The 2022 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[skidmark]

Update #36: The lead continues to grow for EvansIsTheBest

It was a mishmash this week of 1-day races in Europe, 2 stage races there, and then the start of the Worlds all the way in Australia. Obviously scores were quite a bit lower than last week's record breaking highs, but there were still some pretty good scores.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	LosBrolin	831
2	zaka_fan	776
3	Berflamand	771
4	Fivezzz	727
5	Kazistuta	696

LosBrolin wins the week in fairly comfortable fashion, thanks to Tobias Foss saving an abysmal season with a truly shocking victory at the Worlds TT race. That 250 points for Foss' ten owners will have them happy to see him in the black. As well, Mattias Skjelmose takes a step up from an already solid breakout year, netting 201 points for his 11 owners. Another rider on LosBrolin's team getting into profit after an anonymous year was Marc Hirschi, whose 108 points for his 33 owners got him past his 577 cost. zaka fan lands in second with Foss and Hirschi as well, but also 170 from continued points-eater Dani Martinez and 106 from Max Kanter (16 teams). Berflamand rounds out the podium with Skjelmose, Martinez, Hirschi, and another 130 from Remco.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	EvansIsTheBest	370
2	ray10	327
3	Rakim	239
4	LosBrolin	222
5	Leadbelly	213

EvansIsTheBest decides to remove further suspense from this competition, nailing another 20 points for 6th on the week to extend the lead to 43 points, ie almost a week's win. ray10 also finished in the top 15 this week, but only gets 2 points for 15th place. LosBrolin's 45 points for the weekly win get their team to jump into the top 5, but of course that battle is for third place.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	17288
2	(-)	Rakim	16384
3	(-)	ray10	15873
4	(-)	MADRAZO	15838
5	(-)	squire	15515
6	(-)	Bonimenier	15254
7	(+1)	NielsB	15240
8	(+2)	Riverside	15233
9	(-2)	laarsland	15154
10	(-1)	repre	15041

EITB continues to slowly bludgeon opponents into submission, gaining 172 points on second-place Rakim to extend the lead to 900 points. In case you aren't aware, there aren't too many weeks to make that up, so EITB's stranglehold on the lead is looking pretty secure. Rakim in turn is 500 ahead of ray10 in 3rd, while lower in the top 10 there are a few close race. No new entrants or exits from the top 10 this week.

This upcoming week, cycling fans will look forward to the Worlds Road Race, as well as... hmm... the U23 Road Race? Oh, and the Omloop van het Houtland Middelkerke-Lichtervelde? Cool, cool, well some weeks are busier than others I guess.

spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

There are also another bucketful of points coming up for Jason Tesson De Lie on Sunday at the 72nd Classique Paris-Chauny (1.1)

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Another nice week. There's probably not enough time left for anybody other than Rakim to catch my team. So it'll come down to

BAGIOLI Andrea​

BATTISTELLA Samuele​

BRENNER Marco​

BUITRAGO SANCHEZ Santiago​

GIRMAY HAILU Biniam​

GONZALEZ RIVERA Abner​

GROVES Kaden​

KOOIJ Olav​

KORETZKY Victor​

MARTINEZ POVEDA Daniel Felipe​

MÜHLBERGER Gregor​

RIVERA SERRANO Kevin​

RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos​

SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias​

TOUMIRE Hugo​

TULETT Ben​

VAN GILS Maxim​

VERMEERSCH Florian​

ZINGLE Axel​

900 points head start

vs

ARENSMAN Thymen​

BUCHMANN Emanuel​

DE LIE Arnaud​

DE PLUS Laurens​

DRIZNERS Jarrad​

HEINSCHKE Leon​

HIRSCHI Marc​

JAKOBSEN Fabio​

JUNGELS Bob​

LOPEZ MORENO Miguel Angel​

PARET-PEINTRE Valentin​

PIDCOCK Thomas​

PONOMAR Andriy​

SHEFFIELD Magnus​

SIVAKOV Pavel​

STRONG Corbin​

VANDENABEELE Henri​

ZAMBANINI Edoardo​

It's certainly not over by any means. Rakim probably has the edge in flat races (especially with Kooij not racing in recent weeks) but I feel like my team has more options in the hilly classics. I really wouldn't be surprised if their team outscored mine the rest of the way but making up 900 points seems difficult this late in the game.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Evenepoel rubbing it in one last time and then the Schmid group letting itself get caught like that. Today is not a good day.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Evenepoel rubbing it in one last time and then the Schmid group letting itself get caught like that. Today is not a good day.

