2026-2028 Emerging Riders CQ Game

[Squire]

I hope it is not too much a betrayal of private correspondence to reveal that DE was very taken aback that there was a rider who was, at that time, joint second in the popularity that he didn't pick. That was Thornley, who did drop down the table slightly as other teams came in.

Good to hear it's not just me.

I expected Lindholm to be the most popular rider I didn't pick, but it turned out to be Thornley and then Novak.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I hope it is not too much a betrayal of private correspondence to reveal that DE was very taken aback that there was a rider who was, at that time, joint second in the popularity that he didn't pick. That was Thornley, who did drop down the table slightly as other teams came in.

I did make the decision that I wasn't going to send in any revisions after receiving that piece of information. I got really scared I'd missed someone important, couldn't think who it might have been, turns out it's a rider I think is going to spend most of the next three years on domestique duty and I had nothing to worry about.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I did make the decision that I wasn't going to send in any revisions after receipt that piece of information.

Had you twigged that it was Thornley? Were you kicking yourself, or gloating that so many had made an error?

 

[laarsland]

I don't really get the love for him from as many as 20 players. Unless I have missed something. But it seems like he hasn't done other disciplines than road either, where people might have seen promise. He's been really anonymous until getting some decent results as a final-year U23, at an age where it's almost rare to see people still be in that category nowadays. Based on his profile, I'm willing to bet quite a lot that his career will be mostly spent as a worker/lead-out rider. Especially at a team such as RBH. But I'd love to hear from someone who might know more about him.

Given the dearth of talent at the main team as well as the quality of the youngsters coming up behind (Finn, Lindholm) I've passed on both the stated riders.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I don't really get the love for him from as many as 20 players. Unless I have missed something. But it seems like he hasn't done other disciplines than road either, where people might have seen promise. He's been really anonymous until getting some decent results as a final-year U23, at an age where it's almost rare to see people still be in that category nowadays. Based on his profile, I'm willing to bet quite a lot that his career will be mostly spent as a worker/lead-out rider. Especially at a team such as RBH. But I'd love to hear from someone who might know more about him.

This exactly. The fact that he was nowhere near today in the TDU when short TTs have often yielded his best results as a U23 just reaffirms to me that he's a jack of all trades master of none kind of rider.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I have added unique picks data to the popularity table, and listed those on 2-10 teams by popularity, in a post from the morning on the first page.

The game is obviously launched shortly after the Main Game, and whether it is from alertness to this during our thinking for that, later consideration of our shortlisted riders to check them against the criteria here, or picking through the selections of others there to see who might be eligible here, that game does have an influence here (not so much the other way around)

A team can therefore be made out of those that were most picked in the main game (the top 1 of these, plus the mean score for those on 7 Main Game teams)

	Main Game picks	Picks here
REMIJN Senna	37	26
DECOMBLE Maxime	35	33
BEHRENS Niklas	33	14
AGOSTINACCHIO Mattia	30	19
PERICAS CAPDEVILA Adria	25	30
TUCKWELL Luke	17	15
NOVAK Pavel	15	18
PICKERING Finlay	12	15
KOCKELMANN Mathieu	12	13
SENTJENS Sente	11	13
ANDERSEN Noah Lindholm Møller	11	17
BELOKI FERNANDEZ Markel	11	14
L'HOTE Antoine	9	14
THORNLEY Callum	9	20
SCHWARZBACHER Matthias	8	14
GUALDI Simone	8	15
MCKENZIE Hamish	8	1
ALVAREZ MARTINEZ Hector	7	23
BARRY Ashlin	7	10
FAURE PROST Alexy	7	2
HOUCOU Emmanuel	7	1
PESCADOR CASTRO Diego	7	9
REX Tim	7	0
SPARFEL Aubin	7	24

and our teams can be ranked according to how popular their riders were in that other game:

