The 2015 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[EvansIsTheBest]

The next update should be a good one with Turgis, Latour, EBH and Benoot all scoring big chunks of points. Top 50, here I come

 

[Akuryo]

Taaramäe is finally scoring me some points and since only one other person picked him, maybe I can climb a little bit. I really need it, cause the rest of my squad is so bad. This should keep me from finishing last.

 

[Karaev1]

There seems to be a problem with my Lachlan Morton... He scored some points but he stills appears with 0 points in the update.

Excepting that Turgis, Teuns , Latour and Schumacher all scored some points this week so hopefully this will be enought to stay in the Top 10! With Sagan, Rodriguez and Quintana in Vuelta my team might actually have a chance at top 5... Or is that too much?

 

[Tigerion]

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.

The wrong Yates brother and the wrong van Poppel

 

[skidmark]

Update #32: New leader once again as Wellens fuels weekly winners

With the Eneco Tour, Arctic Race of Norway, and Tour de l'Ain on tap, the August points kept rolling in this week. Tim Wellens, who had a breakthrough year last year marked by his win in the Eneco Tour, repeated as champ, arguably a more impressive feat than last year as he was a marked man. In terms of this game, the win only got him to about 70% of his value from last year, but the 7 teams that picked him are certainly happy about it. Elsewhere, Pierre Latour got his first professional win, and the neo-pro that cost 71 points got almost to the 400 level on the year; the 30 teams that picked him must be enjoying his August form. Sylvan Dillier and Petr Vakoc (each also picked by 7 teams) each got over 100 points, while Tiesj Benoot (12 teams) rebooted his already-impressive season with 83 points from Eneco. Popular riders didn't really dominate this week, with Edvald Boasson Hagen scoring 99 points but little else, meaning our weekly leaderboard is full of teams who took chances on rarer riders.

This week's top scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 merengues 733
2 Nyssinator 618
3 mc_mountain 491
4 asdfgh101 489
5 Pentacycle 474

Merengues and Nyssinator stand above the rest, each with a combo of riders mentioned above. Merengues, with Wellens, EBH, Latour, Benoot, as well as Alaphillipe and Lutsenko amongst others, scores a very impressive 733 points. Some other names in the top 5 include mc_mountain, who is one of the all-time points leaders in this game despite a quiet year this year, and last year's champ Pentacycle. Just missing the top 5 is badbrainaj, whose team scores their first green jersey points of the year! Such a good week is definitely worth a mention, even if it falls outside of the standard top 5.

This week's high movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 merengues (+24)
2 Nyssinator (+19)
3 Pentacycle (+12)
3 asdfgh101 (+12)
5 Jpettersen (+11)
5 Jakob747 (+11)

A very similar list to the first one, with 4 out of the top scorers on board. One impressive thing is that merengues' team gets both honours, but doesn't just jump 24 places in the bottom half of the standings, but rather from 35th to 11th overall! That is a testament to how close it is at the top - no one count yourselves out of the overall just yet.

Points competition top 10

Rank Team Points
1 GP Blanco 154
2 derrudi 148
3 Ruvu75 144
4 Schleckamagurky 139
5 Kjellus 132
6 will10 130
7 merengues 127
7 afpm90 127
9 Londonpat 126
10 snccdcno 122

With the weekly win, merengues also vaults into the top 10 in the points competition. derrudi gets 15th on the week to claw back a bit of GP Blanco's slim lead, but that's the only other movement in the top 10. Looking more broadly at the green jersey competition - which, I remind you, was designed to give teams not in the overall something interesting to take part in - I see that 6 of the top 11 overall are also in the top 10 of the points competition. Two more are in the top 30 overall, and two other teams are 92nd and 130th overall. So there is a bit of diversity, but generally the top overall teams are also the top points teams. We will see if this changes closer to the end of the season, when major picks have stopped scoring but there is an equal amount of points on offer for the green jersey. Also, two teams scored points that hadn't yet in this game, meaning 147 of the 155 teams have scored at least a point.

