The 2017 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Jspear]

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.

You kinda remind me of Lance Armstrong. Cocky and a very disgusting personality.

 

[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.

You kinda remind me of Lance Armstrong. Cocky and a very disgusting personality.

You got that all mixed up. He is the cheater (Lance), running the show and pulling the strings and I called him out. So don't be his loyal Mr Hincapie because that is exactly what is happening here.

 

[skidmark]

Update #1: Archieboy takes the early lead with the right combo at the Aussie/NZ nats

Well hello! We are back in the 7th edition of the CQ game; the start of the season is always full of promise and possibility, and the first update, although certainly not an indicator of the final result, is a prestigious one to grab.

This year, there weren't really many high placings at the Aussie nats by popular riders. Miles Scotson, the Aussie champ, was picked by 8 teams, and he was the most popular rider in the top 5 of either Aussie or NZ championships (RR or TT). As such, the team on top of the list (for the week, and of course overall as well) is among the least 'popular' teams in aggregate.

Congratulations to Archieboy! With some rare picks scoring this week (Scotson with 117 points, and unique picks Cameron Bayly with 40, Lachlan Norris with 23, and Sean Lake with 11), their team ekes out a victory for the week and a first place overall! Archieboy's 191 points was closely contested by game veteran Blues in the Bottle, who came in hot with Scotson, Dennis (50 points) and Hepburn (20 points) for a total of 187. Tigerion grabs third with a team including Scotson, Hepburn, and unique pick (and recently un-retired) Cam Meyer with 8 points!

Top 10 Overall

Rank Team Points
1 archieboy 191
2 Blues in the bottle 187
3 Tigerion 145
4 torcia_86 127
5 tom_jelte 125
6 ansimi 117
6 Bicycle_Boy 117
6 Mellow Velo 117
9 sublimit 110
10 sodak_za 87

37 of 131 teams scored at least a point this week (literally - 37th place al pacino scored 1 point). There is no high movers obviously, as all teams started out tied for first so really everyone just moved down. I will award points for the Green Jersey competition for the week, but just realized I hadn't updated that tab with current teams so I'll fix that up this week. Other than that, the TDU starts this week so the real WorldTour points are going to heat up the competition after dipping our toes in this week.

Happy to be back!

Spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[skidmark]

Re: Re:

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.

I genuinely don't know what you're talking about. In 2012 my most expensive rider was Sacha Modolo and he was my rarest rider. I stated in the thread that I was excited about the fact that my most expensive rider was Modolo and he was my cheapest rider. Here is me saying that. Here is me reiterating that in some friendly banter with a fellow poster.

I don't really care if a rider is popular or not - I just have to be convinced to pick him, and if fewer people have, it makes me cheer harder because success gives me more advantage. Usually the riders I'm convinced to pick first are more popular, of course, since they are the more obvious ones, so obviously there's some correlation. Look, here are the 12 riders for the 2016 game I had 'for sure' on the first list I sent to mc_mountain on PM before I had received more than five teams:

Martin Tony
Van Garderen Tejay
Martin Dan
Cancellara Fabian
Demare Arnaud
Gerrans Simon
Phinney Taylor
Kittel Marcel
Stuyven Jasper
Gaviria Fernando
Betancur Carlos
Talansky Andrew

Those 12 ended up including the 9 most popular riders on my team (and in the game), #11 (Tony Martin), #13 (Talansky), and Stuyven (who was less popular, but I was convinced early).

For me it's more about who I can depend on to score points. I think I've only picked four riders over 1000 ever, which were Contador, Rodriguez, Sagan and now Nibali. All probably among the 50 greatest cyclists of all time. So it's not like I'm taking a flier on a wild card. Here's a less expensive example - I really was tempted to pick Michael Woods this year. I think his talent ceiling is enticing and a bit unknown, I think he learned a lot last year from being in the peloton, and I think he could excel in short stage races with some punch on the end (like this week's race and many others on the calendar) and could kill in the hilly one-days, both the Ardennes and year-end. And he'll always be the #1 rider for his country for the Worlds. (It also helps that I'm Canadian and would be excited to cheer my own) But... I just couldn't do it. There's too much uncertainty - sure, I've read his blogs and interviews and he sounds confident, but how is that going to translate into more CQ points? He crashed last year and rode hurt, but almost everybody crashes every year. There's just not enough data to go on to make me feel comfortable. So I'm risk-averse, but in the sense that I feel more comfortable selecting a rider at 1200 points who has averaged 1800 points over the past seven years than I do spending 338 points on a rider with an unknown standard deviation of points and one year under his belt. Being risk-averse by picking really good riders that have a high floor and a relatively forecastable yield is something I think is a smart strategy. Being risk-averse by trying to pick popular riders would be something I would consider a stupid strategy and something that would never win me the game.