Yeah the last few kilometers really didn't help. It looked much better when Skjelmose was the fastest guy in the chasing group (+ Hindley and Tulett were in the group battling for seventh) but at least he still saved a decent chunk of points.

 

[tobydawq]

I think Evenepoel and De Lie would have been good to have.

 

[postmanhat]

I made a lot of poor decisions in selecting my team this year, mostly based on personal preference and prejudice. For some reason though, I got it into my head that De Lie had scored 300+ points in 2021, so excluded him. That one was pure stupidity. I went for Modolo instead

 

[bminchow]

I made a lot of poor decisions in selecting my team this year, mostly based on personal preference and prejudice. For some reason though, I got it into my head that De Lie had scored 300+ points in 2021, so excluded him. That one was pure stupidity. I went for Modolo instead

I did too!! But hey, 3rd place in Croatia for the moment

 

[skidmark]

Update #37: The Remco Show Continues

Capping off a stunning run which included winning the Vuelta while leading most of the way and missing the Worlds TT championship by 9 seconds, Remco Evenepoel capped it off by winning the Worlds road race solo by the largest margin since 1968. Although there are 33 players on a CQ team, it certainly gives teams a leg up to have a rider that's over 3100 points for the year at a cost of 1300. The largest-single-day-race-points-of-the-year haul of 400 points for that win was certainly a must to rank this week (to illustrate: 38 teams had over 400 points this week, and 35 have Remco), with most other races cleared out of the calendar to showcase this one.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	Hugo Koblet	800
2	Jon_Ezeitza	765
3	Berflamand	748
4	ray10	700
5	vladimir	660

Game founder Hugo Koblet takes another weekly win this season, getting equal points from Evenepoel and the rest of the team. Other scorers were far behind, of course, but notable ones include rare picks Ethan Hayter (96 points, 4 teams), Mauro Schmid (92 points, 6 teams), and you-know-who (hint, neo-pro Lotto rider that seems to get 80 points every week; 80 points, 18 teams). Jon Ezeitza lands in second with supporting points from De Lie as well, and also another constant points-producer in Skjelmose (80 points, 11 teams) and U23 TT champ and high RR finisher Soren Warenskjold (60 points, 6 teams). A good week for the sequential consonants 'skj', apparently. Berflamand rounds out the podium with Schmid ('sch' had an alright week too), Skjelmose and Garcia Cortina (64 points, 5 teams).

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	EvansIsTheBest	380
2	ray10	353
3	Rakim	239
4	Leadbelly	233
5	LosBrolin	222

Some scoring in the top places here, but mostly the top 2 making their lead even more unassailable. ray10 gets 26 points for 4th place on the week, but EITB gets 10 points for 11th on the week. That 16-point gain means ray10 is 27 points out of the lead, which is not impossible, especially at the end of the season when some riders have shut it down and if you have someone who's riding and on form you can have some good weeks.

Lower down, it's a done deal; Rakim would could win 3 weeks at 45 points and have EITB score no more, and still be in second place. Leadbelly gets 20 points to leapfrog LosBrolin.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	17880
2	(-)	Rakim	16921
3	(-)	ray10	16573
4	(-)	MADRAZO	16028
5	(+1)	Bonimenier	15777
6	(-1)	squire	15671
7	(+3)	repre	15625
8	(+1)	laarsland	15472
9	(+3)	Object	15445
10	(+6)	will10	15405

EITB gains 45 points on Rakim and loses over 100 to ray10, but that doesn't change all that much. 959 points is a pretty commanding lead at this poiont of the season, and the top 3 are pretty stratified and therefore will be hard to overtake. A little lower down in the top 10 there's somoe significant movement, with Object and will10 entering the top 10 and Nielsb and Riverside falling out.