Top 10 overall

Rank Up/down Team Points Points this week
1 (+2) Londonpat 12753 381
2 (-1) GP Blanco 12671 117
3 (-1) Cykeltyven 12586 202
4 (-) skidmark 12408 293
5 (+3) derrudi 12356 393
6 (-) snccdcno 12348 307
7 (-) greenedge 12257 237
8 (-3) Kjellus 12235 152
9 (-) karaev 12116 184
10 (-) del1962 12030 108

I mentioned last update that GP Blanco had opened a 'substantial' lead, but this week shows just how quickly that can change, even in a relatively insubstantial week. Londonpat leaps into top spot by virtue of 381 points on the week, and now has an 82 point lead over GP Blanco. Cykeltyven rounds out the top 3, and these 3 have been the podium in some order for quite some time. Not much movement other than that in the top 10 - derrudi and Kjellus swap places, but no one falls out or moves in.

THE VUELTA IS COMING. BRING ON THE POINTS.

update at dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bdmlgmn9mhii9vh/CQ%202015%20update%2032.xls?dl=0

 

[skidmark]

Re:

There seems to be a problem with my Lachlan Morton... He scored some points but he stills appears with 0 points in the update.

Excepting that Turgis, Teuns , Latour and Schumacher all scored some points this week so hopefully this will be enought to stay in the Top 10! With Sagan, Rodriguez and Quintana in Vuelta my team might actually have a chance at top 5... Or is that too much?

Hey, it was written LACHLAN Morton not MORTON Lachlan. I've changed it on the current update - it hasn't changed anything in terms of the overall, although you might have lost out on a placing or so last week when he got the points. Either way, it's fixed, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[GP Blanco]

Vuelta a España
GOUGEARD Alexis
ATAPUMA HURTADO Jhon Darwin
GRMAY Tsgabu Gebremaryam
DE CLERCQ Bart
DE GENDT Thomas
BERHANE TEWELDEMEDHIN Natnael
EWAN Caleb
DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd
MOHORIC Matej
MOSER Moreno
FROOME Christopher
HENAO MONTOYA Sergio
SAGAN Peter

A pretty diverse team with different types of riders

Vattenfall Cyclassics
STANNARD Ian
JAUREGUI Quentin
GOSS Matthew Harley
YATES Simon

Hopefully Jauregui can place himself in the sprint. For Goss finishing would be quite a victory,

Tour de l´Avenir
HENAO GOMEZ Sebastian
MARTIN Guillaume
SOLER GIMENEZ Marc

I really like it that world tour riders can participate

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Oh yes, 9th of the week, moving up to 102th place overall. I just feel that I will reach that elusive top 100 one of these days!

You'd think after a couple of years I'd get the gist of this game, but year after year I just keep on submitting terrible teams missing some obvious picks (e.g. Porte this year).

 

[Kazistuta]

WIth only 9 riders taking part in the Vuelta, and the "cheap-ish" big name riders (J-Rod, Nairito, Froome and Sagan, all whom I deliberately didn't choose for various reasons) taking part, and all with great point expectations, I am sure to continue my downwards spiral from the last couple of months.

Ewan, Henao, Dombro, Moser and De Gendt are all massively picked in this game, so I'm hoping for a Talansky Hail Mary - Atapuma and VDB might scrape some top25 points together, but it's not looking good. Mohoric might as well be renamed meh-horic.

 

[skidmark]

I feel like it's time to check in on my team before the final push of the season (Vuelta, Canadian races, Worlds, Lombardia) and see what picks I'm happy with and what mistakes I made.

Picks I'd be happy with even if the season ended today:

These are the no-brainer, total success stories.

Richie Porte - cost: 415 points: 1359

It's funny to think of Porte as a huge success because going into the Giro, it looked like he could explode for 5-600 more points, even. But his start of the season was so good that in the overall view, it masks the fact that he's basically been a huge disappointment since Trentino. Still, a must-have.

Simon Yates - cost: 207 points: 484

A good haul; when I was picking him, I thought him capable of 5-600, and he may just reach that.

Caleb Ewan - cost: 95 points: 646
Sergio Henao - cost: 92 points: 771

Obviously everyone saw what a deal these guys were, and it's worked out.

