The 2023 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Anderis]

Okay, I've changed my mind about the "Basqueness ranking". Bilbao should obviously be ranked quite high - despite only having a single 'z' in his name - considering that his name is literally Bilbao!

Would be more Basque if he was called Bilbo instead.

STEINHAUSER Georg (Another EFEwho is greatly talented. Sometimes it just takes a couple years to get comfortable in the pros and to reach that next level. i think he is a steal at this point)

My reservation about Steinhauser is that when he was announced to join EF, they made a big deal about how he would continue to focus on his education in the following months, probably affecting his training volume and race calendar. Didn't seem like he was 100% comitted to becoming the best rider he could, which rarely bodes well for success in competitive sport and he kinda proved my observations right by having a season with basically 0 highlights apart from that one prologue in Romandie and he even seemed to go backward compared to his level from 2021. Not sure if he has the hunger to be a successful pro cyclist.

Not only I'm already on the back foot with 0 points after Australian NC, but my TdU team seems less numerous than average among those presented in the thread so far:

• Moscon
• Leo Hayter
• Fisher-Black
• Honore
• Schachmann

 

[RedheadDane]

Would be more Basque if he was called Bilbo instead.

Pretty sure that would be more Hobbit!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Pretty sure that would be more Hobbit!

No, because the city of Bilbo was build long before Tolkien was born. But the Hobbits may have something in common with the Basque people: They're proud landowners from the north of the country, have their own distinctive culture, are famous for their courage, and they're, at least in the cycling world, known for not being the biggest guys around.

 

[Salvarani]

No, because the city of Bilbo was build long before Tolkien was born. But the Hobbits may have something in common with the Basque people: They're proud landowners from the north of the country, have their own distinctive culture, are famous for their courage, and they're, at least in the cycling world, known for not being the biggest guys around.

Big Mig says hello.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Big Mig says hello.

There are of course exceptions, but you definitely don't picture a pure sprinter or a cobbles specialist if you were to describe a typical Basque rider (though I guess that wouldn't really be the case for any other Spanish region either).

 

[Kazistuta]

Would be more Basque if he was called Bilbo instead.


My reservation about Steinhauser is that when he was announced to join EF, they made a big deal about how he would continue to focus on his education in the following months, probably affecting his training volume and race calendar. Didn't seem like he was 100% comitted to becoming the best rider he could, which rarely bodes well for success in competitive sport and he kinda proved my observations right by having a season with basically 0 highlights apart from that one prologue in Romandie and he even seemed to go backward compared to his level from 2021. Not sure if he has the hunger to be a successful pro cyclist.

Well, that was mainly his father, ex-pro Tobias Steinhauser, that wanted him to have something to fall back on, before giving the road his full focus. He's finished his studies now and therefore will have all focus on road racing this year. This year will perhaps be a learning year, since it's basically his first, but with a seemingly big engine he should be ready to 8-double somewhat easy (I hope).

 

[RedheadDane]

Well, that was mainly his father, ex-pro Tobias Steinhauser, that wanted him to have something to fall back on, before giving the road his full focus. He's finished his studies now and therefore will have all focus on road racing this year. This year will perhaps be a learning year, since it's basically his first, but with a seemingly big engine he should be ready to 8-double somewhat easy (I hope).

As long as he doesn't take winter training advice from his uncle...

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

So excited for the season to start that I still checked the spreadsheet to see if I had any points even though I know I have no Australians on my team

Tour Down Under
MOSCON Gianni
PENHOËT Paul
PAGE Hugo
SCHACHMANN Maximilian
I will be looking at Penhoët's WT debut and Page trying to get the upper hand against Thijssen as the second best sprinter on Intermarché's roster. So a decent amount of intrigue for a team that will be 1000 points back by the end of January.

Another random thought I had: Could the popularity of Ayuso and Roglic mean we'll have another massive end-of-Vuelta week this year?

