The 2022 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Squire]

I wonder how unusual that is. When you start with that many points it's tough to score more over half a season (guys that can drop 450 easy in a few months of racing tend to cost a lot more than that so they have to score more too) whereas lower priced riders only need a couple good results to break even. Still it's funny to see how we collectively whiffed on the best high priced riders. It looks better if we include Evenepoel but I'm not sure that thinking Remco is a good rider is much of a flex of our cycling knowledge.


If we combine your lower priced riders with my more expensive ones we could make a hell of a team. Not sure skidmark would let us do that unfortunately.

Haha, yeah your top 4 riders are about as good as it gets halfway through the season. And the two that I don't have (Evenepoel and Girmay) both have very good opportunities to further add a lot of points.

As I said above, I need my big names to step up, but I don't quite see either of Moscon or Pidcock turning out to be amazing picks. But I'll be in trouble if they don't. De Lie can't continue to carry my team indefinitely! Saying that, he also has some very good point scoring opportunities going forward. An injury to him would be disastrous for me though, touch wood.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I wonder how unusual that is. When you start with that many points it's tough to score more over half a season (guys that can drop 450 easy in a few months of racing tend to cost a lot more than that so they have to score more too) whereas lower priced riders only need a couple good results to break even. Still it's funny to see how we collectively whiffed on the best high priced riders. It looks better if we include Evenepoel but I'm not sure that thinking Remco is a good rider is much of a flex of our cycling knowledge.

This was what it looked like after last year's Dauphiné:
Bernal (450 to 1449) - picked 83x
Valverde (689 to 867) - picked 4x
S. Yates (705 to 819) - picked 14x
Asgreen (543 to 706) - picked 5x
A. Yates (592 to 687) - picked 13x
Merlier (483 to 680) - picked 3x
Gaudu (484 to 667) - picked 19x
Stuyven (502 to 510) - picked 4x
Van Avermaet (503 to 509) - picked 33x

Of course it helps that Bernal, Stuyven and Van Avermaet barely meet the criteria, and the latter barely scored any points for the rest of the season, but you can still see a clear difference with this year.

 

[MADRAZO]

Haha, yeah your top 4 riders are about as good as it gets halfway through the season. And the two that I don't have (Evenepoel and Girmay) both have very good opportunities to further add a lot of points.

As I said above, I need my big names to step up, but I don't quite see either of Moscon or Pidcock turning out to be amazing picks. But I'll be in trouble if they don't. De Lie can't continue to carry my team indefinitely! Saying that, he also has some very good point scoring opportunities going forward. An injury to him would be disastrous for me though, touch wood.

You and me both, but our teams were ofcourse also very similar.

I am actually quite surpriced that Im number 2 now, since all my expensive riders are doing clearly below what was expected, while the expensive guys that just missed out on my team (And are popular) like Evenepoel and Higuita are doing great. Your Higuita instead of Fuglsang must be the main reason you are ahead in our battle so far.

But seriously, we should not be in the lead with those expensive picks

Pidcock a complete flop due to his odd illness in the most important period.
Jakobsen sprinting fast but a very dissapointing raceprograme so far, with Cavendish for instance getting the easy points in Driedaagse De Panne due to him wasting energy in MSR, Scheldeprijs spoiled by wind and so on
Sam Bennett, was a gamble if he was himself again, which he then clearly was not, but I guess your Moscon pick has been more unlucky
M Lopez again a huge dissapointment due to injury.
Fuglsang, starting the season in great shape as supposed to, and then getting all his goals destroyed by covid.
Ewan, also missing many important races due to sickness (but at least very popular, and with the best chance to still end up a good pick)
And only Landa doing as expected


Some of them can ofcourse still get a decent season if it starts going well, but all points to them being bad picks., especially compared to thoese that were cut last like Evenepoel, and for me also Higuita.

But I suppose we have nailed those cheap guys this year with Hindley, Ayuso, De Lie, Kooij, Kamna, Plapp, Thijssen (who has actually been quite unlucky and could have been a lot better), Groves and so on, plus the Martinez pick that turned out very good.

Anyways I hope Fuglsang can get me a bit closer to you now in Tour De Suisse , but lets see how long our spot in the top can last if not our expensive picks starts to do a lot better.

 

[Tigerion]

Good to see some points coming in for my rare high priced riders, although wouldn't consider any of them to be good picks as of now

 

[Salvarani]

2nd, 3rd, 6th, 8th, 13th and 14th for my team in Tour De Suisse. Might make it the best stage-race so far for my team this season.

Stage-wins from Leknessund and Pinot.

A few riders scoring points in other races this week as well.

