The 2023 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[bminchow]

Okay then. Looks like i will have to settle for a top 5 in Green jersey (currently 6th).
Plapp wins Tour of Guangxi
Carr and Van Wilder go 1-2 in Japan
UIJTDEBROEKS finishes 2nd in Chrono des nations (what, like he can beat Remco?)
One of my guys starts in the Veneto Classic and wins (where is that start list?)

Then i have it in the bag and can save a bit of pride from this season. Really thought Vine would be the man in Turkey!

Enjoy the last week of racing everybody!

 

[Panda Claws]

Correlation between the popularity ranking and the actual ranking is ~.56.
37 out of the Top-50 teams were also among the 50 most popular ones.

This is actually less than picking Primoz Roglic (~.61), but correlation isn't a great metric here I think.
All top-20 teams had him after all.

Funny how Sagan was an awful pick but he still shows a positive correlation. This naturally means that only the smartest players picked him and just got unlucky

Although for fun here are some more results:

Positive correlation
Primoz Roglic (~.61)
Romain Gregoire (~.35)
Ilan Van Wilder ( ~.32)
Kasper Asgreen (~.31)
Ide Schelling (~.30)
Joshua Tarling (~.27)
Thomas Pidcock (~.24)
Egan Bernal (~.20)
Gianni Moscon (~.20)
Michal Kwiatkowski (~.11)
Peter Sagan (~.07)

Negative correlation
Mathieu Van der Poel (~.10)
Andrea Piccolo (~.23)
Biniam Girmay (~.23)
Joao Almeida (~.24)

Anyone who is better at maths than me is more than welcome to correct these results or provide other stats.

 

[search]

Anyway I can commit to giving a solid answer by end of October so people can plan their team confidently; if anyone has strong opinions about it share your thoughts here.

I see no reason at all not to make him available for his 2023 number, to be honest. In my opinion, Groenewegen is a different story, as his suspension directly affected two seasons, while in Quintana's case the correlation is only indirect.

I mean, he could have signed for Medellin and scored 500 points in 2023 - and then we wouldn't even talk about it?

 

[will-10]

The power of racing a schedule so points-friendly it would almost make Arnaud De Lie blush.

New strat - picking the 12th or 13th best rider on the massively top-heavy Jumbo or UAE roster, in the hopes they ride an almost non-WT calendar.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I see no reason at all not to make him available for his 2023 number, to be honest. In my opinion, Groenewegen is a different story, as his suspension directly affected two seasons, while in Quintana's case the correlation is only indirect.

I mean, he could have signed for Medellin and scored 500 points in 2023 - and then we wouldn't even talk about it?

I agree. If we start amending rider prices because of their career choices where do we stop ?

It must be the least impressive 1800+ season ever.

As a reference point, Armstrong only cracked 1800 points twice during his 1999-2005 period and Cancellara once in his entire career. Just this year, Hirschi outscored Van der Poel (by 2 points but still). Yeah it's a bit silly how much he scored compared to how good he was. But congrats on gaming the system I guess.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I agree. If we start amending rider prices because of their career choices where do we stop ?


As a reference point, Armstrong only cracked 1800 points twice during his 1999-2005 period and Cancellara once in his entire career. Just this year, Hirschi outscored Van der Poel (by 2 points but still). Yeah it's a bit silly how much he scored compared to how good he was. But congrats on gaming the system I guess.

There were also fewer points on offer in some races in the past. With 600 points for a Tour win instead of 500, Armstrong would also have cracked 1800 points in 2001 and 2004 (he might have received "too many" points in other races though).

 

[Anderis]

Positive correlation
Primoz Roglic (~.61)
Romain Gregoire (~.35)
Ilan Van Wilder ( ~.32)
Kasper Asgreen (~.31)
Ide Schelling (~.30)
Joshua Tarling (~.27)
Thomas Pidcock (~.24)
Egan Bernal (~.20)
Gianni Moscon (~.20)
Michal Kwiatkowski (~.11)

I have all of those except Roglic and Schelling, where is the positive correlation when it's supposed to be applied to me?

