The 2015 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[diggercuz]

Looking forward to the updates...

my goal from the start of the year was to finish mid pack... now my goal is to be mentioned just once in an update and make it into double digits in the rankings!

Man my team sucks... doesn't help when you pick retired riders.......

 

[Roude Leiw]

Thanks to those who replied saying they're still following the thread and would appreciate updates. I got back home yesterday after driving halfway across Canada, and was a bit ambitious in my estimation of being able to dedicate the solid hour it takes to put together an update; obviously I have things to do after being away almost four months. It's been a few weeks but I'll ask you to wait a few hours longer (I'm thinking I'll be able to get it together this evening). I'll roll out the last few updates a few days at a time so that you can bask in your successes if you've done well etc, with the aim of being caught up by next week. Things should be smooth until the end of the season from there.

Thanks for your patience.

No stress man, im still on track for top 100

 

[skidmark]

Update 29: CQ Manager shows who's boss in biggest week ever

We all know the Tour is the biggest race in the world, both media-attention and CQ-points wise. But this year was a special one for this game, as some serious points were scored by some fairly popular riders. Of the four 1000+ points picks that were chosen by 20 or more participants, Sagan and Rodriguez scored quite a bit with stages in the first two weeks, but Froome and Quintana went 1-2 overall. A quick and dirty spreadsheet copy/paste shows me that 5 teams picked both of those riders, and it's no coincidence (with their 840 and 600 points on the week respectively) that these are our top 5 scorers of the week, although not by as much of a margin as you may think. I'll let the results speak for themselves.

This week's top scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 CQmanager 2063
2 Ruvu75 1899
3 trotters aotearoa 1828
4 Schleckamagurky 1756
5 Bicycle_Boy 1751

I must admit that I haven't done my research thoroughly on this subject, so the update's title is a bit unsubstantiated, but I feel like no one has gotten TWO THOUSAND points in a single week before, right? Either way, after a long season toiling near the bottom of the overall, CQ Manager has a blazing hot moment of triumph, scoring a ludicrous amount of points with the 1-2 TdF GC, as well as Gesink and Talansky and a few others with a smattering of points. The 'big risk, big reward' strategy of high priced guys certainly paid off this week. The other members of the top 5 have Froome and Quintana as well, as mentioned above, so I feel I should mention del1962, who missed the top 5 by only 60 points despite not having Quintana - their team instead had Froome, Sagan, Rodriguez, several riders with around 50 points for the week, and the canny pick (one of two teams to have him) of Rueben Plaza, who got a moment in the sun after a career in the shadows. A good combo of riders on a week where there were just too many points.

This week's high movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 CQmanager (+52)
2 Ruvu75 (+46)
3 VeloHuman (+42)
4 Schleckamagurky (+37)
5 slosada (+34)

A similar crew. The big story is - a lot of movement! 17 teams moved up by over 20 places, an amount of shifting that is fairly rare this late in the game.

This month's top scorers

Rank Team Points this month
1 GP Blanco 4750
2 Schleckamagurky 4675
3 Froome19 4568
4 del1962 4525
5 Bicycle_Boy 4349

Perhaps it's no surprise that the highest scorers in July end up among the high scorers overall, with 2 of this top 5 in the top 10 overall and one more in the top 20... see the top overall rankings to find out who I'm talking about...

This month's high movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 Froome19 (+81)
2 VeloHuman (+72)
3 topprak (+62)
4 Ruvu75 (+61)
4 Schleckamagurky (+61)

What does it take to move past half the competitors in a single month? Well, Froome19 has not only his namesake, but also the following riders that scored more than 100 points in July: Rodriguez, Cav, Barguil, Talansky, Gesink, S. Yates, Ewan, Latour, Lopez and Kump. Yikes.

Points Competition

Rank Team Points
1 derrudi 146
2 Ruvu75 144
3 Schleckamagurky 139
4 Kjellus 132
5 will10 130
6 GP Blanco 128
7 afpm90 127
8 Londonpat 126
9 jeroenk 121
10 gustienordic 118
10 Jancouver 118

With 2nd and 4th on the week, Ruvu75 and Schleckamagurky make a run at the top spot, but derrudi holds them off admirably.

