The 2020 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Salvarani]

BAGIOLI Andrea (83, 35) - Seems like a great talent who goes to QS team that is always a recipe for success. Had to cut Chris Froome to make this pick work, so i hope he won't dissapoint.

Haha. I did this exact thing too in a late change

 

[Salvarani]

Nice write-up skidmark. I do think that Chernetskiy is a much better pick than Foss. I mean he is unpredictable but has big room for improvement and doing smaller stage races for a Russian team should fit him really well. Foss doesn't strike me as being a big talent, but of course i could be wrong.

You probably cant fully trust the schedule listed on PCS, but Foss schedule looked pretty good to me with this game in mind. I dont think he is the biggest talent either but I was not gonna miss out on him, so I picked him.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Only ChrisDk and me picked Porte. Crossing my fingers that his Olympic ambitions makes him train and race hard.

Go Richie!

Porte could actually be a good pick this time. Wouldn't be a huge shock. Best schedule for scoring CQ points, with TDU, Paris-Nice, Romandie and Dauphiné.

Back in 2017 he almost scored 1200 points in those 4 stage races, and only finished 11th in P-N, despite good form.

He could be declining, though, like Bardet, for example. Also, other riders have obviously stepped up.

Hard to say if it was just a cold that set him back last year.

 

[jon ezeitza]

Nuestro equipo es muy joven. Excepto Tom DUMOULIN (30), todos los demás ciclistas tienen menos de 25 años. Hemos apostado por el futuro, con la esperanza de que todos contribuyan con más puntos de los que han logrado en 2019. ¡Si lo logramos, ganaremos!

BERNAL GOMEZ Egan Arley ​	23​	2214​
POGACAR Tadej ​	22​	1519​
EVENEPOEL Remco ​	20​	952​
DUMOULIN Tom​	30​	341​
RIABUSHENKO Aliaksandr ​	25​	257​
BJERG Mikkel ​	22​	243​
STEIMLE Jannik ​	24​	228​
O'CONNOR Ben ​	25​	221​
HAYTER Ethan​	22​	148​
VAN MOER Brent ​	22​	130​
PIDCOCK Thomas​	21​	116​
ALMEIDA Joao Pedro Gonçalves ​	22​	112​
HONORE Mikkel Frølich ​	23​	100​
KONYCHEV Alexander​	22​	99​
VAN WILDER Ilan ​	20​	98​
GARRISON Ian ​	22​	89​
BAGIOLI Andrea ​	21​	83​
EEKHOFF Nils ​	22​	74​
STORK Florian​	23​	55​
RUBIO REYES Einer Augusto ​	22​	52​
SCHELLING Ide ​	22​	48​
ARDILA ORDOÑEZ Andres Camilo ​	21​	44​
GALL Félix ​	22​	43​
VERMAERKE Kevin​	20​	40​
MÄRKL Niklas ​	21​	38​
Kevin INKELAAR​	23​	36​
BRUNEL Alexys​	22​	34​
RIVERA VARGAS Brandon Smith​	24​	29​
MUÑOZ LANCHEROS Cristian Camilo ​	24​	27​
JORGENSON Matteo​	21​	25​
ELOSEGUI MOMEÑE Iñigo ​	22​	5​
RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos ​	19​	​
SIMMONS Quinn ​	19​	​
​	22​	7500​

 

[LaFlorecita]

VICHOT Arthur (28, 57) - ugh, mono. I've mentioned above about my trepidation for this (seriously though, does anyone know the difference between epstein-barr and mono? Are they effectively the same?), but at that price and that potential I'm hopeful.

Mononucleosis is the name of the illness, Epstein-Barr virus is the name of the virus that causes it.

MOSCHETTI Matteo (160, 24) - he looked great up to and including Hatta Dam as a neo, so I'm genuinely unsure why the rest of his year was so poor, I didn't follow him closely and a cursory search didn't bring up anything particular in interviews (he had a few crashes, sure, but it didn't seem like there was one thing). But fast guys always get their chances, and if the first year is a learning curve I'm usually more happy to take a young talent before their second year. Not a ton of competition for sprints at Trek either, their fast guys are mostly classics guys too.

I would argue he didn't just look good up to Hatta Dam, in fact Hatta Dam was the first time he showed his talent last year. 4th in Denain, 10th in Scheldeprijs and 2 top-5's at the Giro (one of which would have been a top-3 if not for Viviani kamikaze-ing into him. He crashed halfway through the race, had to abandon, and a couple weeks later broke his hand in training which sidelined him for several weeks.

