The 2017 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

I am curious to know if you at some point considered adding Richard Carapaz this year? What's your reasoning for leaving him out of your squad. Don't you rate him?

I didn't consider Carapaz, at least for more than a second - he wasn't even on my 105 rider longlist. I think I do rate him, as a possible medium-to-long-term talent, but not as a good CQ investment this year. Part of that is lack of knowledge - to be honest, my sources on up-and-coming young riders are rather piecemeal (not a lot of good english-language resources that I've found), and so I tend to base most of my assessments on actual (searchable through CQ or PCS) results. Which, Carapaz had some good results in 2016, according to PCS he didn't DNF a single race, a quality I particularly like. And his pro races at the end of the year, he finished quite capably, not outrageously far from the leading group. So he definitely has potential to rise above pack fodder - it's conceivable to see him turning 30-40th placings in HC races into 10-20th placings this year. But even if I had more info, I'm wary of putting too much on subjective online assessments. People tend to get excited about how talented a rider could be in the future rather than realistic about how he will be this year. Which is awesome, but not ideal for this game. Henao was hyped as hell by people here, but if I hadn't seen his talent with my own eyes in Utah in 2011 at a pretty high-level race, I might have left him off my squad in 2012. Ospina was another example of someone who was hyped, and lots of people took him and he did nothing. Hell, I remember the "Jesus Hernandez outclimbs Contador in training camp" hype, but if this game had existed then I would have been foolish to pick him. But my main issue is that even if Carapaz has the talent, it tends to take awhile for that to bleed through at Movistar. Looking at some relatively young talent there, of Ruben Fernandez, Marc Soler, Dayer Quintana and Jasha Sutterlin, only Fernandez got more than 200 points last year. Unless I was confident Carapaz would likely clear 200 and had a ceiling of at least 3-400, he wouldn't be a lock for this game. And given that uncertainty (like, he could get 45 points this year), I would choose to pass.

But anyone who's paid attention knows I'm risk-averse in this game. I'm always excited by the variety of styles of teams, and particularly like your dedication to emerging riders. Can I ask you why you would pick Carapaz? And also, where do you find info on him or a rider like him?

 

[Gigs_98]

Re: Re:

I am curious to know if you at some point considered adding Richard Carapaz this year? What's your reasoning for leaving him out of your squad. Don't you rate him?

I didn't consider Carapaz, at least for more than a second - he wasn't even on my 105 rider longlist. I think I do rate him, as a possible medium-to-long-term talent, but not as a good CQ investment this year. Part of that is lack of knowledge - to be honest, my sources on up-and-coming young riders are rather piecemeal (not a lot of good english-language resources that I've found), and so I tend to base most of my assessments on actual (searchable through CQ or PCS) results. Which, Carapaz had some good results in 2016, according to PCS he didn't DNF a single race, a quality I particularly like. And his pro races at the end of the year, he finished quite capably, not outrageously far from the leading group. So he definitely has potential to rise above pack fodder - it's conceivable to see him turning 30-40th placings in HC races into 10-20th placings this year. But even if I had more info, I'm wary of putting too much on subjective online assessments. People tend to get excited about how talented a rider could be in the future rather than realistic about how he will be this year. Which is awesome, but not ideal for this game. Henao was hyped as hell by people here, but if I hadn't seen his talent with my own eyes in Utah in 2011 at a pretty high-level race, I might have left him off my squad in 2012. Ospina was another example of someone who was hyped, and lots of people took him and he did nothing. Hell, I remember the "Jesus Hernandez outclimbs Contador in training camp" hype, but if this game had existed then I would have been foolish to pick him. But my main issue is that even if Carapaz has the talent, it tends to take awhile for that to bleed through at Movistar. Looking at some relatively young talent there, of Ruben Fernandez, Marc Soler, Dayer Quintana and Jasha Sutterlin, only Fernandez got more than 200 points last year. Unless I was confident Carapaz would likely clear 200 and had a ceiling of at least 3-400, he wouldn't be a lock for this game. And given that uncertainty (like, he could get 45 points this year), I would choose to pass.

But anyone who's paid attention knows I'm risk-averse in this game. I'm always excited by the variety of styles of teams, and particularly like your dedication to emerging riders. Can I ask you why you would pick Carapaz? And also, where do you find info on him or a rider like him?

