lukas has 9 of the 'Good in 2021' team: no-one else has more than 6 of them (Leadbelly, for reasons already pointed out, has none).

There is a tab on the spreadsheet to show your similarity to other teams.

Current standings
Other than new Aussie champ Plapp (100 pts, 30 teams), I believe the only other selected rider off the mark is Laurence Pithie (17 points from NZ Classic, 5 teams), which would mean that we have 4 joint leaders (Devil's Elbow, Los Brolin, Nakazar and SafeBet), with Comodoro in 31st place.

Spreadsheet
Unless Google does something unexpected, the spreadsheet should remain here indefinitely. See what else you can discover in it!

I aim to do updates early each month, life (and other CQ games) sometimes interferes with that. I don't always include the link to the spreadsheet when I post them, but you know where to find it now.

You are locked in for three long years now: enjoy the unveiling of heroes and the dismemberment of dreams.

 

[Bonimenier]

Im mostly surpriced Vernon has been getting picked so much. Surely he is a solid talent, but for me I just quickly cut him, feeling he would be used as a helper/leadoutrider with Quick-Step, with so many faster than him, and with his skills well suited for leadouts (someone similar but still a bit better, like Steimle had not been getting that much points with them for instance, but perhaps I underestimate him. Quick Step surely has had good succes with many young guys, so its always a danger to leave out their Neos in this game, even if someone like Garison was a flop.

With Bennett and Hodeg gone, and Cavendish likely at the tail end of his career, it seems that there will be more opportunities for the young sprinters at the team. Vernon has been really impressive on the track. It wouldn't surprise me if by the end of the season he'll already get his chances in the smaller Belgian 1 day races or so.

 

[Salvarani]

Charmig seems very promising.

He used to be very good at the juniors level beating and racing against riders that have since established themselves as pros, but he hasnt managed to take the next step. Mainly because he suffered health problems and was even out of the sport for 1,5 year. Finished 2nd in the European U23 RR in 2020 coming back.

Hopefully he will be a late bloomer. 6th in Turkey, 2nd Alpes Isere Tour and 7th in Tour of Denmark were some good results last season. Now stepping up to UNO-X pro team after having spent a year with their development team.

 

[laarsland]

It seems I majorly *** up and managed to put Stan van Tricht twice. Can I please change the second of those to Umba instead? Sorry and no hard feelings if not.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

It seems I majorly *** up and managed to put Stan van Tricht twice. Can I please change the second of those to Umba instead? Sorry and no hard feelings if not.

I should have spotted that, although there is nothing in the spreadsheet to draw my attention to it if it happens. Maybe someone who knows Excel other than by trial and error can direct me to such an instruction. Found it: in future I will post entry submissions into a page formatted with conditional formatting to highlight duplicates.

But I have no objection, and have made the change. Any appeals against it?

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

No problem with it for me

 

[laarsland]

I should have spotted that, although there is nothing in the spreadsheet to draw my attention to it if it happens. Maybe someone who knows Excel other than by trial and error can direct me to such an instruction. Found it: in future I will post entry submissions into a page formatted with conditional formatting to highlight duplicates.

But I have no objection, and have made the change. Any appeals against it?

i have a batch of spreadsheets I re-use every year for this, the main CQ-game, FirstCycling, Rivals Managers etc. Each and every of these have conditional formatting to highlight duplicates, but apparently not this one.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Thank you for helping me discover it: there are other things I'll use it for now that I have found it (beats listing everything alphabetically in column A, and having =if(a2=a3, "ERROR","") all the way down column B like I have elsewhere)

Could you (or someone) please confirm that the spreadsheet opens: I am told that it was not on the "Anyone with the link can view" setting? I know it's not editable (other than by me) as it is, but can others download it and edit it locally on their own devices?

 

[MADRAZO]

With Bennett and Hodeg gone, and Cavendish likely at the tail end of his career, it seems that there will be more opportunities for the young sprinters at the team. Vernon has been really impressive on the track. It wouldn't surprise me if by the end of the season he'll already get his chances in the smaller Belgian 1 day races or so.

Its definetly not impossible that he will get such chances and I must also admit I havent followed his track-results much so I have likely rated him too low.