The premise for your continuing harassment of me seems to be that you think I pick popular riders based on what I see are popular from other teams. I submitted my complete team before seeing all but 4 teams but yet you still keep accusing me, and when my team comes out and has all twelve of the most popular riders in the game on it when they were selected at a time that I couldn't possibly know who else had them (and my team is 12th out of 131 in popularity score), you ignore that fact and start suggesting that because I have a rare rider, I'm somehow laid bare as a fraud. That seems... rather at odds with the facts.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

What a bunch of baloney.

Jancouver, I suggest you stop this now. You've made your point, had your say, now let's move on because frankly this whole issue has ruined my enjoyment of the game.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Yes...can we move on please?
Doull out of TDU. Now I have only two riders: R Gesink & J Janse van Rensburg.
Why isn't Robert Power riding?

 

[laarsland]

How do you spell sour grapes?

 

[skidmark]

Well, with Doull out of the TDU, I have three riders:

Ondrej Cink
Robert Gesink
Tiago Machado

I believe at least one of these riders can go into profit. Obviously, crashes aside, I expect Cink to pick up the 5 finishing points and not much more in his first race. Gesink and Machado though... I mean, Machado is getting older and if that's the reason for his points drop last year, so be it. But he's the ostensible leader and top 10(ish) is possible. Gesink has an excellent chance of top 5-10, I'd say.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Being af follower of Gesink's on Strava, he does a lot of long rides and such but with an incredibly low average heart rate like 115 and such. I don't really know if thats normal, but it seemed base-oriented to the extreme. I really don't think he will be that explosive on those short climbs. Then again, I don't have a master in training, but comparing it to my own rides and Anacona, fx., it seems odd.

It might be a bunch of baloney tho. :lol:

 

[WKA311]

Well, seems like I'm going with the youth and unexperienced at TDU.

CHEVRIER Clément
PEDERSEN Mads
MÜHLBERGER Gregor
MORTON Lachlan
CINK Ondrej
MAS NICOLAU Enric

Really not expecting much besides from a good willunga from Morton maybe.

 

[postmanhat]

Re:

Some other rare picks in my team:
Amaury Capiot (309 pts, 7 picks) is another secret weapon. Almost every year, Topsport Vlaanderen have a guy score 1000+ points. Capiot perfectly fits the profile of the two previous ones, Van Asbroeck and Theuns. Similar age, skillset and progression, and with a few of the heavy-hitters from last year gone from the team, it should be all-in for Capiot all year. Considered Roy Jans as well, but he's a bit more unreliable and more expensive. Could maybe have picked both.

Jaime Roson (178 pts, 9 picks) is a great talent and will benefit from the Caja Rural exodus. Should get points in the early Spanish stage races where he was still finding his feet last year, and with all the easy opportunities later in the year, the points should be flowing in, hopefully capped off with a Vuelta stage win. Could've won the Tour of Turkey in 2016 without all the crosswind shenanigans, so his potential score was bigger even last year. Who needs Trofimov?

Jonathan Hivert (173 pts, 7 picks) is surprisingly rare. Thought he would be pretty obvious. Injury-plagued last season, and will now be the best puncheur in Direct Energie. With Coquard being given the top gigs, Hivert should wreak havoc in the smaller French hilly races.

I was hoping Vincenzo Albanese (159 pts, 24 picks) would be more rare. The strength of this kid is incredible. He has been riding solo away from pelotons all season long, and one of the most impressive performances was one he didn't win. In the U23 EC he did almost all the work in the three-man breakaway, then casually rode Artem Nych and the Avenir winner off his wheel on the last climb, before being caught by the pack 100m from the line. He's even got this confident Pozzato attitude. Albanese could be a revelation in Italian one-day races already this year. My only worry is that every year, only a couple of riders his age score more than 300 points. But if Albanese is the new Sagan, I'm not gonna miss out.