 

[Squire]

You probably cant fully trust the schedule listed on PCS, but Foss schedule looked pretty good to me with this game in mind. I dont think he is the biggest talent either but I was not gonna miss out on him, so I picked him.

I think some of you guys (fauniera, I'm looking at you!) seriously underestimate Foss. He's probably not a grade A talent like Pogacar, Evenepoel and Leknessund, but he's not far off. Definitely no Frankiny. His engine is unreal.

As an 18-year-old he raised a lot of eyebrows by pulling the Tour of Norway peloton around for several days while putting the hurt on a lot of seasoned pros. As a second-year U23 in 2017 he hung with all the best climbers in the Tour de l'Avenir, losing just 3 seconds to Lambrecht over the three mountain stages, and gaining 16 seconds on Lucas Hamilton. Only Bernal took any significant time out of him. If not for a puncture on a flat stage where he lost a minute, Foss would have finished 3rd overall.

Then there's obviously his l'Avenir win and other impressive results in 2019.

All of this he did while making Betancur look like an anorexic. Foss has been 5 kg overweight during his whole career, and only plans to slim down over the coming years. He has focused on building up a solid base instead of obsessing over his weight. My only worry is that he is a tiny bit inconsistent, and for CQ considerations I think he won't get too many chances at Jumbo-Visma. Watch out for him in races like Circuit Sarthe, Tour de Suisse and Tour of Britain though.

MODOLO Sacha (67, 62) - I remember when I was a young pup on this forum and Modolo got 4th at MSR as a neo-pro with Bardiani. There was a poster (issoisso I believe) who talked about how awesome Modolo was and how promising he was in the U23s, and I aspired to one day know something about young riders like that poster did. Well, ten years later and nope, I'm still mostly picking veterans who had bad seasons in this game. But it did start a low-key fandom of Modolo, which makes me happy that I can take him at this amazing price. I believe his assertion that it was an undetected intestinal fungus that made 2019 a hellish year for him, and that he still has a lot of juice. With Corendon chasing the top PCT designation, I'm hoping they'll give him the appropriate chances and he'll finish on the high end of his career 400-700 average.

When I got back into this game in 2016, I used your 2012 team as inspiration for how to make a good CQ team. Funny that Modolo, who didn't even turn a profit that year, was the most expensive rider in what turned out to be by far the highest scoring CQ team ever. I like him, but I'm not as big of a fan as you seem to be. I don't have high hopes for him to return to his best, but what swayed me into picking him this year was that even in his horrible 2019 he got some results that would make him score a lot if they came in 1.1 races (which Alpecin-Fenix will ride a lot of) and not stage races like Route d'Occitanie and Tour of Poland.

Kwiatkowski not doing Tour Down Under is bad news for us florists. Don't know what's up there. Maybe just a team decision. I would have picked him anyway regardless of whether he was going to do the Tour Down Under, so it won't matter that much. Still, would have been nice to get some easy points. At least now there's no risk of him messing up his spring campaign. Kristoff has said that he felt weak for half a year after his only participation in the TDU.

 

[MADRAZO]

I think some of you guys (fauniera, I'm looking at you!) seriously underestimate Foss. He's probably not a grade A talent like Pogacar, Evenepoel and Leknessund, but he's not far off. Definitely no Frankiny. His engine is unreal.

As an 18-year-old he raised a lot of eyebrows by pulling the Tour of Norway peloton around for several days while putting the hurt on a lot of seasoned pros. As a second-year U23 in 2017 he hung with all the best climbers in the Tour de l'Avenir, losing just 3 seconds to Lambrecht over the three mountain stages, and gaining 16 seconds on Lucas Hamilton. Only Bernal took any significant time out of him. If not for a puncture on a flat stage where he lost a minute, Foss would have finished 3rd overall.

Then there's obviously his l'Avenir win and other impressive results in 2019.

All of this he did while making Betancur look like an anorexic. Foss has been 5 kg overweight during his whole career, and only plans to slim down over the coming years. He has focused on building up a solid base instead of obsessing over his weight. My only worry is that he is a tiny bit inconsistent, and for CQ considerations I think he won't get too many chances at Jumbo-Visma. Watch out for him in races like Circuit Sarthe, Tour de Suisse and Tour of Britain though.