The reason why I took Carapaz is quite simple. He is young, talented, in a WT team, only costed 5 points and I don't have knowledge about cheap riders anyway so I simply took him. (Ofc I also have to say that I just generally didn't spend that much time for my team so maybe I wouldn't have chosen him if I had done more research) The thing is that I don't see a big risk in taking a talented rider if the riders is so cheap. What I don't understand is why so many people took Egan Bernal (who btw has his 20th birthday tomorrow) who is extremely young, especially for a climber, and costed over 150 points. I mean how many climbers make 300 points with 20 years even if they are incredibly talented.

 

[Jakob747]

Re: Re:

But anyone who's paid attention knows I'm risk-averse in this game. I'm always excited by the variety of styles of teams, and particularly like your dedication to emerging riders. Can I ask you why you would pick Carapaz? And also, where do you find info on him or a rider like him?

I live on a hemisphere were attending races like Vuelta de la Juventud, Fusagasugá and Clásico RCN ect ect {all races were Carapaz have shown his talent in the past} are logical and easy accessible, so I've been lucky enough to see Carapaz race live, here in Colombia several times and have always liked what I have seen. An alternative would be to visit and go through http://www.clasificacionesdelciclismocolombiano.com/ where you will find the classifications of the vast majority of races here in Colombia.

You have won this game two times {I have never finished in the top-20 I think} so it is not because I question your decision-making at all, after all, I hardly doubt Carapaz will be a game-changer, However, Ondrej Cink isn't exactly a household name either, so I was just wondering what your reasoning behind not adding Carapaz would be. Thank you very much for elaborating on it.

Regarding Carapaz, he truly is a great climber with a lot of potential. He is also very, very explosive so races like Gran Premio Miguel Indurain, Circuito de Getxo and Villafranca-Ordiziako ect should suit him excellent as well... Even though as you point out the depth at Movistar is extremely stacked. 200 CQ points in 2017 should defiantly be possible in my opinion. Lets see how he handles the transition to the highest level and how he will develope in his rist ´real´ year in Europe.

 

[Jakob747]

Btw he also did have one good dig on the climbs with Fabio Aru last year! In Toscana... :lol:

 

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

I live on a hemisphere were attending races like Vuelta de la Juventud, Fusagasugá and Clásico RCN ect ect {all races were Carapaz have shown his talent in the past} are logical and easy accessible, so I've been lucky enough to see Carapaz race live, here in Colombia several times and have always liked what I have seen. An alternative would be to visit and go through http://www.clasificacionesdelciclismocolombiano.com/ where you will find the classifications of the vast majority of races here in Colombia.

You have won this game two times {I have never finished in the top-20 I think} so it is not because I question your decision-making at all, after all, I hardly doubt Carapaz will be a game-changer, However, Ondrej Cink isn't exactly a household name either, so I was just wondering what your reasoning behind not adding Carapaz would be. Thank you very much for elaborating on it.

Regarding Carapaz, he truly is a great climber with a lot of potential. He is also very, very explosive so races like Gran Premio Miguel Indurain, Circuito de Getxo and Villafranca-Ordiziako ect should suit him excellent as well... Even though as you point out the depth at Movistar is extremely stacked. 200 CQ points in 2017 should defiantly be possible in my opinion. Lets see how he handles the transition to the highest level and how he will develope in his rist ´real´ year in Europe.

That's awesome! Thanks for the link. Really, my only pipeline for those types of results is the CN forums, and I don't have the time anymore year round to keep up on threads of developing riders that I might not see much of (and was led astray by Ryo Hazuki's obsessive, optimistic hype too often to trust that kind of source alone). It's true that Cink isn't a household name, and I actually started writing about him in my previous response before deciding the post was long enough. But my decision to include, say, Cink vs Carapaz is just risk management. Like, I don't know anything about Cink really either, but MTBers have a long history of success in transferring over to the road (Evans, Hesjedal, Peraud, Sagan, etc etc) enough to make me believe those skills and talent are transferable fairly immediately, vs, say, someone who is a young developing rider making the jump to Europe for the first time. I don't want to risk missing out in case Cink takes to the road and scores 500 points - I'm okay missing out if Carapaz hits his (in my mind, lower) ceiling for this year.