Excellent analysis Squire. I have these four too Also agree about Simon Yates being a good pick, but have had him for the last two years and fancied a change, so am banking on Kwiatkowski NOT being a shooting star.

My team in ranking order

ARU Fabio
KWIATKOWSKI Michal
MEINTJES Louis
DEGENKOLB John
LANDA MEANA Mikel
STUYVEN Jasper
MEURISSE Xandro
CAPIOT Amaury
VIVIANI Elia
KÖNIG Leopold
VLIEGEN Loïc
KÜNG Stefan
MAMYKIN Matvey
GAUDU David
ROSON GARCIA Jaime
HIVERT Jonathan
BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley
ALBANESE Vincenzo
DOMBROWSKI Joseph Lloyd
NORDHAUG Lars Petter
RAVASI Edward
VERVAEKE Louis
GOUGEARD Alexis
KOSHEVOY Ilia
INTXAUSTI ELORRIAGA Beñat
PONZI Simone
POWER Robert
SANTAROMITA Ivan
VAN KEIRSBULCK Guillaume
BOECKMANS Kris
PELUCCHI Matteo
ARREDONDO MORENO Julian David
DOULL Owain

Meurisse is unique pick. Liked the look of him in a couple of races last year and thought the Wanty clearout would give him a big chance. Risky and looking more so now they've just signed Dion Smith. Similar reasoning behind the picks of Stuyven and Vleigen who both should be able to capitalise on the departure of big stars from their teams. Meintjes finally won me over with his Olympics ride and he could be a 1000 pointer at least. The big risk is how conservative UAE are with him

Malori is the obvious miss and I should have referred to skidmarks list, instead of just my own and scouring the CQ database. Don't really like Movistar or TTers so he was never on my radar. Bonifazio was one of the last to be cut as already had quite a few sprinters. Think I'm going to regret that one.

My team for the TDU

Meintjes - I expect him to win

Good luck!

 

[skidmark]

Question for everyone now that we're starting up - is there anyone who is interested in seeing the Polka Dot Jersey competition continue from last year? It was noted in the windup discussion in last year's thread that a few people didn't see it adding much to the updates, and at least one person noted that they thought it took away from the Green Jersey competition. From a pure numbers standpoint, 10 of the top 20 finishers in each competition were the same, which is some variation, but considerable overlap as well. I had created the competition because the year prior, it was expressed that the Green Jersey competition had too much overlap with the top 10 overall teams. The idea was that it would be cool to reward teams who don't necessarily stand a chance in the overall, but have unique riders or groups of riders who would give their teams great weeks and bad weeks, moving up and down the table. Last year, it ended up the same team won both competitions (who wasn't in the top 10 overall teams).

I like this competition, and I don't mind compiling it at all, but obviously I'm not interested in doing it if no one wants it. Unless a few people speak up for it, I'll take it out of the spreadsheet, for sure. Just thought I'd ask one final time.

 

[del1962]

Finally Ewan and Bonfazio get me started

 

[barmaher]

Question for everyone now that we're starting up - is there anyone who is interested in seeing the Polka Dot Jersey competition continue from last year? It was noted in the windup discussion in last year's thread that a few people didn't see it adding much to the updates, and at least one person noted that they thought it took away from the Green Jersey competition. From a pure numbers standpoint, 10 of the top 20 finishers in each competition were the same, which is some variation, but considerable overlap as well. I had created the competition because the year prior, it was expressed that the Green Jersey competition had too much overlap with the top 10 overall teams. The idea was that it would be cool to reward teams who don't necessarily stand a chance in the overall, but have unique riders or groups of riders who would give their teams great weeks and bad weeks, moving up and down the table. Last year, it ended up the same team won both competitions (who wasn't in the top 10 overall teams).

I like this competition, and I don't mind compiling it at all, but obviously I'm not interested in doing it if no one wants it. Unless a few people speak up for it, I'll take it out of the spreadsheet, for sure. Just thought I'd ask one final time.

I don't really think it adds a huge pile to the game, so I wouldn't bother. Others may disagree.

