The 2016 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[EvansIsTheBest]

Nice win by Coquard yesterday. He is well ahead of his 2015 score at this point despite his injury setback so that's a bright spot for my team.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

How could so many of us, including myself, have missed Westra....he had only 85 points last year.

I thought he was past it

Glad to see Kung recovered quite well after the bout of Mono.

Eased my worries about him.

Yes, I honestly thought he was done as well as he's been on a steady decline since 2012, just getting worse and worse.

 

[Jancouver]

How many got Sagan this year? I think he can get close to 4000 points this year

BTW did any rider ever crossed 4000 points?

 

[jaylew]

Re:

How many got Sagan this year? I think he can get close to 4000 points this year

BTW did any rider ever crossed 4000 points?

I think only Valverde, Purito, and Gilbert have even broken 3k.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Sagan is doing really well, yes. He can get a monster score this year, but still, at his cost...

My week was pretty bad:
Cancellara 170
Tony Martin 104
Venturini 48
Kittel 40

That's it, maybe some 5 pointers in RVV but nothing more.

Next week should be better, if only thanks to Alberto :
Pais Vasco
CONTADOR VELASCO Alberto
VALGREN ANDERSEN Michael
GERRANS Simon
CRADDOCK Lawson
VICHOT Arthur
MARTIN Daniel
ROSA Diego
JEANNESSON Arnold
I expect a top 3 for Alberto, a top 10 for Dan and Craddock and Jeannesson can get a top 20, maybe Vichot too, they are all in good shape. Rosa has only let me down so far this year, but he is (or was...) supposed to lead Astana in the Ardennes so normally he should be coming into shape just now.

Circuit Sarthe
HARDY Romain
VENTURINI Clément
ZAUGG Oliver

Scheldeprijs
KITTEL Marcel
CANCELLARA Fabian

Paris-Roubaix
DEMARE Arnaud
OFFREDO Yoann
LANGEVELD Sebastian
CANCELLARA Fabian
MARTIN Tony
ZURLO Federico

 

[Gigs_98]

Gautier won Paris-Camembert which kind of saved my week. Besides that I also only have Cancellara, Martin, Kittel, Zabel and Kwiatkowski who made points. Especially about Kwiat I'm extremely disappointed. I never thought he would be one of the favorites for RVV but at the end he got 27th and that although he was in the winning break. I at least expected him to stay with the group which overtook him (even Erviti stayed with that group) because he probably would have been good in a sprint, but it seems as if he completely faded.

 

[GP Blanco]

Lutsenko, Martin and Kittel scored my big points this week plus some minor points for finishing races by other riders.

Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco
GERRANS Simon
YATES Adam
VALGREN ANDERSEN Michael
VERVAEKE Louis
MARTIN Daniel
DE PLUS Laurens
CONTRERAS PINZON Rodrigo
LÓPEZ MORENO Miguel Ángel
BARGUIL Warren
KELDERMAN Wilco

I am counting on Gerrans, Yates, Martin and López to score some points. Hopefully the other riders will surprise me.

Circuit Cycliste Sarthe - Pays de la Loire
BETANCUR GOMEZ Carlos Alberto
DEGAND Thomas
MARTIN Guillaume

The two Wanty guys for GC points and Betancur to finish the race.

Scheldeprijs
KITTEL Marcel
MULLEN Ryan

This race is tailormade for Kittel.

 

[scrooll07]

Re:

How many got Sagan this year? I think he can get close to 4000 points this year

BTW did any rider ever crossed 4000 points?

Me and other 2 guys and I'm very happy with him,he already paid off 50% and it's even not half of the season

 

[armchairclimber]

Rubbish week....even by my crappy standards

 

[Popchu]

I wonder if Westra and Lutsenko in combination with Cancellara and T. Martin will be enough to grab the win this week.