Pierre Latour - cost: 71 points: 399

All the guys above have been picked by, well, everyone. Latour is only on 30 teams, so I'm extra happy to have him on this list. His results were promising, but what really caught my eye was his strong attacking at the Worlds. A strong attacking rider can't fail to make one of them stick at some point, I thought, and so I picked him. He's turned out to be both consistent and strong, so that's great.

Marko Kump - cost: 28 points: 415

He was only picked by 34 teams, so another good one I'm extra happy about. The guy just can't win at the high level, but dominates at the slightly lower level, which, switching from Tinkoff to a continental squad is perfect. Someone's got to win the stages at those 2.1 races in eastern Europe and Asia.

Joe Dombrowski - cost: 10 points: 379

Another obvious, popular pick... I guess those guys are showing why they were popular.

So yeah, 7 riders I'm unequivocally happy with. There are others that are close, but need a bit more

Picks I'm happy with but am hoping for a little more

Peter Sagan - 1606/1671

he's basically at break-even right now... I had him optimistically pegged at 2500; I mean, if he gets a few stages at the Vuelta and podiums the worlds he'd break 2000 and I'd be thrilled, but it's hard to say with Sagan. On one hand, he hasn't won anything big in so long that he should have motivation. On the other hand, he was the star of the Tour and might just wanna relax like he seemed to be doing last year.

Joaquim Rodriguez - 1150/1174

basically break-even as well, but of course he's targeting the Vuelta. I dunno what to think, even after his second Tour stage win he looked like he was gonna score a boatload more points, I imagined another stage, the mountains jersey, and a top 15 overall. Instead, he folded and couldn't hang even with breakaway guys on mountains after that. It's worrying, he's getting old. But he's also incredibly strong sometimes, so who knows. I still think he could top 5 the Vuelta and challenge for Lombardia and finish around 1700 or so, but it could go either way.

Mark Cavendish - 642/941

that's a decent haul, but I kind of envisioned 1200 at minimum. I shouldn't be too picky, he's almost on my 'if the season ended now' list.

Rohan Dennis - 528/597

this is my third year in a row picking Dennis, and each year he's gotten 150 points or so more than the year before, making him a frustratingly consistent but not spectacular pick. This year he definitely took the step up with the TdU... but the Hour Record kind of drained him for months. The Tour Prologue win was a bright spot, and he's looking insanely strong in Colorado (hope I don't jinx myself), so with a good result there and a good go at the Worlds TTT and ITT, he could pull in a bunch more points. I'd be thrilled with 1000... it's doable, the Worlds ITT doesn't have Wiggins this year, and I think Dennis has closed the gap to Dumoulin and Martin, even if he got lucky with the weather at the Tour. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

Edvald Boasson Hagen - 429/799

I didn't put him in the first category because I feel like I need a score to double before I'm totally happy at this level. But, close enough. He's done fine, even with a lost classics campaign. I know he's got more in the tank, though.

Robert Gesink - 274/485
Ian Stannard - 250/350

Gesink is doing fine despite his setbacks; if he can get up to 6-800 - which he can if he does well in Canada and maybe Lombardia - he'll be at where I thought he'd be. Stannard had a crazy bad classics after the thrill of Het Volk, but I picked him because the Worlds are fairly classics-like. Who knows what form he's in, he's been invisible since March, slowly picking up a few points here and there.

Jonathan Hivert - 169/290
Darwin Atapuma - 102/247

Happy with both these guys, Hivert picking up points at small French races, Atapuma finishing solidly in the second tier in stage races. If they both keep doing it a bit more (say, 100 points each), I'll be even happier.

9 picks in that tier. Like usual, I got carried away talking about my thoughts on riders, so I'll have to get to the other guys (the 'meh' guys and the disappointments) in another post later.

 

[skidmark]

alright, continuing from yesterday...