 

[ingsve]

Hey! Lovely to see an original intending to return, I hope it is a fruitful return.

We'll see how it goes. I haven't been following the sport as closely as I once did so there are likely a lot of info I'm missing when trying to evaluate riders. But the surge of new Norwegian riders making names for themselves have gotten me back into watching more races again.

 

[skidmark]

I don't seem to be able to access the spreadsheet for the newest update. I get a "xlsx files are supported, but something went wrong." message and this happens on 2 different devices. When I download the file, it needs a very long time to load when I open it, but there aren't any numerical values in there, just "###" in every cell instead.

Again? I saw the comments from last week and double checked my share settings and they were for 'view only' as always, which has always worked... I figured it was just a glitch. I'll have to dig deeper into whether dropbox changed share settings, or change platforms or something.

 

[search]

it's organized by the same people as Guangxi and teams were offered additional hotel nights in HK if they are willing to stay. So I guess the start list should actually be alright.

only Jayco picked up the opportunity in the end. It'll be them, Corratec and 12 conti teams at the Hong Kong Cyclothon.

 

[postmanhat]

Starting to work on next year's team earlier than normal has one major drawback, and that is how it makes it painful to watch the Italian autumn classics. Half my team has made themselves more expensive in the past week or two. And hardly anyone from my current team has scored any points to ease the pain.

Very much didn't enjoy Hagenes suddenly emerging from the Jumbo Pack in that respect . And Guangxi has the potential for a huge amount of Tippex.

 

[Panda Claws]

After a lot of struggling I finally found a good way to calculate the perfect team for 2023:

This has doubtless been done before but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Perhaps I'll do it for previous years too and see who got closest to perfection. Blues sits at 62,2% at the moment which is a passing grade way beyond my own 43,7%.

Cyclist	2022 Score	2023 Score
ROGLIC Primoz	1240​	2744​
YATES Adam	988​	1951​
HIRSCHI Marc	684​	1833​
GANNA Filippo	574​	1418​
KUSS Sepp	246​	1263​
HEALY Ben	167​	1097​
GALL Felix	238​	967​
VAN WILDER Ilan	232​	933​
JORGENSON Matteo	337​	866​
COSTA Rui Alberto Faria	236​	855​
VERMEERSCH Florian	275​	821​
GREGOIRE Romain	108​	784​
WAERENSKJOLD Søren	168​	766​
BAGIOLI Andrea	321​	765​
RUBIO REYES Einer Augusto	251​	754​
WELSFORD Samuel	199​	661​
LAZKANO LOPEZ Oier	148​	615​
PENHOËT Paul	132​	591​
MULUBRHAN Henok	181​	573​
MARTINEZ Lenny	121​	541​
DE KLEIJN Arvid	155​	526​
MOSCHETTI Matteo	89​	494​
GEE Derek	71​	475​
TARLING Joshua	0​	450​
VERMAERKE Kevin	78​	400​
ENGELHARDT Felix	43​	378​
BOL Cees	57​	353​
DVERSNES Fredrik	41​	346​
EEKHOFF Nils	40​	337​
ZANONCELLO Enrico	28​	322​
SOUPE Geoffrey	8​	292​
JACKSON George	12​	288​
PEDERSEN Casper Phillip	24​	275​
Total	7492​	25734​

If ROGLIC Primoz weren't a thing the max. would have been 25166 obtained by replacing him, BAGIOLI Andrea, JACKSON George and PEDERSEN Casper Philip with following riders:
- SKJELMOSE JENSEN Mattias: 944 -> 1723
- CICCONE Giulio: 507 -> 1054
- PITHIE Laurence: 86 -> 378
- DONOVAN Mark: 65 -> 349

I actually did this because I had the completely misguided idea that, given how everyone in the Top-20 had Roglic, it might not be possible to win without him but that was clearly not the case.