 

[skidmark]

oof, not the best week. Martin and Chavanel (and Kittel and Bauhaus I guess) in de Panne got some points, and while Flanders didn't see lots of popular picks that I'm missing picking up points, I really only got points from Cancellara and then finishing points from a bunch of guys. It's not so terrible to lose Demare, but Chavanel performing anonymously and finishing 33rd is a bit of a blow - he's one of my rarest riders and one that I'd expect to be in the mix at Flanders, but for whatever reason he just didn't have it to make the decisive selection in the last 50km. It looked like he was labouring the few times I saw him, so I've gotta hope it's lingering illness rather than age, and that he can turn it on at Roubaix even though it suits him less.

Anyway, onwards is the only way to go! Onto this week:

Pais Vasco

Michael Valgren
Lawson Craddock
Louis Vervaeke
Arthur Vichot
Dan Martin
Miguel Angel Lopez
Warren Barguil

An eclectic mix of mostly youngsters. Dan Martin should be in the top 5-10 (although who ever knows with Pais Vasco); Lopez has the potential to top 10 although didn't look great in Catalunya; Barguil should slot in somewhere around 10-15 if progress towards the Ardennes is his goal, and certainly Craddock and Vervaeke could repeat the top 20 or so of their last races. Vichot is a good bet for a few stages that are hilly with a small group, and Valgren is a good bet for 5 finishing points.

Sarthe

Carlos Betancur
Sondre Holst Enger
Guillaume Martin

Well, Enger's working for Pelucchi, so forget that. Betancur is both extremely popular in this game and completely unpredictable, so who knows. Martin has been listed for four races so far this year and has been taken off the start list of each one (although this weekend was understandable as Wanty pulled out), so who knows if he'll even start. Not expecting much from Sarthe.

Scheldeprijs

Marcel Kittel
Fabian Cancellara (?)
Adrien Petit

Well, Kittel is really all you need, but I'd love to see some of my other fast guys in this (like Cort, Grosu, or Enger) because it's a bit of a lottery for spots 5-15 and you can get some good points. Oh well, maybe Petit will get there, he's not setting up Coquard.

Roubaix

Taylor Phinney
Tony Martin
Arnaud Demare
Matej Mohoric
Magnus Cort
Fabian Cancellara
Jasper Stuyven
Sylvain Chavanel
Adrien Petit

Well... Canc, obvs. Demare would be a great bet for top 5-10 if he hadn't crashed today, although I hear his injuries aren't super serious. Phinney at full strength would be a good dark horse, but I don't think he could make the finale. Chavanel I mentioned above, and Stuyven was the last finisher at RVV today - I don't think his legs can handle the length yet. Tony Martin? Dunno.

In summary, could be a good week if things go well in PV and PR, but I don't have too many sure bets.

 

[Ferminal]

I'm ***

 

[skidmark]

Hmm, still no new update. It may have to wait until tomorrow.

In other news, I am going to be away working remotely with little internet access, as usual, for May/June/July. If I could get 3 people to volunteer to do the weekly updates for each of those months, that'd be great. I could send you the instructions via PM sometime in the next few weeks to make sure everything is clear. A few people offered to help generally at the start of the year, but let me know if you're interested in specifically doing one of those months, thanks!

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Hmm, still no new update. It may have to wait until tomorrow.

In other news, I am going to be away working remotely with little internet access, as usual, for May/June/July. If I could get 3 people to volunteer to do the weekly updates for each of those months, that'd be great. I could send you the instructions via PM sometime in the next few weeks to make sure everything is clear. A few people offered to help generally at the start of the year, but let me know if you're interested in specifically doing one of those months, thanks!

I'd be happy to do May or June

 

[skidmark]

I'd be happy to do May or June

That's awesome Hugo! Maybe I'll put you down for May, you can take the Giro/California etc. DJW at Velorooms said he can help out before July too so I can put him on June, which would mean I only need one more for July.

Also, still no update at CQ, I'll get an update when they put one up.

