The 2023 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[EvansIsTheBest]

With the good weeks from Hermans, Conti and Tarling my 5 least expensive picks will end up with a combined score of 1217 points for a 41 points price tag so that's nice. Back to my tradition of picking the right bargains and messing up the expensive picks (looking at you Piccolo).

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Piccolo

Someone with a really extensive spreadsheet would be able to confirm/deny this, but he might well be the worst pick ever among those with 20+ picks. Especially impressive because there's no injury or illness that we know of that caused his season to be as abysmal as it turned out to be.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Someone with a really extensive spreadsheet would be able to confirm/deny this, but he might well be the worst pick ever among those with 20+ picks. Especially impressive because there's no injury or illness that we know of that caused his season to be as abysmal as it turned out to be.

Nothing will ever top Ricco leaving his own blood in his fridge for a month before injecting it back into his body sending himself in the hospital and getting suspended for years as a result.

But Piccolo is pretty unique in just flat out sucking with no rational explanation (didn't even switch teams so can't blame an unfamiliar environment and far too young to pin it on an age related decline),

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Nothing will ever top Ricco leaving his own blood in his fridge for a month before injecting it back into his body sending himself in the hospital and getting suspended for years as a result.

But Piccolo is pretty unique in just flat out sucking with no rational explanation (didn't even switch teams so can't blame an unfamiliar environment and far too young to pin it on an age related decline),

I always forget that that was game-relevant - it feels longer ago than it actually was and I'd also forgotten the doper rule didn't exist the first year this game ran. Good thing there are still a few active veterans of the game like you on here, this subforum wouldn't be the same otherwise.

Between the pair of them and Moser, Italy has had an above-average number of memorable duds in this game...

 

[Armchair cyclist]

He left it late, but Lucas Hamilton finally broke even. Still leaves me with 5 riders who have failed to recover their cost.

 

[tobydawq]

Quick on the start line for the Hong Kong race! Does anybody know the parcours? If it's flat, it should be winnable for him as the only other professional team on the start line are Team Corratec...

 

[SafeBet]

I always forget that that was game-relevant - it feels longer ago than it actually was and I'd also forgotten the doper rule didn't exist the first year this game ran. Good thing there are still a few active veterans of the game like you on here, this subforum wouldn't be the same otherwise.

Between the pair of them and Moser, Italy has had an above-average number of memorable duds in this game...

The only rational exaplanation is they all were riders I was 100% sure would become super stars.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Quick on the start line for the Hong Kong race! Does anybody know the parcours? If it's flat, it should be winnable for him as the only other professional team on the start line are Team Corratec...

Slightly shortened version of the circuit used in 2017, it's a glorified crit. It's pretty flat, but the peloton got shredded regardless that year on account of the weak field.

Map link (PDF)

 

[tobydawq]

Can't find a proper map anywhere, but it's in the same (flattish) part of the city as in 2017, only with the lap length cut from 5.15k to 4.3k. However, the peloton got completely shredded anyway in 2017 on account of the weak field, so I wouldn't bank on Quick getting to do a bunch sprint here.

I have to!

 

[armchairclimber]

Spreadsheet worked fine this time, thanks @skidmark

I reflect upon a mixed season which was defined by deciding not to pick Roglic ....

That was not a bad strategy of itself, as I reasoned that some riders costing low hundreds might return a better collective score .... and Hirschi was one of those that I picked.

Unfortunately, I also picked Piccolo, Sam Bennett, Padun and flippin Sagan (I couldn't believe that a healthy Sagan would do so much worse than last year).

Happy with some other good picks, like Martinez, Tarling, Vader, Thijssen (apart from the racist thing), Heiduk and a few others. Just bummed that I crammed so many duds into an otherwise good team.

Roll on next year.

 

[tobydawq]

Spreadsheet worked fine this time, thanks @skidmark

I reflect upon a mixed season which was defined by deciding not to pick Roglic ....

That was not a bad strategy of itself, as I reasoned that some riders costing low hundreds might return a better collective score .... and Hirschi was one of those that I picked.

Unfortunately, I also picked Piccolo, Sam Bennett, Padun and flippin Sagan (I couldn't believe that a healthy Sagan would do so much worse than last year).

Happy with some other good picks, like Martinez, Tarling, Vader, Thijssen (apart from the racist thing), Heiduk and a few others. Just bummed that I crammed so many duds into an otherwise good team.

Roll on next year.

Just the fact that Hirschi scored a lot of points doesn't mean that leaving Roglic out was not a bad strategy. Roglic was not so expensive that it made it impossible to combine him with riders in the range you mention.

 

[Panda Claws]

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)

Samuel Welsford points (636) are not being counted because of his name change in CQ.

 

[armchairclimber]

Just the fact that Hirschi scored a lot of points doesn't mean that leaving Roglic out was not a bad strategy. Roglic was not so expensive that it made it impossible to combine him with riders in the range you mention.