Top 10 overall

Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (+9) GP Blanco 11574
2 (-1) Cykeltyven 11534
3 (+8) Kjellus 11496
4 (-2) Londonpat 11469
5 (+15) del1962 11314
6 (-3) skidmark 11275
7 (-3) derrudi 11273
8 (-) greenedge 11262
9 (+4) karaev 11177
10 (-5) Geraint Too Fast 11066

Wow! Some serious changes at the top. Obviously, GP Blanco - high scorer of the month - rockets up from 10th to 1st this week. This implies a really tight race, and it's true - there are 27 teams within 1000 points of the leader after the Tour. Sure, we probably won't see a 2000+ point week again, but with a GT and the Worlds left, 1000 points is totally a recoverable amount if you have the right mix of riders.

Other changes are basically everyone in the top 10, and notably PeterB, will10 and snccdcno fall out of the top 10 while kjellus, del1962 (up 15 places to 5th!) and karaev move in.

spreadsheet at dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rchr5bekwliojuq/CQ%202015%20update%2029.xls?dl=0

 

[GP Blanco]

Great to observe I am leading the peloton but I it will be a one day fly. My objective is still top-20 but it is fun to wear the yellow jersey one update.

 

[manafana]

moving to clear mid table im on it.

 

[shalgo]

Thanks for the update! It should be an interesting finish; a lot of teams are still in contention.

 

[Jancouver]

2000 points? Wow!

As expected a slide for my team. Not having Caleb Ewan is really killing me and is the difference between being 6th and 24th

Thanks for the update!

 

[Karaev1]

Wow! Top 10 after the Tour is incredible considering this is my second participation! Having Sagan, Rodriguez and Quintana really helped... Now I hope Quintana goes to Vuelta and win it while Rodriguez win some stages and maybe get a top 5 too. Sagan winning the Worlds would be incredible and would be the perfect conclusion to a year with so many second places for him...

PS: I'm posting from Karaev1 profile because I lost my original profile password and can't recover it...

 

[skidmark]

Re:

Great to observe I am leading the peloton but I it will be a one day fly. My objective is still top-20 but it is fun to wear the yellow jersey one update.

Don't be so sure - I haven't had the time to check last week's download (or this week's, if it's even out yet) but I see you have Berhane and De Clerq on your team, both rare picks who scored pretty well this past week.

As for my team, I'm interested to see what kind of small advantages I can gain, as that is all it will take. I guess this past week was okay - no one great in Poland (Henao obviously, but everyone has him), but I picked up some handy points from rare pick Konrad in Denmark, as well as EBH, and Latour cleaned up in Burgos nicely. Dombrowski won Utah, but that's more of a 'taking points away from other riders' than a clear advantage, since so many teams have him.

Ultimately I think it's going to come down to the big picks. I've got Sagan and Rodriguez - what is Sagan going to do late season? I picked him partially because his late season last year was so lacklustre and I'm sure he could do better - he could podium the Worlds in any year, I should think, and if he does the North American races to prepare, he can score big in Canada. But that also depends on how much he lets himself go post-Tour. J-Rod I know will compete, but I'm more worried about whether he can. He looked amazing in the Tour through his second stage win, and then he looked like he couldn't keep up. But on a normal year he should podium the Vuelta and do well in Lombardia; is this a normal year, or is this the year he finally gets old?

And of course, with the big picks, the ones I didn't pick - Froome and Quintana - are just as important. If their seasons ended now, they'd be good but not spectacular picks, and I'm afraid I counted on them ending their seasons after the Tour, which doesn't look like it's happening for either. So how much of a factor each is in the Vuelta is a huge decider in the relative placing of my own team. We shall see.

 

[GP Blanco]

Re: Re:

Great to observe I am leading the peloton but I it will be a one day fly. My objective is still top-20 but it is fun to wear the yellow jersey one update.

Don't be so sure - I haven't had the time to check last week's download (or this week's, if it's even out yet) but I see you have Berhane and De Clerq on your team, both rare picks who scored pretty well this past week.

