The 2024 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Earns1985]

Nys being terrible at time trials is such a bummer.

Yeah, that´s true. If Nys would also gain GC points, he could be a real game changer.
At least Poland also offers green jersey points in addition to the stage points..

 

[Squire]

Nys being terrible at time trials is such a bummer.

He's still looking like a great pick. Didn't expect him to win all sorts of punchy finishes for fun at this level.

As if shalgo's team wasn't good enough already, now Zambanini is starting to top 10 WT stage races!

 

[Earns1985]

He's still looking like a great pick. Didn't expect him to win all sorts of punchy finishes for fun at this level.

Of course, he is a fantastic pick and it makes a lot of fun following him right now, if you have him in your team!

But he could be still more valuable in this game, if he would get his wins not only in stage races, but also in one day races or if he would take GC in these stage races more seriously. (Exception had been Tour of Hungary of course). Stage wins are unfortunately a little underrated in this game.

 

[firefly3323]

For the Vuelta I've got;
Carapaz
Arensman
C-Rod
Mas
Quintana
Riccitello
Sheehan

Hoping for at least a podium and and 2 more in the top ten and maybe a stage or two?

 

[manafana]

I left Nys alone as expected he'd start season so late he would miss out on too many pts chances

 

[skidmark]

Update #30: Unique picks power DJ Sprtsch to victory

A few races last week made things interesting - racing in Burgos, San Sebastien, and Arctic Race of Norway were the highlights.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	DJ Sprtsch	575
2	oliveira	416
3	Hugo Koblet	403
4	Jakob747	394
5	armchairclimber	352

The week was led handily by longtime game participant DJ Sprtsch, powered by some very canny rare and unique picks. Topps among these were Kevin Vermaerke, scoring 198 on the week to move to 583 on the season at a cost of 400. Even better was another 86 points from unique pick Narvaez (803 on the year at 353 costs), and even more unique points from Fabio Christen (80 on the week, up to 234 at a cost of 98). Oh and non-unique pick Lennert Van Eetvelt (112 points, 10 teams) piled on more points for DJ Sprtsch. Second place went to oliveira who was a ways behind, but cracked 400 thanks to Van Eetvelt, Max Poole (115, 16), and an even better pick with the last name Christen in Jan (52 points for 36 teams, moving to 468 at a cost of 59). Game founder Hugo Koblet rounds out the podium this week thanks to Poole, Finn Fisher-Black (97, 15), Jan Christen and Pologne stage 1 points from this week for Thibau Nys (45, 28).

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	DJ Sprtsch	(+8)
1	armchairclimber	(+8)
3	Popchu	(+7)
3	oliveira	(+7)
5	Eric10	(+4)

DJ Sprtsch tops the rankings here as well, although has to share the top step with armchairclimber, who had Poole and a now-into-profit Julian Alaphilippe (132, 10). Popchu and oliveira split the third spot here, jumping up 7 spots each.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	Googolplex	294
2	Jakob747	257
3	Amethyst	242
4	shalgo	226
5	DJ Sprtsch	183

Googolplex continues to lead this ranking, although Jakob747 scores 26 points on the week to leapfrog Amethyst and move back into 2nd, within a weekly win of taking over the lead. DJ Sprtsch's 45 points for the weekly win vaults them into the top 5 as well.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	shalgo	13211
2	(-)	Earns1985	11595
3	(-)	adamski101	11501
4	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	11436
5	(+2)	HoudiniCycling	11407
6	(-1)	skidmark	11339
7	(-1)	MADRAZO	11258
8	(+2)	Squire	11126
9	(-1)	Nakazar	11105
10	(+1)	Gotland	11025

The top of the rankings is solid as ever, and shalgo in fact gains over 100 points on Earns1985 for those keeping track at home. Gotland scores just enough to re-enter the top 10 and edge out Total Package by 9 points.

This week sees the Tours of Poland, Limousin and Denmark run their course, and will you look at that, the final Grand Tour of the year gets underway this weekend, so the first few stages will be counted in the next update.

spreadsheet link

 

[ingsve]

Here are my riders for the Vuelta:

Daniel Martinez
Alexandr Vlasov
Richard Carapaz
Darren Rafferty
Thymwn Arensman
Cian Uijtebroecks
Nairo Quintana
William Junior Lecerf
Isaac Del Toro

Not the best team in terms of differentials. I'm missing some popular picks such as Mas, Rodroguez and Riccitello so hopefulle some of the points scored by them can be offset by Vlasov who is my nearly unique pick. Lecerf is also a little less owned and perhaps he can get some stage points perhaps. I'm not expecting him to be there for GC at all really.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I don't have a single Equipo Kern rider for the Vuelta, which proves that I have failed as a manager.

Jon Aberasturi
Mikel Bizkarra
Ion Izagirre
Txomin Juaristi
Mikel Landa
Jonathan Lastra
Oier Lazkano
Gotzon Martín
Óscar Rodríguez

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

I won a week!

Here are my nine riders for La Vuelta
Thymen ARENSMAN
Richard CARAPAZ
Tao GEOGEGHAN HART
Quinten HERMANS
Daniel Felipe MARTÍNEZ
Jhonatan NARVÁEZ
Darren RAFFERTY
Cian UIJTDEBROEKS
Lennert VAN EETVELT

Hopefully NARVÁEZ and HERMANS will rip it all apart on the breakway stages.
I'm afraid of having any hopes for Tao. So much in fact, that i completely forgot to add him in my team in the first version of this post.

