Wow, I gotta say that I'm honestly surprised that I'm at top of the popularity table. I thought I would have left out some of the more popular picks (like Intxausti and Navardauskas whom I left out on purpose), but going through the most popular picks, of the 20 most popular riders, 17 are in my team
Here are my thoughts on some of the more popular picks this year as well as some of my less popular picks. Let's start with the latter:
I guess my most important rider this year is
Fernando Gaviria. He's been on my team since my first draft and I never really looked back. We all know how big of a talent Gaviria possess and he's more than just a sprinter, capable of winning one-day-races harder than most other sprinters. I think he'll take a step up in the classics this year and if everything goes well he could score 1800-2000 points, but I recognize that he's a risky pick. I did consider
Søren Kragh Andersen and
Sam Oomen instead, which I also think would have been a decent strategy, but I pretty quickly decided that I wanted Gaviria and I couldn't find enough points to include either of Andersen or Oomen even though I think they'll both have good seasons.
Laurens De Plus is the third less popular rider on my team and he's probably the one I had the most doubts about. I think De Plus is a fairly big talent but I'm not really sure if he'll improve enough to be a good pick this year. Hopefully he'll deliver some results in one-day-races and in some week long races as well on a team with few climbers.
I'm really surprised to see that only 7 other picked
Maximilian Walscheid. I think he's a very big sprinting talent and I think he'll have a good season despite his limited abilities and being on a team with a few other sprinters. He reminds me of Kittel. A big powerhouse of a sprinter who has a hard time getting over hills but with a very high top end speed. I expect him to make some progress this year hopefully he'll deliver me 400-600 points.
Now to some of the more popular picks this season that I didn't include in my team.
I'm not sure if I missed something about
Benat Intxausti or not, but I just don't see him coming back to any kind of decent level. He had three race days last year and DNF the two of them.
Ramunas Navardauskas I considered but in the end left out. I don't think he'll get a lot of opportunities and he didn't sound particuarly optimistic in the interviews I read with him. The last of the top 20 most popular picks not in my team is
David Gaudu who I also considered but actually quickly dismissed - in hindsight that might have been a mistake? I'm not really sure why I dismissed him so early as he does seem like a pretty good pick. I don't see him scoring more than 700 though, so I'm not too worried.
Danny Van Poppel is a rider I never considered, but he seems like a good pick I must admit. Of course he'll play second fiddle to Groenewegen and even be part of his lead out train from time to time but he'll surely get his own chances as well. Moving away from Sky that doesn't really focus on sprints seems to be a good move.
I'm not sure why
Taylor Phinney is such a popular pick. He'll never return to a level close to his peak and honestly he's one of the worse riders on the World Tour now after his injury.
Pierre Latour is an interesting pick. I had him down on my shortlist for a while but deleted him again as I don't think he'll score a lot more points this year than last. He doesn't seem to climb well enough to do what he really wants and I just don't see him having a breakthough 2018 in terms of results. That said, his points tally could certainly increase, but if I wanted someone in his price range, I would have looked towards Søren Kragh Andersen or Sam Oomen instead.
Niki Terpstra I never considered and I don't know why actually. He seems like an epitome of a good cq-pick. If he scores as many points as he did in any season from 2012-2016, he'll be a good pick. With Boonen having retired, Terpstra might even get a bit more freedom as well. I don't think that he'll return to his 2014/2015 form but less could do as well.
Ian Stannard I don't like. Even though he could pretty easily double his score, his ceiling just seems so low and I don't like that. With Van Baarle and Moscon looking like Sky's classics leaders, Stannard likely won't get a lot of chances on his own. The same does for
Jürgen Roelandts. He didn't look very good last season and at BMC it's everyone for Van Avermaet.
I gotta say that I'm a bit envy of those who picked
Geraint Thomas. I never considered him but I think he could turn out to be one of the very good picks this season. He was climbing very well last season and if he hadn't crashed out of the Giro, who knows what he might have done there. Of course that's the big question mark with Thomas: Will he manage to stay on his bike? If he does, he could have a blast of a season. Much of the same can be said about
Richie Porte who was perhaps the best climber last season. If he manages to stay on his bike, his potential is almost unlimited.
I think this could be a very interesting season as there are quite a few expensive riders across our teams and a lot will depend on how well they fare.
Alejandro Valverde is fairly popular as is
Peter Sagan. The former could be a good pick as he's back to his old calendar but the question is if he can come back to his old level as well. Sagan I don't see as a good pick for his game. He will have to score around 3000 points to be a good pick I think, and it's hard to imagine him doing that, especially with the Worlds route as hard as it is this year.
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