Hopefully it should be a good update with this haul.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Much better week than the disaster I expected last Sunday. Jungels, Pinot and Martinez salvaged something in Switzerland, Storer and THJ combined for more points than I was expecting on the Ventoux, and most importantly Schmid got added to the startlist in Belgium late and made the most of it.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Well the Tour de Suisse certainly finished better than it started for my team. Higuita, Evenepoel, Pinot and Martinez all score 100+ in the end. Skjelmose, Rodriguez and Simmons had surprisingly good weeks too.

This was what it looked like after last year's Dauphiné:
Bernal (450 to 1449) - picked 83x
Valverde (689 to 867) - picked 4x
S. Yates (705 to 819) - picked 14x
Asgreen (543 to 706) - picked 5x
A. Yates (592 to 687) - picked 13x
Merlier (483 to 680) - picked 3x
Gaudu (484 to 667) - picked 19x
Stuyven (502 to 510) - picked 4x
Van Avermaet (503 to 509) - picked 33x

Of course it helps that Bernal, Stuyven and Van Avermaet barely meet the criteria, and the latter barely scored any points for the rest of the season, but you can still see a clear difference with this year.

I apppreciate the effort of looking into 2021 but last year they had to improve on their 2020 scores which reflect a partial year at best. That had major repercussion in term of team building. Not what I would consider a normal year although when I look at the Tour de Suisse I wonder what even is a normal year at this point.

You and me both, but our teams were ofcourse also very similar.

I am actually quite surpriced that Im number 2 now, since all my expensive riders are doing clearly below what was expected, while the expensive guys that just missed out on my team (And are popular) like Evenepoel and Higuita are doing great. Your Higuita instead of Fuglsang must be the main reason you are ahead in our battle so far.

But seriously, we should not be in the lead with those expensive picks

My team is driven by my 4 most expensive riders but it's a clear exception among top 10 teams at the moment. So it doesn't matter too much if your expensive picks underperform when everybody else's expensive picks underperform too. Then it becomes all about the lower priced riders that you and squire nailed this year.

500+ cost riders among current top 10 teams:

BENNETT Sam​	7​
LOPEZ MORENO Miguel Angel​	6​
LANDA MEANA Mikel​	4​
PIDCOCK Thomas​	4​
JAKOBSEN Fabio​	3​
COSNEFROY Benoît​	2​
EVENEPOEL Remco​	2​
HIRSCHI Marc​	2​
KRISTOFF Alexander​	2​
ACKERMANN Pascal​	1​
DEMARE Arnaud​	1​
MAS NICOLAU Enric​	1​
MOSCON Gianni​	1​
PEDERSEN Mads​	1​
QUINTANA ROJAS Nairo Alexander​	1​

There's a surprising amount of whiffs in there which suggest that it's more the De Lie and Martinez of the world that are making the difference right now.

 

[Squire]

A quick glance leaves the impression that it's been very close between us top 3 teams in terms of weekly score this week. So I should keep my 1st place with a similar margin, I think.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I'm not going to able to post the update tonight but I hope to get it out some time tomorrow.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Update 23: Salvation for Salvarani

Weekly Scores
Is the title a bit dramatic ? Probably, but when you score over a thousand points in a week when no GT GC points are awarded it's also well deserved. With Fuglsang, Higuita, Leknessund, Jungels, Pinot and Martinez, it's hard to see how the Tour de Suisse could have gone any better for their team. Riverside uses a similar core of riders, swapping out Sergio Higuita for Carlos Rodriguez and Mads Pedersen to be also crack 1k. It might not have been Evenepoel's finest week but his efforts combined with pleasant surprises from Simmons, Skjelmose and Schmid (as well as aforementioned Pinot, Jungels, Leknessund, Martinez) are enough to push Berflamand on the podium. Greenedge (Higuita, Fuglsang, Simmons, Pinot, Jungels) and trackstand (Higuita, Fuglsang, Pinot, Leknessund, Jungels) also shined in Suisse to complete the top 5.

1	Salvarani	1034
2	Riverside	1007
3	Berflamand	990
4	greenedge	856
5	trackstand	844

Highest Movers
Berflamand and Salvarani convert their strong weeks into double digit rise in the rankings. 18-Valve. (pithy) joins them with their expensive bets in Pogacar and Evenepoel paying off handsomely this week (Pinot and Jungels had strong supporting roles too) .

1	Berflamand	+12
2	Salvarani	+10
2	18-Valve. (pithy)	+10

Green Jersey
EITB gets 12th (Higuita, Evenepoel, Martinez, Pinot, Skjelmose, Carlos Rodriguez, Simmons) on the week to get a bit of breathing room in second. Lortnoc (Higuita, Fuglsang, Jungels, Pinot) gets 2 points to break their tie with Nakazar in 4th.

