The 2014 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[CQmanager]

My name in the update ... must be some mistake

 

[LaFlorecita]

Only lost 2 places hoping for a better week this week, should be possible with Contador

 

[search]

My name in the update ... must be some mistake

I was surprised to see mine as well...

 

[del1962]

Happy I managed to stay top 10 with so few performances lasy week, I was wondering how I manged it, then I saw Contador's points today included in update

 

[Pentacycle]

Special thanks to Tiesj Benoot, who suffered mono in in the off-season, but already scored 22 points in his first UCI-race of the year.

Sucks that Roelandts crashed though, both for him and my team. Guess Phinney is my only hope for Roubaix...

 

[ItalianGigolo]

Pozzato seems like the worst pick ever right now... I hope he will amaze everyone in Paris Roubaix (I'm trying to convince myself). If he had a decent season I could've been in top 20 at least. I have no real GC contender in Pais Vasco(maybe Poels) so I expect another fall in the Rankings. I'm still happy that I was in top 10 a good period of time considering this is my first time playing this game.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

A pretty good day today : Cunego is showing signs of life and Contador continues to pile on the points. At this rate he will break even before the start of the TDF

 

[skidmark]

Yeah, I was just going to say, EITB, that you're looking good with Cunego there.

As for my team, I surprisingly moved up 7 spots due to a quiet week for many. Here's what I've got for this week:

Pais Vasco

Contador
who cares?

no no, I've got VdB, Hesjedal, but guys like Chaves, Olivier (impressive performance from him especially) and Vanendert had decent performances that were promising, but won't be enough to bring them much more than finishing points. It's the Contador show.

Sarthe

Dennis
Craddock
Coppel

All 3 guys can TT and climb (sometimes), but all 3 guys fell short on the 'climbing' part of CI last week. I think the TT will be more decisive in this one, I'm hopeful.

Scheldeprijs

Boonen
Van Baarle
EBH
Van Poppel
Colli
Bennett

Good to see EBH inserted into the lineup so he can disappoint in yet another race. All seriousness, I like Danny Van Poppel here, and Sam Bennett can turn in a good sprint depending on the day.

Roubaix

Phinney
Le Bon
Van Baarle
Boonen
Bennett
Boasson Hagen

Genuine high hopes for Taylor Phinney, general (but maybe unrealistic, given his crash on Sunday) high hopes for Le Bon, unrealistic high hopes for EBH, and 'it's almost a given' high hopes for Boonen. The other 2, well you get experience points for doing P-R as a neo-pro, but that doesn't translate to CQ points

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

Quintana and Kwiatkowski have been doing a good job of limiting the damage so far, but a team with Contador had to pass me sooner or later.

 

[skidmark]

Quintana and Kwiatkowski have been doing a good job of limiting the damage so far, but a team with Contador had to pass me sooner or later.

With lots of big riders picked by the top 10 or so teams, it should be an interesting back-and-forth. Contador's obviously a prime driver for those 48 teams or however many picked him, but after this week I think he's mostly off until the Dauphine (I think I read that somewhere), whereas Quintana is now in a down cycle and will come back for the Giro. Should be exciting to follow, and you should be able to keep your head above water, with Kiwi looking a solid podium shot at Pais Vasco with the punchy finishes and TT, and likely carrying that form to the Ardennes.

 

[jsem94]

EBH and Phinney better do well at Roubaix. I might climb because of them and Contador. Stayed level this week despite having a rough week.

 

[mutschi]

It is always easy to be clever in hingsight......but....I wonder, if you could do one swap who would it be? The new rider has to have similar points than the one you chuck out.

For me

Uran out, Kiwi in

But i am not complaining: I have Contador, Gerrans and Haas.

 

[mutschi]

That could be considered as an maybe exciting addition to the game: Every month you can swap one rider. You keep points of the old rider up to this date and earn future points form the new rider from this date. Would that make the game more tactical and even more interesting? I assume it would keep the field closer together as teams who loose a big rider through injury get another chance to catch up. Not sure how much wore work it would create for the guys running the game. They do a lot already. And many thanks for that.

 

[manafana]

gert steegmans a bright light in a dark season but up 3 places

 

[mc_mountain]

That could be considered as an maybe exciting addition to the game: Every month you can swap one rider. You keep points of the old rider up to this date and earn future points form the new rider from this date. Would that make the game more tactical and even more interesting? I assume it would keep the field closer together as teams who loose a big rider through injury get another chance to catch up. Not sure how much wore work it would create for the guys running the game. They do a lot already. And many thanks for that.