Indeed, but it gave me the option to have more of them ... I just picked bad ones. But I concede, leaving Roglic out wasn't smart in retrospect (though he could so easily have come off his bike and injured his shoulder again ... it was risky).

 

[laarsland]

Nothing will ever top Ricco leaving his own blood in his fridge for a month before injecting it back into his body sending himself in the hospital and getting suspended for years as a result.

But Piccolo is pretty unique in just flat out sucking with no rational explanation (didn't even switch teams so can't blame an unfamiliar environment and far too young to pin it on an age related decline),

Lower mid-range picks from EF have been pretty bad this year - Piccolo, Bissegger, Honore

Happy to see unique pick Badilatti going from decent to good with his points from Turkey.

Level is really high - only pick I can really fault is Tratnik and I'm still well outside the top 10.

 

[repre]

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.

Chris Hamilton botched in the file. 0 points from 2022 and 0 popularity and i don't know if his points counts to my total. He is my unique rider, so please check him out

 

[repre]

Spreadsheet worked fine this time, thanks @skidmark

I reflect upon a mixed season which was defined by deciding not to pick Roglic ....

That was not a bad strategy of itself, as I reasoned that some riders costing low hundreds might return a better collective score .... and Hirschi was one of those that I picked.

Unfortunately, I also picked Piccolo, Sam Bennett, Padun and flippin Sagan (I couldn't believe that a healthy Sagan would do so much worse than last year).

Happy with some other good picks, like Martinez, Tarling, Vader, Thijssen (apart from the racist thing), Heiduk and a few others. Just bummed that I crammed so many duds into an otherwise good team.

Roll on next year.

Sagan was done the moment he joined TEN. Chose money over cycling and that told everything about him, he is just not the professional other riders are and his talent wasn't extraordinary anymore. Was his huge fan, but writing was on the wall - he didn't care about us and cycling for a long time. His attitude in his last TDF was bad too

 

[tobydawq]

Quick 4th in Hong Kong!

Never have I been following a "battle" for positions 4-10 in such an insignificant race that intently. If my calculations are correct, that should give me a podium place. Can't complain about that.

 

[Salvarani]

Sagan was done the moment he joined TEN. Chose money over cycling and that told everything about him, he is just not the professional other riders are and his talent wasn't extraordinary anymore. Was his huge fan, but writing was on the wall - he didn't care about us and cycling for a long time. His attitude in his last TDF was bad too

Damn, wouldnt wanna get on your bad side...

Forget about his crash in the TDF, divorce and other problems in his personal life that could have affected his performance in the twilight of his career. He just chose the money and said screw it.

 

[rote_laterne2]

Late highlight my unique pick Pöstlberger winning the extremly prestigeous Hong Kong race.

 

[skidmark]

Chris Hamilton botched in the file. 0 points from 2022 and 0 popularity and i don't know if his points counts to my total. He is my unique rider, so please check him out

Yes the names I changed a couple of weeks ago count properly; I just hadn't changed them in the 2022 page yet so the stats will be off for popularity and comparing year-on-year, but it's correct in the current year and will be fully corrected in the final update I'm working on for later today.

Thanks to the person who pointed out Welsford's change too, I had missed that one and it'll be corrected in the final update too.

 

[skidmark]

Update #42: It's Vader Time

Well friends, we are 42 weeks into the CQ year, and the game has come to an end. The top spot has been in little doubt for quite some time now, but there was some excitement lower down. And there was one more week up for grabs, as the season wound down with the Tour of Guangxi and a 1.1 race in Hong Kong that was very thinly attended by top pros. Let's see how the end of the season shook out.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	Berflamand	411
2	adamski101	351
3	Josedin	346
4	LosBrolin	344
5	18-Valve. (pithy)	333

Not a ton of points on offer this week, but a few teams managed to have relatively impressive scores regardless. Top spot goes to Berflamand, who of course was one of the 13 teams with Milan Vader (199 points) in his breakout week as a road rider. As well, Berflamand was one of 3 teams with Ethan Hayter (132 points), who had a good end to a rough year. Oscar Onley (46, 43) and Jonathan Milan (24, 38) also put Berflamand over the top. adamski101 grabs the runner up spot this week with Vader/Onley/Milan, as well as a likely career ending performance from Zdenek Stybar (45, 11). Josedin lands on the last podium spot by 2 points with Vader/Hayter and little else.