1	ray10	297
2	EvansIsTheBest	208 (+8)
3	MADRAZO	188
4	Lortnoc	161 (+2)
5	Nakazar	159

GC
The return to action of EITB's top riders wasn't quite enough to recapture the top spot but with only 27 points separating the top two teams, there's plenty of room for twists and turns still. MADRAZO quietly keeps pace as the podium is now over 10k for the year and 400 points clear from the rest of the field. Search now leads the chase with Riverside rocketing up to 6th after their great week. Ray10 and laarsland lose a little ground but remain firmly in the top 10. Nakazar gives up the final spot in the top 10 to Armchair cyclist for a mere 16 points. This week is filled with national championships which means the vast majority of riders picked in the game are going to be on the road at the same time, competing against wildly different fields which foreshadows a chaotic update.

1	squire	10420
2	EvansIsTheBest	10393
3	MADRAZO	10300
4	search	9886
5	ray10	9808
6	Riverside	9751
7	Devil's Elbow	9640
8	laarsland	9576
9	Lortnoc	9546
10	Armchair cyclist	9339

Dropbox link: Update 23

 

[Salvarani]

Wow, I had a feeling it would be a good update but not that I would top the weekly scores!

Really pleased with that. TdF next up!

 

[Squire]

Phew, that was closer than I thought!

My CQ teams have traditionally done very well in the national championships, so hopefully I can keep my lead again. A Moscon resurrection would have been nice.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

A pleasant surprise to see CQ have given one of my riders (Juan Diego Alba) 5 points for a race he wasn't riding in

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Happy with this national championships week. Always nice to see struggling riders like Baroncini and Battistella get results. Evenepoel, Kämna and Girmay had nice TTs. Carlos Rodriguez and Juan Ayuso got a bunch of points in Spain. With sharper tactics, Zingle could probably have pulled off the win in France but a podium is still far above expectations. We'll see how that stacks up against MADRAZO and Squire.

 

[Salvarani]

Piccolo is in to profit in his first race with Androni! Great for us Piccolo owners.

A few other riders scored points which make it a decent week, but probably not as good as it was in the last update for my team. Hope it will be enough to stay in roughly the same position overall going into the TdF.

 

[BR2]

It feels like I really got a lot of points, many of my riders scored well. But on the other hand others got points from Evenepoel, Rodriguez, Ayuso, de Lie, Girmay... which I didn't. So, I'll have to wait and see.

 

[search]

some points from my rare picks Tizza and Ewart today, but not much else, apart from guys like Kämna or Ayuso who basically won't make much of a difference anyway. Expect to drop back a bit this week.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Not a great week for me either. Dumoulin, Kämna, Jungels and Ayuso's points won't help much and aside from them I think only Schmid, Baroncini and Turner scored a decent amount of points. Also not especially impressed with my Tour lineup so this is probably where I start to fall back.

 

[Squire]

Absolutely horrible nationals week for me, for once.

De Lie (basically my only non-popular point scorer) beaten by five guys in Belgium, Vuillermoz the only one from the front group to not stay ahead in France, Bagioli and Rosa DNF and Moscon DNS in Italy, Grosu 11 minutes down in Romania and just bad performances all around from basically all my riders. At least Jungels won the Luxembourg ITT ...

And Kamp, who I sooo nearly picked, won the Danish championship.

Meanwhile, EITB had an absolutely amazing week, with Evenepoel, Girmay, Rodriguez, Battistella, Baroncini, Zingle and Skjelmose!

 

[search]

Grosu 11 minutes down in Romania and just bad performances all around from basically all my riders.

apparently Tvetcov and Dima in 1st and 2nd got disqualified for not wearing their trade team's skinsuit, so Grosu may get another 4 points for his 6-minutes-down ITT at least

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Update 24: NielsB gets an A

Weekly Scores
NielsB is the only team to crack 700 points which is no small feat in a week where all riders have a very limited ceiling with just the points from their national championships road races and time trials on offer. Indeed their top two riders combined for just 201 points (Carlos Rodriguez and Filippo Baroncini). They relied on a number of solid displays from Dumoulin, Valter, Van Dijke, Buchmann, A. Gonzalez, Ayuso, De Lie, Kämna, Piccolo, Hagen, B. Turner, Rangel and Girmay. Phew, talk about a team effort. In second, it's a familiar name: EITB. Their scoring was bit more concentrated around a few rare picks: Zingle, Battistella, Skjelmose, Carlos Rodriguez, Baroncini, Abner Gonzalez as well as the more mainstream picks Evenepoel, Ayuso, Kämna and Dumoulin. Leadbelly completes the podium with a smattering of points from rare (Almeida, Skjelmose, Zingle, Rangel, Ewart) or straight up unique picks (Roger Adria, Itamar Einhorn, Omer Goldstein, Ahmet Orkhen). Jon_Ezeitza (Rodriguez, Baroncini, Evenepoel) and scrooll07 (Hoole, Rodriguez, Baroncini) are the two other teams cracking 600 points on the week.