Im also one of those (perhaps) underestimating him. Surely he is talented, but then again, he was far behind same aged Bernal in 2017 and since then he has only improved a bit while Bernal has become the best in the world, and riders like the mentioned Hamilton has also improved a lot more, so for me he seems stagnated, and a sudden big improvement seems unlikely too me. And even if he has always been solid and good he has never really been amazing in any way. In that 2017 Avenir he was even beaten by someone like Niklas Eg uphill. Then about his planned weightloss, and increased focus later on, I have heard that too, and sure it may be a factor, but on the other hand norwegian climbers, like russian climbers, generally tends to dissapoint a lot after U23, so are you not conserned about that? And yes his limited personal chances on Jumbo wont help either. But lets see.

 

[Salvarani]

I would argue he didn't just look good up to Hatta Dam, in fact Hatta Dam was the first time he showed his talent last year. 4th in Denain, 10th in Scheldeprijs and 2 top-5's at the Giro (one of which would have been a top-3 if not for Viviani kamikaze-ing into him. He crashed halfway through the race, had to abandon, and a couple weeks later broke his hand in training which sidelined him for several weeks.

I thought about Moschetti, but he will hardly have much help in the sprints from teammates on his current team. He will have to position himself well on his own, almost every time. There is also brutal competition at any race, especially at WT, when it comes to the sprints. He will have to take a pretty huge step in his development this season to challenge the best or even the second-tier guys (which he is a part of, I would say). No doubt he can probably get a win or two and gather some points from placings, but I would be surprised if he would triple his score.

 

[fauniera]

I think some of you guys (fauniera, I'm looking at you!) seriously underestimate Foss. He's probably not a grade A talent like Pogacar, Evenepoel and Leknessund, but he's not far off. Definitely no Frankiny. His engine is unreal.

Your Foss vs my Leknessund. We will see.

Edit: Except you didn't pick Foss.

 

[SafeBet]

I think some of you guys (fauniera, I'm looking at you!) seriously underestimate Foss. He's probably not a grade A talent like Pogacar, Evenepoel and Leknessund

Can I ask you why you didn't pick him?

 

[Squire]

Im also one of those (perhaps) underestimating him. Surely he is talented, but then again, he was far behind same aged Bernal in 2017 and since then he has only improved a bit while Bernal has become the best in the world, and riders like the mentioned Hamilton has also improved a lot more, so for me he seems stagnated, and a sudden big improvement seems unlikely too me. And even if he has always been solid and good he has never really been amazing in any way. In that 2017 Avenir he was even beaten by someone like Niklas Eg uphill. Then about his planned weightloss, and increased focus later on, I have heard that too, and sure it may be a factor, but on the other hand norwegian climbers, like russian climbers, generally tends to dissapoint a lot after U23, so are you not conserned about that? And yes his limited personal chances on Jumbo wont help either. But lets see.

The point I'm trying to make is that he's not just someone who has benefitted from being the oldest rider in the race, as some are trying to make it sound like. He was at l'Avenir podium level already as a 20 year old. He finished s.t. with Eg (who's two-and-a-half years older) in every stage in l'Avenir 2017, so I won't say he was beaten uphill by him. Hamilton only took a step forward last year, and he's a year older than Foss, so I'd say Foss in on schedule compared to the Australian.

But I didn't pick Foss for my CQ team, only my youth team, so I don't think he'll have a massive breakthrough this year. I do, however, believe that in the future he will be a rider who can make results for himself, and not just a solid domestique like Frankiny or Petilli or other guys who had no significant results until they were older than their competition.

And regarding Norwegian and Russian climbers disappointing, there hasn't really been a Norwegian climber since, I don't know, Frederik Wilmann? Who never was a pro level talent anyway despite coming 9th in l'Avenir (as a 22 year old, mind).

Can I ask you why you didn't pick him?

With regards to Leknessund, he was just a tad too expensive compared to what I think is the most likely point-scoring scenario for him with Uno X's calendar, and I couldn't quite fit him into the team. There are of course scenarios where he gets 500-600 points, but I just have to take that risk.

 

[MADRAZO]

The point I'm trying to make is that he's not just someone who has benefitted from being the oldest rider in the race, as some are trying to make it sound like. He was at l'Avenir podium level already as a 20 year old. He finished s.t. with Eg (who's two-and-a-half years older) in every stage in l'Avenir 2017, so I won't say he was beaten uphill by him. Hamilton only took a step forward last year, and he's a year older than Foss, so I'd say Foss in on schedule compared to the Australian.