Riders who have been okay but not great

Patrick Konrad - cost: 193/points: 216

His early season was mixed with a good showing in Oman and some relatively anonymous results. I figured he'd get his opportunities and pick it up in his home Tour of Austria... but Bora wasn't invited, for some reason. He made good with an aggressive showing in Denmark and then in l'Ain last week, to make him a more than break-even prospect. Still, I hope he can carry that form over to a few races before season's end, because 23 points isn't much profit on a 200-point rider.

Moreno Moser - 87/171

He's had a meh year, but he's also had some results that show a glimmer of the rider that burst on the scene in 2012. It's possible he can get out of his funk by year's end, but it's also possible that 2012 was a fluke.

Kevin Ledanois - 72/97

He's not shown much, basically a neo-pro who finished 20th-25th in short tours. I had hoped for some top 10s. He seems like a good talent, he's had some opportunities to show it, now I just hope he's one of those neo-pros that has learned from his first season and shows something near the end when the big guys shut down and the new guys get their opportunities.

Damien Gaudin - 66/165

I picked him because I thought he could do better in the classics, but he didn't. He's just picked up little points here and there in ways that I totally haven't noticed him at all. He's had an okay bounce-back CQ-wise, but nothing to write home about.

Alexander Foliforov - 61/74

He showed well earlier in the year, winning a 2.2 race and doing well in a 2.1, but that's most of his points for the year. I'm surprised - I thought a guy of his talent could have easily got a shot with a WT team, but with RusVelo he'd have a ton more opportunities to lead. But, nope. He has 39 race days, which is okay but not a ton.

Thomas De Gendt - 54/150

Okay, but what happened to the beast that took the leader's jersey of Paris-Nice unexpectedly? Let alone the 3rd overall in the Giro - I'm happy to write that off as a Velits-sized fluke, but even the earlier version of De Gendt is good for 5-600 points. I dunno about that guy.

Dan McLay - 49/105

He's done fine for a neo-pro; I picked him because his ceiling was higher, I thought, but he's done okay.

Iuri Filosi - 27/42

Basically one result for the year. 30 race days is not enough; but yeah, he could have made more of them.

Disappointments - only a huge end-of-season could turn it around

8 guys in that category.

Janez Brajkovic - 172/68

He's up there in Colorado and a good TT today could get him in the top 10. Which would still leave him as a disappointment. He's scored even fewer points than the Brajko that was injured and buried in a deep Astana lineup. Is he getting old? Can he just not adjust to the North American style? I dunno, but it hasn't been good.

Jasper Stuyven - 158/87

Why Trek left him off the classics squad for the second-tier races where he was a viable alternative to Cancellara, I dunno. Their use of him has been puzzling. But even still, he's been anonymous. The Vuelta has enough stages that might be too hard for Danny van Poppel that he could have his chances there, but yeah, so far it's been disappointing.

Sondre Holst Enger - 118/31

Even in the type of races he had results in 2 years ago, he hasn't shown that he can stay with the pack.

Louis Vervaeke - 115/10

A total disaster. A lesson for me not to pick a guy I'm doubtful about just because I read an interview where I like his confidence.

Matt Goss - 66/10

Hahaha, oh boy.

Stefan Schumacher - 60/86

Technically in profit, but I would expect waaay more of an established guy trying to prove himself back at the PCT level.

Matej Mohoric - 55/49

I know the talent is there. I know it. It just has to come out!

Clement Chevrier - 50/40

For some reason when I was picking him my brain thought of IAM as a PCT team, and I was like 'he'll have a bunch of chances'! But, of course, they're a ProTour team now, and he hasn't. Silly mistake.

Andrea Zordan - 5/0

Who? He has 5 race days, all of them DNFs. Anyone know what's up?

So, 9 guys that are disappointments. Overall, that's 17 guys in the 'not totally happy with' category and 16 guys in the 'pretty happy with' category. Given that nothing can go perfect and to be happy with all 33 they'd all be reaching their ceilings, I'm pretty happy with my team. Obviously, I'm high up in the overall, so it's going well, and the fact that my more expensive guys are the guys that I'm happiest with, along with some amazing returns on cheap riders, means that I'm pretty happy with my team overall. Fingers crossed for a good Vuelta.