As for racing today - man I love the Basque Country, little climbs that offer decisive and surprising results. For my team, I'm shocked to see Vervaeke in 11th tied on time with a few folks that came in the Costa/Rodriguez group (7th); and Craddock finished 15th on the same time as Aru! Barguil and Dan Martin also in the top 25 a few seconds back; all those riders are in a perfect position to take a flier on one of the many little climbs around the finish of any given stage, and we'll see how the overall is affected after Arrate.

And in Sarthe, Sondre Holst Enger gets 2nd to Coquard in the field sprint, I thought for sure he'd work for Pelucchi but Pelucchi was minutes down so maybe his form has dipped at the moment. Either way, pleasant surprise although only 5 points because they let the FDJ guy get over 2 minutes on the field, wow. Aaaand, Betancur made it to the finish line! With the main pack. Guillaume Martin wasn't quite as fortunate coming in 10 minutes down, but at least he's racing his first day of the year in April, yipes.

 

[mc_mountain]

My week looks a touch better with Landa's points from today included - otherwise would have dropped 10+ places - things very close between places 11-26. He's my only real prospect of holding my own this week too.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Curious if I will be able to go backwards for the 7th week in a row.

 

[skidmark]

Update #12: Nicosix sticks around on top; tom-jelte slaughters the jersey competitions

Well CQ finally decided to come out with their weekly update, and it's good news for teams with relatively rare picks. While popular picks like Tony Martin (74 teams) and Fabian Cancellara (102 teams) scored some points and were probably necessary to do well this week, riders like Lieuwe Westra (19 teams) and Alexey Lutsenko (15 teams) were good to have on board. In fact, this week's leader had all of those on their team. With some overhaul of both the green jersey and polka dot jersey rankings, and the monthly leaders for March to outline, there's a lot to get to. So let's go!

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 Object 804
2 cineteq 764
3 vladimir 749
4 tom_jelte 732
5 LightBing 701

As hinted above, Object had the big scoring 4 riders as well as some good points from comeback kid Kung (and 28 points from Kelderman on Tuesday before CQ did the update didn't hurt). Second place cineteq gets points from the same Martin/Canc/Westra/Kung, but also 80 points from Floris Gerts (6 teams) and 40 from the (finally) rare pick Moreno Moser (12 teams). Third place vladimir gets points from a few of the common picks plus 80 from Gautier and a bunch from Vanmarcke.

This Week's High Movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 vladimir (+28)
1 Object (+28)
3 Yellow Knight (+24)
4 tom_jelte (+23)
5 LightBing (+22)

Looking very similar to the list above, these teams all had a significant leap this week. Of course, you may remember last week that tom-jelte was on top of both the top scorers and high movers list, and is in 4th on both of these lists this week. This will have implications in the following sections.

Polka Dot Jersey Competition

Rank Team Points
1 tom_jelte 49
2 LosBrolin 42
3 ironted 39
4 al_pacino 38
5 the_fool_on_the_hill 33

tom-jelte had 25 points in this for 1st place in high movers last week and moved into the top 5 overall for the competition; this week their team had 14 points to leap to the top of the KoM competition entirely. LosBrolin relinquishes the lead after a few weeks, and in the rest of the top 5 al_pacino scores some points to grab hold of 4th place.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank Team Total
1 Nicosix 100
2 tom_jelte 93
3 Pentacycle 90
4 ironted 87
5 jeroenk 80

As mentioned above, tom-jelte won both competitions last week, and this week almost takes both overall jerseys, only stopped by Nicosix, who had their second top-10 week in a row to take over the lead of the points competition. Former leader Pentacycle holds still in 3rd and ironted picks up 7 points to stand alone in 4th.

Last Month's Top Scorers

Rank Team Points this month
1 Geraint Too Fast 3070
2 tom_jelte 3007
3 search 2932
4 Nicosix 2901
5 fauniera 2882

March was good to GTF. Their team checks all the main boxes on the popular riders who scored over 100 points in March - Martin (Tony AND Dan), TJVG, Demare, Cancellara, Lopez, Gaviria. In this game, that's a good baseline, but to get on top you need to supplement it with some relatively rare riders, which they do with Vanmarcke, Chavanel, Boom, Pozzato and Jeanneson all scoring >95 points and picked by <30 teams. Of course the other teams are all prominent, with 2 of the top 5 on this list in the top 10 overall, and the rest in the top 20.