While there are definitely some riders I'd like to change and others I like to bring in, I for one like the purity of the pick once nature of this game. I think in draft fantasy games, trades seem to work, where each rider is only picked once and there are likely fewer teams/players. There are already lots of popular riders, being able to subsequently alter the teams would make for more similarities. That does perhaps make the game closer but penallses the teams that took exciting gambles.

There could also be a problem of when the changes take place (ie a rider already has 'points in the bag' for GC that finishes after the change over point). It would also give an advantage to people that can closely monitor the season, which some people cant always do.

As for Uran he wont be changing your mind during the Ardennes, he wont race them due to illness.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

It is always easy to be clever in hingsight......but....I wonder, if you could do one swap who would it be? The new rider has to have similar points than the one you chuck out.

For me

Uran out, Kiwi in

But i am not complaining: I have Contador, Gerrans and Haas.

For me, Voeckler (632) would get the boot, and I guess I would include Peraud (586) instead (or, if we can go like 200 over budget like you did, Terpstra would be my pick).

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Uran apparently out of the Ardennes through illness, and therefore unlikely to have any real form for the Giro. These were surely the times in which he was going to gain a very large proportion of his points. Looks like an expensive error for me and 72 others.

Ah well: add him to next year's shortlist.

 

[Panda Claws]

Yay, I got mentioned in an update.

7th this week as well. Nice!

 

[lenissart]

Could be a good day for me, with any "rare" picks !
- Guardini, Colli or Peluchi in Belgium
- Matthews and Swift in Spain (with Cunego, and others for the overall)

And .. it's not very fair play, but ... if Conta and Kwiat could stop their domination ... 'll be a good news

 

[del1962]

Could be a good day for me, with any "rare" picks !
- Guardini, Colli or Peluchi in Belgium
- Matthews and Swift in Spain (with Cunego, and others for the overall)

And .. it's not very fair play, but ... if Conta and Kwiat could stop their domination ... 'll be a good news

Viviani, Fenn, Boonen and Bennett in Belgium, Swift, Contador plus others in Spain including Ruben Fernandez (He coulndt win today could, he lets hope the Peleton make a miscalulation)

 

[skidmark]

Well, Van Poppel gets third and Bennett gets fifth in a 1.HC race, that's a better combined result than I've had all year. Plus, Dennis gets 2nd in the Sarthe TT (and overall for now), Coppel not far back, and of course Contador keeps the jersey. A decent day.

Interesting point brought up by mutschi about if we could trade a rider who would it be... right now I'm kind of feeling Moreno Moser for someone like Barguil would be enjoyable (because I like Barguil and think he's on the upswing whereas Moser just seems an enigma). About the idea of 'trading' a rider every month, I'm definitely not for that, one thing that makes this my favorite game is the complicated simplicity of it - you have to pick 33 riders, which is a lot, and follow them through ups and downs all year. Managing it further would introduce another element into it that I'm not so excited about - I mean, the original idea was that you were a team manager making a team for a year, and you ride that team for a year through injuries etc. Trades don't really happen mid-year in pro cycling. Just my 2 cents; I feel like there's enough to keep people interested in this game that we don't really have to introduce anything else to it.

 

[Netserk]

Well, Van Poppel gets third and Bennett gets fifth in a 1.HC race, that's a better combined result than I've had all year. Plus, Dennis gets 2nd in the Sarthe TT (and overall for now), Coppel not far back, and of course Contador keeps the jersey. A decent day.

Interesting point brought up by mutschi about if we could trade a rider who would it be... right now I'm kind of feeling Moreno Moser for someone like Barguil would be enjoyable (because I like Barguil and think he's on the upswing whereas Moser just seems an enigma). About the idea of 'trading' a rider every month, I'm definitely not for that, one thing that makes this my favorite game is the complicated simplicity of it - you have to pick 33 riders, which is a lot, and follow them through ups and downs all year. Managing it further would introduce another element into it that I'm not so excited about - I mean, the original idea was that you were a team manager making a team for a year, and you ride that team for a year through injuries etc. Trades don't really happen mid-year in pro cycling. Just my 2 cents; I feel like there's enough to keep people interested in this game that we don't really have to introduce anything else to it.

Totally agree. Don't fix what ain't broken.

 

[jsem94]

Although this game is such that you can do nothing but watch for the entire year after submitting the team, there's no need to change the format of the game.

 

[skidmark]

Yeah! Rohan Dennis finally shows something resembling form. 90 points on the week; although he should have had more in the first week of the year, this is at least encouraging news to the 38 of us who have him. Now I only need him to win California, have a good showing in a couple of WT races, get a top 20 in Le Tour (let's not be unrealistic here), do well in the US races post-tour and top 5 the Worlds TT. No prob.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Seems like Villella will win the mountain classification in Pais Vasco. nice