That said, as a cycling fan I yearn for non-'traditional', or maybe more accurately, non-rich countries (read: not western Europe, USA, Australia) to have successful cyclists at the highest level, so I will certainly be cheering him on, just as I have excitedly cheered the wave of Columbian success in the past half decade, just as I cheer for Eritreans on Dimension Data, just as I am stoked that a weird Russian/Costa-Rican rider that got famous for doing the most bonkers descent in a GT in recent memory has become a solid Giro finisher. But I try to wring out that sentiment when picking my CQ team, hard as it may be.

Maybe I should take him for the Emerging Riders game?

 

[Jakob747]

Re: Re:

Maybe I should take him for the Emerging Riders game?

I'd say he is worth a punt. However, you are totally right, in general, its better not to hype a rider all too much, too soon.

I must admit I was truly under pressure this year. With 3 days to go, I only had 13 secure riders, so it was a race against time really. I added Chris Hamilton as the last rider on my squad and I must admit I kinda regret that now. Also when you take into consideration I apparently only spend 7395 points, so I had over 100 points budget wise to play with and could have added Max Walschied for example. A sprinter I actually believe can have a very good 2017.

Still, Chris Hamilton is a good talent and there must be a reason Sunweb signed him on a 3 year contract, I just think 2017 still is all too early for him.

I look forward to the Australian summer, though. I hope Brendan Canty can surprise some people on here, just as I have high hopes for Jhonthan Restrepo. Katusha comes with a very, very strong squad, though, so its actually very interesting to see who they will actually ride for. On paper, they have several riders who are perfectly suited for those 10-15 min efforts the Australian hills require.

 

[SafeBet]

Re: Re:

What I don't understand is why so many people took Egan Bernal (who btw has his 20th birthday tomorrow) who is extremely young, especially for a climber, and costed over 150 points. I mean how many climbers make 300 points with 20 years even if they are incredibly talented.

Mostly a heart decision.
I've seen him race twice and fell in love.

 

[Nicosix]

My team for TDU :

GERRANS Simon
GESINK Robert
MAISON Jérémy
POZZOVIVO Domenico

I could score big but others will too.
Since I didn't consider too many aussies in my team, I should wait a bit the return to Europe before really starting my season

 

[Total Package]

My team for the TDU:

BONIFAZIO Niccolo
BRESCHEL Matti
EWAN Caleb
GESCHKE Simon
GESINK Robert
MACHADO Tiago Jose Pinto
VALLS FERRI Rafael

Bonifazio and Ewan should be able to get some top 5 placings, hopefully Gesink and Valls can get in the top 10 for the GC.

 

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

You cannot put a number on it a priori, absolute or relative (just take the hypothetical scenario where every rider scores exactly the same as the year before). You're average rider will cost 227. If the (average) return for many of the best picks around that price is 400, then the value of a rider costing 0 with a return of 100 will depend on how larger the return (in absolute measures) of a more expensive pick is than that of the average rider. In this case, you only have to find a single rider with a cost of 454 (or less) and a return of more than 700 for the swap to be good. If there's two above average priced riders, they will have to have a combined cost of 681 (or less) and a return of more than 1100 for the swap (of three average riders with the cheap rider and the two more expensive riders) to be favorable.

In a year with many good very low cost riders, the expensive riders will not have to be as good as in other years, and vice versa, just like if the return of an average cost rider is high, more of those will be able to out-perform a more diverse selection.

So in short, both relative and absolute return is important for all picks, and the market decides how those two needs to be combined for a pick to be good.

*Sometime, I will take a closer look on last year's game and the market of the most picked riders (probably top-100) and analyze how good picks they/(some of them) were, or rather how much of a return a rider would have to have in the different price ranges to be a contributing factor for a top team.

Yes, to put it in a more simple way: For any N amount of riders you have (in practice I work with pairs or trios, for simplicity), you need to be sure that there is not another combination of N riders at the same price which together will score a higher (probable) amount of CQ points (in absolute measures). Which is what I wrote last year. Then of course you need to weigh the points ceiling/floor for a rider against his average expected score (if he rode an infinite amount of seasons) and decide how much risk you want to take. I think hakkie2's theory is much closer to this than the notion that every rider needs to double his points.

On another note; you seem to take an interest in this game, so it's a pity you didn't submit a team. I'm sure you would've done well.

