The 2017 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[armchairclimber]

Re: Re:

A lot of popular riders in that top 10 - Kwiat, Gaviria, Degenkolb, Viviani, Ewan. Anybody got all of them?

all except Gaviria,

How many have Alaphilippe?

I think about 12 of us.

 

[HelgeBlendet]

Wow...
I should avoid checking for updates... completely missed that I was sitting in 2nd for a week. P-N and T-A were quite bad, but I still only lost 4 places. Very happy with how things are running.

Kwiat in profit is great. He was the biggest piece I kept on excluding and including while trying different combinations. Glad I stuck with him.

 

[SafeBet]

I should score over 800 points in a week for the first time since the game started.
Many popular picks among the ones scoring so I'm not expecting a big leap in the rankings, but it's nice to see Kwiato winning big!

 

[Pentacycle]

Sondre Holst Enger must be the worst pick I ever made... 464 cost that can't even finish French 1.1 races atm, while I was expecting him to rack up top 10s in races like yesterday's MSR. Does anybody know what happened to him this winter? Except making 'artistic' still-life movies for his twitter.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re:

Sondre Holst Enger must be the worst pick I ever made... 464 cost that can't even finish French 1.1 races atm, while I was expecting him to rack up top 10s in races like yesterday's MSR. Does anybody know what happened to him this winter? Except making 'artistic' still-life movies for his twitter.

He seems to have to work hard to get into any kind of form. Last year he was abysmal until sometime in April as well, though he does seem to be even worse this year.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

With Kwiat, Roglic et al. this week should be pretty good for me.

Another eventful week coming up this week with a lot of different races and loads of points.

Volta Ciclista a Catalunya
LANDA, Mikel
DE PLUS, Laurens
CARTHY, Hugh
VALLS, Rafael
KÄMNA, Lennard
MEINTJES, Louis

Hmmm the 40km TTT doesn't really help me here. :Neutral:

Dwars Door Vlaanderen
BOOM, Lars
BRESCHEL, Matti
EWAN, Caleb
VAN KEIRSBULCK, Guillaume

Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali
DOMBROWSKI, Joe
BERNAL, Egan Arley
SEPÚLVEDA, Eduardo

Sepulveda could be good here.

E3 Harelbeke
DILLIER, Silvan
GOUGEARD, Alexis
BRESCHEL, Matti
CARAPAZ, Richard
BOOM, Lars
DEGENKOLB, John
VAN KEIRSBULCK, Guillaume

Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields
DILLIER, Silvan
GOUGEARD, Alexis
BRESCHEL, Matti
CARAPAZ, Richard
EWAN, Caleb
BOOM, Lars
DEGENKOLB, John
VAN KEIRSBULCK, Guillaume

Don't know how I feel about my cobbled team. If Boom and Breschel show up in a decent shape and GVK and Dillier turn their good form into some points it could be quite good, but those are all ifs......

 

[MADRAZO]

Re: Re:

Sondre Holst Enger must be the worst pick I ever made... 464 cost that can't even finish French 1.1 races atm, while I was expecting him to rack up top 10s in races like yesterday's MSR. Does anybody know what happened to him this winter? Except making 'artistic' still-life movies for his twitter.

He seems to have to work hard to get into any kind of form. Last year he was abysmal until sometime in April as well, though he does seem to be even worse this year.

I think he might have crashed or something in the big crash in the first sprint in Abu Dhabi, but it has been very difficult to get any information on what has happened to him, or if he got ill or something instead. For sure he has had some kind of setback, as he recently tweeted "he was glad to be back on his bike after a terrible start to the season" so I would presume he will start to slowly find some shape soon.

I have had a very similar situation with Walscheid that started out the season very optimistic but then got ill right away, and has since struggled a lot to get back in decent shape. Hopefully he too will soon get back in the rythm.

 

[vladimir]

Re: Re:

Sondre Holst Enger must be the worst pick I ever made... 464 cost that can't even finish French 1.1 races atm, while I was expecting him to rack up top 10s in races like yesterday's MSR. Does anybody know what happened to him this winter? Except making 'artistic' still-life movies for his twitter.