Still when Cavendish likely leaves next year, Jakobsen and Ballerini should fill the 2 topspots, so the interesting thing will be what role he will get compared to riders like Steimle and Senechal, where I would think they have the best chance now, but he could definetly end up as the third choise then. Mostly I just compared him a lot with Steimle in his skillset and felt he would likely get a similar role as he has had the last years and that he would also start behind him in the hierachy now, but he can definetly surprise and even if he just does as Steimle has done, he wouldn't be a bad pick, just a bit mediocre, so he is a solid pick with a chance to be quite good .

 

[laarsland]

It opens, all good. I spent a fair few years toiling away getting to grips with Excel, but now I know most nooks and crannies - so if you’re ever stuck on something please message so perhaps I can help.

 

[MADRAZO]

He used to be very good at the juniors level beating and racing against riders that have since established themselves as pros, but he hasnt managed to take the next step. Mainly because he suffered health problems and was even out of the sport for 1,5 year. Finished 2nd in the European U23 RR in 2020 coming back.

Hopefully he will be a late bloomer. 6th in Turkey, 2nd Alpes Isere Tour and 7th in Tour of Denmark were some good results last season. Now stepping up to UNO-X pro team after having spent a year with their development team.

Yes I was quite impressed with him in both Turkey and also in the Tour Of Denmark, and he seems like a rider with a huge unforfilled potential also. But it will also be interesting to see how good a team UnoX will be for a rider like him CQ-wise.

 

[Koronin]

I did consider Ayuso and will likely regret leaving him off my team. Why am I not surprised that RedHeadDane and I have the most unique picks.

As a note with one of my unique picks: One of the main reasons I included Iñigo Elosegui on both this and the main team besides believing in him, is that I've gotten to know him a bit through social media. During the Covid lock down he engaged everyone following (most of whom at that time were his real life friends, but he knew he also had some fans following him) in a quest for everyone to get to know each other better. Since then he tries to engage those who respond to posts he makes. Last year he had a tough year with illness and injury and is really looking forward to this season. He has a passion for the sport. So in that sense he's a heart pick for this game.

 

[Cordi333]

Its definetly not impossible that he will get such chances and I must also admit I havent followed his track-results much so I have likely rated him too low.

Still when Cavendish likely leaves next year, Jakobsen and Ballerini should fill the 2 topspots, so the interesting thing will be what role he will get compared to riders like Steimle and Senechal, where I would think they have the best chance now, but he could definetly end up as the third choise then. Mostly I just compared him a lot with Steimle in his skillset and felt he would likely get a similar role as he has had the last years and that he would also start behind him in the hierachy now, but he can definetly surprise and even if he just does as Steimle has done, he wouldn't be a bad pick, just a bit mediocre, so he is a solid pick with a chance to be quite good .

Imo Vernon isn't similar to Steimle. He's much faster. He's not going to Quick Step as a lead out man but as a future main sprinter. He'll learn the ropes and quickly will go for victories. He's unseen by some because of little road schedule due to track and covid, but I believe he's one of the best sprinters of his generation.

Other in which I believe a lot is Campbell Stewart, coming from the track with a great record.

 

[Armchair cyclist]

False claim of a record for Ayuso: in 2014-16 edition (first iteration of the game) Caleb Ewan was on 44 of 45 teams and after his breakout in the San Juan race, Gaviria was on 36/37 in 2016, and Gaudu was picked by 34/35 the next year.

 

[Kazistuta]

Imo Vernon isn't similar to Steimle. He's much faster. He's not going to Quick Step as a lead out man but as a future main sprinter. He'll learn the ropes and quickly will go for victories. He's unseen by some because of little road schedule due to track and covid, but I believe he's one of the best sprinters of his generation.

Other in which I believe a lot is Campbell Stewart, coming from the track with a great record.

Campbell Stewart was signed specifically to be part of Kaden Groves' sprint train, don't think he'll get many chances to race for himself the next seasons.

 

[Cordi333]

Campbell Stewart was signed specifically to be part of Kaden Groves' sprint train, don't think he'll get many chances to race for himself the next seasons.

Maybe you're right, as I didn't find any comments about what idea have the aussies about Stewart. But I believe he eventually can surpass Groves, who I don't see making the difference in his first two seasons as a pro. I think Campebell can become the second card of the team after Groenewegen.