Last Month's High Movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 tom_jelte (+80)
2 search (+66)
3 al_pacino (+65)
4 Geraint Too Fast (+57)
5 hilltopfinisher (+55)

That says it all - tom-jelte had a slow pre-WT season, but is now more than making up for it, leaping 80 points from 100 at the start of the month to 20 at the end of it. The question with such meteoric rises is often, well, can it be sustained? But with Kwiatkowski, Dan Martin, Barguil, Gerrans and sure, Betancur, there's no reason to believe this team can't keep it up through the Ardennes. Oh, and Vanmarcke/Cancelllara/Tony Martin/Boom/Demare/Phinney for Roubaix this Sunday. Yikes - at least the rest of us can rest easy that this team won't be getting any points from Daan Olivier. Dunno what else to say about that juggernaut.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (-) Nicosix 5373
2 (+1) Falze 4926
3 (-1) jeroenk 4895
4 (-) Hugo Koblet 4822
5 (+5) will10 4812
6 (+10) Geraint Too Fast 4811
7 (-1) skidmark 4779
8 (+2) Pentacycle 4727
9 (-4) Ferminal 4723
10 (-2) the asian 4694
10 (+4) greenedge 4694

Speaking of juggernauts, check out the top of the list. Nicosix has had a meteoric rise this last month, being top 5 in scoring after starting out quite high to begin with. Westra helps their team extend the lead to 450 points over 2nd place Falze, and could have been even more if Benoot hadn't crashed in Flanders. jeroenk drops to 3rd, while Geraint Too Fast rockets into the top 10, completing a month-long charge up the standings. greenedge jumps into the top 10, but only shalgo falls out as there are 11 teams in the top 10 this week.

Phew! What an update. We will see how things shake out this week with points from very disparate events in Pais Vasco and Paris-Roubaix.

Spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[vladimir]

Thanks Skidmark!
Finally a week where I'm in the the frame
I thought my Vanmarcke/Lutsenko combo should give me a decent place, and third in the week and highest climber is even better than expected.
If Kelderman can keep it up in Pais Vasco and Sep deliveres in Roubaix I am expecting something similar for next update

 

[LaFlorecita]

Phew, only -2. Could have been worse! 14th

 

[Squire]

Cheers for the update!

A minor drop of three places for me this week. Looking forward to the end of the cobbles, so I can start catching up to the Vanmarckists and Boomites.

There've been quite a few disappointments among my Pais Vasco riders, but Vervaeke sitting pretty in 12th is a pleasant surprise. I'm also curious to see if Holst Enger can hang on to some GC points in Circuit Sarthe tomorrow. Still, it's another week of survival before the Ardennes, which are bound to be more enjoyable for my team.

 

[greenedge]

Thanks for the update! Really glad to be back into the top 10 and fingers crossed that Luke Rowe can continue his rise at Roubaix.

 

[Tigerion]

Hey I went up places, whooo

 

[Popchu]

Re:

I wonder if Westra and Lutsenko in combination with Cancellara and T. Martin will be enough to grab the win this week.

Not even close...

In other news, Betancur is on his way to his first CQ points of the year.

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

I wonder if Westra and Lutsenko in combination with Cancellara and T. Martin will be enough to grab the win this week.

Not even close...

In other news, Betancur is on his way to his first CQ points of the year.

What a game changer

Meanwhile Marc Fournier seems to become a great pick. He still leads the Circuit de la Sarthe, has already 38 points in this race and only costed 8 points. Unfortunately for me Landa lost the lead in Pais Vasco and probably wont finish very high in the final gc. Still he could get a few points and also Stefan Denifl could win the mountain classification which would be great.