The 2018 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Koronin]

Tirreno-Adriatico

Davide Formolo
Alberto Bettiol
Andrey Amador
Jaime Roson
Jasha Sutterlin
Damiano Cunego
Zdenek Stybar
Niki Terpstra
Mark Cavendish
Gianluca Brambilla

 

[Kazistuta]

Re: Re:

Well I guess maybe get to Strade Bianche more than 10 hours before the race started. :redface:

Oh no, what happened?

 

[fauniera]

De Bie is starting to get on my nerves.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Well I guess maybe get to Strade Bianche more than 10 hours before the race started. :redface:

Oh no, what happened?

A travel debacle. His flight that was supposed to leave Barcelona for Florence Friday morning was overbooked and he was moved to another flight that was supposed to land in Rome after 8pm. Then drive to the team hotel which was around 3 hours away. That's what the report in the media was. His wife said it actually was worse than that. (I'm friends with his wife's sister). Basically he spent all day Friday sitting at the airport in Barcelona while the entire rest of the peloton was doing recon rides.

 

[Netserk]

Re: Re:

Well I guess maybe get to Strade Bianche more than 10 hours before the race started. :redface:

Oh no, what happened?

Oh, you didn't...

 

[LaFlorecita]

A week of ups and downs. 98 points in Le Samyn with Terpstra, Capiot and Jakobsen, 116 points today in Dwars door West-Vlaanderen with Senechal, Jakobsen and Turgis. Senechal is a rare pick for me so I'm glad he's doing well (despite suffering from a stomach bug a week ago), but I guess it would have been even better if he'd gotten the win, it seemed like he had the legs.
Anyway, those were the highlights. Only Latour scored for me in Strade Bianche (12 points), Martinez scored 5 points in Larciano. So I guess I should expect to drop some more places.

In Paris-Nice, 2 of my 3 riders already lost time due to crashes (Pantano and Oomen). Sucks because they're two of my most expensive picks (and also rather rare) and this is the type of race they should score in. Also my most expensive pick Felline still doesn't seem to be back on the right track, which was my hope when picking him.

 

[escartin]

hardly any of my riders scored points this week but given that 2 of them that did were Terpstra and Benoot I shall in no way complain...

 

[Jspear]

Re: Re:

Even for those of us who put Valverde on our teams, did anyone actually expect him to have the same type of spring this year that he had last year? With the injuries, even with what he and his friends (and a handful of pro who ride with him) were saying. If he does anything remotely close to what he did at Catalonia last year and another Ardennes double this year, I wouldn't be shocked if he again says Best spring ever, which he's been saying for the past couple of years. I think we were hoping for a typical Valverde spring (which would not be as good as last year) and then his typical top 10 GC at the Tour and another podium at la Vuelta and just maybe finally win the Worlds, another podium at San Sebastian, and another top 5 at Lombaria and whatever other couple of races he'll do. The says they plan to send him to one of the cobbled races (definitely not Roubiax) and he typically races GP Miguel Indurain, although many times will pick a teammate to ride for in it. He also will most likely do another short Spanish continental race somewhere on the calendar. If he's going to race a cobbled race it's got to either be Dwars Door Vlaanderen or Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Flanders).

Absolutely!
That's the only reason I stuck him on my team...It's not like he's my favorite rider (I do like him some)...I picked him simply because I thought he'd be great this season...of course now I'm hoping his season will last longer then through July.

So you expected him to have another career spring at 37 almost 38 after suffering a broken kneecap and ankle? Although truthfully at this point in the races he's been in so far, I'm not sure you could have asked him to do more than he's done. Well I guess maybe get to Strade Bianche more than 10 hours before the race started. :redface:

Sure. Martin and Alaphilippe are close but from a betting perspective or game perspective, Valverde is still the guy to pick.

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Even for those of us who put Valverde on our teams, did anyone actually expect him to have the same type of spring this year that he had last year? With the injuries, even with what he and his friends (and a handful of pro who ride with him) were saying. If he does anything remotely close to what he did at Catalonia last year and another Ardennes double this year, I wouldn't be shocked if he again says Best spring ever, which he's been saying for the past couple of years. I think we were hoping for a typical Valverde spring (which would not be as good as last year) and then his typical top 10 GC at the Tour and another podium at la Vuelta and just maybe finally win the Worlds, another podium at San Sebastian, and another top 5 at Lombaria and whatever other couple of races he'll do. The says they plan to send him to one of the cobbled races (definitely not Roubiax) and he typically races GP Miguel Indurain, although many times will pick a teammate to ride for in it. He also will most likely do another short Spanish continental race somewhere on the calendar. If he's going to race a cobbled race it's got to either be Dwars Door Vlaanderen or Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Flanders).

