2023 Tour de France CQ Game

[Armchair Cyclist]

Team popularity
No, it's not about how many likes the manager has, but the total of the popularity scores for the riders in each team. Hindley gives a team 33, a unique pick gives 1

1​	Titan31	170​
2​	Madrazo	169​
3​	Rote_Laterne	167​
4​	Bminchow	163​
4​	Peixotini	163​
6​	Vladimir	162​
7​	Anderis	157​
8​	ZigZagWanderer	150​
9​	Ricco	149​
10​	Riverside	148​
11​	Armchair_Cyclist	146​
11​	Kazistuta	146​
11​	Leadbelly	146​
11​	Marek	146​
15​	Devils_Elbow	145​
16​	DJW	144​
17​	Comodoro	139​
18​	Laarsland	138​
19​	Northerner	136​
20​	Berlus	134​
21​	BluesInTheBottle	131​
22​	18_Valve	130​
23​	PostmanHat	124​
24​	Yellow_Knight	122​
25​	DJSprtsch	121​
25​	Search	121​
27​	AmisVelo	118​
28​	Queen_Stagiare	117​
29​	Salvarani	113​
30​	BicycleBoy	112​
30​	Del1962	112​
30​	Red_Lobster	112​
33​	Lecko	110​
34​	Rufs	100​
35​	Triley36	96​
36​	Evans_is_the_Best	93​
36​	JumboVismaFan	93​
38​	ArchieBoy	91​
39​	Mellow_Velo	72​
40​	Scrooll07	67​
41​	Tonton	61​
42​	RedheadDane	38​
43​	SamuCuenca	26​
	Collective_Wisdom	181​

Samu is reprising the Basque Street Boys principle of his main game team: Redhead Dane has a selection drawn entirely from National Champions. Not sure why anyone else has an obscure selection, but popularity is no guarantee of success.

 

[titan31]

Won the popularity contest at least. Better than 2nd in everything like the Giro

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Major Buys
4000 points for 8 riders allows for an average spend of 500 pts, and those riders in whom we invest much more than that are going to be the ones who have most responsibility for getting us points.

Among the early teams submitted, O'Connor was as popular as, and briefly more popular than, Hindley, so I started collating the listing of most popular riders differently. Hope it makes sense to you. This indicates the riders each team has at a cost of more than 600 points.

	with both key Australians	with one of them	with neither
Vingegaard		Amis Velo (JH), Evans is the Best (B O'C)	Mellow Velo, Scrool07, TRiley36
Skjelmose	Salvarani
Pinot, Jakobsen & Carapaz			Tonton
Bardet & Ciccone		Queen Stagiare (JH)
Bardet & Jakobsen	Northerner
Madouas, Carapaz & Lutsenko			Redhead Dane
Landa & Bilbao			Samu Cuenca
Landa & Carapaz		Comodoro, Laarsland, Ricco (all JH)
Bilbao, Jakobsen & Carapaz		DJ Sprtsch (JH)
Bilbao & Carapaz	Anderis
Ciccone & S Yates	DJW
Ciccone & Rodriguez		Archie Boy (B O'C)
Ciccone & Carapaz	Leadbelly
Ciccone	Search
Jorgensen	Zigzag Wanderer
S Yates & Rodriguez			Rufs
S Yates, Rodriguez & Carapaz	Rote Laterne	Postman Hat (JH)	Del1962
S Yates, Jakobsen and Carapaz	Armchair Cyclist, Madrazo
S Yates & Jakobsen	Riverside
S Yates, Carapaz & Lutsenko		Vladimir (JH)
S Yates & Carapaz	Blues in the Bottle	18-Valve, Bicycle Boy , Bminchow (all JH)
S Yates	Peixotini
Rodriguez	Berlus
Rodriguez & Carapaz	Devil's Elbow, Titan31
Jakobsen, Carapaz & Lutsenko	Marek
Jakobsen & Carapaz	Kazistuta	Red Lobster (JH)
Jakobsen & Lutsenko	Lecko
Carapaz	Yellow Knight
just the Aussies	Jumbo Visma Fan

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Small error in that last table: 18-Valve has Yates rather than Rodriguez.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I was a bit surprised to see only 5 teams with Vingegaard: there is a considerable drop off in GC points at the top, and first scores the same as 4th +5th, and with his potential for yellow jersey bonuses, stage points and the mountains classification, plus the likelihood of second place being null in the game, this might be an edition in which a major investment might have been worthwhile. We'll see.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Small error in that last table: 18-Valve has Yates rather than Rodriguez.

You're right: he changed his team and I posted that in the team listing but didn't change that tab: thanks.
Table edited (so it now looks like you are talking nonsense, but you weren't)

 

[Devil's Elbow]

With Træen already being a unique pick for me, that's a lot of reasons to root extra hard for him.

Good start already.

 

[Salvarani]

Skjelmose, unique pick!