1​	Skidmark	278
2​	Bminchow	260
3​	Kazistuta	253
4​	Fivezzz	243
5​	Berflamand	237
6​	Earns1985	234
7​	AmisVelo	229
8​	Kryvoskyn	227
9​	SafeBet	225
10​	Qazaqstan	221
11​	Armchair_Cyclist	219
12​	PandaClaws	217
13​	Blues_in_the_Bottle	214
13​	Squire	214
15​	Madrazo	212
16​	Haynepayne	209
17​	DevilsElbow	207
18​	Cordi	206
19​	EvansIsTheBest	197
19​	Vladimir	197
21​	Manafana	196
22​	Leadbelly	193
23​	Laarsland	191
24​	Nakazar	188
25​	Ingsve	180
26​	LosBrolin	172
27​	DJSprtsch	170
28​	JonEzeitza	168
29​	RedheadDane	167
30​	Boris98	164
31​	Rufs	159
32​	Onizuka999	145
33​	Del1962	141
34​	Josedin	139
35​	Laurens147	94
36​	SamuCuenca	17
	CollectiveWisdom	287
	MainGame2026	298

And the organiser of the main game is top of the table!

Not surprising, I suppose, that there is a fairly high correlation to the popularity rankings, and the Collective Wisdom is very close to the Main Game team, but there are discrepancies:
Tim Rex was picked 7 times in the main game, but not at all here. 7 is only 1 in 13 players there, but that is more than just an eccentric pic. Seems odd to think of a young rider that he will do well over the course of 10 months, but not over three years. Of course, it's very possible that none of those seven managers are in this game. It would be interesting to see (but beyond my Excel skills to investigate efficiently) what riders any of us put in our Main Game squad that we then declined to pick when they were eligible here.
Where there is greater take-up of a rider in this game, that is probably easier to explain: the expectation may be that points are gained in years 2 and 3, and it may be that the up to 199 points that he may have scored last year might have priced him out of the Main game, while all riders here have the same cost (the opportunity to pick another guy).

 

[RedheadDane]

Like last year, I went for a U23 riders in their first pro-year approach, with a few exceptions:

Sparfel: Sure, he's taking another year on the devo team. However, with 137 points scored so far, I think it's a matter of when not if he hits the 200 points mark this year. In fact, I wouldn't be too surprised if he hits it before turning 20.

Lindholm: I learned a harsh lesson with the game starting last year when I missed out on Finn and Omrzel. And the good news is that if he doesn't hit 200 points this year, then I can just pick him again for the game starting next year.

 

[Squire]

It would be interesting to see (but beyond my Excel skills to investigate efficiently) what riders any of us put in our Main Game squad that we then declined to pick when they were eligible here.

Alexy Faure Prost for me. He was in the running for this game too, though. But the reasoning would be that he's very much a gamble that I don't want to be stuck with for three seasons if it doesn't work out. Budget constraints in the main game made it so that the gamble was more worth it there.

And another possible reason for leaving a main game pick out of the emerging team, and it might well be the case for Tim Rex, could be that you are happy with a modest but pretty safe profit in the main game if it's your pick no. 33 so to speak, but you are looking for a higher ceiling for this game. A bit of the opposite of my Faure Prost reasoning, in a way, where the Frenchman has a high ceiling but low probability of reaching it.

The ideal pick for this game is usually a good combination of high ceiling and high likelihood of reaching somewhere near to that ceiling.

 

[Cordi333]

I didn't go with Noval cause I still remember the facepalm with betting early for Brenner many years ago.
But I considered not only Noval but also his 2008 pals Van Kerckhove, Haugetun & Herzog. It's a possibility that some of those 4 end in the best scoring team 3 years from now.

 

[Cordi333]

I don't really get the love for him from as many as 20 players. Unless I have missed something. But it seems like he hasn't done other disciplines than road either, where people might have seen promise. He's been really anonymous until getting some decent results as a final-year U23, at an age where it's almost rare to see people still be in that category nowadays. Based on his profile, I'm willing to bet quite a lot that his career will be mostly spent as a worker/lead-out rider. Especially at a team such as RBH. But I'd love to hear from someone who might know more about him.