This week, there's the CRO race and those end-of-season spate of Italian one-day races, as we build up to Lombardia and the season's end.

spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[Berflamand]

Very surprised to still be in the top 3 as I was a little bummed that Skjelmose and Schmid were caught 200 meters from the line since they were guaranteed a top 5-6 placing which would have given me a lot more points.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Fifth straight week scoring points in the green jersey competition so that's cool.

I went back and checked, skidmark was at 18645 after the world championships in 2012. So I'm 765 points off the pace right now. However their team "only" scored 727 points the rest of the way. There's like three weeks of racing left (the Langkawi GC falls a bit after that but I doubt it'll make a difference in this game) so 500 points/week is enough for the record. Unfortunately, with so many riders winding down their season, it feels like a bit too much.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

the Langkawi GC falls a bit after that but I doubt it'll make a difference in this game

There are quite a few World Tour teams taking part in Langkawi this year, though. UAE, Cofidis, Lotto, Movistar, Astana, EF.
And also Uno-X, Burgos and Alpecin.

 

[tobydawq]

Okay, now that Remco is finally finishing his season, I fully expect to jump from 45th into the top 1.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Nice win by Zingle today but I'll need multiple miracles next week to get close to skidmark's 2012 team.

 

[skidmark]

Update #38: Mayomaniac is #1 with a Green Bullet

The post-Worlds is always a hodgepodge of closing season races, with unheralded riders often getting a chance in lineups with gaps due to many riders ending their seasons. This week saw the CRO race as the main stage race, with 1-days in Italy, France and Belgium filling out the docket (and of course 2.1 races in Asia with few if any riders in this game participating). As such, scores were a bit lower, and the overall is all but settled, but there was still a weekly win up for grabs!

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	mayomaniac	279
2	search	268
3	edkDeus	246
4	laarsland	200
5	18-Valve. (pithy)	194

Only four teams scored over 200 points this week, with mayomaniac coming out on top with 279. And mayomaniac's best-scoring rider of the week is a 42-year old who happens to be the greatest scoring CQ rider of all time. Their team reaps the reward of the boldness of being one of the two teams to take Alejandro Valverde in his final year, and the Green Bullet propels the team to the weekly win with some 106 of the final CQ points of his career.

Since this game is based on the CQ system, I just want to take a minute to pay tribute to the greatest rider of the era (by the metric CQ measures, which rewards longevity, consistency, and greatness year-in, year-out). Valverde's total CQ points are greater than #2 Peter Sagan by about the margin of #14 Chris Froome's entire career. Prior to 2020, he had 15 ranking seasons after his neo-pro year. He ranked inside the top 10 on the year 14 of those 15 seasons, and in the top 5 in 12 of those years. He finished 1st 5 times, 2nd once and 3rd twice. His career finishes after Il Lombardia this weekend, and so his CQ mark will be set as the record for quite some time yet.

Anyway. Valverde scores 106 points on the week to come within 96 of breaking even for the season, meaning with Tre Valle and Lombardia to come he could still be a profitable pick. Beyond the CQ GOAT, mayomaniac got 86 points from a very impressive breakout performance from Jonathan Milan (9 teams) in Croatia, 56 points from Andrea Piccolo (17 teams), and a handful from other riders. search finishes close behind in second, thanks to a newer Spanish Movistar talent, Enric Mas gaining 146 points for the only team that picked him. EdkDeus picks up third with 78 points from Pogacar (3 teams) supplementing Piccolo and Milan picks.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	EvansIsTheBest	380
2	ray10	353
3	Leadbelly	249
4	Rakim	239
5	18-Valve. (pithy)	228
5	LosBrolin	228