 

[rote_laterne]

Literally my first point in this game.

 

[del1962]

Re:

Literally my first point in this game.

Sosa?

He is in my youth team.

 

[rote_laterne]

Re: Re:

Literally my first point in this game.

Sosa?

He is in my youth team.

Congrats to you. He can possibly end up top ten. No, Theuns. Expected a little more to be honest.

 

[Tigerion]

Question for everyone now that we're starting up - is there anyone who is interested in seeing the Polka Dot Jersey competition continue from last year? It was noted in the windup discussion in last year's thread that a few people didn't see it adding much to the updates, and at least one person noted that they thought it took away from the Green Jersey competition. From a pure numbers standpoint, 10 of the top 20 finishers in each competition were the same, which is some variation, but considerable overlap as well. I had created the competition because the year prior, it was expressed that the Green Jersey competition had too much overlap with the top 10 overall teams. The idea was that it would be cool to reward teams who don't necessarily stand a chance in the overall, but have unique riders or groups of riders who would give their teams great weeks and bad weeks, moving up and down the table. Last year, it ended up the same team won both competitions (who wasn't in the top 10 overall teams).

I like this competition, and I don't mind compiling it at all, but obviously I'm not interested in doing it if no one wants it. Unless a few people speak up for it, I'll take it out of the spreadsheet, for sure. Just thought I'd ask one final time.

I like the green jersey comp but don't look at the polka dot jersey. I don't mind it being there but I don't look at it

 

[Jancouver]

Question for everyone now that we're starting up - is there anyone who is interested in seeing the Polka Dot Jersey competition continue from last year? It was noted in the windup discussion in last year's thread that a few people didn't see it adding much to the updates, and at least one person noted that they thought it took away from the Green Jersey competition. From a pure numbers standpoint, 10 of the top 20 finishers in each competition were the same, which is some variation, but considerable overlap as well. I had created the competition because the year prior, it was expressed that the Green Jersey competition had too much overlap with the top 10 overall teams. The idea was that it would be cool to reward teams who don't necessarily stand a chance in the overall, but have unique riders or groups of riders who would give their teams great weeks and bad weeks, moving up and down the table. Last year, it ended up the same team won both competitions (who wasn't in the top 10 overall teams).

I like this competition, and I don't mind compiling it at all, but obviously I'm not interested in doing it if no one wants it. Unless a few people speak up for it, I'll take it out of the spreadsheet, for sure. Just thought I'd ask one final time.

I like the green jersey comp but don't look at the polka dot jersey. I don't mind it being there but I don't look at it

^^^^^^^ what he/she said

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Ewan going well so far

San Juan
NAVARDAUSKAS, Ramunas
BERNAL, Egan Arley
VIVIANI, Elia
SEPÚLVEDA, Eduardo

Sepúlveda should score some GC points and I'm looking forward to seeing how Bernal will do.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Ewan going well so far

Ewan could be a key pick even if he's only a bit better than last year in the races that matter. He'll already be at almost 44% if he wins the final TDU stage (and the points classification), too.

Does anyone here know his likely schedule?

 

[Jancouver]

Ewan going well so far

Ewan could be a key pick even if he's only a bit better than last year in the races that matter. He'll already be at almost 44% if he wins the final TDU stage (and the points classification), too.

Does anyone here know his likely schedule?

Cadel Evans RR
Herald Sun Tour
MSR
Giro

probably some other races in between MSR and Giro

 

[Brullnux]

S**********s probably

 

[ThePirate81]

My riders for Vuelta Ciclista San Juan:
GANNA Filippo
RUFFONI Nicola
BERNAL Egan Arley
VIVIANI Elia

Hope for stage points for Viviani and Ruffoni,and GC points for Bernal

 

[GP Blanco]

My season really starts with the races of next week.

Vuelta Ciclista a la Provincia de San Juan
BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley
SEPULVEDA Eduardo
VIVIANI Elia
GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando
GANNA Filippo

Bernal and Sepulveda for the GC. Viviani and Gaviria for the sprints. I hope Ganna surprises at the TT.

Mallorca
TROFIMOV Yury
BENOOT Tiesj
CARAPAZ Richard

No expectations at all.