As for my team, I'm interested to see what kind of small advantages I can gain, as that is all it will take. I guess this past week was okay - no one great in Poland (Henao obviously, but everyone has him), but I picked up some handy points from rare pick Konrad in Denmark, as well as EBH, and Latour cleaned up in Burgos nicely. Dombrowski won Utah, but that's more of a 'taking points away from other riders' than a clear advantage, since so many teams have him.

Ultimately I think it's going to come down to the big picks. I've got Sagan and Rodriguez - what is Sagan going to do late season? I picked him partially because his late season last year was so lacklustre and I'm sure he could do better - he could podium the Worlds in any year, I should think, and if he does the North American races to prepare, he can score big in Canada. But that also depends on how much he lets himself go post-Tour. J-Rod I know will compete, but I'm more worried about whether he can. He looked amazing in the Tour through his second stage win, and then he looked like he couldn't keep up. But on a normal year he should podium the Vuelta and do well in Lombardia; is this a normal year, or is this the year he finally gets old?

And of course, with the big picks, the ones I didn't pick - Froome and Quintana - are just as important. If their seasons ended now, they'd be good but not spectacular picks, and I'm afraid I counted on them ending their seasons after the Tour, which doesn't look like it's happening for either. So how much of a factor each is in the Vuelta is a huge decider in the relative placing of my own team. We shall see.

Indeed De Clercq, Berhane plus Latour who is also a little bit rare did well for my team. However, my weak point is Betancur the gamble did not work out.

 

[ingsve]

Froom to the Vuelta should be good for those of us who has him. I was afraid he was going to call it quits Armstrong style.

 

[GP Blanco]

Re:

Froom to the Vuelta should be good for those of us who has him. I was afraid he was going to call it quits Armstrong style.

That is indeed good news.

 

[greenedge]

Thanks for the update! So surprised to still be in the top 10, hopefully I can end the year around there, even with the Vuelta having a lot of GC riders that I don't have.

 

[Popchu]

Thanks for the update. Happy with the performances of my team.

If I'm not mistaken, there are still two updates to come?

 

[skidmark]

Re:

Thanks for the update. Happy with the performances of my team.

If I'm not mistaken, there are still two updates to come?

Yep, I'm rolling out the updates to catch up this week; I should have time to do the next one by tomorrow, and then the current one by the end of the week. Partly this is time constraints for me, and partly I figured people might want to spend time celebrating/ruminating the big post-Tour update.

Indeed, Froome's participation in the Vuelta is huge for this game. For me, the deciding factor in not picking him was assuming he'd be like 99% of Tour winners and shut it down after the Tour (or, like in 2013, he'd do things like Colorado for fun). I still think it was a smart gamble - I definitely didn't imagine him doing what he's doing, and I could still see something like if the Vuelta is raced hard in the first week he could just say 'screw it, I don't have anything more to prove this season' and drop off the back and help Henao in the mountains. For the purposes of this game, at least, that's what I'm hoping.

 

[Popchu]

Re: Re:

Thanks for the update. Happy with the performances of my team.

If I'm not mistaken, there are still two updates to come?

Yep, I'm rolling out the updates to catch up this week; I should have time to do the next one by tomorrow, and then the current one by the end of the week. Partly this is time constraints for me, and partly I figured people might want to spend time celebrating/ruminating the big post-Tour update.

That's good! My question was not to put pressure on you, just to be clear.

Happy with Daniel Martinez last week in Utah, always nice to see when an unique pick takes some points.

 

[skidmark]

Update #30: Yates Great - movement in top 10 in comedown week after TdF

In a relatively quiet week after the mammoth points on offer at the Tour, there was still a fair bit of movement in the overall leaderboard due to how close it is at the top. The Clasica San Sebastian offered the big points of the week; otherwise, the conclusion of the Tour de Wallonie and the London-Surrey Classic were the points on offer. Not surprisingly, the 11 teams who picked San Sebastian winner Adam Yates did quite well, and at least the top 5 teams all had him.