But I didn't pick Foss for my CQ team, only my youth team, so I don't think he'll have a massive breakthrough this year. I do, however, believe that in the future he will be a rider who can make results for himself, and not just a solid domestique like Frankiny or Petilli or other guys who had no significant results until they were older than their competition.

And regarding Norwegian and Russian climbers disappointing, there hasn't really been a Norwegian climber since, I don't know, Frederik Wilmann? Who never was a pro level talent anyway despite coming 9th in l'Avenir (as a 22 year old, mind).

Eg was a very late starter so his older age was a bit different in 2017, but it was also just to point out it was not amazing results, with Eg being kind of mediocre. But sure Foss was a good talent back in 2017, though a bit unspectacular, I just also think his improvement over the last 2 years is very underwhelming, and his Avenier win in 209 was against younger riders, some being 2-3 years younger.

Regarding other Norwegian talents there have been at least Eiking and Sinke Lunke also, besides Svendsen that stopped. And sure Eiking is not a bad rider now but for sure he is also not what some hoped he would be. Actually I would guess that Foss ends up at a similar level than him as he also seems to be more a complete allround rider than a climber too me.

 

[Joelsim]

I’m guessing there’s a chance Leknessund goes to the Olympics and the Worlds as Norway’s ITT rider.

 

[Object]

Porte could actually be a good pick this time. Wouldn't be a huge shock. Best schedule for scoring CQ points, with TDU, Paris-Nice, Romandie and Dauphiné.

Back in 2017 he almost scored 1200 points in those 4 stage races, and only finished 11th in P-N, despite good form.

He could be declining, though, like Bardet, for example. Also, other riders have obviously stepped up.

Hard to say if it was just a cold that set him back last year.

I can’t resist picking him. He helped me win my first manager game on another site several years ago. So I have a soft spot for him. I hope he has at least one good season left in him.
I read an article that said he wants to stay home with his family more and seeing cycling more of as a job.. doesn’t sound too good.

 

[postmanhat]

Great insights as always from all the guys here, it was really interesting to read. I'll try to go throught my thought process as well.

I tried to use my experince from first two years in the game, so i tried not to do the same mistakes twice. I learned that vast majority of my busts were sprinters and also the choice of expensive riders, so i concentrated mainly on the GC guys and climbers or more versatile sprinters like Cort, who can get it done in wider majority of the races.

I'm glad that for second year in a row i didn't forget any of the most popular riders, so any obmissions was my own decisions. Also this year there were really tough to choose the team, because of the combination of many obvious picks in the 400-800 range that you couldn't include all, and also many talented neo-pros or young riders (esp from Movistar, UAE and Sunweb).

I don't know the capabilities of many new riders at Movistar, but some of them will score big, so i had to pick some riders from that team. UAE haven't done a great job with young riders so far with exception of most talented (Pogo, Phillipsen), so i put the brake on some guys like Ardila and Bjerg that i would like to have if they were in other teams. And Sunweb is a frustrating team in terms of a calendar with emphasis on WT races.

