EvansIsTheBest said:I don't think anybody will come close to skidmark 2012 team. We're already off the pace of that year (albeit only slightly) and that's before taking into account Boonen absurdly good haul from the flemish classics (Cancellara will offset some of that this year but no way is he getting the clean sweep like Boonen did). Maybe if the top team this year is still close after PR, I'll start believing (though skidmark had an very strong finish to the season so even then it's not a given) it might happen.Squire said:Now, the big question is; can we beat 2012, the year the CQ stars aligned? There are reasons both for and against, but the main reason why I think it won't happen is this: Some quite major points were scored in WT stage races that year, while this year we have a lot of unpicked top GC riders who are likely to take away many top five/ten spots. On the other hand, this year we have some popular established riders who are looking very likely to bring in a huge amount of points: Cancellara, Kittel, Gerrans, Demare etc. This means we don't need the crazy amount of insanely profitable, cheap and popular riders of 2012. Just a couple of those unexpected 800-1000 pointers for a lucky team could be enough to tip the balance if the big guys continue like they've started. But as I mentioned, I still think it's unlikely, and the 2015 score is a much more attainable target for this year's winner.
Sure, established popular riders seem to do well for the moment but so did Rogers/LLS and a couple others back then. Good luck trying to find riders as profitable as Moser/Demare/Durbridge/Quintana in 2012. Iglinskiy was super cheap too and he won a monument.
The one advantage that people have this year is that they don't have a sunk cost like Offredo.
As I said, I don't really believe it will be done this year, but...
I would actually say we're ahead of 2012 at the moment. The current 10th place leads the 2012 10th place by 274 points. 24 teams lead skidmark's 2012 post-MSR score. If the 2012 record shall be broken, it won't be by Pentacycle. Whoever wants to do it need at least 1200+ Kittel points.
As shalgo says, it's an Olympic year again, too (I forgot to mention that). In 2012, only Phinney scored major points in the Olympics for the CQ game. His haul is likely to be beaten for most teams in the time trial alone, by Martin, Cancellara, Phinney again etc. If the stars align again, and we get a D.Martin/Gerrans/Nibali Olympic RR podium and a Kittel/Demare/Gaviria Worlds podium, I could maybe see it happening. But it would take something like that to help offset Costa's Tour de Suisse win, Moser's Pologne win, Boonen's classic cleansweep and crazy things like skidmark having all riders from 2nd-6th overall in Romandie.
But hey, the real challenge is also having this year's Henao (190 to 1136pts), Moser (78 to 1036pts), Rogers (137 to 1074pts), Demare (148 to 849pts), Durbridge (65 to 693pts) or Quintana (60 to 707pts, not in skidmark's team). Most years we don't even have that many crazy leaps in CQ points among all riders and not just those picked for the game. Also, some of the neo-pros that could conceivably do it are somewhat priced out of the game, like Kragh Andersen, Petilli, Bevin, or riding for the wrong team, like Moscon.
Another sobering thought is that the 2012 winner had seven riders among the top 30 in the end-of-the-year CQ rankings, all of them scoring more than 1000 points. Several of them were so cheap that they didn't take away places in the team for other expensive riders to guarantee good points as well.
Maybe next year with the 1000 or so extra Degenkolb points and the freeing up of tons of Cancellara & Contador (and possibly others) points.