2026-2028 Emerging Riders CQ Game

[hayneplane]

Seeing way too much track stuff on his Instagram wasn't really winning me over on Barry. And riders who can't climb aren't prime candidates for big points from the get-go when they graduate from juniors. Tarling is the only non-climber I can think of who did that, and contrary to Tarling who won all of his junior TTs, Barry got beaten in almost all TTs he did in 2025. He can maybe become a great rider down the line, but I think he will have more of a Hagenes kind of development at first.

Having said that, I do realize that Brennan was an amazing pick, so if Barry goes down the sprinter-ish route he might well be worth the gamble. It's not like I'm writing him off at all. I'm just not sure if he's really that kind of rider. Most of his results seem to have been because he's just a really strong guy. Not necessarily lightning fast. But I don't know too much about him.

Agree about the last point that much of his wins were a result of steamrollering the opposition and winning solo much as Remco did in the juniors which is hard to replicate in the pro ranks unless you are generationally special.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I find myself wondering whether the two teams with Filippo Agostinacchio thought they were getting Mattia.

I also worry that @Fivezzz has the wrong Hector Alvarez.

Due to my self-imposed rule of not wanting to have the same riders in multiple games at a time, I purposely included one of them in the Main Game and the other one here. Now it may very well prove to be a stupid choice to go with Filippo for this, but if Mattia ends up having more of a Markel Beloki kind of rookie season he'll still be available for next year's ERG. Speaking of Beloki, I have only had him in the 2024 Main Game and in last year's Vuelta game, so he would have been available, but I decided to give a second chance to a different 2024 MG pick in math wizard Yago Aguirre.

On the topic of riders with similar names, I did consider selecting Samuel Fernández Heres since I have the other Samuel Fernández in the 2024-26 game. They used to be teammates at Samu's MMR Academy team, so I assume they've tried being mistaken for one another.

About Gajdulewicz, he sadly had a serious accident this winter when a car run over him. Long recovery ahead.

Which is something that also happened to Seff Van Kerckhove.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I've managed to do the task for which I wish that @Shakes was in this game: I've done the copying and pasting marathon to generate the Team similarity table.

The highest overlap is 14 (Qazaqstan and Squire)

13: Bminchow-Devil's Elbow; Bminchow-Skidmark; Madrazo-Qazaqstan

12: Bminchow-Madrazo; Bminchow-Qazaqstan; Bminchow-SafeBet; Madrazo-Squire;


That, and everything else knowable at this stage, is in the spreadsheet here.

But the fun of a game is what is not knowable at the beginning. I'll aim to update early each month.