The 2018 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Kazistuta]

De Panne

Amaury Capiot
Bryan Coquard

Not sure what my overall prospects are, although both of these guys should feature in stages. Coquard has not looked great so far this year, though.

You must be busy,Skidmark - it's not like you to miss that De Panne is a one-day race this year, and almost certain to be a sprint. That bodes well for a good "overall" placing for both Coquard and slightly less Capiot.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

The less said about my team's performances during the last couple of weeks, the better.

Congrats to skidmark for being the first person to score (cumulatively) 100k Next up is Kazistuta with almost 5k to go still.

 

[skidmark]

De Panne

Amaury Capiot
Bryan Coquard

Not sure what my overall prospects are, although both of these guys should feature in stages. Coquard has not looked great so far this year, though.

You must be busy,Skidmark - it's not like you to miss that De Panne is a one-day race this year, and almost certain to be a sprint. That bodes well for a good "overall" placing for both Coquard and slightly less Capiot.

Haha yeah I'm live streaming it in the background as I do some work and I'm like "wait, what?" I now remember reading multiple articles about it last year but it was totally not on my radar lately. I definitely didn't look at the parcours, just assumed it was a three day thing with a tough hilly stage, a flat stage, and a short TT as it was historically. Yeesh. Good thing you pick your team in December and then it's set for the whole year, if I had to pay attention to detail now I'd be toast.

Although I must say it's maybe an understandable oversight to assume a race still called "THREE DAYS" that has always been three days might still be three days

 

[Kazistuta]

So let's not talk about "4 Jours De Dunkerque" :lol:

(Spoiler: It's certainly not four days this year.. and other years)

 

[LaFlorecita]

I still have a lot of my GC guys in the mix in Catalunya, Latour, Gaudu, Martinez, Mas and Formolo haven't lost any time yet but Pantano lost close to a minute on stage 2 (not a clue why) and annoyingly after the route change he probably would have been my best bet at a top-10. I doubt the others can finish top-10 with La Molina of all climbs as the deciding factor.
And I'm not happy to see Senechal in a domestique role race after race while he looks so strong these are the races he should be scoring in damnit

 

[I'velo]

I was getting excited every time Viviani won until Recently when i realised he didn’t make the final cut. Benoot and Soler were also in my final considerations.

 

[Tigerion]

I was getting excited every time Viviani won until Recently when i realised he didn’t make the final cut. Benoot and Soler were also in my final considerations.

I do that sometimes as well but normally it is that I had them on a previous years team

 

[LosBrolin]

Craddock soon in to the profit That didn't require very much tho

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Screw this.. I'm picking Valverde next year no matter his cost

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re:

I still have a lot of my GC guys in the mix in Catalunya, Latour, Gaudu, Martinez, Mas and Formolo haven't lost any time yet but Pantano lost close to a minute on stage 2 (not a clue why) and annoyingly after the route change he probably would have been my best bet at a top-10. I doubt the others can finish top-10 with La Molina of all climbs as the deciding factor.
And I'm not happy to see Senechal in a domestique role race after race while he looks so strong these are the races he should be scoring in damnit

Latour with a great showing today and Dani Martinez still in the mix for a top-10 as well. Not that bad

 

[Squire]

I'm getting worried about Michael Woods...

 

[Salvarani]

Re:

I'm getting worried about Michael Woods...

Im getting worried about Enric Mas...

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Screw this.. I'm picking Valverde next year no matter his cost

Well there is a reason he has the nickname El Imbatido.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Valverde had gathered 783 points last after winning Catalunya. He currently has 699 points, and the way things look in thisrace could well get another 300p

 

[Koronin]

With Terpstra winning today and what Valverde's doing at Catalunya at least I should have some nice points from them for this week. Plus should get some points from Soler and it looks like maybe Craddock as well.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Re: Re:

I'm getting worried about Michael Woods...

Im getting worried about Enric Mas...

Showed a little more today. From his comments on social media I'm thinking he struggled with the cold conditions. And FWIW, he is ahead of last year's CQ total so far.
But I agree, I had expected more from him. This could be the classic difficult 2nd year for him.

 

[Netserk]

Re:

Valverde had gathered 783 points last after winning Catalunya. He currently has 699 points, and the way things look in thisrace could well get another 300p

145 points behind last year, as he won't defend his Itzulia points. I doubt he'll do better in Amstel, but he could very well score more in June.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Very happy, good week for me, I think, close to 1000 points without Valverde

Terpstra 225
Latour 162
Rosa 147
Martinez 86
Minali 73
Pantano 50
Capiot 48
Gaudu 45
Guardini 45
Senechal 26
Coquard 13
Mas 9
Bettiol 5
Halvorsen 5

Next week doesn't look as good for me. Need to hope for another good showing by Terpstra.