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	LosBrolin	(+8)
2	Berflamand	(+7)
3	18-Valve. (pithy)	(+6)
3	Rufs	(+6)
5	armchairclimber	(+5)
5	adamski101	(+5)
5	SafeBet	(+5)
5	Lortnoc	(+5)

Finishing 4th on the Top Scorers ranking, LosBrolin wins the final High Movers ranking, moving up 8 spots in the overall standings, thanks unsurprisingly to Vader, as well as Onley and Blake Quick (41, 19). Berflamand just misses the double win on the week, whereas 18-Valve and Rufs tie for the final podium spot.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	Blues in the bottle	334.5
2	Senderos	298
3	zaka_fan	270.3
4	HoudiniCycling	265
5	Sneekes	226

No surprises here. Blues in the bottle brings home the green jersey, scoring a final 4 points for 14th on the week, just to show off. Senderos and zaka fan comprise the final podium in this ranking, with no one higher than 8th getting points aside from the leader.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	Blues in the bottle	16336
2	(-)	Senderos	15443
3	(+2)	tobydawq	15014
4	(-1)	repre	15011
5	(-1)	HoudiniCycling	14859
6	(-)	Sneekes	14746
7	(-)	Riverside	14723
8	(-)	waku_waku	14655
9	(+1)	shalgo	14630
10	(+1)	Kazistuta	14628

Blues in the bottle finishes in style, gaining 129 points on Senderos to end with a winning total of 893 points. And we've been talking about it as a likelihood/inevitability for quite some time, so it may not be surprising, but we can emphasize the impressiveness of this season by officially crowning Blues in the bottle as the winner of the CQ Manager Game 2023! Congratulations to a team that has been playing for many years, finally breaking through this year. An amazing, dominant season was fuelled by the popular Roglic (2744 points at 1240 cost), but the difference was made with savvy rarer picks like Matteo Jorgenson (936 at 337 cost), Sepp Kuss (1263 at 246 cost) and Ben Healy (1088 at 167 cost). BITB only had 3 riders not into profit, with Caleb Ewan at -34, Fernando Gaviria at -18, and Leo Hayter at -1. Most other riders returned a modest but solid amount, which all rounds up to a decisive win.

Further down, Senderos has had second place locked up for some time, but some nail-biting excitement decided third place, with tobydawq grabbing it by a mere 3 points, thanks to Blake Quick's placing in the final race of the year in Hong Kong. Congratulations to our podium!

Further down, there is not much movement, but Kazistuta just manages to slot into the final top 10, knocking will10 out by 28 points.

Next week - there's nothing! No pro races until 2024! I hope to do some year-in-review type posts for your/my amusement, but that will depend on if I have the time. Aside from that, the 2024 thread should go up by mid-December, so get working on those teams if you haven't already! Next year is a blank slate - thanks to all who played this year and hope to see you again.

spreadsheet link

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Massive thanks to skidmark for organizing the game again this year. Congrats to Blues in the Bottle for making all of us look bad. On my side, I'm glad to just sneak into the top 20 considering how slow my team started.

A few random notes about this season

- There are 11 people that have played the game every year. Blues in the Bottle is the 4th from that group to win an edition of the game and the third in a row (after skidmark 2012 and 2016, Object 2021, EvansIsTheBest 2022).
- This was a low scoring year. BITB's team is the 43rd best total ever (out of over 1500 teams). Senderos in 96th is the only other 2023 team to crack the top 100.
- BITB is the second team to win both the overall and the green jersey after my team in 2022.
- BITB is the first person to lead after each of the GTs.
- Senderos finished 2nd which is the highest place for a rookie since 2014 (Cykeltyven).
- There have been 14 weeks of 2000 points of more since the inception of the game but none in 2023.
- Adding up the scores across all seasons, skidmark is 29 points shy of 180 000 points. Madrazo is second more than 7 000 points back. Hugo Koblet didn't participate this year so Kazistuta is now 3rd all time about a thousand points behind Madrazo.

I have to start working on my team now but I'll be back later during the offseason with a comparison of Blues' team with other winners to see where they rank all time.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Barely crested 13000 points and held on to my top-40, small mercies I guess. Hopefully on to a better 2024.

Congratulations to Blues in the bottle on a very dominant victory. Only 56 points off from having every rider into profit is an incredible achievement in any season, let alone a low-scoring one. And thanks, as ever, to skidmark for the once again excellent organisational work.

 

[Kazistuta]

Great to see that getting a random 3rd and 4th place in the last competition relevant race (that I didn't even know of) secured me a top10, despite once again failing with my beliefs in Sagan. Actually I think he's the only real regret for me this year, as most of my riders exceeded expectations (or tried their best).
Picking guys like Healy and Kuss weren't really on my agenda, and none of their pickers should've realistically have expected the return they got. Also the somewhat surprising point hauls by A Yates and Hirschi might give us all an incentive to look at other potential "easy schedule UAE riders" next year. After all Formolo left.

And also a big thanks to Skidmark for hosting this game yet again, and congratulations to BiTB for setting up a killer team this year.

 

[RedheadDane]

Well, I managed to get top-90. Not too bad, considering I have no clue wtf I'm doing, and mostly picked with my heart, rather than my head.