Edit: Oh, and about the analysis for last year that you're planning. I remember Skibby once did an analysis on the optimal team for one of the years, and calculated the "penalty" for not including each rider, i.e. how much less points the optimal team without that rider would score. That's kind of what you're thinking about, isn't it?

Ok I'm finally caught up with this thread. Just wanted to throw in my agreement that this is absolutely the right way to think about it - a combination of three factors: 1) raw points return (the percentage can be lower for higher priced guys, I'd expect a 1200 point rider to get 5-600 more at least, I'd expect a 50 point rider to get 200-300 more at least), 2) availability and quality of replacements at that level, 3) availability and quality of substitutes at other levels.

This last one is the real kicker for expensive picks, as you can pick a guy for 1600 points and if they get you 600 more points, that's not double but it also opens up the team to pick more other guys (instead of picking 3 guys that cost 500ish points, you can get one for 1600 and a couple of cheap riders that can rake in a higher percentage return). It took me until 2013 to realize the value of that, I didn't even look at expensive riders before then (I guess getting burned by Ricco a month into the first game left a mark). On the other hand, if it's a really deep class of quality 500 pointers, it might be better to pick them all and forget about the expensive guy.

Squire, I bolded your comment above about the average score because that's exactly what convinced me to take Nibali. I was hemming and hawing about his inclusion, going back and forth about his points potential, and then I finally said 'screw it' and left it up to the numbers. I averaged his CQ totals the last 7 years (since he first won a GT) and it was 1823, including his last two years of lower scores. That's enough of a yield for me to make a 1200-pointer worthwhile on its own, but the combination of the fact that he's going to a team that is clearly behind him at every step, and playing 'what if' with some of last year (Olympics crash taking him out for that race and giving him no motivation for the end of season) was more than enough to convince me to take him on. I'm just curious what you (and the 124 other people in this game that didn't pick him) weighed in the decision to not take him as a rider. Was it simply what I said last paragraph - too much quality in the mid-expensive range?

 

[Jancouver]

Re: Re:

You cannot put a number on it a priori, absolute or relative (just take the hypothetical scenario where every rider scores exactly the same as the year before). You're average rider will cost 227. If the (average) return for many of the best picks around that price is 400, then the value of a rider costing 0 with a return of 100 will depend on how larger the return (in absolute measures) of a more expensive pick is than that of the average rider. In this case, you only have to find a single rider with a cost of 454 (or less) and a return of more than 700 for the swap to be good. If there's two above average priced riders, they will have to have a combined cost of 681 (or less) and a return of more than 1100 for the swap (of three average riders with the cheap rider and the two more expensive riders) to be favorable.

In a year with many good very low cost riders, the expensive riders will not have to be as good as in other years, and vice versa, just like if the return of an average cost rider is high, more of those will be able to out-perform a more diverse selection.

So in short, both relative and absolute return is important for all picks, and the market decides how those two needs to be combined for a pick to be good.

*Sometime, I will take a closer look on last year's game and the market of the most picked riders (probably top-100) and analyze how good picks they/(some of them) were, or rather how much of a return a rider would have to have in the different price ranges to be a contributing factor for a top team.

Yes, to put it in a more simple way: For any N amount of riders you have (in practice I work with pairs or trios, for simplicity), you need to be sure that there is not another combination of N riders at the same price which together will score a higher (probable) amount of CQ points (in absolute measures). Which is what I wrote last year. Then of course you need to weigh the points ceiling/floor for a rider against his average expected score (if he rode an infinite amount of seasons) and decide how much risk you want to take. I think hakkie2's theory is much closer to this than the notion that every rider needs to double his points.

On another note; you seem to take an interest in this game, so it's a pity you didn't submit a team. I'm sure you would've done well.

Edit: Oh, and about the analysis for last year that you're planning. I remember Skibby once did an analysis on the optimal team for one of the years, and calculated the "penalty" for not including each rider, i.e. how much less points the optimal team without that rider would score. That's kind of what you're thinking about, isn't it?

Ok I'm finally caught up with this thread. Just wanted to throw in my agreement that this is absolutely the right way to think about it - a combination of three factors: 1) raw points return (the percentage can be lower for higher priced guys, I'd expect a 1200 point rider to get 5-600 more at least, I'd expect a 50 point rider to get 200-300 more at least), 2) availability and quality of replacements at that level, 3) availability and quality of substitutes at other levels.

