• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

The 2020 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

Hi all, and welcome to the 2020 CQ Ranking Manager Game! This is the tenth edition of the game. Please see below for some history, basics, and more specific rules related to dates, dopers, etc.

History

The game was launched on December 8th 2010 by cyclingnews forum poster Hugo Koblet. His idea was to have a game where you build a cycling team from the website cqranking.com and its comprehensive numerical rankings of riders. What was originally meant to be a 25-team max competition that Hugo reserved the right to cancel if there was lack of interest became the most successful game in cyclingnews forum history, and has expanded to velorooms forums as well.

Hugo successfully ran the game for 3 years, and it bred various offshoots, such as a youth game, seasonal games (classics and GTs), emerging riders and riders in decline games. I took over organizing the main game for 2014 when Hugo got too busy, and have done so for the past five years. See the second post in this thread for a roll of honour of yearly champions.


That is it for preamble. Let’s go through the more comprehensive set of rules:

Basics

The game is based on the point system developed by the website www.cqranking.com. Based on this system you will have to select a team of between 25 and 33 riders whose combined value doesn’t exceed 7500 points. 7500 points is a fair bit under the mean for the ProTour teams whose mean for 2019 is 8716. 7500 is closest to the amount of points Trek Segafredo made this season, the 11th ranked of the 18 WT teams.

Your aim then is to select a team of riders who will increase their 2019 score the most during the 2020 season. The winner of the game is the one who has selected the team with the highest combined value when the game ends.


1. How the game works

1.1. Start & Finish

The season starts when the first race giving CQ points is held (which is the Aussie National Road Championships on January 8th) and ends when the last major race (.1 or higher) is held. The winner will be crowned when the next update after the last major race is out.*

*An extension will be granted to the end of season if it is very close at the top. If any teams are within 100 points of the leader after the last major race, the season will be automatically extended until the final race of the year unless all teams within 100 points explicitly concede. As well, anyone in the top 10 can extend the season by PMing me a request to do so before the last major race starts.

(The reason for this rule is that although minor races go through December, it is rare to have a rider in the game participate in these races, so it is sensible to end the season when people are still generally watching cycling. But if it's a very close race, it's important to crown the person who picked the best team for the year.)

1.2 Updates
Each week we will publish an update with a top 10 and a list of the high scorers and high jumpers. This will sometimes be by me, and sometimes by others – I will be setting a tentative schedule based on volunteers.

2. On doping

2.1. On ex-dopers

All riders are available to choose, except for riders who are provisionally suspended by the UCI (as of their most recent list).

Riders who have been suspended for doping and had that affect their 2019 score will not be available simply for their 2019 score. Instead, a rider’s value will be equivalent to that of his last full season; or, if he has more recently had a (not full, due to suspension) season in which he has earned more points, that season represents his value. Riders who have been suspended by the UCI (ie. Not merely provisionally suspended) are on this list.

Therefore, you can pick any rider you like, but if you want to take Davide Appollonio, for example (his suspension ended in 2019), he got 38 points in 2019, but that is a partial season as his ban ended mid-season. His positive result and suspension came from 2015, meaning his last 'full' season was 2014, in which he scored 237 points. He scored fewer points in his 'partial' 2015 season (102) and his 'partial' 2019 season, so his cost is his last 'full' season. But if he had scored, say, 300 points in 2015 or 2019, that would be his cost instead.

Hopefully the lists I've provided and the rules are clear enough, but if you make an error I will try to let you know if any of your submissions fall into this category.

2.2. Riders getting caught during the season
If you include a rider in your team who gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar, nothing happens right away. Your rider keeps his points unless the cqranking.com deletes his results before the end of the game.

Basically, the value of a rider on cqranking.com always stands.

3. Submitting your team

3.1. How do I?

You pick between 25 and 33 riders whose combined value doesn’t exceed 7500 points and send the list to me.

As I will manually have to include the teams into the Microsoft Excel file which keeps track of the scores, please be careful that you send your team to me based on the correct formula. I don’t take any responsibility for any error you might make. If I spot an error I will do my best to contact you but I can’t guarantee anything. Of course, if you have any questions feel free to ask either here in this thread or by sending a personal message.