Honestly, he was my 18th rider. I could have put him as I could have put many others, I think my last hestation was between him and Gualdi and maybe I decided wrong but I was under a big time pressure this morning haha

 

[Squire]

I didn't go with Noval cause I still remember the facepalm with betting early for Brenner many years ago.
But I considered not only Noval but also his 2008 pals Van Kerckhove, Haugetun & Herzog. It's a possibility that some of those 4 end in the best scoring team 3 years from now.

I've noticed that nobody has been betting on Furenes doing a Seixas in 2028.

 

[Cordi333]

Anyone willing to suggest who might be in the Collective Ignorance team by thhe end of the game.?

2 riders from 2007 that I like a lot their upside but wasn't brave enough to select: Henry Hobbs & Eñaut Urkaregi. In one of my many sketches they were in alongside Alessio Magagnotti cause they are probably the 2007 riders I like the most right now, I think that could be a good sprinter/classics cohort. I got them 3 in my season fantasy team at FC.

But yeah, maybe I'm just projecting too much their impressive track IP times but that is imo a really good indicator for a good transition to the road (and also Magagnotti and Urkaregi did very strong seasons, with the younger of the Hobbs more focused in the track and going a little more under radar).

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Unless we have deliberately picked them for their points in Years 2 and 3, and accept a low year 1 as a cost, we probably hope not to be picking men in this race twice in a row. But there are 59 of the riders from last year that are still short of their 200 point lifetime total, and 33 of them have indeed been taken up again: sometimes by the same managers exercising patience.

Enough people still have faith in Behrens to get him into the Collective Wisdom Team after he didn't really repay the faith shown that made him one of the most popular picks last year. Our collective drop of confidence in Kajamini is very notable (from 16 picks to 1), with Svrcek suffering almost as big a fall in favour( 10 to 1): Danny Van Bekkum and Menno Huising have both been left out of this game having been picked 5 times each a year ago. Again, I'm not going to check who has stood by someone that rather flopped last year (I'll admit that I did so in the case of Behrens): I'm sure I am not alone, and that it won't only be the former U23 world champ that it has happened with.

Finlay Pickering seems something of a conundrum in this regard: he was only picked 3 times for the 2025-27 game, is by the standards of this game not young, had a 2025 that had some excellent rides but underwhelming scoring, and has grown his popularity to 15 picks. That Vuelta visibility is a thing.

The likes of Pericas, Remijn, Sparfel, Novak and Gualdi were very rare picks a year ago, and in Collective Wisdom this time: I guess they embody the idea of a few early pickers for those expected to thrive later. Whether Hector Alvarez was picked by everyone who believed in that tactic last year, or whether some were disappointed to see him back in this game this time, is not so obvious, as he was on 9 teams last year, and is one of the most popular this time.

Anyway, the most popular riders in the previous edition that are still eligible here are the "Popular last Year" team:

	last time picks	this time picks
BEHRENS Niklas	37​	14​
SENTJENS Sente	18​	13​
KAJAMINI Florian Samuel	16​	1​
PESCADOR CASTRO Diego	16​	9​
ALVAREZ MARTINEZ Hector	11​	23​
SVRCEK Martin	10​	1​
VANGHELUWE Warre	6​	2​
ØRN-KRISTOFF Felix	6​	7​
VAN BEKKUM Darren	5​	0​
PEDERSEN Henrik Breiner	5​	1​
HUISING Menno	5​	0​
FAURE PROST Alexy	5​	2​
CHAMBERLAIN Oscar	5​	4​
SHMIDT Artem	4​	1​
VERSTRYNGE Emiel	4​	10​
POLLEFLIET Gianluca	4​	1​
BELOKI FERNANDEZ Markel	4​	14​
ORINS Robin	4​	0​
SUMPIK Pavel	4​	1​

Yes: there are 19 of them: averaging out of those on 4 will deal with that.