Probably not record-breaking, as Object had the perfect storm last year with 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 10th, 15th, 17th and 19th in the Vuelta, Tour of Britain runner-up, a 1.Pro winner and a 3rd in Montreal. With neither the Canadian races nor Tour of Britain overlapping this time, that's gonna be near impossible to beat. But we do have the 2.Pro Tour of Taihu lake (although it's unlikely to feature too many CQ picks), the 1.Pro races GP Wallonie, Coppa Sabatini and Primus Classic, the 2.1 Tour of Slovakia and five Italian, Belgian or French 1.1 races. I was imagining something like a Vuelta podium consisting of Roglic, Ayuso and then maybe Haig, Uijtdebroeks, Almeida, Martinez and perhaps even Bernal somewhere in the top 10.

It's premature to talk about going anywhere near the weekly record. We have no idea what the field will even look like in the Vuelta and all those one day races. Sure Ayuso+Roglic teams could and really should score a lot that week but the record is a different beast. We are talking 2500+ points when there had been only been 3 or 4 weeks that even cleared 2000 in the first 11 editions of the game.

 

[Nevs]

Did a quick scan of the TDU startlist and my team sends the following:

Godon, Dorian

Baroncini,Filippo

Groves, Kaden

Hayter, Leo

Romeo, Ivan

Schachmann, Max

Honore, Mikkel

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

Let’s see here.
Tour Down Under
Magnus Sheffield
Martin Svrcek
Jensen Plowright
Leo Hayter
Michael Vink
Sean Quinn
Max Schachmann
A largely young squad( a common occurrence to be repeated throughout the year) I’m hoping Schachmann can score some points and some of the youngsters to have a promising showing. At least I’ll have points heading into February.

 

[Nevs]

Let’s see here.
Tour Down Under
Magnus Sheffield
Martin Svrcek
Jensen Plowright
Leo Hayter
Michael Vink
Sean Quinn
Max Schachmann
A largely young squad( a common occurrence to be repeated throughout the year) I’m hoping Schachmann can score some points and some of the youngsters to have a promising showing. At least I’ll have points heading into February.

Quinn was one of my last cuts when whittling down.
Think there's a chance he performs well this year.

 

[repre]

Quinn was one of my last cuts when whittling down.
Think there's a chance he performs well this year.

Took him previous year and what stroke me was how powerful he rode. In terms of the game he wasn't as spectacular, but sometimes he worked for others, sometimes had a bad luck. Was no brainer for me this year as he might be even more powerful and has more leadership responsibilities. TDU seems like a good race for him scoring-wise.

 

[Panda Claws]

First real race of the year let's gooo

Tour Down Under
MOSCON Gianni
CATTANEO Mattia
SHACHMANN Maximilian

Yeah that won't do a whole lot.

Mallorca (probably very provisional)
GIRMAY Biniam (!)
SCHELLING Ide
MASNADA Fausto
ASGREEN Kasper
ALAPHILIPPE Julian

Tropicale Amissa Bongo
VERCHER Mattéo


I basically have to hope for Girmay to crush it in Mallorca. Are those races still heavily over-valued in CQ?

 

[Kazistuta]

I basically have to hope for Girmay to crush it in Mallorca. Are those races still heavily over-valued in CQ?

Isn't it just the ordinary 80p for a win, which might seem to be much for an early season race, but still lines fine with the field quality?

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Isn't it just the ordinary 80p for a win, which might seem to be much for an early season race, but still lines fine with the field quality?

Yes, 80 for the win, 48 for second place. The change this year is that GP Valencia has been promoted to 1.1 status from 1.2 last year. De Lie vs. Capiot? But an opportunity for the Spanish conti riders to score some cheap points.

 

[search]

ProCyclingStats doesn't have a team listed, but on closer inspection the UCI site still has him at Drone Hopper - Androni. In that case he could still be a decent enough pick

(edit - So does the team website - Grosu should be ok)

It's the 2022 team that's listed on the website, and Grosu hasn't been named as one of the riders who'll be continuing on Shimano-Sidermec (yet).

he signed for Mazowsze now

https://twitter.com/x/status/1613475708923252737

View: https://twitter.com/darek_banaszek/status/1613475708923252737


not the team I initially heard about, but looks like a very good fit. Could turn into a pretty good pick, I think

 

[R_O_Shipman]

he signed for Mazowsze now

https://twitter.com/x/status/1613475708923252737

View: https://twitter.com/darek_banaszek/status/1613475708923252737


not the team I initially heard about, but looks like a very good fit. Could turn into a pretty good pick, I think

Good spot - thanks for the info. Feeling a lot better about picking him now!