Neither of the top 2 score points this week (finally, the jealous amongst us might say), but Leadbelly scores 16 to get positioned in the final podium spot, and 18-Valve scores 22 points while LosBrolin scores 6 to tie for 5th overall. With pretty much 3 weeks of points scoring to go, mathematically Leadbelly could technically win with 3 weekly wins in a row, but as has been clear for awhile, it's really bewteen EITB and ray10.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	17987
2	(-)	Rakim	16947
3	(-)	ray10	16596
4	(-)	MADRAZO	16065
5	(-)	Bonimenier	15809
6	(-)	squire	15713
7	(+1)	laarsland	15672
8	(-1)	repre	15650
9	(+4)	search	15593
10	(-)	will10	15491

EvansIsTheBest outscores Rakim by 80 points this week, which brings the lead to over a nice round 1000 points, but at this point will make little difference. search parlays a 2nd on the week into a 4-place leap into the top 10 at the expense of Object, who falls to 11th.

This week there are no fewer than 11 one-day races in Europe, with the last monument of the season in Il Lombardia offering the most points, but a bunch of 1.Pro to go with the 1.1s. Who's still racing? Who will be scoring? How much will EITB extend the lead this week? I'm stretching to come up with suspense, but heck I'm down in like 19th place and I'm still following every race with excitement. I hope many of you are too!

Spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I realize I have no right to complain about my team's performance but I will anyway. Santiago Buitrago DNS in Croatia means that I didn't score enough points this week to increase my green jersey lead. Between that and the disaster last couple kilometers at the Worlds it feels like that classification should have been secured already but instead ray10 is still well within range.

I guess it's not as exciting as having the GC go down to the wire but it'll be fun to see how far up the all time rankings my team can go.

Team	Year	Score	Points to reach milestone
skidmark	2012	19372	1385
Object	2021	19129	1142
squire	2021	19015	1028
Total Package	2021	18676	689
Northerner	2021	18293	306
Kvinto	2012	18106	119
Jon_Ezeitza	2021	18009	22
EITB	2022	17987

With Kooij's win today, you can tack on 130 points to my total, so I'll finish 6th at worst. I'll be pretty disappointed if I can't get the ~170 points I need to finish in the top 5.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Nice to win a week, but taking Valverde and Steimle over Remco and Schmid was still my biggest mistake, otherwise I'd have around 2.300 points more...
Piccolo really deliverd during the 2nd half of the season. Sadly Einer Rubio often looks strong in races but fails to seal the deal with a good result...

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Good day in Lombardia, mainly with Higuita 4th and Rodriguez 5th. Carlos is the seventh rider on my team to crack 1k for the year with Kooij having a chance to join him tomorrow and Skjelmose stalling just short.

Team	Year	Score	Points to reach milestone
skidmark	2012	19372	804
Object	2021	19129	561
squire	2021	19015	447
Total Package	2021	18676	108
EITB	2022	18568

Don't think I'll have too many riders continuing their season past tomorrow so the podium is most likely out of reach.

 

[search]

2-3-4 for me today, so something like 500pt in total. Should move me up quite a bit. Maybe Top ~5 even, depending on how much I'll lose again tomorrow

 

[search]

Paris-Tours went better than expected as well, so should be top 5 indeed now, before my sprint team (Kanter, Grosu, Kuba) heads to Langkawi

 

[skidmark]

Update #39: Successful search finds top spot as the season winds down

While different cycling fans may note varying milestones as the start of the season - Australian nationals, GP Marseillaise/Mallorca week, Opening Weekend, Paris-Nice - the end of the season comes on very suddenly after the Worlds. This week, with Il Lombardia and Paris-Tours, along with a smattering of 1-day races in Belgium, Italy and France, marks the end of the season for most riders. There are a few high-level events left in Asia, the new Veneto races, and the always-mixed lineup of the unique Chrono des Nations, but this is pretty much it. And of course for the CQ game, that means the last best chance at pulling in a good points haul, and getting your name in lights.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	search	1063
2	Squire	839
3	edkDeus	827
4	Lortnoc	765
5	Fivezzz	732