He seems to have to work hard to get into any kind of form. Last year he was abysmal until sometime in April as well, though he does seem to be even worse this year.

I think he might have crashed or something in the big crash in the first sprint in Abu Dhabi, but it has been very difficult to get any information on what has happened to him, or if he got ill or something instead. For sure he has had some kind of setback, as he recently tweeted "he was glad to be back on his bike after a terrible start to the season" so I would presume he will start to slowly find some shape soon.

I have had a very similar situation with Walscheid that started out the season very optimistic but then got ill right away, and has since struggled a lot to get back in decent shape. Hopefully he too will soon get back in the rythm.

As far as I know Sondre didn't crash in Abu Dhabi. He was still recovering after getting food poisoned in Oman, and trying to start in Abu Dhabi made things worse. His pre-season training has been fine, but will probably need a few more races before he is at normal level.

 

[skidmark]

Update #10: Results in Italy take the Blues away

It's mid-March, which mean the big weeks are starting to roll in the CQ game. This upcoming week has a dizzying array of opportunties, from Catalunya to DDV to E3 to Coppi e Bartali to Gent-Wevelgem. Last week was not quite as varied, but (no pun intended) monumental enough. Milan San Remo continued the vein of exciting racing this season (if not for quite as extended a period as some other races), while Tirenno-Adriatico kind of bucked that trend. But both gave big CQ points, and with so many popular riders in the top 10 of MSR (Kwiat/Degenkolb/Gaviria/Viviani/Ewan and even Alaphilippe on a dozen teams), it was an interesting question as to who would have the winning combo of riders. Let's find out!

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 Blues in the bottle 950
2 the asian 885
3 Poles & Co. 875
4 ansimi 845
5 Geraint Too Fast 832

I don't know if you guys know this, but 950 points is almost 1000 points, and 1000 points is a lot of points! Wow. A game veteran who has played every edition (I believe, going from memory here) Blues in the bottle strikes gold and takes the week! But it wasn't all San Remo for Blues - sure, their team had the necessary Kwiatkowski, but rather than an enormous combo of MSR finishers, their second high scorer this week was Rohan Dennis (6 teams) with some enormous T-A points. Of course, Gaviria/Degenkolb/Viviani/Ewan certainly helped this dominating result as well. Second place on the week is former weekly winner the asian, with points from Kwiat and some sprinters in MSR, supplemented by healthy results from Roglic and Spilak. Rounding out the podium his wek is the thematic team Poles & Co., who definitely got some help from the lead Pole who won San Remo, but the '& Co', which included Alaphilippe and Gaviria and Degenkolb and Viviani but also points from rare riders like Alan Banaszek and Davide Ballerini, certainly didn't hurt.

This Week's High Movers

Rank Team up/down
1 Poles & Co. (+45)
2 Geraint Too Fast (+40)
3 Popchu (+33)
4 CQmanager (+32)
4 Falze (+32)

Points totals are getting spread out enough that this chart isn't simply identical to the previous one anymore, as only 2 of the top 5 are in common. Popchu, CQmanager and Falze all have great leaps this week as well as the top high movers that get the double mention this week.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank Team Total
1 DJW 102
2 the asian 96
3 Blues in the bottle 90
4 Nicosix 87
5 fauniera 72

Well, DJW opened a large lead last week, but it's tightening up as spots 2-5 all score points this week. Blues' weekly win moves their team into 3rd overall, while the asian moves into 2nd. Nicosix has to settle for fourth, but we will see below that this is probably a consolation prize that is just fine.

Top 10 Overall

1 (-) Nicosix 3451
2 (+3) tom_jelte 3338
3 (+1) jeroenk 3284
4 (+15) Blues in the bottle 3197
5 (-3) LightBing 3158
6 (+1) Pentacycle 3137
7 (+16) the asian 3111
8 (+10) fauniera 3098
9 (+1) shalgo 3096
10 (+7) Maaaaaaaarten 3091

Already leading the competition, Nicosix cements the lead for this week by placing in the top 10 weekly scorers. tom-jelte was also in the top 10 for the week and moved up, and you can see the double digit jumps by other teams that scored big this week. A lot of movement - with so many riders scoring who are on 40-100 teams, there are bound to be some teams that are big winners and losers. Lots of upheaval in the top 10 - Blues, the asian, fauniera and Maaaaaaarten all tear into the upper echelon of the competition, while Russell23, 18-Valve and HelgeBlendet fall out, and longtime leader greenedge tumbles from the podium last week to 19th overall this week. It was a good run, though.

Spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Thanks for the update, skidmark! An impressive amount of points scored this week. I'm slowly but steady moving upwards - nice! A cool feature next year would be if it's possible to track your teams movement from week to week. A graph showing your movement for instance.

Oh by the way, kudos to those picking Alaphilippe this year. I didn't think that he would be able to improve a lot on last year's score, but it certainly looks that way. At this point last year he had scored 0 points and this year 526 points already. Last year he scored 262 points in the Ardennes and 375 points the year before, so let's say 300 points on average which would already bring him above 800 points. Does anyone know what his schedule looks like for the rest of the season?

 

[fauniera]

Also kudos for those (like Nicosix) who did NOT pick Aru. That was a brave move but could turn out to have been an excellent decision.

Having entered the Top Ten i'm quite happy with my team at the moment. Ciccone and Albanese seem to start their season at Coppi Bartali, which is late but not too late.

 

[SafeBet]

Also kudos for those (like Nicosix) who did NOT pick Aru. That was a brave move but could turn out to have been an excellent decision.

It's actually his best ever season at this point of the year.


As for the update, for some reason I thought I had scored more than 800 points. Probably because Tirreno's stage on 13/03 was included in last week's update.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Yeah I didn't pick Aru, but I don't really care about what he is doing now. I care about what he will do in the Giro and the Vuelta. With a strong field in the Giro I don't really see him replicating a 2015 amount of points. Though it remains a massive risk, he doesn't have to have 2015 level of points to be a good pick.

 

[skidmark]

Re:

Thanks for the update, skidmark! An impressive amount of points scored this week. I'm slowly but steady moving upwards - nice! A cool feature next year would be if it's possible to track your teams movement from week to week. A graph showing your movement for instance.

Oh by the way, kudos to those picking Alaphilippe this year. I didn't think that he would be able to improve a lot on last year's score, but it certainly looks that way. At this point last year he had scored 0 points and this year 526 points already. Last year he scored 262 points in the Ardennes and 375 points the year before, so let's say 300 points on average which would already bring him above 800 points. Does anyone know what his schedule looks like for the rest of the season?

Whoa, yeah a graph would be cool. What do you think would be a good layout; like a graphic on each team page tracking each week? That's beyond my level of excel expertise (plus putting together the teams and doing updates takes all the time I have), but I'd be excited to incorporate it. I'm not sure how it would work in terms of entry, as previous week placing data gets wiped with the update. But if anyone has thoughts on that, let's talk about it - this year is young enough that we could figure out a way to do it maybe.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Re: Re:

Thanks for the update, skidmark! An impressive amount of points scored this week. I'm slowly but steady moving upwards - nice! A cool feature next year would be if it's possible to track your teams movement from week to week. A graph showing your movement for instance.

Oh by the way, kudos to those picking Alaphilippe this year. I didn't think that he would be able to improve a lot on last year's score, but it certainly looks that way. At this point last year he had scored 0 points and this year 526 points already. Last year he scored 262 points in the Ardennes and 375 points the year before, so let's say 300 points on average which would already bring him above 800 points. Does anyone know what his schedule looks like for the rest of the season?

Whoa, yeah a graph would be cool. What do you think would be a good layout; like a graphic on each team page tracking each week? That's beyond my level of excel expertise (plus putting together the teams and doing updates takes all the time I have), but I'd be excited to incorporate it. I'm not sure how it would work in terms of entry, as previous week placing data gets wiped with the update. But if anyone has thoughts on that, let's talk about it - this year is young enough that we could figure out a way to do it maybe.

Yeah something like that! I have no idea how to do it either, but if we have an Excel wizard here somewhere, perhaps it's possible?