 

[Jspear]

Vuelta Team
Caleb Ewan
Ben King
Lawson Craddock
Danny Van Poppel
Esteban Chaves
Andrew Talansky
Joe Dombrowski
Sergio Henao
Domenico Pozzovivo
Dominique Rollin
Songezo Jim


I'm really hoping Pozzovivo can get me some points. Him crashing out of the Giro was a bummer.

 

[HelgeBlendet]

[...]
Matt Goss - 66/10

Hahaha, oh boy.
[...]

This! So much!
It's so sad that I might turn him into Andy Schleck 2.0 and pick him until he retires... he HAS to bounce back.... right? pls?

Other than that, I enjoyed your write-up! Thanks for that.
I wait for mine post Vuelta/pre-Lombardia, else I'll be too depressed too early.

 

[GP Blanco]

First Vuelta stage victory by Sagan, hopefully he will take some more.

 

[skidmark]

Update #33: Dennis the menace

Certainly, there was a race in Hamburg that gave out some points, and a little race in Spain got underway as well (albeit with neutralized CQ points), but the most dominant display of the week without a doubt went to BMC in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge. Rohan Dennis, picked by 16 teams but quiet since January aside from a day in yellow, somehow squeezed out 264 points this week from a 2.HC race. That's what two stage wins, two second places, and a few days in the leaders jersey will do. Put it this way - if you had Dennis on your team, and only he scored points for you this week, you'd be in 28th place for the week. With the Hamburg podium of Griepel/Kristoff/Nizzolo picked by 1/0/2 teams, it's definitely more of a Dennis show this week. It's worth noting that for the second week in a row, CQ has included Monday scores, so those teams with Peter Sagan get a 70-point boost, for example.

This week's top scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 RoudeLeiw 501
2 tom_jelte 485
2 Yellow Knight 485
4 Blues in the bottle 478
5 theyoungest 462

RoudeLeiw cracks 500 points with Dennis, Chaves, and Sagan, as well as 38 points from rare (3 teams) pick Sean de Bie, who has turned out to have a decent profit. tom-jelte and Yellow Knight tie for second, albeit with different supporting casts (tom-jelte had Dennis as well as Taylor Phinney and Tao Goeghegan Hart, while YK has Dennis with support from Nizzolo and Lachlan Morton).

This week's high movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 RoudeLeiw (+18)
2 Blues in the bottle (+16)
3 Armchair cyclist (+14)
3 tom_jelte (+14)
3 Yellow Knight (+14)

Huh, a three way tie for third place! The list is very similar to the one above, with Armchair Cyclist replacing theyoungest on this list.

Green jersey competition

Rank Team Points
1 GP Blanco 154
2 derrudi 148
3 Ruvu75 144
4 Schleckamagurky 139
5 Kjellus 132
6 will10 130
7 RoudeLeiw 129
7 skidmark 129
9 afpm90 127
9 merengues 127

Some already-high-scorers in the game got points this week, though it was mostly those below the top 10 - by virtue of 1st place, Roude Leiw jumps into a tie for 7th with skidmark (I'm decided to refer to myself in the third person for the purposes of updates because it's kind of weird to talk about my own team), who got 7th on the week himself and moved into the top 10.

Top 10 overall

Rank Up/down Team Points Points this week
1 (-) Londonpat 12861 108
2 (+2) skidmark 12824 416
3 (-1) GP Blanco 12768 97
4 (-1) Cykeltyven 12725 139
5 (+1) snccdcno 12594 246
6 (-1) derrudi 12412 56
7 (+1) Kjellus 12393 158
8 (-1) greenedge 12379 122
9 (-) karaev 12301 185
10 (-) del1962 12189 159
10 (+5) kabete 12189 313

The only team in the top 10 with Rohan Dennis was skidmark, and he cracks the podium, breaking up that trio that has held all three spots in some combination for several weeks now. There is some small movement otherwise, but nothing major as most of the rest of the top 10 scored under 200 points this week. Interestingly, no one drops out of the top 10, but we add one more, as kabete moves into a tie for 10th place!