Random tidbits:
POGACAR Tadej would have had to score ~6700 points to make the squad.

Total Popularity Ranking of the team is 408 which means it is only beaten by RedHeadDane and the Basque Street Boys in having obscure picks. It contains 7 unique picks.

If only picks that were picked less than ten times can be taken then a total score of 23534 points remains possible with a popularity ranking of 84 and 11 unique picks.

If only unique picks were possible then the max. would be 18637 points with the most expensive picks being:
- PHILIPSEN Jasper: 1423 -> 1972
- YATES Adam: 988 -> 1951
- CICCONE Giulio: 507 -> 1054
- BENOOT Tiesj: 543 -> 992

Is there is anything random regarding this that you wonder about than I can calculate that too given that everything to do so is now set up anyway. Might try national teams for example:
- Belgium: 15476 points
- France: 13928 points.
- Italy: 13152 points
- Spain: 11699 points

And , why not, the team of '35 and older' manages 9527 points but suffers from a lack of eligible people as they actually have to take KRISTOFF Alexander who lost a LOT of points this year.

As for the most surprising bit. You can make a team that scored 16014 points with a budget of just 2625.

Edit: I couldn't help myself and also calculated the worst possible team (in terms of losing points) (scoring just 758 points while costing 7500).
It included known names like Nairo Quintana, Alexis Vuillermoz, Jan Hirt and Steven Kruijswijk.
(Made a slight mistake before though as I forgot to include riders that retired in 2022 but those could naturally only be part of the worst teams). If they were included Valverde would probably be the worst pick in the game.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I'm happy to have one rider on that list.

As things currently stand, I believe the best Basque-ish team, I could have had, would have cost me 27 points less and scored me an additional 735 points (it will be more after tomorrow if Ander Okamika holds on to at least 5 points in Turkey). That would however only have been enough to move me up two spots at best, and then I'd rather finish last.

 

[tobydawq]

My podium dreams were dashed with Søren Kragh crashing at Paris-Bourges. I could have done with him winning Paris-Tours which was looking quite realistic considering his recent form. Teunissen not placing there either was the final nail in the coffin.

For Guangxi, I have Milan, Schachmann, Leo Hayter, Vader, Dekker, Quick and Hellemose.

Numerically decent but miracles need to happen for that to turn into any more points than Milan in the sprints.

OKAY, there was a different Milan in the race and on my team!!

 

[tobydawq]

If Vader holds on and wins the race, I might get on the final podium after all, although overtaking repre who has Lutsenko will be very tight. Milan winning the points competition and placing in the final two stages and Tarling winning the Chrono des Nations should seal the deal, however.

 

[repre]

If Vader holds on and wins the race, I might get on the final podium after all, although overtaking repre who has Lutsenko will be very tight. Milan winning the points competition and placing in the final two stages and Tarling winning the Chrono des Nations should seal the deal, however.

No need to worry, im always losing in the end

 

[Squire]

Very much didn't enjoy Hagenes suddenly emerging from the Jumbo Pack in that respect . And Guangxi has the potential for a huge amount of Tippex.

Or you can do like Vader, who is taking his revenge for him being one of the last cuts from my team while also pricing himself out of next year's game.

 

[postmanhat]

Or you can do like Vader, who is taking his revenge for him being one of the last cuts from my team while also pricing himself out of next year's game.

Ditto! And the whitener brush currently hovering over three other riders after today's stage.

 

[skidmark]

Update #41: Never say Nevs: Weekly win comes at the end of the season

Aside from the remainder of the points from GC and the last few stages of the Tour of Guangxi, the CQ game season is over. And in the 41st week, we have some teams at the top that had a final chance to get the spotlight in this game.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	Nevs	550
2	Googolplex	505
3	triley36	434
4	laarsland	420
4	postmanhat	420

The season may have been rapidly winding down, with a good chunk of everyone's team done racing for the year, but a few teams had enough juice left from their riders to top 500 points. Winning the week is Nevs, getting their team's first weekly win this season with a strong 550 points. This is largely thanks to Alexey Lutsenko (170 points, 23 teams) for his win in Turkey, and Dorion Godon (130, 4) for his unexpected win in Veneto. Josh Tarling (80, 45) contributes too, capping off an astounding season by winning Chrono des Nations, while Ben Hermans (78, 39) and Tobias Johannessen (78, 20) put Nevs over the top.