 

[skidmark]

Okay, aside from my already detailed Catalunya lineup, here's where my hopes and dreams lie this week:

DDV

Yves Lampaert
Carlos Betancur
Stefan Kung
Simone Consonni
Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
Edward Planckaert

Well. Lampaert is always a potential threat if a small group forms as he's got a big engine and a fast finish, but he hasn't shown anything yet this year. Kung and GVK, same deal - DDV tends to end in a bunch sprint, so I'll have my fingers crossed but expectations are low. I'm curious to see how Consonni does in a race like this, and whether Planckaert can last to the end. And if Betancur crosses the finish line I'll be thrilled.

Coppi e Bartali

Joe Dombrowski
Elia Viviani
Eduardo Sepulveda
Julian Arredondo

The startlist isn't finalized but I hope all these guys race. This is exactly the kind of race I picked Arredondo and Sepulveda for. Dombro is great when he's on form, which I guess he has been exactly once in his pro career when he won Utah. But, you know, hope springs eternal. Viviani should be able to pick up his first win of the year as well.

E3

Lampaert
Owain Doull
Alexis Gougeard
John Degenkolb
Taylor Phinney
Consonni
GVK

The same holds for Lampaert and GVK as in DDV; I don't expect much from the others (Degenkolb aside). This race might not be the best for me.

Gent-Wevelgem

Kung
Phinney
Doull
Consonni
Filippo Ganna
Planckaert
GVK
Degenkolb

Again, maybe some outside shots, but who is actually going to be the go-to guy for their team other than van Keirsbulck and Degenkolb?

In short, hoping for some surprises and small groups to make it in the Flandrien classics (serving both the purposes of giving my guys a better chance and taking away the bunch option for popular riders not on my team like Ewan and Gav), and fingers crossed for a good showing in Italy.

 

[Jakob747]

Okay, aside from my already detailed Catalunya lineup, here's where my hopes and dreams lie this week:

DDV

Yves Lampaert
Carlos Betancur
Stefan Kung
Simone Consonni
Guillaume Van Keirsbulck
Edward Planckaert

are low. I'm curious to see how Consonni does in a race like this, and whether Planckaert can last to the end. And if Betancur crosses the finish line I'll be thrilled.

An attempt to boosting the confidence of the squads who selected Edward Planckaert. :razz: A little anyway!

I recently read an Interview with Baptiste Planckaert were he talked about the Planckaert dynasty and his two younger brothers Edward and Emiel. He said he used to think Edward was the most talented of the trio even though Emiel probably has the biggest engine and endurance.

He went on to say Edward is the fastest sprinter of the three, but like himself (Baptist) he has problems positioning himself. However, he feels that if Topsport in the future will build a small train around Edward we could expect to see serious things. Edward also has the most flair and the loudest mouth. Baptist is the hardest worker.

Without Capiot why not have both Van Lerberghe and Edward sprinting if it ends in a bunch gallop!

 

[Popchu]

Once again thank you for the update and the work you do for this game, Skidmark.

A season with high and lows so far for me. Luckily it was again a good week, with load of points in MSR (even Mezgec scored 32 points) in addition to a rather good T-A (Spilak, Bernal, Gesink). I hope I can move upwards once again this week. With these line-ups, I'm certainly looking forward to it.

Volta a Catalunya KRUIJSWIJK Steven - LANDA MEANA Mikel - GESINK Robert

Landa top 10, Kruijswijk and Gesink somewhere between 11-20. Don't think I can expect more of them. Kruijswijk and Gesink didn't impress me so far this season, but the most important is that Kruijswijk is building up to an excellent form in the Giro. Gesink should score big in races like California, not these type of WorldTour races. But they can surprise me.

Dwars door Vlaanderen GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando - LUTSENKO Alexey - KÜNG Stefan - BOOM Lars - BETANCUR GOMEZ Carlos Alberto - VAN KEIRSBULCK Guillaume - DEVOLDER Stijn -VAN STAEYEN Michael

No guarantees at all, but I'm really looking forward to this race. Excellent race for attacking riders such as Lutsenko, Küng and Boom (also GVK and Devolder) to score big, there's a chance of a bunch sprint though. Then it's up to Gaviria to take the win.