Listing our teams by their popularity back then might tell us something about our level of patience, but not necessarily much about how well we will do:

1​	Berflamand	134
2​	Armchair_Cyclist	97
3​	Blues_in_the_Bottle	94
4​	Fivezzz	85
5​	Kazistuta	78
6​	PandaClaws	68
7​	AmisVelo	67
8​	Leadbelly	65
9​	Boris98	62
9​	Skidmark	62
11​	Haynepayne	59
12​	Bminchow	56
13​	SafeBet	52
14​	Earns1985	49
15​	JonEzeitza	48
16​	Vladimir	47
17​	Squire	45
18​	Cordi	44
18​	Laarsland	44
20​	Kryvoskyn	39
20​	Nakazar	39
22​	LosBrolin	35
23​	DJSprtsch	32
24​	Qazaqstan	29
25​	Laurens147	26
26​	Madrazo	25
27​	Josedin	24
28​	Del1962	23
29​	DevilsElbow	22
30​	EvansIsTheBest	21
31​	Ingsve	20
32​	Manafana	17
33​	Rufs	10
34​	Onizuka999	8
34​	RedheadDane	8
36​	SamuCuenca	2
	CollectiveWisdom	68
	MainGame2026	73
	PopularLastEdition	165

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

But I considered not only Noval but also his 2008 pals Van Kerckhove, Haugetun & Herzog. It's a possibility that some of those 4 end in the best scoring team 3 years from now.

It has certainly happened before: De Lie was even the top scorer (but unselected) in the game 2020-22, despite being a junior for the first year. Ayuso, of the same birth year, also was top ten that edition*, and both of them were not only available for the following game, but also for 2022-24. You don't necessarily want to despair of your picks here until well into the third year.


*: Yeah, Covid was a thing in that edition...

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

The other way that I (over?) analyse teams is to see how far they have taken a run up to the start of the game: how they scored in 2025. Obviously they can't have got 200 pts or more, but some got close, and nearly put themselves out of the scope of the game. I think Davide Persico, is the only active rider who is on 199 points, but no-one selected him.

It would seem a reasonable assumption that, for a rider who is young and building his career, and gets a number of decent, if not earth shattering, results one year, that greater things should be expected of him after that, and he will be worth consideration here.
But that is not a principle that we apply universally here: of the 18 eligible riders who scored highest in 2025, our response to them is best described as patchy; meet the Goodin2025 team:

MARTINEZ HUERTAS Juan Guillermo	5
MAISONOBE Sam	6
PERICAS CAPDEVILA Adria	30
PETER Jannis	6
DE LA CALLE ARANGO Hugo	9
CUYLITS Mauro	2
DECOMBLE Maxime	33
TSISHKOU Raman	0
TURCONI Filippo	8
SPARFEL Aubin	24
GEENS Jonas	0
TSVETKOV Nikita	0
KOERDT Bjoern	4
ROULAND Louis	0
HANSEN Marcus Sander	0
GHEBREGERGISH Yoel Habteab	0
SHMIDT Artem	1
GRANGER Ben	0

Finlay Pickering is an interesting case in regard to this: other than Sam Maisonobe (198), he is the closest (196) to being priced out. But he was not in the top 18 for 2025 points, as he had points from both of the earlier seasons.

I don't have a field in the spreadsheet to track our teams by their 2025 scores, but I do have data for pre-game scores, and there is a high correlation. But in this table, Pickering, for example, scores 112 rather than 196. There is a theoretical maximum of 3582: teams near the top have perhaps been patient with the riders they have picked, those at the bottom are more likely to have picked riders untested in the professional ranks.