So let's go through my picks:
PINOT Thibaut (861, 60) - Not the most reliable GC rider, but he can score big in the one day races as well and get to 2000 points if he'll finish TDF. ORR and WC also suits him well and i'm his fan, so this pick was a non-brainer and start for my team.
BARDET Romain (734, 54) - Not as big fan of him as Pinot, but also like the guy. Start at Australia and new calendar can be a new beginning for him.
YATES Simon (668, 84) - One of the most obvious picks with start of the season in Australia, where he can already score 200-300 points. He seems motivated even more this year to start strong and will ride Giro.
KWIATKOWSKI Michal (645, 65) - He was an obvious pick for me based on his talent alone, so i'm surprised to see only 65 picked him. He can score in all races that he enters with exception of TDF.
ZAKARIN Ilnur (478, 8) - Hate the russians, but can't help myself not to include at least one every year and usually they dissapoint (that's the reason why i didn't include Chernetsky or Strakhov). But Zakarin told about change of citizenship and even that betrayal of Putin is enough for me)) To be serious he is the only rider that can do good GC on his team and change of scenery must do him good (u can do worse than in Katusha only if u go to NTT).
URAN URAN Rigoberto (458, 21) - Zakarin and Uran picks were hard for me, because i choose them over Moscon (who i simply like less) and Eddy the Boss, who hamstrung me last year. Uran is fragile, but can score over 1000 easily and that's enough for me. Obmission of Moscon can burn me, but i'm okay with that.
KELDERMAN Wilco (402, 26) - Only 26 picks??? OMG! He is like the only guy who can ride GC at Sunweb and scored 600-900 points every year. Have a feel this could be his best year.
LATOUR Pierre (352, 78)
SOLER GIMENEZ Marc (350, 74) - I have more confidence in Latour than Soler to be honest, but Marc can score 700+ point in one week races with some top-15 at TDF and Vuelta. Potential for 1000+ for both.
DUMOULIN Tom (341, 109) - Don't need explanaition. And i love Tom.
VAN POPPEL Danny (334, 22) - He always stood out for me as a guy who just needs more opportunity to score big. He is solid cobble racer and sprinter, who will be leader in Pro Conti team. Wanted to pick him since last spring if he could get out of WvA shadow and here we go. Have big, big, big hope here.
ANDERSEN Søren Kragh (268, 43) - Like many here i just like him as a rider, though it's not clear where exactly he'll score points. But points will come in bunches surely.
CORT NIELSEN Magnus (227, 38) - Another versatile sprinter like Van Poppel that will benefit from change of team. In EF he can get even more chances.
PADUN Mark (209, 24) - First and foremost this is my everyyear fun pick as a fellow ukrainian. Also a big talent that can score points in many races and should improve without knee injury and illness that cost him most of the last year.
OOMEN Sam (179, 87)
ARU Fabio (194, 83) - From a pleothra of problematic obvious riders i choosed the GC specialists.
VANENDERT Jelle (181, 3) - This year my point of emphasis was to find guys who step down a level. Like Van Poppel he has to be a leader of his Pro Conti team and score points in 1-day and 1-week belgian and french races, that Wallonie rides. He is old and carry some risk, but i'm willing to bet in his puchy-ride style.
VAKOC Petr (145, 20) - Another one rider who step down a level and can be a leader in PCT. Great comeback season last year that gave me confidence in him. Lefevere must be looking at him too to see if he can lead again.
BAGIOLI Andrea (83, 35) - Seems like a great talent who goes to QS team that is always a recipe for success. Had to cut Chris Froome to make this pick work, so i hope he won't dissapoint.
GENIEZ Alexandre (68, 42) - He is a secondary GC rider in AG2R that cleans up some lower priority GC points for them. For some reason not raced much last year and finished even less races. Should be good for 200-400 points.
MODOLO Sacha (67, 62) - Getting old, but he's another versatile sprinter in the mold of Cort Nielsen that i'm more inclined to chose. MVDP presence will limit his chances, but he doesn't need much to be in profit.
WOUTERS Enzo (61, 2) - My most unique pick this year. Also another rider who stepped down a level. I always felt like Lotto is a grave of belgian talents and Wouters seemed like a talented sprinter for me. Hope that LTS didn't kill him completely and he will score in some 1 and HC-cat races in Belgium.
RUBIO REYES Einer Augusto (52, 27) - I wrote about an army of young relatively or completely unknown riders that Movistar brought this offseason. I wanted to include somebody in my team and i know more about Rubio than the others. He is talented and can get some chances.
CEPEDA ORTIZ Jefferson Alexander (52, 27) - I just love Savio boys that almost never dissapoints me. Cepeda is another great talent that should flourish in Androni. If Munoz can score 300 points in this team without any noticeable talent, then Cepeda can score like 500.
VICHOT Arthur (28, 57) - Obv pick at this price and 57 people agreed with me.
CAVENDISH Mark (25, 70) - OMG i can't believe i picked him again. Everyyear neveragain rider, but i can't help myself. Also needed at least some true sprinters to root for in races.
ENGER Sondre Holst (18, 30) - I didn't know why i picked him last year, but i think he owes me a good season.
RAVASI Edward (15, 12)
KANTER Max (8, 63)
DONOVAN Mark (5, 16)
DE BIE Sean (5, 68)
WILLIAMS Stephen (0, 17)
SIMMONS Quinn (0, 76) - They are cheap, they are talented and were injured a lot. I'm willing to bet on the health of the talented rider who can get in profit just from participating in few WT races. You can't do wrong with this kind of stuff.
Also De Bie is my friend from 2018 year when i became his fan, the guy is a pure rider and i wish him healthy season.