This last one is the real kicker for expensive picks, as you can pick a guy for 1600 points and if they get you 600 more points, that's not double but it also opens up the team to pick more other guys (instead of picking 3 guys that cost 500ish points, you can get one for 1600 and a couple of cheap riders that can rake in a higher percentage return). It took me until 2013 to realize the value of that, I didn't even look at expensive riders before then (I guess getting burned by Ricco a month into the first game left a mark). On the other hand, if it's a really deep class of quality 500 pointers, it might be better to pick them all and forget about the expensive guy.

Squire, I bolded your comment above about the average score because that's exactly what convinced me to take Nibali. I was hemming and hawing about his inclusion, going back and forth about his points potential, and then I finally said 'screw it' and left it up to the numbers. I averaged his CQ totals the last 7 years (since he first won a GT) and it was 1823, including his last two years of lower scores. That's enough of a yield for me to make a 1200-pointer worthwhile on its own, but the combination of the fact that he's going to a team that is clearly behind him at every step, and playing 'what if' with some of last year (Olympics crash taking him out for that race and giving him no motivation for the end of season) was more than enough to convince me to take him on. I'm just curious what you (and the 124 other people in this game that didn't pick him) weighed in the decision to not take him as a rider. Was it simply what I said last paragraph - too much quality in the mid-expensive range?

Obviously, risk management is the number one reason why super expensive picks should always be avoided. Because if the rider gets hurt, or whatever, you just lost 1217 points and got nothing in return.

Clearly, because of that, Rohan Dennis (738) + Caleb Ewan (552) or any other multi-rider combo is a safer combination IMO

 

[greenedge]

For me I didn't pick Nibali because I think Bahrain will not be a strong enough team for him at the Giro to compete against the likes of Astana or Sky, (though he should still be regarded as the favourite if only for his experience and past ability) so it lowers his chances of winning. Riders like Aru and Landa as a combo then equal around Nibali's total and I'd have chosen Kruijswijk or Zakarin over Nibali. I still hope Nibali can go well all year round though!

 

[Netserk]

I actually don't think risk in itself matters. If anything, it's a positive. If two riders cost the same (let's say 1000) and their averaged expected outcome is the same as well (let's say 1600), the only difference between the two would be the spread in expected outcome. So the riskier (with higher spread) will give you a higher chance to be extraordinary, and the value of that outweighs the risk of failure, imo.

For most of those in the top-10 last year, if they could toss a coin and either gain or lose 1000, most would take the gamble (at least I would if I wasn't 1st and was within 1000 points of the win) simply because the difference in value for the top positions are greater than for the lower positions (even when you factor in that a given amount of points will move you more positions in the middle than the top).

Over your portfolio the risk evens out and you will in average still get your average return. As long as you are able to sort the average expected return from the likely return, risk is not an issue.

 

[Jancouver]

Re:

For me I didn't pick Nibali because I think Bahrain will not be a strong enough team for him at the Giro to compete against the likes of Astana or Sky, (though he should still be regarded as the favourite if only for his experience and past ability) so it lowers his chances of winning. Riders like Aru and Landa as a combo then equal around Nibali's total and I'd have chosen Kruijswijk or Zakarin over Nibali. I still hope Nibali can go well all year round though!

Without trying to create any more controversy, I think Skidmark would have probably skip Nib if he didn't agree to not change his team after seeing all the other teams. I don't think he would take the risk knowing he is such a rare pick. I think his entire game is now dependable on one rider

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Re: Re:

For me I didn't pick Nibali because I think Bahrain will not be a strong enough team for him at the Giro to compete against the likes of Astana or Sky, (though he should still be regarded as the favourite if only for his experience and past ability) so it lowers his chances of winning. Riders like Aru and Landa as a combo then equal around Nibali's total and I'd have chosen Kruijswijk or Zakarin over Nibali. I still hope Nibali can go well all year round though!

Without trying to create any more controversy, I think Skidmark would have probably skip Nib if he didn't agree to not change his team after seeing all the other teams. I don't think he would take the risk knowing he is such a rare pick. I think his entire game is now dependable on one rider

A rare pick doesn't necessarily = a bad pick. If anything, I suspect Skidmark and the other 5 (IIRC) people who have Nibali will be cautiously optimistic at this point. That they may have an edge that the other teams don't. Especially because it now seems likely that Nibali will skip the Tour de France in favor of the Vuelta.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Obviously, risk management is the number one reason why super expensive picks should always be avoided. Because if the rider gets hurt, or whatever, you just lost 1217 points and got nothing in return.