search ends up with a very comfortable victory this week, squeezing the most out of the week to nab the last 1000+ point week of the year. Part of this is due to unique pick Enric Mas, whose fine end-of-season form netted another 175 points, but search's team would have won the week even without this contribution. Their team's biggest scorer was actually Higuita with 203, but they also got fine contributions from Landa (150), Kooij (148) and Sam Bennett (118). Squire has a great week as well, even if their team couldn't match search's score. Squire had Higuita, Landa and Kooij as well, but was missing Mas and Bennett - their team's best rider not mentioned above was Alexis Vuillermoz (89 points, 3 teams). edkDeus rounds out the podium, scoring over 800 points with a much more prominent headliner in Tadej Pogacar (410 points, 3 teams).

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	EvansIsTheBest	380
2	ray10	353
3	Leadbelly	249
4	Rakim	239
5	18-Valve. (pithy)	228
5	LosBrolin	228

No scoring by any of the teams in the top 5 this week (highest team to score this week was Lortnoc in 8th overall). ray10 has to have a good enough lineup this week to finish in the top 3 to get enough points to overtake EITB, and the last podium spot is in play as well. A very cool thing that happened this week was that the last team who had yet to score this season finished in the top 15, meaning every participating team has scored green jersey points this year.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	18590
2	(-)	Rakim	17469
3	(-)	ray10	17118
4	(-)	MADRAZO	16706
5	(+4)	search	16656
6	(-)	Squire	16552
7	(-2)	Bonimenier	16238
8	(-1)	laarsland	16231
9	(+4)	Riverside	16072
10	(+2)	NielsB	16013

With over a thousand point lead, EvansIsTheBest's title was hardly in doubt, but the longshot possibility of a massive week for Rakim has now passed, with EITB actually gaining 81 more points on the closest competitor. Lower down, search's great week (the last two weeks, actually) vaults them into the top 5, and Squire's very good week leaves them only 4 points behind in 6th. There's also some last-minute turnover in the top 10, with Riverside and NielsB jumping in, and repre and will10 falling out. However, 11th-13th are all less than 25 points out of the top 10, so the last week of the game could still see some changes depending on who is racing and scoring.

This week, we have the two Veneto 1.1 races, the Chrono des Nations, the return of the 1.Pro Japan Cup after being cancelled from covid, and the Tour of Langkawi also returning. And... that's it! The CQ game season ends with the end of the last .1 or higher race, and those are the only ones left until 2023. Langkawi actually ends next Tuesday the 18th, so the CQ game will depend on how the updates will work on the CQ site. If they have a regular Sunday or Monday update, I'll have update 40 next week and then update 41 will contain the remainder of the results for Langkawi. But if they delay the update until after Langkawi ends, there will be one more update. I suppose we will all be in a little bit more suspense yet!

spreadsheet at dropbox

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I need like 80 points to get past Total Package for 4th on the all time list. Toumire is my only rider in Langkawi and somehow he's already out of GC contention. Vermeersch is my only rider in the Giro del Veneto (so I expect he's going to be the only rider for the other italian race of the week). Considering the teams at the start of the Chrono des Nations, I'm not going to have anybody scoring there either. So it'll come down to Zingle, Quinn and Van Gils in Japan. I don't think it'll happen.

 

[search]

there may still be a podium battle this week, as far as I can see. Ray basically seems to be out of participating riders, while Madrazo, Squire and me all have Sosa with a chance to score ~200 points in Langkawi + Ciccone for the Japan Cup. If he goes well, it could come down to minor points from the other riders.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I need like 80 points to get past Total Package for 4th on the all time list. Toumire is my only rider in Langkawi and somehow he's already out of GC contention. Vermeersch is my only rider in the Giro del Veneto (so I expect he's going to be the only rider for the other italian race of the week). Considering the teams at the start of the Chrono des Nations, I'm not going to have anybody scoring there either. So it'll come down to Zingle, Quinn and Van Gils in Japan. I don't think it'll happen.