Dwars door Vlaanderen (1.WT)
Terpstra
Halvorsen
Minali
Senechal?

Route Adélie de Vitré & La Roue Tourangelle (1.1)
Enger

Ronde Van Vlaanderen (1.WT)
Senechal
Terpstra
Bettiol
Felline
Capiot
Coquard

 

[Koronin]

Re: Re:

Valverde had gathered 783 points last after winning Catalunya. He currently has 699 points, and the way things look in thisrace could well get another 300p

145 points behind last year, as he won't defend his Itzulia points. I doubt he'll do better in Amstel, but he could very well score more in June.

The real question is rather he can get another Ardennes double, as I agree it's unlikely he'll have a much different result at Amstel. However, he should have a similar point total to last year when we get to July.

 

[Koronin]

Next week:

Dwars doorVlaanderen

Terpstra
Stybar
Amador
Valverde (yes, he's supposed to be racing this one, but don't think official line up is out yet)


Ronde van Vlaanderen

Terpstra
Stybar
Doull
Amador


Yeah, I need Terpstra and Stybar to have a great week.

 

[skidmark]

Well, Valverde keeps things afloat again even if I missed out on the non-Catalunya races. I had a few hopes in the classics, if Roelandts' final attack had stuck and he had gotten 2nd instead of sitting up at the back of the group in E3, or if Danny van Poppel had some more legs to stay with the lead group after the main difficulties, I'd be celebrating. But there are some strong positives to take away for me and my team:

- Valverde of course. As Nesterk mentioned he's not ahead of last year's pace, as he's done more days than last year and won't be doing Itzulia (although if he goes into DDV he placed in that race a few years ago if I recall). But I don't know if any of us who picked him expected last year's pace so much as a good pace and no serious injury. Keeping pace with last year's Ardennes haul would be difficult as the drop in points from first to anything below is steep, but if anyone can do it...

- Latour looks strong and hung on for 3rd with those bonus seconds on the line. Of course it's unfortunate he got bumped up due to Bernal's awful crash. On the game side of things, his career has been dotted with top 5s in smaller races but never more than a few 12th and 14th places at WT level, so a strong 3rd in Catalunya is a promising sign for the year. And this race didn't even have a TT, where he's improved!

- Gaudu also did well, getting into the front group on the last stage to move up to 12th. Not earth-shattering, but other than the Tour de l'Ain last year, 45 points is more than he's gotten in a stage race so far as a pro.

- Sivakov got his season underway and got 50 points out of it while working for Rosa. It's not confirmation of my hunch that his talent is too big to be held down by Sky's depth in his neo-pro year, but it's certainly consistent with that idea. Craddock into profit from that race too, but after the first stage I hoped for more. We will see how he does in California - that's the race that could make his year.

Terpstra and Rosa scoring big in the 'guys I thought about for awhile but ultimately didn't pick' scale. C'est la vie.

 

[repre]

Valverde should be banned from this game. I am serious, he is not fair.

 

[escartin]

Terpstra, Benoot and Latour doing me good this week with smaller contributions from Guardini, Gaudu and Craddock. should bump me up a few positions although I doubt it will erase the 17 I dropped the previous week.

starting to wonder whether Oomen over Soler was a good idea, I had the latter last year but decided against him this year. guess we are only in March and plenty can change yet...

 

[MADRAZO]

Re: Re:

I'm getting worried about Michael Woods...

Im getting worried about Enric Mas...

Showed a little more today. From his comments on social media I'm thinking he struggled with the cold conditions. And FWIW, he is ahead of last year's CQ total so far.
But I agree, I had expected more from him. This could be the classic difficult 2nd year for him.

Have him too and had also hoped for much more, but it also just seems he is focussing a lot more on the Giro De Italia GC than the 1 early weaks races this year, also skipping Down Under and so on, so hopefully he will get close to his topform for the Ardennes and then do very well in the Giro and then again be in topshape for the Vuelta and the Worlds, so he can still be a good pick. Had I known about the GC focus in the Giro before the season I would likely have been more reluctant to pick him though, but lets see.

 

[Koronin]

Re:

Valverde should be banned from this game. I am serious, he is not fair.

I'm thinking that he typically has too high of a points count for anyone to actually consider putting him on their team. Last year since he missed half the year thus leaving a good number of points on the table and making picking him a consideration and one that those of us who are his fans were going to take advantage of.