As the Vuelta moves on and races like Plouay and the Canadian races come up, it should be interesting to see who still has riders racing and scoring. There's a bit more separation at the top than a few weeks ago, but it's still very close.

Spreadsheet at dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l7esik012hdxsm6/CQ%202015%20update%2033.xls?dl=0

 

[GP Blanco]

A pity that I lost one place.

Tour du Poitou Charentes et de la Vienne
LATOUR Pierre-Roger

Druivenkoers - Overijse
VERVAEKE Louis

GP Ouest France - Plouay
JAUREGUI Quentin
VERVAEKE Louis
YATES Simon
SENECHAL Florian

Not much action. Fortunately there is the Vuelta and Tour de l'avenir.

 

[Karaev1]

I am really enthusiastic about my 9th place so later in to the season so I will try to rate all the TOP 10 teams and what their top picks could/should do in the end of the season. I am not a specialist or anything so I hope I won't do to many mistakes . I also listed the rare profitable picks( Guys that were not selected more than 30 times and made a profit of more than 100 points) Anyways let's start with the top 3 teams:

Londonpat: -12861 points

Top Rare Profitable Picks:
Landa(3) - 562
Alaphilippe(17) - 453 (Only deruddi has him among the Top 10)
Rowe(1) - 204 (can't believe he is an unique pick)
Stybar(22) -212 (only Greenedge has him in Top 10)


Londonpat is only one of the 2 TOP 10 players that have no 1000+ cyclists selected. His most expensive guys are Stybar, Cavendish, Betancur and Konig. None of this guys are in Vuelta and this might be a really big blow for him. However he has Landa for this race so if the Astana climber can repeat his Giro form Vuelta might not be that bad. A guy like Alaphilippe might compensate with some big points in Montreal , Quebec and Plouay, where guys like Gesink, Yates or even Teuns might also get some decent results.
In conclusion Londonpat needs Landa to have a decent Vuelta and his other rare pick Alaphilippe to get some great results in the classics if he wants to stay in the first position. Good results form Stybar at the Worlds might be a bonus.

Skidmark - 12824

Top Rare Profitable Picks:

Rohan Dennis(16) - 333


Skidmark actually have a great team for the final races of the season. He has Sagan and Purito for Vuelta which might prove to be very important. Only 2 guys(myself and del1962) in top 10 have both this guys in their team with the mention that we are more than 500 points behind. However I also have Quintana while Del1962 has Froome. Another very strong guy in Skidmark team should be Dennis. He is in incredible form and might get a great results at the Worlds TT .

GP Blanco - 12768

Top Profitbale Rare Picks:

De Clercq(7) - 227
Grmay(4) -116


GP also has a very strong Vuelta team. He will cheer for Sagan and Froome and so far I can say that he should be satisfied with his 2 picks form. Only the 10th place Del1962 also have Froome and Sagan in his team while Kjellus is the only other with Froome in his team. This should mean that with a Froome victory in Vuelta GP should be the big favourite of this game. Another big improvement for this team could be some good results from Senechal in the next races, as he is the only guy with the young french cyclist among the top 10 guys. One problem with this team is that there are no obvious guys that could score in the classics excepting popular picks like Yates S. or Gesink.

 

[GP Blanco]

I am really enthusiastic about my 9th place so later in to the season so I will try to rate all the TOP 10 teams and what their top picks could/should do in the end of the season. I am not a specialist or anything so I hope I won't do to many mistakes . I also listed the rare profitable picks( Guys that were not selected more than 30 times and made a profit of more than 100 points) Anyways let's start with the top 3 teams:


GP Blanco - 12768

Top Profitbale Rare Picks:

De Clercq(7) - 227
Grmay(4) -116


GP also has a very strong Vuelta team. He will cheer for Sagan and Froome and so far I can say that he should be satisfied with his 2 picks form. Only the 10th place Del1962 also have Froome and Sagan in his team while Kjellus is the only other with Froome in his team. This should mean that with a Froome victory in Vuelta GP should be the big favourite of this game. Another big improvement for this team could be some good results from Senechal in the next races, as he is the only guy with the young french cyclist among the top 10 guys. One problem with this team is that there are no obvious guys that could score in the classics excepting popular picks like Yates S. or Gesink.