Also...Selecting a random African rider instead of Del Toro looks really stupid now...

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Vuelta team
Carlos Rodriguez
Cian Uijtdebroeks
Richard Carapaz
Antonio Tiberi
Thymen Arensman
Daniel Martinez
Riley Sheehan
Isaac Del Toro
Luca Vergallito
Nairo Quintana
Darren Rafferty
It's now or never to move up the rankings. Spoiler: it's going to be never.

 

[RedheadDane]

Cort into profit.

 

[Squire]

Feels good to be somewhat back in the podium fight after gaining 200 points on most top 10 rivals this week. And I have another okay week coming up with Sheffield and Onley in Poland.

Don't think it's the start of a late season comeback like I had to almost win the game in 2021 though. A lot of people have better Vuelta teams than I have. Here's mine:

DEL TORO Isaac
ARENSMAN Thymen
LECERF William Junior
MARTÍNEZ Daniel Felipe
VERGALLITO Luca
CARAPAZ Richard
RAFFERTY Darren
QUINTANA Nairo
TIBERI Antonio
POOLE Max

And... woho! Pidcock is apparently doing Bretagne, Tour of Britain and the Canadian races according to PCS. Maybe he can reach 1000 points for the season then. Hopefully that doesn't mean he'll stay in North America to do MTB instead of the Zürich worlds ...

 

[RedheadDane]

Hey everyone. Feast your eyes on this beautiful sight:

93	RedheadDane
94	Basque Street Boys

It's not gonna last long, I know... as soon as the Vuelta starts in earnest, he's gonna pull away from me again.

 

[escartin]

it seems we have another name change. Antonio Pedrero Lopez has had the Lopez dropped from his name so he scored -25 last week instead of +5. could you update his name.

to see if I can myself back into the top 20, I have the following for the Vuelta:

DEL TORO Isaac
ARENSMAN Thymen
ANSEVENANT Mauri
MARTÍNEZ Daniel Felipe
CARAPAZ Richard
MAS Enric

hopefully that is quality over quantity. the optimistic result was would half the top 10 and some stage victories.

 

[Anderis]

Hey everyone. Feast your eyes on this beautiful sight:

93	RedheadDane
94	Basque Street Boys

It's not gonna last long, I know... as soon as the Vuelta starts in earnest, he's gonna pull away from me again.

It's kinda fascinating how you two ended up in such a close fight this year with your team building strategies.

 

[RedheadDane]

It's kinda fascinating how you two ended up in such a close fight this year with your team building strategies.

The Epic Battle between Denmark and the Basque Country + Extras.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Hey everyone. Feast your eyes on this beautiful sight:

93	RedheadDane
94	Basque Street Boys

It's not gonna last long, I know... as soon as the Vuelta starts in earnest, he's gonna pull away from me again.

I'm not so sure. You're gonna get a good deal of points from the Tour of Denmark, Honoré looks to be on his way to a decent result in Poland, and while your Vuelta team is smaller, it's not really much worse than mine.

 

[RedheadDane]

I'm not so sure. You're gonna get a good deal of points from the Tour of Denmark, Honoré looks to be on his way to a decent result in Poland, and while your Vuelta team is smaller, it's not really much worse than mine.

Last time I overtook you, you claimed you weren't going to overtake me again. And look what happened...

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Last time I overtook you, you claimed you weren't going to overtake me again. And look what happened...

I just don't see it happening. However I'm way more worried about not making an overall profit than finishing in last place.

 

[RedheadDane]

I just don't see it happening. However I'm way more worried about not making an overall profit than finishing in last place.

I don't trust you. Your "Fake Basque", Van Niekerk, is probably gonna go win Tour Poitou, or something like that...

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I don't trust you. Your "Fake Basque", Van Niekerk, is probably gonna go win Tour Poitou, or something like that...

Let's hope so.

 

[RedheadDane]

My riders for the coming week, but this time, I'm gonna do things a little differently.

S. Andersen
Andresen
Asgreen
Bendixen
Bévort
Changizi
Foldager
Hansen
Honoré
Hundahl
Jensen
Kron
Levy
M. Nielsen
S. Nielsen
C. Pedersen
Salby
Wallin
Wandahl
Wilsly

And Lund into profit!

Nice little buffer I got myself there!

 

[Earns1985]

So with the two winning machines of this week (Nys and Lund) I could actually turn the tide. Unfortunatly both decided to not battle for the GC of their race, so in the end a guy, who finished 7th in the Tour of Pologne (Zambanini, 90 points) scored more more points than Lund, who won three times during the week (79 points). A bit of a bummer, but that´s the game!

As ReadheadDane already noted, Lund is into profit now, which means that I only have 9 riders left, who still have to go. Unfortunatly with the news of L. Hayter I also have a case now, which makes it impossible for me to get every rider into profit. So next year, another opportunity for that!

 

[RedheadDane]

Well, I have several riders who won't be able to go into profit. Among them my top-scorer, and most expensive pick, Skjelmose.
2023 points: 1723.
2024 points so far: 944.
That's a 779 points difference.
He'd basically need to win the Vuelta and Il Lombardia for that to happen, and we all know he won't.

 

[shalgo]

Vingegaard and Van Aert are both doing their parts this week to make themselves less obvious picks for next season.