 

[Kazistuta]

Maybe you're right, as I didn't find any comments about what idea have the aussies about Stewart. But I believe he eventually can surpass Groves, who I don't see making the difference in his first two seasons as a pro. I think Campebell can become the second card of the team after Groenewegen.

"We have a mix of young talent and experienced hands coming into the team next year,” White continued. “With two young world class track riders in Kelland O’Brien and Campbell Stewart, we will be transitioning them across to the WorldTour road ranks and they were specifically brought in to work with Kaden Groves, our developing sprint star. To have a young, developing sprint train around Kaden consistently, with riders of a similar age that can learn and win together, it is an area which we see as a great opportunity for us to gain wins in 2022."

Original article

 

[Squire]

I might have done a bit of a mistake in picking the wrong new-comer to the sport: Zwiehoff over Romo.

I think I dismissed Romo's Settimana Coppi e Bartali as a rather random result in a small race, but looking at it, he was up there with some serious names. I was lured by Zwiehoff's consistency in big races in his first season as a road cyclist, like 26th in both UAE Tour and Romandie, along with a completed Vuelta. But to go from that to some serious point scoring positions might be quite a big leap. I now think Romo has way more potential.

 

[Salvarani]

I might have done a bit of a mistake in picking the wrong new-comer to the sport: Zwiehoff over Romo.

I think I dismissed Romo's Settimana Coppi e Bartali as a rather random result in a small race, but looking at it, he was up there with some serious names. I was lured by Zwiehoff's consistency in big races in his first season as a road cyclist, like 26th in both UAE Tour and Romandie, along with a completed Vuelta. But to go from that to some serious point scoring positions might be quite a big leap. I now think Romo has way more potential.

He is off to a good start at least... Zwiehoff.

In other news, Wandahl becomes the first rider on my team to score 7 points with a 14th place in Trofeo Serra de Tramuntana.

 

[Salvarani]

Arnaud De Lie wins the last race in the Mallorca Challenge!

Thought it was a year too early for the main game but might have been wrong. Glad I have him here as many others!

 

[Armchair cyclist]

Year 1 Month 1 to 30th January

14 of our chosen riders (and 65 others who were eligible) have scored points, led by wins for Plapp (100 pts, 30 teams) and De Lie (80 pts, 24 teams)

Other major early scorers mentioned alongside their pickers:

1​	Greenedge	239	Gall & Gummestad
2​	Squire	208	Zwiehoff
3​	Nakazar	207	Pithie & Hoole
4​	Rufs	200	Penalver and Hoole
5​	DevilsElbow	197	Pithie
5​	LosBrolin	197	"
5​	SafeBet	197	"
8​	Laarsland	195	Gudmestad
8​	Nyssinator	195	"
10​	Berflamand	190	Hoole
10​	Bonimenier	190	"
10​	Kazistuta	190	"
10​	Scrooll07	190	"
14​	AmisVelo	180
14​	Bminchow	180
14​	Cordi	180
14​	Fivezzz	180
14​	JumboVismaFan	180
14​	Madrazo	180
14​	Nathanptz	180
14​	Ray10	180
22​	Armchair_Cyclist	132	Colnaghi
23​	Riverside	113
24​	Del1962	110
24​	Josedin	110
26​	Otoxiep87	105
27​	Blues_in_the_Bottle	100
27​	LukasCPH	100
27​	Repre	100
27​	RoteLaterne	100
31​	Koronin	93
32​	Salvarani	87
33​	Skidmark	80
34​	Comodoro	17
35​	JonEzeitza	10
36​	EdkDeus	0
36​	EvansIsTheBest	0
36​	Leadbelly	0
36​	RedheadDane	0
36​	Vladimir	0
	CollectiveWisdom	180
	CollectiveIgnorance	524
	MainGame2022	180
	Goodin2021	5

Two members of Collective Ignorance (James Whelan and Joel Suter) have already put themselves out of contention for next year's edition.

Flashes in the pan or showing what to expect? We'll see.

At least it gives me a chance to check the spreadsheet

 

[bminchow]

Nice win today by Van Gils. Chance at the victory would be a nice start for this game.

 

[Squire]

Nice win today by Van Gils. Chance at the victory would be a nice start for this game.

It's painful seeing him rack up big points already! He was sooooo close to being included in my team