It was either him or Vingegaard for me!

I thought a few would pick Vingegaard, so went rouge and picked Skjelmose instead! Could fit both Australians that way.

Then picked Kelderman, if Vinge crashes out or has a bad race. Wilco could probably finish in the top 10 as a super-dom also.

Bernal, who knows? Top 10 would be great imo.

The rest of my team… hope they can do something on a stage.

 

[rote_laterne2]

Podium at the popularity contest, good start as I won't score at the first stages anyway.

 

[bminchow]

And there goes our secret weapon Carapaz. Looks like I should have gone OConnor instead.

 

[titan31]

And there goes our secret weapon Carapaz. Looks like I should have gone OConnor instead.

Ya, I had been toying around with Yates and Alaphillippe Vs Carapaz and Rodriguez so looks like I chose the wrong one

 

[RedheadDane]

Skjelmose, unique pick!

I wanted to pick him too, but couldn't afford it.

Quick correction:
Two of my riders did not in fact win a race recently.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Team similarity
As already mentioned, the high popularity of a relatively high number of riders means that there is more similarity between teams (although no identical ones). 7 riders in common between
Armchair and Madrazo
Madrazo and Rote Laterne
Peixotini and Zigzag Warrior
and 12 other teams have at least one team with which they share 6 riders.

That tab on the Spreadsheet is by far the most colourful. And the spreadsheet will be available on the same Google Docs link throughout the race (and into perpetuity after, I suppose). In a reasonably short while, it'll have today's points on it too, at which point I'll post the first set of standings.

 

[Anderis]

For the Giro I picked Carthy and Vlasov and they DNF-ed.

For the TdF I picked Carapaz and he crashed on stage 1.

In another game, half of my riders have had serious health issues this year and I have my worst season ever in that game.

It looks that I bring bad luck to riders this year.

 

[Anderis]

Won the popularity contest at least. Better than 2nd in everything like the Giro

Is that you, Derek?

 

[RedheadDane]

Of course the two national champions in the top-10 were the ones I couldn't afford... It was Madouas who was supposed to be the one staying with Gaudu the longest.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Stage 1
One for Mrs Yates' scrapbook:
Stage points (the Green Jersey classification*)

YATES Adam	80 stage points​	0 teams​
YATES Simon	50​	14​
POGACAR Tadej	35​	0​
PINOT Thibaut	25​	1​
WOODS Michael	15​	1​
LAFAY Victor	10​	0​
HINDLEY Jai	5​	33​
SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias	3​	1​
VINGEGAARD RASMUSSEN Jonas	2​	5​
GAUDU David	1​	0​

1​	18_Valve	55​
1​	Armchair_Cyclist	55​
1​	BicycleBoy	55​
1​	BluesInTheBottle	55​
1​	Bminchow	55​
1​	DJW	55​
1​	Madrazo	55​
1​	Peixotini	55​
1​	PostmanHat	55​
1​	Riverside	55​
1​	Rote_Laterne	55​
1​	Vladimir	55​
13​	Del1962	50​
13​	Rufs	50​
15​	Tonton	25​
16​	Search	20​
17​	Salvarani	8​
18​	AmisVelo	7​
19​	Anderis	5​
19​	Berlus	5​
19​	Comodoro	5​
19​	Devils_Elbow	5​
19​	DJSprtsch	5​
19​	JumboVismaFan	5​
19​	Kazistuta	5​
19​	Laarsland	5​
19​	Leadbelly	5​
19​	Lecko	5​
19​	Marek	5​
19​	Northerner	5​
19​	Queen_Stagiare	5​
19​	Red_Lobster	5​
19​	Ricco	5​
19​	Titan31	5​
19​	Yellow_Knight	5​
19​	ZigZagWanderer	5​
37​	Evans_is_the_Best	2​
37​	Mellow_Velo	2​
37​	Scrooll07	2​
37​	Triley36	2​
41​	ArchieBoy	0​
41​	RedheadDane	0​
41​	SamuCuenca	0​
	Collective_Wisdom	30​
	Pog_vs_the_World	35​

*: stage points only, but unlike the Tour's green jersey, there are no intermediate points here, and the stage points are the same regardless of the parcours

Main Game
When we add to those stage points the 20 point yellow jersey bonus (which cannot be lost, no matter what happens in the next 3 weeks) and the projected points for GC, and the two minor classifications (which will fluctuate between here and Paris), this is what we get)

YATES Adam	780​	0​
YATES Simon	550​	14​
POGACAR Tadej	475​	0​
PINOT Thibaut	360​	1​
WOODS Michael	315​	1​
LAFAY Victor	273​	0​
HINDLEY Jai	236​	33​
SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias	203​	1​
VINGEGAARD RASMUSSEN Jonas	185​	5​
GAUDU David	161​	0​
VAN AERT Wout	140​	0​
LANDA MEANA Mikel	130​	4​
RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos	120​	8​
KELDERMAN Wilco	110​	6​
POWLESS Neilson	105​	0​
STRONG Corbin	100​	0​
EENKHOORN Pascal	95​	0​
ARANBURU DEBA Alexander	94​	3​
VAN GILS Maxim	88​	0​
TEUNS Dylan	82​	2​