1​	Del1962	2510
2​	Laurens147	2429
3​	Boris98	2168
4​	Madrazo	2130
5​	Armchair_Cyclist	2110
6​	Qazaqstan	2106
7​	Squire	2104
8​	DJSprtsch	2077
9​	Leadbelly	2064
10​	Cordi	2051
11​	AmisVelo	2038
12​	Berflamand	2000
13​	JonEzeitza	1900
14​	Earns1985	1872
15​	Fivezzz	1825
16​	Vladimir	1781
17​	EvansIsTheBest	1756
18​	LosBrolin	1738
19​	PandaClaws	1729
20​	Manafana	1725
21​	Laarsland	1702
22​	Skidmark	1684
23​	RedheadDane	1670
24​	Kryvoskyn	1652
25​	Kazistuta	1645
26​	Josedin	1628
27​	Bminchow	1622
28​	Haynepayne	1619
29​	Blues_in_the_Bottle	1607
30​	SamuCuenca	1598
31​	DevilsElbow	1577
32​	Rufs	1490
33​	Nakazar	1432
34​	Ingsve	1383
35​	SafeBet	1372
36​	Onizuka999	935
	CollectiveWisdom	2030
	MainGame2026	1974
	Goodin2025	3068
	PopularLastEdition	2105

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Anyone willing to suggest who might be in the Collective Ignorance team by the end of the game.?

Ben Granger was on the podium of a 1.Pro race alongside Del Toro in the autumn: he might have grounds to feel peeved that no-one has confidence in him to operate at that level again.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

It would be interesting to see (but beyond my Excel skills to investigate efficiently) what riders any of us put in our Main Game squad that we then declined to pick when they were eligible here.

It turns out I have Harry Hudson there, but not here. I can't remember why (it wasn't even that I needed a free pick, so I obviously I saw some potential on one day that I didn't another)

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I am confident that these points will not be too significant by October 2028, but some points had already been picked up before the entries closed. 32 eligible riders had already got of the mark, 3 of them among the chosen. Maybe the managers involved picked them looking for an early mention, and I will indulge them in that.

It also means that we have, from among the other 29 who picked up early scores, the first iteration of the Collective Ignorance team: the best scoring riders that none of us picked. That is unlike the other teams: it changes it's composition constantly. It will always make a good start, as it has nobody who has not yet started living up to expectations (in the first 8 editions, but only one of the last four, it has been in the lead at the end of Year 1), but on the whole, it drops back as its membership stabilises (but not always: it has won 3 of the ten completed editions, including the most recent by nearly 6000 points, and come second on two more occasions.

The relevant scorers are

CHAMBERLAIN Oscar	61​	4​
MENDEZ PEREZ Diego Alejandro	23​	1​
MCKENZIE Hamish	14​	1​

and the early leaderboard:

1​	Berflamand	75
2​	Leadbelly	61
2​	LosBrolin	61
2​	Nakazar	61
5​	SamuCuenca	23
6​	Everyone else	0
	CollectiveWisdom	0
	CollectiveIgnorance	475
	MainGame2026	14
	Goodin2025	0
	PopularLastEdition	61

 

[Squire]

Anyone willing to suggest who might be in the Collective Ignorance team by thhe end of the game.?

Karsten Larsen Feldmann could maybe become a good points farmer for Unibet if he transfers his awesome conti consistency to pro conti level and/or develops further.

I also had former speedskater turned cyclist Lennart Jasch on my shortlist. Had some quite amazing results at a rather high level already in his first real cycling season. A candidate for exponential development curve as latecomer to the sport. Kinda regret not picking him actually. Would have been much more fun than someone like Pickering.

Mateusz Gajdulewicz was super strong at the U23 WC in Kigali and had some other good results in U23 stage races in 2025. Will now be riding for a team where someone like Otruba has recently had a 300+ point season, so the young Pole could be one to watch.

Maybe someone like Clément Izquierdo can become a reliable scorer in French cup races for Cofidis. He showed a bit of potential in 2025. Louis Rouland is another Cofidis rider who can maybe become a new Baudin or Jegat in more climby French races. But now I'm clutching at straws a bit.