1	NielsB	707
2	EvansIsTheBest	692
3	Leadbelly	649
4	Jon_Ezeitza	647
5	scrooll07	626

Highest Movers
Scrooll07 and Leadbelly also lead the way among the fastest risers. Triley36 (Carlos Rodriguez, Ayuso, Dumoulin, Sheffield, Jungels, Abner Gonzalez, Kämna, Tiberi) gains 7 spots to land just inside the top 20.

1	scrooll07	+10
2	Leadbelly	+9
3	triley36	+7

Green Jersey
Ray10's spot on top is secure for at least another week, but EITB closes the gap significantly. Nakazar (Geschke, Askey and a bunch of riders that have aleady been cited multiple times) has a strong week to move back in front of Lortnoc.

1	ray10	297
2	EvansIsTheBest	243 (+35)
3	MADRAZO	188
4	Nakazar	177 (+18)
5	Lortnoc	161

GC
No suspense here as EITB's strong week is more than enough to overcome the 27 point deficit to squire's team and retake the lead. Indeed, EITB will start the Tour de France as the only team above 11k. Riverside and search swap places. Nakazar enters the top 10 as Armchair cyclist falls back to 12th. NielsB is 5 points short of converting their weekly win into an entry in the top 10. Of course, none of this is definitive with the biggest race of the year just days away.

1	EvansIsTheBest	11085
2	squire	10699
3	MADRAZO	10638
4	Riverside	10272
5	ray10	10237
6	search	10065
7	Devil's Elbow	10047
8	laarsland	9955
9	Nakazar	9889
10	Lortnoc	9815

Dropbox link: Update 24

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Absolutely horrible nationals week for me, for once.

De Lie (basically my only non-popular point scorer) beaten by five guys in Belgium, Vuillermoz the only one from the front group to not stay ahead in France, Bagioli and Rosa DNF and Moscon DNS in Italy, Grosu 11 minutes down in Romania and just bad performances all around from basically all my riders. At least Jungels won the Luxembourg ITT ...

And Kamp, who I sooo nearly picked, won the Danish championship.

Meanwhile, EITB had an absolutely amazing week, with Evenepoel, Girmay, Rodriguez, Battistella, Baroncini, Zingle and Skjelmose!

I like how De Lie basically scoring his 2021 score in a week is now a disappointment

I didn't expect to finish this high in the update. Even guys like Abner Gonzalez and Sean Quinn (now into profit!) joined the fun.

I haven't looked at my Tour de France team yet but with that buffer I should be safe until the GC update. Unless Jakobsen cleans up the sprint stages which is entirely possible.

 

[BR2]

So, in the end, as expected, it was a decent but unspectacular week for me.
Now all my hopes rest on the Tour. I count 14 riders of my team. They are good ones, but hardly any GC options, so whether they will get anything out og the stages despite being mostly no sprinters, is doubtful. I guess I have to hope for a lot of break-away wins... at least Pedersen and Ganna should get some points.

 

[Squire]

I like how De Lie basically scoring his 2021 score in a week is now a disappointment

I didn't expect to finish this high in the update. Even guys like Abner Gonzalez and Sean Quinn (now into profit!) joined the fun.

I haven't looked at my Tour de France team yet but with that buffer I should be safe until the GC update. Unless Jakobsen cleans up the sprint stages which is entirely possible.

For the Tour de France it's ...
PIDCOCK Thomas
JUNGELS Bob
BAGIOLI Andrea
JAKOBSEN Fabio
MOSCON Gianni
CICCONE Giulio
VUILLERMOZ Alexis
JANSEN Amund Grøndahl

... for me.

And ...
VERMEERSCH Florian
BATTISTELLA Samuele
SIMMONS Quinn
MÜHLBERGER Gregor

for you ...

My team is numerous, and I should be good for some stage wins, but all these guys are wildly uncertain. Could end up with next to zero. The consolation is that your team is even worse!

We have these guys in common:
MARTÍNEZ Daniel Felipe
KÄMNA Lennard
PINOT Thibaut
EWAN Caleb

Madrazo also has these four, and then shares Pidcock, Jungels, Jakobsen and Ciccone with me, and has Fuglsang in addition.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Thanks for the comparison. It seems like my team is going into hibernation mode until Evenepoel/Higuita/Girmay ride again. My team is clearly weaker than yours even accounting for the fact that you forgot Bagioli on my team (it's cool, I prefer to forget he is on my team too) . I would trust Fuglsang over Bagioli, Vuillermoz, Moscon and Jansen so I think Madrazo should perform better than either of us.