The layout you need to use is this:

VALVERDE BELMONTE Alejandro
SAGAN Peter
Etc.

Nothing else. No point scores after the name. Also, be careful that there is no “space” after the name, because I will have to delete it manually, but can't always detect these things in time for the game. If there is an error that isn't discovered until after the game starts, and that error makes your team ineligible (eg. if it puts your team over the limit) the rider will simply be deleted from the team without replacement.

To make things easier for both you and me I will link to a file for you to download in which you can type in your team and it will automatically show you the value of each rider as well as the aggregated value of your team. Then you will just have to copy your team (names only) directly from this file and send it to me.

Hopefully this clears any misunderstandings of a rider’s value as well as reduces the number of errors made in a team sent to me.

3.2. When do I?
The first race of the season will start January 8, so I want to have your team in hand on January 6 at the latest.

There are two deadlines: a submission deadline and a revision/publication deadline, spaced 24 hours apart. This is to address the issue brought up in recent years about whether it is 'fair' to allow changes after teams have seen the teams of other players, and for 'late' submissions. I would like to make this a game that is accessible to as many people as possible, yet preserve that element of fairness. So, the submission deadline will be when I want to have received all the teams. The revision and publication deadline is to allow a 24-hour period for me to look over the teams and allow a chance to people to change their team in case of error, before having access to a list of riders that other teams picked. If you get mixed up with the time zone or unexpectedly don't have internet access around the submission deadline, I will accept teams up to the revision deadline at my discretion, but if allowed those teams will not have the chance to revise in case of error.

The submission deadline is 23:59 (CET) January 5th, so early January 6th for Aussies and sometime earlier on January 5th for North Americans. The revision and publication deadline is 24 hours later; I would ask that people refrain from posting the riders on their team until after that, so midnight CET on the start of January 7th.

Please note that even though it feels as though the season is over, it’s actually not. There are still a bit of racing to be done and CQ points to be handed out that could affect the value of a rider you have picked. It is always possible that an obscure rider may score points in a small race at the end of season, or that CQ will adjust points for an earlier season race for whatever reason (eg. readjusting points for suspended dopers) Be mindful of these changes.

cqranking.com usually uploads the final update of the season on December 31, and the values in this update are the ones we’re using. However, the changes are usually very small so there’s no reason why you can’t start selecting your team already today!

Disclaimer: ensuring your team is full of eligible riders and is on budget is your responsibility. If I notice you are over budget or have an ineligible rider I will send you a message, but if you don't get back to me in time, or I don't catch it before the deadline, I will simply remove one rider to make your budget work. Obviously it is to your advantage to be able to choose all your riders, so please be diligent.

Create Your Team

Hugo created a very helpful file in 2012, referred to above, that helps avoid any errors in calculation and helps ensure you are formatting your rider names correctly. I would encourage everyone to use this option, especially if you are not confident in your spreadsheet creating skills. Please use the file attached here to create your team, then copy and paste the rider names to send to me by PM once you have it correct. Thank you.

note: the 'create your team' file has not yet been manually updated to include different scores for dopers as per rule 2.1, so it is currently wholly your responsibility to account for this.

I think that about covers everything. If you have any questions or if I forgot to add or explain anything, please let me know.
 
This post is reserved to list submitted teams as they come in. If you have submitted a team recently and don't see it appear within 24 hours, please message me to see what is up. Teams on the list marked with an asterisk need a change, and I have messaged you with the details.

Here are the 69 teams I've received as of January 4th 5:00pm CST:

1 Armchair Cyclist
2 Martin
3 Nicosix
4 Total Package
5 Luthor
6 Koronin
7 LaFlorecita
8 Lortnoc
9 Jon_Ezeitza
10 Hakkie2
11 CQ Player 7373
12 mayomaniac
13 comodoro
14 bminchow
15 dimasotf
16 armchairclimber
17 hfgon1
18 Riverside
19 Salvarani
20 vladimir
21 Leadbelly
22 Joelsim
23 VeloRooms
24 Rakim
25 Object
26 EvansIsTheBest
27 christopher rowe
28 NorthAmericanScum
29 laarsland
30 Blues in the bottle
31 Crevaison
32 mineralJ
33 triley36
34 Tsyka
35 tobydawq
36 Wallenquist
37 TheArt
38 ChrisDK
39 scrooll07
40 LosBrolin
41 Kazistuta
42 Jpettersen
43 search
44 escartin
45 Muddy Waters
46 shalgo
47 Nathanptz
48 Poles & co.
49 Eric10
50 trackstand
51 Hugo Koblet
52 fauniera
53 flashke
54 yoyokt
55 Otoxiep87
56 tom-jelte
57 AlyKaptan
58 will10
59 repre
60 Mellow Velo
61 Northerner
62 Bonimenier
63 DJ Sprtsch
64 Geraint Too Fast
65 Marek
66 BlueRoads
67 zlev11
68 Popchu
69 AupaPyama