Absolutely!
That's the only reason I stuck him on my team...It's not like he's my favorite rider (I do like him some)...I picked him simply because I thought he'd be great this season...of course now I'm hoping his season will last longer then through July.

So you expected him to have another career spring at 37 almost 38 after suffering a broken kneecap and ankle? Although truthfully at this point in the races he's been in so far, I'm not sure you could have asked him to do more than he's done. Well I guess maybe get to Strade Bianche more than 10 hours before the race started. :redface:

Sure. Martin and Alaphilippe are close but from a betting perspective or game perspective, Valverde is still the guy to pick.

I agree Valverde's the better pick because of crazy consistency, which I think we all expected even after the injury. However, to expect another career spring I think is asking a bit much. Doesn't mean he can't deliver on that though.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Good race by Senechal today. All my expensive picks are outpacing their 2017 scores despite a fairly limited number of race days so my team should really pick up momentum when the racing is fully on.

Valverde finishing 4th feels like dodging a bullet. Crazy the standards that he sets. That being said, turn enough victories into 4th places and it's the difference between 3000 and 2000 points in the season.

This is a perfect example of an article from 2015. He had a very good season including an Ardennes Double, but the two things most talked about from his season was not the Ardennes double or his first Tour podium, where he broke down crying when he realized he finally had the podium, but not getting onto the podium at la Vuelta and not getting onto the podium at the Richmond Worlds. Forget that the Richmond course didn't fit him and he forced it to fit his abilities. Of course for me, I'll forever just be grateful that he came to race Richmond as that was my (and my husband's) one in a lifetime opportunity to see these guys race.

I'm not trying to diminish Valverde's accomplishments. Getting fourth considering how far back he was at one point is a very impressive ride, I'm only looking at his performances in terms of the game.

The benchmarks I had for Valverde before the season was 2500 pts to be a really good pick (also where I expected him to end up) and 3000 pts to be game changing (as in if you don't have him, you're not winning the competition). Granted that's a bit arbitrary but that's what I'm sticking with.

If he finishes 3rd in all of his remaining races (Catalunya, Pais Vasco, Amstel, Fleche, LBL, Dapuhiné, Nationals (road race), Tour de France, San Sebastian, Vuelta, Worlds (road race) and Lombardia), that's ~2000 pts. Add about 400 pts for stages, minor classifications and wearing leader jerseys and the 600 pts he already has and that's 3000 pts total. As consistent as he is, you figure he'll have at least one or two let ups so as long as he doesn't win, he won't score enough to push past the game changing threshold and I can live with that.

 

[Koronin]

Good race by Senechal today. All my expensive picks are outpacing their 2017 scores despite a fairly limited number of race days so my team should really pick up momentum when the racing is fully on.

Valverde finishing 4th feels like dodging a bullet. Crazy the standards that he sets. That being said, turn enough victories into 4th places and it's the difference between 3000 and 2000 points in the season.

This is a perfect example of an article from 2015. He had a very good season including an Ardennes Double, but the two things most talked about from his season was not the Ardennes double or his first Tour podium, where he broke down crying when he realized he finally had the podium, but not getting onto the podium at la Vuelta and not getting onto the podium at the Richmond Worlds. Forget that the Richmond course didn't fit him and he forced it to fit his abilities. Of course for me, I'll forever just be grateful that he came to race Richmond as that was my (and my husband's) one in a lifetime opportunity to see these guys race.

I'm not trying to diminish Valverde's accomplishments. Getting fourth considering how far back he was at one point is a very impressive ride, I'm only looking at his performances in terms of the game.

The benchmarks I had for Valverde before the season was 2500 pts to be a really good pick (also where I expected him to end up) and 3000 pts to be game changing (as in if you don't have him, you're not winning the competition). Granted that's a bit arbitrary but that's what I'm sticking with.

If he finishes 3rd in all of his remaining races (Catalunya, Pais Vasco, Amstel, Fleche, LBL, Dapuhiné, Nationals (road race), Tour de France, San Sebastian, Vuelta, Worlds (road race) and Lombardia), that's ~2000 pts. Add about 400 pts for stages, minor classifications and wearing leader jerseys and the 600 pts he already has and that's 3000 pts total. As consistent as he is, you figure he'll have at least one or two let ups so as long as he doesn't win, he won't score enough to push past the game changing threshold and I can live with that.

Fair enough. Yeah, he's set a standard so high for what we basically expect from him, that when he doesn't achieve it we're surprised.