Interesting analysis. It is on purpose that there are not many classics specialists in my team. Because in my opinion they have a small chance to significantly inprove their score. By the way my biggest regret is selecting Betancur instead of Stybar. I feared that Stybar would not have many changes to shine.

 

[mutschi]

alright, continuing from yesterday...

Riders who have been okay but not great

Patrick Konrad - cost: 193/points: 216

His early season was mixed with a good showing in Oman and some relatively anonymous results. I figured he'd get his opportunities and pick it up in his home Tour of Austria... but Bora wasn't invited, for some reason. He made good with an aggressive showing in Denmark and then in l'Ain last week, to make him a more than break-even prospect. Still, I hope he can carry that form over to a few races before season's end, because 23 points isn't much profit on a 200-point rider.

Moreno Moser - 87/171

He's had a meh year, but he's also had some results that show a glimmer of the rider that burst on the scene in 2012. It's possible he can get out of his funk by year's end, but it's also possible that 2012 was a fluke.

Kevin Ledanois - 72/97

He's not shown much, basically a neo-pro who finished 20th-25th in short tours. I had hoped for some top 10s. He seems like a good talent, he's had some opportunities to show it, now I just hope he's one of those neo-pros that has learned from his first season and shows something near the end when the big guys shut down and the new guys get their opportunities.

Damien Gaudin - 66/165

I picked him because I thought he could do better in the classics, but he didn't. He's just picked up little points here and there in ways that I totally haven't noticed him at all. He's had an okay bounce-back CQ-wise, but nothing to write home about.

Alexander Foliforov - 61/74

He showed well earlier in the year, winning a 2.2 race and doing well in a 2.1, but that's most of his points for the year. I'm surprised - I thought a guy of his talent could have easily got a shot with a WT team, but with RusVelo he'd have a ton more opportunities to lead. But, nope. He has 39 race days, which is okay but not a ton.

Thomas De Gendt - 54/150

Okay, but what happened to the beast that took the leader's jersey of Paris-Nice unexpectedly? Let alone the 3rd overall in the Giro - I'm happy to write that off as a Velits-sized fluke, but even the earlier version of De Gendt is good for 5-600 points. I dunno about that guy.

Dan McLay - 49/105

He's done fine for a neo-pro; I picked him because his ceiling was higher, I thought, but he's done okay.

Iuri Filosi - 27/42

Basically one result for the year. 30 race days is not enough; but yeah, he could have made more of them.

Disappointments - only a huge end-of-season could turn it around

8 guys in that category.

Janez Brajkovic - 172/68

He's up there in Colorado and a good TT today could get him in the top 10. Which would still leave him as a disappointment. He's scored even fewer points than the Brajko that was injured and buried in a deep Astana lineup. Is he getting old? Can he just not adjust to the North American style? I dunno, but it hasn't been good.

Jasper Stuyven - 158/87

Why Trek left him off the classics squad for the second-tier races where he was a viable alternative to Cancellara, I dunno. Their use of him has been puzzling. But even still, he's been anonymous. The Vuelta has enough stages that might be too hard for Danny van Poppel that he could have his chances there, but yeah, so far it's been disappointing.

Sondre Holst Enger - 118/31

Even in the type of races he had results in 2 years ago, he hasn't shown that he can stay with the pack.

Louis Vervaeke - 115/10

A total disaster. A lesson for me not to pick a guy I'm doubtful about just because I read an interview where I like his confidence.

Matt Goss - 66/10

Hahaha, oh boy.

Stefan Schumacher - 60/86

Technically in profit, but I would expect waaay more of an established guy trying to prove himself back at the PCT level.

Matej Mohoric - 55/49

I know the talent is there. I know it. It just has to come out!

Clement Chevrier - 50/40

For some reason when I was picking him my brain thought of IAM as a PCT team, and I was like 'he'll have a bunch of chances'! But, of course, they're a ProTour team now, and he hasn't. Silly mistake.

Andrea Zordan - 5/0

Who? He has 5 race days, all of them DNFs. Anyone know what's up?