 

[Panda Claws]

Isn't it just the ordinary 80p for a win, which might seem to be much for an early season race, but still lines fine with the field quality?

It's just that I view these races more like a stage race.

But it's easy to overvalue races in your home country compared to those in other countries. So perhaps in Spain they care whether someone won Trofeo A or Trofeo B.

Riders like Valverde could just racks up points there in a couple of days though while that performance was comparable to or less than winning a bunch of stages in Eneco or Pologne.

 

[skidmark]

Well I've run out of time to give my team rundown before heading out of service for a couple of days and the season is really starting! So let's move forwards, I haven't even looked at the TDU lineup until now:

Gianni Moscon
Filippo Baroncini
Martin Svrcek
Paul Penhoet
Leo Hayter
Max Schachmann

Hmm... I guess my expectations are to be in the lower part of the overall standings this week? As far as I know nobody on my team is targeting this race, and I don't even know if any of these folks are leading it. Although the overall lineup seems quite underwhelming so I suppose anything can happen. It'll be fun to watch some road racing at least!

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

People were joking about Evenepoel before, but I actually regret not picking him, seeing as he's apparently not unlikely to race the 2023 Vuelta. Does anyone really know what his ceiling is?

 

[Earns1985]

My reservation about Steinhauser is that when he was announced to join EF, they made a big deal about how he would continue to focus on his education in the following months, probably affecting his training volume and race calendar. Didn't seem like he was 100% comitted to becoming the best rider he could, which rarely bodes well for success in competitive sport and he kinda proved my observations right by having a season with basically 0 highlights apart from that one prologue in Romandie and he even seemed to go backward compared to his level from 2021. Not sure if he has the hunger to be a successful pro cyclist.

Steinhauser has discussed with Education first that he will finish his Educacion first and he did that in the end of last july 2022. 2023 will be his first season when he will concentrate himself 100% on cycling. So I think he will definetly have a better season than 2022, so I picked him!

 

[RedheadDane]

Steinhauser has discussed with Education first that he will finish his Educacion first and he did that in the end of last july 2022.

I see what you did there!

 

[SafeBet]

SIMMONS Quinn (243) – I’ve had him before and it was very frustrating but for some reason I keep coming back. I feel like he’s been knocking on the door of a big result for quite some time. Biggest challenge for him is probably understanding he’s much better at hills than cobbles.

For anybody interested Simmons was at the Bobby and Jens podcast and stated he will focus on the Ardennes this year. He might ride de Ronde if he's in super shape but that would be the only cobble classic for him.

 

[Salvarani]

For anybody interested Simmons was at the Bobby and Jens podcast and stated he will focus on the Ardennes this year. He might ride de Ronde if he's in super shape but that would be the only cobble classic for him.

Looking at some of his highlights so far in his career he has finished 6th in Bretagne, won Tour de Wallonie, 7th in Strade Bianche, won the mountains classification in Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour de Suisse.

Going for the Ardennes and hillier type of one-day races might not be a bad idea. Seems like it may him suit him better at the moment.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

People were joking about Evenepoel before, but I actually regret not picking him, seeing as he's apparently not unlikely to race the 2023 Vuelta. Does anyone really know what his ceiling is?

For him and Pogacar there is no real ceiling. They can win any race they enter and it wouldn't register as a shock so I guess they are somewhat limited by the number of race days that they do but that's it. I'm not so sure racing the Vuelta would do him any favors for his overall tally though. At that level, riding a GT isn't actually the most efficient use of race days unless he is the clear best rider at that particular GT. He can be that of course but there isn't a lot of margin for error even for him. We have seen guys in the past be unable to cope with the workload of two GT in a calendar year so I think it's fair to question if he can avoid fading towards the end of the Vuelta. Assuming he wants to mount a serious defence of his world championships, that means being in peak shape for a long while and any loss of form towards the end will only amplify any potential third week issues.