Clearly, because of that, Rohan Dennis (738) + Caleb Ewan (552) or any other multi-rider combo is a safer combination IMO

I don't agree that super expensive picks are necessarily riskier. Sure, they can get hurt but so can every other rider and increasing the number of riders that are responsible for the heavylifting in term of scoring actually makes you more liable to injury. Let's take Nibali + Power (skidmark's closest combo point wise to your combination) vs Dennis + Ewan for example.

If Nibali stays healthy, he's a proven 1800pts scorer, he'll get there at least (and if he goes off like 2013, you can forget about Ewan/Dennis matching him). You would need both Dennis and Ewan to not only stay healthy but also have (very) good season for their standards (which is a risk in itself) just to match Nibali (so you are banking on two rider instead of one staying healthy) and that's not even accounting for the "risk" of Power going off.

Another point that hasn't been made about injury, is that not all riders are affected equally. Superstars like Nibali can get points at pretty much any time in the season. If they miss a few weeks, they'll adjust their race program, add a few more races later in the year and absorb a large part of the deficit. Riders that are a couple tiers below, like Dennis and Ewan, are far less flexible in their ability to score. If Ewan misses the TDU for instance, that's a chunk of point he won't be able to make up because he won't get that same opportunity later in the year.

 

[LaFlorecita]

My riders for TDU:
EWAN Caleb
BRESCHEL Matti
MACHADO Tiago
MAS NICOLAU Enric
THEUNS Edward

Hope for stage points for Ewan and GC points for Machado

 

[ThePirate81]

My riders for TDU:
GESINK Robert
HAAS Nathan
WOODS Michael
BONIFAZIO Niccolò
MAS NICOLAU Enric
PEDERSEN Mads

Hope for stage points for Bonifazio,Haas and Woods,and GC points for Gesink (top 10?),Woods (top 5?) and Haas (top 10?)

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

My riders for TDU

EWAN, Caleb
VALLS, Rafael
BRESCHEL, Matti
MEINTJES, Louis

Hoping for stage wins from Ewan and some GC points from Valls and Meintjes.

 

[skidmark]

Hey all,

it seems like CQ quietly added a post-Aussie nats update a few days ago to their downloads section without advertising it on the main page! That's exciting - I'm currently tied up for today (North America time), but will get out the first update tomorrow.

 

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

For me I didn't pick Nibali because I think Bahrain will not be a strong enough team for him at the Giro to compete against the likes of Astana or Sky, (though he should still be regarded as the favourite if only for his experience and past ability) so it lowers his chances of winning. Riders like Aru and Landa as a combo then equal around Nibali's total and I'd have chosen Kruijswijk or Zakarin over Nibali. I still hope Nibali can go well all year round though!

Without trying to create any more controversy, I think Skidmark would have probably skip Nib if he didn't agree to not change his team after seeing all the other teams. I don't think he would take the risk knowing he is such a rare pick. I think his entire game is now dependable on one rider

You kidding me? I'm thrilled to have a competitive advantage in terms of the scarcity of a rider that I think is going to do well! Checking the numbers after filling the popularity tab, that was my biggest and most pleasant surprise. The only risk with Nibali is a) injury or b) decline. I don't believe he's in decline yet, and he'll have enough opportunity over the course of the year that even a minor (say, he's out for 3-4 weeks) injury probably wouldn't affect his point total tremendously (unless it's as poorly timed as last year's injury). I feel like we already saw 'low point' Nibali last year when he performed the Giro below his normal level, didn't quite have it at the Tour, but then timed it for great form at the Olympics and crashed out, losing not only hundreds of points but effectively the rest of his season. If he has stable early-season performances and two form peaks (Giro and Vuelta/Lombardia), he will be a force. If he doesn't quite get up to form and has an injury, I don't see how he doesn't at least break even. Yeah, not really too worried about Nibali.

 

[greenedge]

Re:

My riders for TDU:
GESINK Robert
HAAS Nathan
WOODS Michael
BONIFAZIO Niccolò
MAS NICOLAU Enric
PEDERSEN Mads

Hope for stage points for Bonifazio,Haas and Woods,and GC points for Gesink (top 10?),Woods (top 5?) and Haas (top 10?)