Googolplex almost gets there but settles for second place, succeeding with the Lustenko/Godon/Tarling combo, but with Samuele Battistella (86, 2) instead of the two 78 pointers. triley36 ends up in third with 434 points, having the same combo as Nevs sans Godon.

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	JumboVismaFan	(+10)
2	Googolplex	(+7)
2	search	(+7)
4	Londonpat	(+6)
4	Nevs	(+6)

A team named JumboVismaFan presumably had a lot to cheer about this year, and here's one more present at the end of the year, topping the High Movers chart this week. JVF makes a late-season double digit move up the charts thanks to Lutsenko/Tarling/Hermans and Valerio Conti (70, 12). Googolplex is bridesmaid again here, sharing the second spot on the podium with search.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	Blues in the bottle	330.5
2	Senderos	298
3	zaka_fan	270.3
4	HoudiniCycling	265
5	Sneekes	226

The green jersey is all but sewn up - zaka fan leaps onto the podium with another 14 points this week, but that's the only scoring in the top 5 this week. With one week to go and no one in the top with the winner of Guangxi, these standings are fairly locked up.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	Blues in the bottle	16114
2	(-)	Senderos	15350
3	(-)	repre	14958
4	(-)	HoudiniCycling	14769
5	(+2)	tobydawq	14702
6	(-1)	Sneekes	14695
7	(-1)	Riverside	14658
8	(+1)	waku_waku	14611
9	(+1)	will10	14544
10	(-2)	shalgo	14542

Blues in the bottle finishes 94th on the week and loses over 100 points to both second and third places, but it's not nearly enough to be a threat to the overall. BITB's 750+ point lead is more than enough to rest easy with GC points from one race yet to come. A strong week could possibly see some shakeup below places 1 and 2, but the top is pretty set in stone. No movement in and out of the top 10 this week, and only two teams outside the top 10 are within 300 points of it.

Coming up - the end! GC points in Guangxi (which was not full of popular picks) and the thin possibility of points from the 1 WT and 1 ProTeam in the 1.1 Hong Kong race remain, and then we can formally crown the winner of this game and start (if we haven't already) looking to 2024.

spreadsheet link (which hopefully works this week)

 

[skidmark]

Please let me know if there are again issues with the link - I made sure in the settings that it was authorized to view for everyone with the link, but if it's just a dropbox issue I'll post on another file sharing site.

 

[vladimir]

Please let me know if there are again issues with the link - I made sure in the settings that it was authorized to view for everyone with the link, but if it's just a dropbox issue I'll post on another file sharing site.

Hi! I was able to view the file directly in Dropbox on this update, while on the previous ones I needed to download and open in Excel. So I guess it should be ok now

 

[RedheadDane]

I moved three spots up... yay...

 

[Devil's Elbow]

The link also worked for me this time.

I think I'm going to hang on to a top-40 in the end. Comfortably my weakest season in this game so far, post-Tour it's often felt as if Roglic and Van Wilder were the only riders on my team. Only Corbin Strong joining in the fun near the end halted my long slide from what had been a top-20 spot for a while.

 

[tobydawq]

No need to worry, im always losing in the end

It looks like I will not quite catch you (I think I will be 24 points short).

Unless Jayco bring Blake Quick to the Hongkong race and he manages a top 6 result.

Regarding the file @skidmark : It works in the browser but with a loooot of buffering.

 

[Berflamand]

Having both Vader and Hayter on my team I'm actually looking forward to the very last update of this year's game! At the very last some points from Hayter, about time.