He's not going to Pais Vasco. He's likely he's going to Flanders instead. He still should end the season somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000. Plus most likely another continental race or two somewhere.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

Hm I didn't have a super week, but I don't think many people earned a lot of points this week, so it might be okay. With Power doing well and Izagirre and Alaphilippe looking good, I'm content with this week. I have a lot of riders in TA, definitely some potential, but not with a lot of almost guaranteed points by uncommon(ish) picks like in PN. We'll see.

Tirreno - Adriatico
FORMOLO Davide
KÖNIG Leopold
LOPEZ Miguel Angel
KANGERT Tanel
MOSER Moreno
NAVARDAUSKAS Ramunas
ENGER Sondre Holst
CAVENDISH Mark
BENNETT George
KÄMNA Lennard
BRAMBILLA Gianluca
NIZZOLO Giacomo

 

[LaFlorecita]

Paris-Nice
Oomen
Chaves
Pantano

Tirreno-Adriatico
Formolo
König
Lopez
Kangert
Navardauskas
Bettiol
Enger
Terpstra
Cavendish
Felline
Nizzolo

 

[skidmark]

Update #8: Geraint Too Good

**note: I'm looking for people to take on the posting of the updates for June and July. If you are interested, please let me know either here or by PM, thanks!**

A fairly quiet week in CQ land, with a weekday slate almost empty of top tier races save La Samyn, and then Strade Bianche and one day of Paris-Nice on the weekend. So the top scores are relatively modest but glory comes from crossing the line first, not from the underlying points.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank Team Points this week
1 Geraint Too Fast 320
2 Roubaix 318
3 LightBing 285
4 escartin 275
5 Googolplex 270

Geraint Too Fast, long-time game participant and often a mainstay in the upper echelon, takes out the weekly winnings by a hair. As one of two teams with Romain Bardet, it must be pleasing to see him with a relatively unexpected result in SB. Terpstra and Sean De Bie, who got 80 and 67 points for GTF this week, were more popular picks, but rare enough to surge their team to victory. Roubaix comes oh-so-close in second, with Terpstra and De Bie as well, but additional contributions from Stybar, Rob Power, and Fabio Jakobsen. Light Bing is a bit further back in third place, as one of three teams with first-time professional victor Tiesj Benoot.

This Week's High Movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 Geraint Too Fast (+32)
2 Roubaix (+29)
3 escartin (+26)
4 LightBing (+23)
5 Koronin (+20)

A very similar bunch here, with escartin - another Benoot holder - nabbing the final podium spot.

This Month's Top Scorers

Rank Team Points this Month
1 Popchu 1687
2 TheArt 1607
3 MADRAZO 1528
4 ruvu75 1507
5 Squire 1502

February is over, which means it's time to summarize the month (plus the first weekend of March, as that's how CQ gives their updates). Popchu scores big this month; with 1687 points, their team would be ahead of about 40 teams even if they didn't have January's scores to count as well! Quite impressive. Also impressive is that they've gotten such a solid month with two riders over 200 points (Astana's middle eastern kings, Lopez and Lutsenko), and three more over 100 (Alaphilippe, Van Poppel, and Moser). Most of their team's contributions came from solid double-digit showings, including 3 riders with exactly 79 points this month (the 'otherwise they have nothing in common' trio of Cavendish, Vliegen and De Bie). TheArt has to settle for second place (although they won a week, so they've had their taste of glory) with a similar set of riders, although add Geraint Thomas and subtract Moreno Moser. MADRAZO cracks 1500 and nabs a podium spot with similar guys as Popchu but switch Lutsenko out for Cort in the high scorers.

This Month's High Movers

Rank Team Up/down
1 TheArt (+83)
2 MADRAZO (+72)
3 rote_laterne (+71)
4 EvansIsTheBest (+70)
5 Gigs_98 (+69)

Just like the weekly scores, the lists are similar... the top 2 were on the previous podium (winner Popchu was already high enough up that there wasn't much farther to jump), and rote_laterne slides into third place with some of the usual suspects as well as being one of the lucky 12 teams to pick Narvaez (125 points this month).

Green Jersey Competition

Rank Team Total Wk8
1 Jon_Ezeitza 90
2 Kryvo 80
3 18-Valve. (pithy) 74
4 ChrisDK 72
5 Geraint Too Fast 65

Not much action on this leaderboard this week, as GTF's weekly win gets their team into 5th overall, but no other points scored in the top 10 overall.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Up/down Team Points
1 (-) Nathanptz 2457
2 (-) Popchu 2399
3 (+1) Squire 2263
4 (+1) Kryvo 2249
5 (+8) abbulf 2245
6 (+6) kabete 2212
7 (-1) DJ Sprtsch 2203
8 (+3) Valv.Piti 2201
9 (+9) minessa 2195
10 (-3) fauniera 2175

After almost relinquishing the lead last week, Nathanptz pulls back away a bit to ensure a third week at the top over Popchu. Squire continues an inexorable march up the standings to nab the final podium spot. Lots of changeover in the top 10 from week to week lately, and this week is similar, with abbulf, kabete, Valv.Piti and minessa jumping in, and JSpear, LosBrolin, Blues in the bottle and former leader bminchow (who has a very unfortunate week with only 3 points!) fall out.

Spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[Koronin]

I'm extremely happy with my pick of Valentin Madouas. I'm one of only 4 people to put him on my team and he's already paid off with a nice profit so far. No idea how long this will hold for, but an already profit of 67 points (he had 33 points last) is very nice. I may have messed up on some other picks, but I'm happy with this one.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Re:

I'm extremely happy with my pick of Valentin Madouas. I'm one of only 4 people to put him on my team and he's already paid off with a nice profit so far. No idea how long this will hold for, but an already profit of 67 points (he had 33 points last) is very nice. I may have messed up on some other picks, but I'm happy with this one.

Something we can agree on

More than just tripling his score in early March, the level of freedom he's getting at FDJ in his first month as a neo-pro is really encouraging. I also really liked that even after being caught during Strade Bianche he wasn't afraid to mix it up with the best riders in the world and kept fighting for a minor placing instead of chilling to the finish line. If nothing else it shows he'll grind his way to his full point potential.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

A week of ups and downs. 98 points in Le Samyn with Terpstra, Capiot and Jakobsen, 116 points today in Dwars door West-Vlaanderen with Senechal, Jakobsen and Turgis. Senechal is a rare pick for me so I'm glad he's doing well (despite suffering from a stomach bug a week ago), but I guess it would have been even better if he'd gotten the win, it seemed like he had the legs.
Anyway, those were the highlights. Only Latour scored for me in Strade Bianche (12 points), Martinez scored 5 points in Larciano. So I guess I should expect to drop some more places.

Or not... +19

 

[jon ezeitza]

Great success of Rémi Cavagna in the classic Johan Museeuw, which gives me 80 beautiful points, what a great lack they make me. I climb five positions. I rise !, that lately did not do anything but to lower :razz: .

 

[bminchow]

Ouch. That was fun while it lasted.

 

[shalgo]

Well, that was probably my single worst week in seven years of playing this game: a mere 5 points and down 28 places in the standings, from 31st to 59th. I'm not sure that the current week will be a lot better. Well, it is a long season...

 

[skidmark]

Oomen and Craddock are still up there in Paris-Nice... we will know more after the next two days. Here's the rest of my week:

Tirenno

Leo Konig
Miguel Angel Lopez
Tanel Kangert
Ramunas Navardauskas
Mark Cavendish
Danny van Poppel
Lennard Kamna
Aliaksandr Riabushenko

Well. I guess Lopez is a favourite, and Konig could do something but he's basically missed a year so I'm sure he's rusty. Either way, those aren't difference makers. Cav of course will be fine for the sprints but again everyone has him; van Poppel is really my more interesting option as he's less popular. Kangert can always pick up a few solid superdom placing points, and Kamna might win the TTT with Sunweb and do fine in the final ITT. Navardauskus and Riabushenko I'm not expecting anything from. In short, pretty low expectations.

Startlist for Drenthe isn't finished yet, so we'll see.

 

[Squire]

If everything goes my way, I could end up having the winners of both Tirreno and Paris-Nice on my team. Now that would be a great start to the season. Overall, I'm very happy that I've managed to keep the Valverdistas at bay for now even though he's ripping it up (which as a huge fan I obviously love to see).

 

[Geraint Too Fast]

It was very kind of Lopez to take a week off and give my team a chance. Back to normality this week I expect.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

I'm really happy to have kept my top ten. Now, let's see what happens in P-N, Ion Izaguirre and Chaves have to step up.
Looking at the startlist for T-A and wonder: why isn't Tom Bohli riding for BMC when there's both a TTT and a ITT?

 

[greenedge]

Re:

I'm really happy to have kept my top ten. Now, let's see what happens in P-N, Ion Izaguirre and Chaves have to step up.
Looking at the startlist for T-A and wonder: why isn't Tom Bohli riding for BMC when there's both a TTT and a ITT?

I'm going to assume it's because he's still relatively inexperienced (hasn't started a GT yet + isn't part of GVA's classics retinue). It turned out well for BMC when they've already won the TTT (Bevin's not too bad at time-trials+ has better utility for the hills) and Dennis and Kung will have better chances of winning the finishing ITT than Bohli.

Thanks for the update too!