This week's top scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 Jspear 410
2 Roubaix 372
3 Yellow Knight 367
4 kiilike 343
5 Total Package 339

Jspear gets the week's honours, and had to wait even longer than Adam Yates did at San Sebastian before finding out that their team had won! (sorry, the plane transmitting our CQ Game updates was down) With Yates (chosen by 11 teams) and Danny van Poppel (chosen by 5 teams) - who picked up some handy points for stages and overall at Wallonie - Jspear's team is the only one to clear 400 points this week.

This week's high movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 Jspear (+14)
2 Jpettersen (+13)
3 CQmanager (+12)
4 Total Package (+10)
5 Roubaix (+9)
5 Yellow Knight (+9)

Jspear doubles up in terms of topping the leaderboard of weekly movers. It's impressive to note the run of CQmanager - the winner of last week, their team has been in the points (ie. top 15 teams) for 3 weeks in a row, and has moved up into the top 60 overall after a really low key start to the season.

Points competition top 10

Rank Team Points
1 derrudi 146
2 Ruvu75 144
3 Schleckamagurky 139
4 Kjellus 132
5 will10 130
6 GP Blanco 128
7 afpm90 127
8 Londonpat 126
9 jeroenk 121
10 gustienordic 118
10 Jancouver 118

Not much movement here, as no one in the top 10 in the competition picked up any points this week. Two teams did score points for the first time this season (and one other team without points was agonizingly in 16th place), meaning 145 of our 155 teams have scored at least a point this year.

Top 10 overall

Rank Up/down Team Points Points this week
1 (+1) Cykeltyven 11696 162
2 (+1) Kjellus 11668 172
3 (-2) GP Blanco 11645 71
4 (-) Londonpat 11609 140
5 (-) del1962 11444 130
6 (+1) derrudi 11432 159
7 (-1) skidmark 11430 155
8 (-) greenedge 11337 75
9 (-) karaev 11301 124
10 (+1) PeterB 11234 218

I've included the 'points this week' column for people to see how close it is at the top. Minor movements, mostly, but the top 3 are shaken up, as they are within 51 points of each other. Looks like we have a good battle on our hands coming into the home stretch. For now, Cykeltyven reclaims top spot, PeterB re-enters the top 10, and Geraint Too Fast falls out.

Spreadsheet at dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lmm2ha9ng26pycc/CQ%202015%20update%2030.xls?dl=0

 

[Jspear]

Still ain't doing to hot overall, but I'll take whatever I can. Thanks for the update!

 

[skidmark]

A bit of a low-key week for me this week, but I have some guys who could score in the right conditions:

Eneco Tour

Stuyven
Stannard
Gaudin

Three guys is all, but three good classics guys. But also three guys (well, I'm not sure of Stuyven yet because for some reason Trek underused him this classics season) who do better in Roubaix-type classics than Muur-type classics. So I don't have a ton of hope. I think Stuyven is the best shot for some points.

Tour de l'Ain

Latour
Ledanois
Konrad

There are only a small handful of notable GC contenders in what should be a wide-open race. Unfortunately, two of them (Peraud and Pozzovivo) are on Latour's team. Still, he's an aggressive rider, that's why I picked him. Ledanois and Konrad both seem to be fairly aggressive too, and with the hilly-rather-than-mountainous parcours of this race, that might serve them well. But then again, it could equally serve someone else well too. That's the thing with neo-pros, you pick them with an eye to these types of races later in the year when they have some seasoning and could feasibly win, and even then you need a lucky attack to stick. Like, say, van Baarle in the Tour of Britain last year - nobody could have predicted that, and there are dozens of times a neo-pro goes on a promising late attack only for it to not work out for every time it does. Fingers crossed that I win the lottery with these guys.

Czech Cycling Tour

Schumacher
Kump

Well, Kump is a points machine in these races on the flat stages, and Schumi seems like he'll never get significant points again. My question is - where the hell is Foliforov for RusVelo? This is the kind of stuff I picked him for? Geez, they better suit him up for Hainan in October or something, I want cheap points!