Coppi e Bartali VIVIANI Elia - BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley- MARTINEZ POVEDA Daniel Felipe - ARREDONDO MORENO Julian David - VORGANOV Eduard

Viviani is of minor importance, but this is a good race for my Colombians. Bernal should be in good form, while Martinez still is searching for form. Arredondo is a question mark for me. Vorganov needs 1 point to be in profit, so I hope he can do it here. I hope at least one rider goes really well here.

E3 LUTSENKO Alexey - DEGENKOLB John - PHINNEY Taylor - BOOM Lars - MEZGEC Luka - GOUGEARD Alexis -VAN KEIRSBULCK Guillaume - DEVOLDER Stijn -DOULL Owain - CARAPAZ MONTENEGRO Richard Antonio

Less chances of scoring big points than in Dwars door Vlaanderen, of course I have Degenkolb but he's not a factor in this game. Lars Boom should be there, Lutsenko too I hope. I'm pretty sure Devolder will have one impressive race this classics season, so why not E3?

Gent-Wevelgem GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando - LUTSENKO Alexey -DEGENKOLB John - PHINNEY Taylor - KÜNG Stefan - BOOM Lars - MEZGEC Luka - GOUGEARD Alexis - VAN KEIRSBULCK Guillaume - DEVOLDER Stijn - VAN STAEYEN Michael - DOULL Owain - CARAPAZ MONTENEGRO Richard Antonio

Again no guarantees, but I strongly believe in Lutsenko as a rider for these classics so another chance to prove me right here. Mezgec was 12th here last year, so maybe he can do the same or even a bit better, because he's one of the riders who will have a hard time to break even this year.

 

[HelgeBlendet]

Finally found some time to keep up with cycling/check for updates and I'm out of the top10 again...

Not sure how to feel about the upcoming races, too.

Catalunya
Landa
Gesink
Valls
Cink
Kämna
McCarthy
Herklotz

Landa, Gesink and Valls could score some points and I'm hoping Cink continues to impress. Not sure about McCarthy or Herklotz, but I don't expect anything from Kämna in this race.

Dwars
Benoot
Lampaert
Küng
Teuns
Boom
Politt
Van Keirsbulck

Just looking at the list... If they have the full support of their teams, they could score big. Most won't have, others will puncture, miss a split or have bad days. All in all it sounds like the perfect setup for a huge disappointment.

Settimana
Ciccone
Arredondo
Dombrowski
Viviani

Not sure what to expect. Ciccone won't be 100% yet and I'm not as confident in Arredondo as I was at the start of the season. Dombo being the only Cannondale on the startlist could mean he's their leader and might do something, right?

E3

Lampaert
Benoot
Dillier
Carapaz
Politt
Boom
Degenkolb
Van Keirsbulck

Same as DDV basically... Almost everyone could score big, but cobbles never work out as planned. Carapaz will be intresting to watch.

Gent-Wevelgem
Dillier
Küng
Carapaz
Boom
Degenkolb
Van Keirsbulck

Somehow this seems to be the line-up I expect the least from. Sure, Degenkolb will score, but everybody has him. Küng, Boom and Van keirsbulck going long distance? Dillier for the sprint of a select/biggish group? That's about it I guess. Don't see much points coming here.

 

[skidmark]

Alright Lampaert!! That is exactly the kind of one-day race scenario I envisioned when I picked him - get in an anticipatory break while main Qst danger men are behind, be strong enough to whittle it down but still have a teammate, and then get lucky with the right attack. This is great.

I was actually hoping he'd be on the list for Three Days of de Panne next week, which is definitely a race he should do well in. These points are a huge bonus. And he's not on G-W start list, so maybe he's going to de Panne?

Also, Cink looking like he belongs in the pros yet again, only 15 seconds lost at the end of the stage today. Unfortunately, Bahrain's poor TTT skills means that he's still pretty low overall, but these consistently great performances right off the hop are excellent for a zero pointer. Some bright spots so far this week.

 

[HelgeBlendet]

Lampaert!!!

That's why I picked him! When I saw only 12 other teams picked Lampaert I feared I might overestimate him or missed an injury or the announcment he'll be only domestique. Already scored 50% of last years points.