So, 9 guys that are disappointments. Overall, that's 17 guys in the 'not totally happy with' category and 16 guys in the 'pretty happy with' category. Given that nothing can go perfect and to be happy with all 33 they'd all be reaching their ceilings, I'm pretty happy with my team. Obviously, I'm high up in the overall, so it's going well, and the fact that my more expensive guys are the guys that I'm happiest with, along with some amazing returns on cheap riders, means that I'm pretty happy with my team overall. Fingers crossed for a good Vuelta.

Faaark. I would happily swap your disappointing guys with my best ones and still get more points I guess that's why you are 2nd and I am somewhere in the 100dreds. That was a great team you picked.

 

[skidmark]

This should be an interesting update for me; I was 37 points out of first last update, and of course Sagan got 65 more for 2nd and 3rd, Stuyven finally scored big with 70 for the win, and Rodriguez picked up some for third today. Oh, and Ewan won a stage. The Vuelta has been good so far... but of course both Sagan and Stuyven are out now, so this is kind of my time to shine. I hope it's enough, because I'm not optimistic about the next few weeks.

I got basically nothing in Plouay, Rodriguez is now my main guy in the Vuelta and he didn't look as good as he should on today's finish, and Froome (who a number of top teams have) looks better than he did a few days ago. I have absolutely no one in Alberta, and the preliminary start list of Quebec and Montreal don't look great aside from Gesink. It's almost going to be a war of attrition at the end of the season, as riders slowly shut it down... it might be the case of who has the most riders riding the latest on into the season... pretty close at the top of the standings, that's for sure.

 

[Roude Leiw]

This should be an interesting update for me; I was 37 points out of first last update, and of course Sagan got 65 more for 2nd and 3rd, Stuyven finally scored big with 70 for the win, and Rodriguez picked up some for third today. Oh, and Ewan won a stage. The Vuelta has been good so far... but of course both Sagan and Stuyven are out now, so this is kind of my time to shine. I hope it's enough, because I'm not optimistic about the next few weeks.

I got basically nothing in Plouay, Rodriguez is now my main guy in the Vuelta and he didn't look as good as he should on today's finish, and Froome (who a number of top teams have) looks better than he did a few days ago. I have absolutely no one in Alberta, and the preliminary start list of Quebec and Montreal don't look great aside from Gesink. It's almost going to be a war of attrition at the end of the season, as riders slowly shut it down... it might be the case of who has the most riders riding the latest on into the season... pretty close at the top of the standings, that's for sure.

I do look forward too to next update. Got Stuyven, Chavez, Sagan, de bie , latour, .... Green jersey all the way...
Edit: got Caleb too

 

[martyfulu]

Think I actually had a good week. Have Chaves, Rodriguez, Soler, Roelandts, Koshevoy, Ewan who all got decent points. Im currently in 104th position ready to pounce : )

 

[rote_laterne]

Re:

Think I actually had a good week. Have Chaves, Rodriguez, Soler, Roelandts, Koshevoy, Ewan who all got decent points. Im currently in 104th position ready to pounce : )

I have Soler, Roelandts and Ewans too. Roelandts finally turned out to be a good pick (unlike Vanmarcke). Also Mühlberger in profit but I hoped for a top 5 at last.
Got some points in Plouay, Avenir and Vuelta but Sagan was my best rider there.

 

[martyfulu]

Re: Re:

Think I actually had a good week. Have Chaves, Rodriguez, Soler, Roelandts, Koshevoy, Ewan who all got decent points. Im currently in 104th position ready to pounce : )

I have Soler, Roelandts and Ewans too. Roelandts finally turned out to be a good pick (unlike Vanmarcke). Also Mühlberger in profit but I hoped for a top 5 at last.
Got some points in Plouay, Avenir and Vuelta but Sagan was my best rider there.

Yea Roelandts has been chipping away all year without being spectacular. The Sagan thing was really unlucky. Almost unbelievable.

 

[skidmark]

just a note - no time for an update today; will get it out tomorrow. Spoiler alert - both the teams that commented above did pretty well.