Generally i picked a popular team with some fairly and semi-unique riders, that was my aim in first place. Wish everybody good luck this year and thanks to skidmark for his work.

Excellent write-up and nice to identify one of the other two Vanendert voters. His age and drop-off in points last year are slight concern, but he was moving down the pecking order at Lotto. Even then, he got top tens at Fleche and San Sebastian so with a freer role and lesser competion, I'm hoping he'll double his tally at least.

Van Poppel went out of my team, but then came back when a 350 point slot opened up. I'm fairly optimistic, but Wanty have a lot of similar riders, and also someone will probably have to waste their time as a sprinter at the ASO races, and that's most likely to be Van Poppel. Will be interesting to see what schedule they have for him

 

[skidmark]

Mononucleosis is the name of the illness, Epstein-Barr virus is the name of the virus that causes it.


I would argue he didn't just look good up to Hatta Dam, in fact Hatta Dam was the first time he showed his talent last year. 4th in Denain, 10th in Scheldeprijs and 2 top-5's at the Giro (one of which would have been a top-3 if not for Viviani kamikaze-ing into him. He crashed halfway through the race, had to abandon, and a couple weeks later broke his hand in training which sidelined him for several weeks.

Thanks for the clarification on the virus, I just see them being used somewhat synonymously in cycling reporting over the years, like one rider is described as having mono, another ESB. Inconsistency in reporting is a bit of a pet peeve for me

And yeah, I spoke/wrote incorrectly on Moschetti, I should have said he was impressive up to Schelde, I guess I was working remotely and didn't watch many of the Giro stages. I am sure he'll do better this year!

 

[skidmark]

When I got back into this game in 2016, I used your 2012 team as inspiration for how to make a good CQ team. Funny that Modolo, who didn't even turn a profit that year, was the most expensive rider in what turned out to be by far the highest scoring CQ team ever. I like him, but I'm not as big of a fan as you seem to be. I don't have high hopes for him to return to his best, but what swayed me into picking him this year was that even in his horrible 2019 he got some results that would make him score a lot if they came in 1.1 races (which Alpecin-Fenix will ride a lot of) and not stage races like Route d'Occitanie and Tour of Poland.

Yeah my thinking exactly with regards to the 1.1 races. Ah, that 2012 team, I remember that was the first year I used a real selection process, and my first lesson was "I lost 700+ points I spent in 2011 on Riccardo Ricco by February" and ingrained a seed of caution on spending big. On my various revisions, my most expensive rider kept getting cheaper and cheaper, in the end I was happy to have Modolo (and I think Kreuziger was my second most expensive pick and was also kinda meh). On the other hand, the year you picked Valverde really opened my eyes to the potential value of a high-scoring pick (even if that particular pick was a bit audacious). But it is funny that I was so stoked to have my rarest pick be Modolo, thinking I had a leg up on everybody, and then it ended up being meaningless and someone left field like Moser got a billion points. The same thing happened one year with Chavanel when he was a rare pick and I was stoked and he sucked. Oh well, day one we are all winners.

And just to be clear, I like Modolo fine but am not much of a fan, but he just kinda was an avatar for a rider I wanted to like to feel smart or something, so I have a bit of nostalgia for that.

 

[fuiers]

I am curious to find out why Van Der Poel was picked only by 2 teams? Too expensive?

 

[BlueRoads]

Too expensive and I wasn't sure he's going to race a lot on the road.

 

[Joelsim]

I am curious to find out why Van Der Poel was picked only by 2 teams? Too expensive?

Because after his Spring programme he'll be concentrating on the MTB Olympic Gold.

 

[Salvarani]

He will need a Gilbert 2011 spring campaign, and some more, to be a good pick

 

[will-10]

Yeah, I expect to see a lot of VdP in 2021 teams but not convinced he'll be any value in 2020.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

He will need a Gilbert 2011 spring campaign, and some more, to be a good pick

He will return to road racing after the Olympics. Not sure what will happen after the inevitable Vuelta snub, however..

 

[flashke]

He will return to road racing after the Olympics. Not sure what will happen after the inevitable Vuelta snub, however..

Actually, if his team doesn't get invited to the Vuelta, he'll do the MTB worldcups.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Actually, if his team doesn't get invited to the Vuelta, he'll do the MTB worldcups.

That's not set in stone. It was listed as a "possibility" in the article that I read.