Ah glad to finally find who else had Haas, hopefully he can go well.

My team is Porte, Haas, Mas and Restrepo, for the latter two it depends on how well Vakoc and Machado perform, though I hope they can maybe top 20. For the first two I would expect Top 10's at the least.

Edit: Doull as well.

 

[rote_laterne]

Re: Re:

Squire, I bolded your comment above about the average score because that's exactly what convinced me to take Nibali. I was hemming and hawing about his inclusion, going back and forth about his points potential, and then I finally said 'screw it' and left it up to the numbers. I averaged his CQ totals the last 7 years (since he first won a GT) and it was 1823, including his last two years of lower scores. That's enough of a yield for me to make a 1200-pointer worthwhile on its own, but the combination of the fact that he's going to a team that is clearly behind him at every step, and playing 'what if' with some of last year (Olympics crash taking him out for that race and giving him no motivation for the end of season) was more than enough to convince me to take him on. I'm just curious what you (and the 124 other people in this game that didn't pick him) weighed in the decision to not take him as a rider. Was it simply what I said last paragraph - too much quality in the mid-expensive range?

I shortly considered Nibali and I don't think he's a risk as he will probably at least reach his 2016 score. But I think he is declining although right now he still is the favorite for me winning this years Giro. I just fear he won't be as motivated afterwards and I doubt the team spirit of his team. Yes, he has a bunch of riders that will ride for him and only him no matter what. But he will be missing quality domestiques like Kangert and Scarponi.

Finally I have some riders competing:
Santos Tour Down Under 2.UWT
BYSTRØM Sven Erik
DOULL Owain
THEUNS Edward

Pretty meh. Theuns should be good for some stage points, maybe Bystrom too.

 

[HelgeBlendet]

Starting the year with:
MCCARTHY, Jay
VALLS, Rafael
CINK, Ondrej
GESINK, Robert

Curios how Cink will fare. McCarthy and Valls might do something and then there's Bobby...

 

[Jancouver]

Re: Re:

For me I didn't pick Nibali because I think Bahrain will not be a strong enough team for him at the Giro to compete against the likes of Astana or Sky, (though he should still be regarded as the favourite if only for his experience and past ability) so it lowers his chances of winning. Riders like Aru and Landa as a combo then equal around Nibali's total and I'd have chosen Kruijswijk or Zakarin over Nibali. I still hope Nibali can go well all year round though!

Without trying to create any more controversy, I think Skidmark would have probably skip Nib if he didn't agree to not change his team after seeing all the other teams. I don't think he would take the risk knowing he is such a rare pick. I think his entire game is now dependable on one rider

You kidding me? I'm thrilled to have a competitive advantage in terms of the scarcity of a rider that I think is going to do well! Checking the numbers after filling the popularity tab, that was my biggest and most pleasant surprise. The only risk with Nibali is a) injury or b) decline. I don't believe he's in decline yet, and he'll have enough opportunity over the course of the year that even a minor (say, he's out for 3-4 weeks) injury probably wouldn't affect his point total tremendously (unless it's as poorly timed as last year's injury). I feel like we already saw 'low point' Nibali last year when he performed the Giro below his normal level, didn't quite have it at the Tour, but then timed it for great form at the Olympics and crashed out, losing not only hundreds of points but effectively the rest of his season. If he has stable early-season performances and two form peaks (Giro and Vuelta/Lombardia), he will be a force. If he doesn't quite get up to form and has an injury, I don't see how he doesn't at least break even. Yeah, not really too worried about Nibali.

What a bunch of baloney.

Looking at your past teams, clearly, picking a rare expensive rider is nothing what you have done in the past. The opposite is truth, you always made sure you didn't miss out on an important common pick ... such as Gaviria is this year. I'm 100% sure you would have a Gaviria on your team if you knew he will be so popular (and Nib unpopular) and therefore, you would have no choice but to drop Nib.

Your cocky attitude kind of reminds me of Bradley Wiggins. Very accomplished and successful rider, but again, by using TUEs, he just wanted that little edge over the field and looking at all the teams and picking based on that, is your way if using a TUE. This year, you got no TUE (unless there was some late change to your team that you did not disclose) and because of that, your team will depend on one rider because of that.