So the Red Lantern is the first Yellow Jersey

1​	Rote_Laterne	1109​
2​	Bminchow	1107​
3​	PostmanHat	1052​
4​	Peixotini	1040​
5​	DJW	1020​
6​	Armchair_Cyclist	1017​
7​	Vladimir	1017​
8​	Rufs	1016​
9​	Madrazo	1009​
10​	Riverside	1001​
11​	BluesInTheBottle	997​
12​	BicycleBoy	945​
13​	18_Valve	945​
14​	Del1962	872​
15​	Search	799​
16​	Salvarani	723​
17​	AmisVelo	678​
18​	Berlus	671​
19​	Comodoro	654​
20​	Ricco	648​
21​	Leadbelly	642​
22​	Laarsland	614​
23​	Devils_Elbow	571​
24​	Titan31	571​
25​	Queen_Stagiare	553​
26​	Northerner	549​
27​	Anderis	521​
28​	Lecko	516​
29​	ZigZagWanderer	512​
30​	Tonton	500​
31​	DJSprtsch	487​
32​	Kazistuta	481​
33​	ArchieBoy	477​
34​	Triley36	469​
35​	Marek	467​
36​	JumboVismaFan	441​
37​	Yellow_Knight	438​
38​	Scrooll07	429​
39​	Red_Lobster	415​
40​	Mellow_Velo	387​
41​	Evans_is_the_Best	385​
42​	SamuCuenca	372​
43​	RedheadDane	263​
	Collective_Wisdom	775​
	Pog_vs_the_World	615​

There is a tiebreaker when teams are even on points, which is to exclude the highest points earner from each team that is party to the tie (and then the next highest etc, until there is a difference in the teams). The thinking is that this favours the more balanced team. So Armchair and Vladimir share their three highest point scorers so far, but when the fourth highest is removed from each team, I still have 111 points to Vladimir's 109.
To separate 18-Valve and Bicycle Boy I needed the next tier of separation (as they both have the same 3 riders who have any more than the basic 20 for positions 51 and below): ignoring those they share, BB's best placed is Wright in 107th, against 18-Valve's Cavendish in 170th. So Bicycle Boy gets the nod. Similar calculation puts Devil's Elbow ahead of Titan31; however, I normally won't bother doing these tiebreakers unless the tie is in the top ten.


Good: the spreadsheet hasn't developed any serious glitches. That's what the first stage is usually about for me.

 

[titan31]

Is that you, Derek?

Per Armchair Cyclist in the Giro thread, yup.

Though think I ended up 3rd overall anyway

Standings
For a few stages now, the only team that looked to have any chance of replacing Peixotini at the top was Bminchow. However, he has finished last on the daily scores on both stage 18 and 19, and one of the three riders that is on Bminchow's team but not Peixotini's is Carthy, who has of course now DNFed. Titan, who has Buitrago, is now the Derek Gee of our game, having moved into 2nd place everywhere possible.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I somehow managed to finish 36 out of 43 teams in terms of popularity with zero unique pick. My team's success is going to depend on whether Vingegaard can beat Adam Yates' helper and O'Connor being the best Australian at the race. Early returns aren't promising.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

It was hard for me to omit G. Martin from my team, and I had hoped someone else would have picked him instead, but he just keeps getting ignored by others in these games

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I somehow managed to finish 36 out of 43 teams in terms of popularity with zero unique pick. My team's success is going to depend on whether Vingegaard can beat Adam Yates' helper and O'Connor being the best Australian at the race. Early returns aren't promising.

Having Vingegaard means that the popularity score will be low, as only one of the popular Hindley/O'Connor/Carapaz/Allaphilippe/Girmay/Yates group would be available , while other teams typically have about 4 of them. Of the Vingegaard teams Amis Velo in 27th has the highest popularity ranking, as he picked up on the two popular cheap picks (Bernal & Johannessen). But high popularity rankings are no guarantee of good scores, as those who owe a high popularity ranking at least in part to Carapaz are about to find out.

 

[Tonton]

Merci Thibaut! Keep them coming!

 

[titan31]

All of us with Carapaz probably gone from the win anyway. That's some bad luck

 

[RedheadDane]

It was hard for me to omit G. Martin from my team, and I had hoped someone else would have picked him instead, but he just keeps getting ignored by others in these games

You could just have picked him - and left Peters as your "Resident French Guy" for the Main Game - but, noooooooooooooo.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

You could just have picked him - and left Peters as your "Resident French Guy" for the Main Game - but, noooooooooooooo.

Martin cost thrice as much as Peters.