Also, here is the role of honour from previous years:

2011 – 87 participants
  1. ingsve – 13897 points
  2. Waterloo Sunrise – 13450
  3. mc_mountain – 12670
2012 – 129 participants
  1. skidmark – 19345 points
  2. Kvinto – 18087
  3. Nyssinator – 17761
2013 – 132 participants
  1. SteelyDan – 13094 points
  2. Geraint Too Fast – 13074
  3. will10 – 12986
2014 – 150 participants
  1. Pentacycle – 14367 points
  2. Cykeltyven – 13693
  3. Ruudz0r - 13609
2015 – 155 participants
  1. Cykeltyven – 16209 points
  2. skidmark - 15616
  3. snccdcno - 15412
2016 – 144 participants
  1. skidmark – 15392 points
  2. jeroenk - 14707
  3. abbulf – 14448
2017 – 131 participants
  1. fauniera – 15867 points
  2. the asian - 15698
  3. GP Blanco - 15217
2018 – 129 participants
  1. ruvu75 – 16513 points
  2. Squire - 16099
  3. trackstand - 15832
2019 - 114 participants

1. fauniera - 14579 points
2. karaev - 14399
3. Hakkie2 - 14260
 
Last edited:
Same here, but the rider on my team has been traning with the team he is rumored to join, so it should be fine.
So you're hoping he finally has a breakthrough after 8 mediocre seasons? ;)

I feel like I've said this a lot of times over the past editions of the game, but if there is one year where it could be possible to reach the record points total of 2012, it's the coming one. I think there's also more CQ points on offer now, with more WT and "Pro" events.
 
Great morning of research. I wish i had a better long term memory. I think I have 22 professional riders sorted. Not sure what to do with the last 11 places. I'm using a made up mathematical method, which I'm sure will be a bust. But i finally broke the top 30 last year and i want to keep that going. My great handicap is being American. Despite all our resources, we still can't figure out cycling and football.
 
I'm at 7499, & also have a couple of riders without confirmed teams. At least according to what my lazy reasearch has revealed (procyclingstats). Have concentrated on a team that I will enjoy following with some obscure riders thrown in & have left out some riders which I don't care for that much. For some reason or another. Just a gut feeling, I mean, I dont know these guys, they could be the nicest persons.
 
I'm at 7499, & also have a couple of riders without confirmed teams. At least according to what my lazy reasearch has revealed (procyclingstats). Have concentrated on a team that I will enjoy following with some obscure riders thrown in & have left out some riders which I don't care for that much. For some reason or another. Just a gut feeling, I mean, I dont know these guys, they could be the nicest persons.

Yeah, l left some "easy picks" out of my team that I dont care for that much either. In favor for other riders that I hope have good seasons and maybe not picked as much as those other guys I have left out.
 
My memory is a bit blurry after a few beers, but if PM now is "starting conversation" I think I have submitted my team:cool:. I kinda like people giving some hints about their team so I start with something not too revealing:
Riders from 17 different nations. 5 Italians and also 5 from Denmark; and no rider over 700 points. As always I think my team looks great and will probably be very disappointed by how it performs...
 
Uno-X represented then!
My memory is a bit blurry after a few beers, but if PM now is "starting conversation" I think I have submitted my team:cool:. I kinda like people giving some hints about their team so I start with something not too revealing:
Riders from 17 different nations. 5 Italians and also 5 from Denmark; and no rider over 700 points. As always I think my team looks great and will probably be very disappointed by how it performs...
 

TRENDING THREADS