62 points from Van Gils and Zingle in Japan so I'll end up just short (well I guess a Toumire stage win in Langkawi would get me the necessary points so there's still hope). Bummer. My team completely stopped scoring after Lombardia. I blame Abner Gonzalez who's one of two picks on my team to not score at least 80% of their price (Dumoulin being the other but he has the excuse of retiring mid way through the year).

 

[skidmark]

Update #40: Kazistuta stars in penultimate update

CQ has released an update for the week ending October 16th, which means that the last European races of the season are included, but the last stages and GC of Langkawi are not. That matters for the game only in that it's a 2.PS race, and the last race .1 or higher of the year, which means the game comes to a close when its points are counted. That means there is one more update next week, although of course it will only include points of riders that are picked by teams in the game. So it will be a little denouement next week of interest to those with riders in Malaysia, or those whose spots may be threatened by said riders' points.

But this week, the vast majority of the peloton had their final races of the season in Italy, France and Japan. Let's see how it shook out.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	Kazistuta	267
2	skidmark	266
3	Rufs	241
4	Jakob747	222
5	the asian	220

It was a relatively low scoring, but very competitive week. Long-time game participant Kazistuta ekes out the win with a score of 267. This was thanks to the following riders: Marc Hirschi (80 points, 33 teams) for the win in Veneto, Andrea Piccolo (78 points, 17 teams) for 2nd in Japan, Ivan Sosa (57 points, 27 teams) for stage and jersey points in Langkawi, MA Lopez (36 points, 52 teams) and Max Kanter (16 points, 16 teams). Such is the end of the season that you can list all scorers for the weekly winner. Team skidmark finishes a mere 1 point back, with Piccolo, Sosa and Lopez from the above group, but missing the rest, instead including Foss (48 points), Ciccone (40) and Bettiol (7). If Bettiol had got 12th instead of 14th in Chrono des Nations it would have made the difference - that's how close the week was. Rufs ends up with the last podium spot with Hirschi/Sosa/Ciccone/Lopez and Andreas Kron (27).

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	EvansIsTheBest	380
2	ray10	353
3	Leadbelly	249
4	Rakim	239
5	LosBrolin	238

No scoring at the top this week, although LosBrolin gets 10 points on the week to move into sole possession of 5th place. I haven't fact-checked this, but a comment upthread suggested that ray10 has no active riders in Langkawi, which means that it would be mathematically impossible for anyone to catch EITB in these rankings. I'll make everything official next week, but it is looking pretty solid at this point.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	18657
2	(-)	Rakim	17585
3	(-)	ray10	17139
4	(+1)	search	16857
5	(-1)	MADRAZO	16855
6	(-)	squire	16701
7	(+1)	laarsland	16388
8	(-1)	Bonimenier	16345
9	(-)	Riverside	16234
10	(-)	NielsB	16207

At the top, EvansIsTheBest successfully continues to run out the clock on all challengers, losing 49 points to Rakim but still maintaining a 4-digit lead. While the season is not quite over, the game effectively is. Adding up all the points from GC in Malaysia (places 1-50), I quickly did the math in my head and came up with 1115 points. This means that even if Rakim's 33 riders were all riding in Langkawi and swept places 1-33, it still wouldn't overturn the lead. So barring something like Martinez getting his entire year DQ'd this week, it's over mathematically, even on the theoretical level. Congrats to EITB on a great year!

A little lower down, search continues an amazing last few weeks, leapfrogging up to 4th, albeit 2 points ahead of MADRAZO. Despite having Sosa, it's probably too much of a gap to close to the podium for either of these teams. laarsland and Bonimenier swap places, and teams just outside the top 10 are within striking distance if they still have riders scoring, but things are all but settled.

One more update to wrap it up after the Langkawi GC update is released, and I'll be doing a 'year in review' going over monthly leaders every week just like last year to bridge the gap until the 2023 game starts, but otherwise it's time to start taking a look at riders for next year if you haven't already. See you all in a week to wrap it up!

spreadsheet at dropbox