 

[Tigerion]

Re: Re:

Thanks for the update, skidmark! An impressive amount of points scored this week. I'm slowly but steady moving upwards - nice! A cool feature next year would be if it's possible to track your teams movement from week to week. A graph showing your movement for instance.

Oh by the way, kudos to those picking Alaphilippe this year. I didn't think that he would be able to improve a lot on last year's score, but it certainly looks that way. At this point last year he had scored 0 points and this year 526 points already. Last year he scored 262 points in the Ardennes and 375 points the year before, so let's say 300 points on average which would already bring him above 800 points. Does anyone know what his schedule looks like for the rest of the season?

Whoa, yeah a graph would be cool. What do you think would be a good layout; like a graphic on each team page tracking each week? That's beyond my level of excel expertise (plus putting together the teams and doing updates takes all the time I have), but I'd be excited to incorporate it. I'm not sure how it would work in terms of entry, as previous week placing data gets wiped with the update. But if anyone has thoughts on that, let's talk about it - this year is young enough that we could figure out a way to do it maybe.

My graph would be a Nibali like descent :razz:

Ok I did a quick mockup kinda thing for the graphs https://www.dropbox.com/s/ncamuh2wiosnzoh/CQ%202017%20update%2010%20Graph.xlsx?dl=0

Data on the first tab that would just need the current rank to be copied in the next cell each week. I only had some basic data so just did some demo data based on the 2 data points. Would need to get the actual data into this page for the past weeks but the current rank should automatically be updated
Tab 2 is the Graph. Lists out 2 teams and I would propose that the top 10 get added in here each week. Individual users can add there own team by overwriting a name on the list.

Very likely a better way to do this but might be a starting point for somebody. What do you guys think?

 

[Jancouver]

Re: Re:

Thanks for the update, skidmark! An impressive amount of points scored this week. I'm slowly but steady moving upwards - nice! A cool feature next year would be if it's possible to track your teams movement from week to week. A graph showing your movement for instance.

Oh by the way, kudos to those picking Alaphilippe this year. I didn't think that he would be able to improve a lot on last year's score, but it certainly looks that way. At this point last year he had scored 0 points and this year 526 points already. Last year he scored 262 points in the Ardennes and 375 points the year before, so let's say 300 points on average which would already bring him above 800 points. Does anyone know what his schedule looks like for the rest of the season?

Whoa, yeah a graph would be cool. What do you think would be a good layout; like a graphic on each team page tracking each week? That's beyond my level of excel expertise (plus putting together the teams and doing updates takes all the time I have), but I'd be excited to incorporate it. I'm not sure how it would work in terms of entry, as previous week placing data gets wiped with the update. But if anyone has thoughts on that, let's talk about it - this year is young enough that we could figure out a way to do it maybe.

My graph would be a Nibali like descent :razz:

Ok I did a quick mockup kinda thing for the graphs https://www.dropbox.com/s/ncamuh2wiosnzoh/CQ%202017%20update%2010%20Graph.xlsx?dl=0

Data on the first tab that would just need the current rank to be copied in the next cell each week. I only had some basic data so just did some demo data based on the 2 data points. Would need to get the actual data into this page for the past weeks but the current rank should automatically be updated
Tab 2 is the Graph. Lists out 2 teams and I would propose that the top 10 get added in here each week. Individual users can add there own team by overwriting a name on the list.

Very likely a better way to do this but might be a starting point for somebody. What do you guys think?

Pretty cool! Good job !

 

[Tigerion]

Ok, final update to the graph thing
All current data has been entered so you can now see how your team has progressed bu changing the names on the graph sheet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehcpqfo2ix6r7vi/CQ%202017%20update%2010%20Graph%20with%20data.xlsx?dl=0

Currently is is set so you can see the rise of the top 10 teams - and the glorious decent of 1 team

 

[shalgo]

Re:

Ok, final update to the graph thing
All current data has been entered so you can now see how your team has progressed bu changing the names on the graph sheet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehcpqfo2ix6r7vi/CQ%202017%20update%2010%20Graph%20with%20data.xlsx?dl=0

Currently is is set so you can see the rise of the top 10 teams - and the glorious decent of 1 team

Looks good! It is nice to capture this moment, before my team begins its ignominious drop out of the top ten.