Arctic Race of Norway

Boasson Hagen
Sondre Holst Enger
Hivert
McLay

Obviously EBH is an overall threat here. This could be Hivert's type of race too, he can get over some hills and finish fast. Enger proved he's growing more comfortable with the pros with his Austria win, although he doesn't seem to be able to get over a speed bump. McLay I haven't really figured out, but with Hutarovich on the squad his chances will probably be limited.

In short, I'll have to be real lucky to have a good week.

 

[Tigerion]

A few more points for Vivianni, he might just break even yet

 

[GP Blanco]

Thanks for the update

 

[skidmark]

Update #31: Lead changes again in a week with points from many fronts

The dog days of summer are, for us CQ afficionados, the time when we remember a bunch of random races that happen and give a bunch of points. This last week, there was the WT Tour of Poland, the 2.HC Tour of Denmark, the 2.HC Vuelta a Burgos, the 2.HC Tour of Utah, and the 2.1 Tour of Portugal. The result of that in a game with 155 participants is that nobody can really be sure of how they did during that week until they see the CQ download on Monday. You may have had a few guys scoring well, but who knows what the other teams have? Well, you're in luck - I'm about to show you.

This week's top scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 snccdcno 1015
2 Netserk 966
3 AlyKaptan 936
4 GP Blanco 909
5 Jpettersen 906
5 ItalianGigolo 906

snccdcno had quite the portfolio of riders this week, with De Clerq and Henao in Poland, Dombrowski, Horner(!) Goeghegan Hart and Lachlan Morton in Utah, Boasson Hagen and Boom in Denmark, and dribs and drabs of points elsewhere (including 44 from Viviani for a Monday result in Eneco - CQ are sneaky this week). Their team is the only one to top 1000. Second place Netserk also had EBH and Dombro and Horner and Henao, but got major points from Ulissi in Poland and Miguel Angel Lopez in Burgos. Third place AlyKaptan had a mix of the popular guys plus Pierre Latour and Ruben Fernandez in Burgos. Lots of winning combinations, and these guys got it just right this week.

This week's high movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 AlyKaptan (+18)
2 ItalianGigolo (+17)
3 Jpettersen (+16)
3 mc_mountain (+16)
5 rote_laterne (+13)

A similar list here, plus we see perennial CQ game performer mc_mountain show up on a leaderboard after an uncharacteristically quiet year. rote_lanterne, a frequent contributor to all CQ threads, rounds out the top 5.

Green jersey competition

Rank Team Points
1 GP Blanco 154
2 derrudi 146
3 Ruvu75 144
4 Schleckamagurky 139
5 Kjellus 132
6 will10 130
7 afpm90 127
8 Londonpat 126
9 snccdcno 122
10 jeroenk 121

Things have been going GP Blanco's way lately, and that includes taking over the Green Jersey competition after derrudi's long run. It's pretty close at the top, though, and with every week offering the same points regardless of actual CQ points scored, it could come down to the wire. The only other scorer in the top 10 overall this week was weekly winner snccdcno, who sneaks in at #9 for the season.

Top 10 overall

Rank Up/down Team Points Points this week
1 (+2) GP Blanco 12554 909
2 (-1) Cykeltyven 12384 688
3 (+1) Londonpat 12372 763
4 (+3) skidmark 12115 685
5 (-3) Kjellus 12083 415
6 (+7) snccdcno 12041 1015
7 (+1) greenedge 12020 683
8 (-2) derrudi 11963 531
9 (-4) del1962 11922 478
10 (-1) karaev 11877 576

Some separation at the top for the first time in awhile. GP Blanco rides the rare pick of De Clerq (7 teams) to retake and open up a substantial lead on the other two teams that have formed the podium the last few weeks. 4th-10th are a bit of a tier below, although everything is jumbled up enough that a good week will vault you up a good number of places, as this week's points leader shows. snccdcno moves into the top 10, and PeterB drops out.

spreadsheet at dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u3wsddjc4he6rch/CQ%202015%20update%2031.xls?dl=0

 

[Jspear]

Hey, Thanks so much for catching up with these updates! I really wish I could help, but I know NOTHING about excel. Much appreciated....

 

[Jancouver]

Thanks for the updates!

You should stop because all three updates I lost some ground

 

[GP Blanco]

I like it to be the top dog again