The 2024 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[RedheadDane]

Sander Hansen into profit!
Whop-Whooo.

(I mean, he was literally on 0 points before, so just one point would have put him into profit.)

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Pretty disastrous couple weeks between Uijtedebroeks quitting the Giro and Nys disappearing from the GC in Norway while Cosnefroy and Laurance are gobbling up points. Shalgo is going to be up by like 2k after the next update lol.

 

[Squire]

Shalgo is going to be up by like 2k after the next update lol.

We should test shalgo for PEDs. This is extra-terrestrial domination.

Probably gonna be a mediocre week for me. Some decent GC points in the Giro, but none of the wannabe Hirchis from the smaller stage races. At least rare pick Van Uden looks to be gearing up well for what is hopefully gonna be a 1.1-filled summer after he has had a very meh year so far.

 

[RedheadDane]

My riders for next week.

Bendixen
Blume Levy
Charmig
Cort
Gregaard
Jørgensen
Kron
Larsen
Nielsen
Pedersen
Sander Hansen
Stokbro
Søjberg
Wallin
Würtz

 

[Anderis]

Damn, I'm the only player inside top25 overall who scored fewer than 1000 points last week...

 

[Earns1985]

Damn, I'm the only player inside top25 overall who scored fewer than 1000 points last week...

Yeah, for me also five places down and now again outside of the Top10.
Not having Tiberi, Laurence and Cosnefroy main reason for that, while my hopeful rarer point scorer (Nys) only received 16 GC points from Norway in the end.

Btw: Pogacar end of May now already with 2594 points with the tour, Worlds and Olympics still to come...
If the best Pogacar team (googolplex) wouldn´t have missed del Toro, his team would be in the Top10 overall right now.

 

[RedheadDane]

I was just happily surprised to learn that riders earn 15 points for finishing a GT, rather than the usual 5 points for finishing a WT race. So, that was a lot more points that I expected!
Made even better by Valgren sneaking into the top-40.

 

[tobydawq]

I was just happily surprised to learn that riders earn 15 points for finishing a GT, rather than the usual 5 points for finishing a WT race. So, that was a lot more points that I expected!
Made even better by Valgren sneaking into the top-40.

Yeah, what a haul you got from that...

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeah, what a haul you got from that...

TBF... Cort was actually my top-scorer this week.

And now I just needs my Hagens Boys to score, and all my riders will have scored (though, not all of them into profit.)

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Update #19: Googolplex scores a googolplex of points

With the GC of the Giro and to a lesser extent the Tour of Norway, Tour of Estonia and the Boucles de la Mayenne, this update is traditionally one of the biggest of the year and it did not disappoint.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank​	Team​	Points​
1​	Googolplex​	1807​
2​	the asian​	1798​
3​	Nakazar​	1788​
4​	hfgon1​	1633​
5​	Gotland​	1632​

Googolplex continues the ride the wave known as Tadej Pogacar. Having Martinez, Cosnefroy and Piganzoli as well pushed their team above the 1800 points mark. The asian nearly matches that output with a more spread out effort (Martinez, Arensman, Tiberi, Cosnefroy, Laurance, Watson, Quintana, Van Uden, Brenner...). Nakazar completes the podium with noteworthy results from Hirt (scoring more than three times his price in a single week) and Milan (with an absolute star ride on the last day of the Giro). Gotland and hfgon1 also crack the 1600 points barrier.

This Week's High Movers

Rank​	Team​	Up/down​
1​	Googolplex​	(+22)​
2​	the asian​	(+20)​
3​	hfgon1​	(+18)​
4​	Gotland​	(+13)​
5​	Boris98​	(+12)​

Googolplex and the asian repeat as the top 2 here with monster 20+ place jumps. Hfgon1, Gotland and Boris98 gain dougle digit places.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank​	Team​	Points​
1​	Googolplex​	229​
2​	shalgo​	196​
3​	Jakob747​	180​
4​	skidmark​	120​
5​	Boris98​	119​
5​	Shakes​	119​

Googolplex stretches the lead with the weekly win but shalgo with 7th on the week stays within striking distance. Boris98 scores just enough to tie for 5th.

Top 10 Overall

Rank​	Team​	Points​
1​	shalgo​	10031​
2​	EvansIsTheBest​	8592​
3​	skidmark​	8569​
4​	Nakazar​	8504​
5​	adamski101​	8487​
6​	Squire​	8379​
7​	Total Package​	8278​
8​	MADRAZO​	8232​
9​	Gotland​	8223​
10​	JPettersen​	8147​

Shalgo cracks 10k in the same week that the next best teams finally break even. With another 250 points padding their lead, there is a bigger gap between first and second than second and 40th ! In the competition between mere mortals, Nakazar, Total Package and Gotland rocket into the top 10. Salvarani, Anderis and Earns1985 all slip out but will have a chance to claw their way back with the Tour de France just around the corner.

spreadsheet link

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

So shalgo is killing everybody this year but how does it stack up historically with other seasons ? Improbably it actually looks even better. Despite what it might feel like, the other top teams are actually having good seasons compared to the average year. For instance, Blues in the Bottle was well clear of everyone else at that point last year but would only rank 6th this year with the same total.

Shalgo's post-Giro score: 10031
Previous record for most post-Giro score: 9410 (bminchow, 2020)
Previous record for most post-Giro score, non pandemic year: 9338 (TeoSheva, 2012)
Skidmark 2012 (best team ever) post-Giro score: 8976

In four instances (out of 13) the leading teams had a lower total after the Tour than shalgo after the Giro.

Shalgo already has more points than the 2020 winning team (obviously not a full season that year but still).

Just absurd.

 

[Squire]

So shalgo is killing everybody this year but how does it stack up historically with other seasons ? Improbably it actually looks even better. Despite what it might feel like, the other top teams are actually having good seasons compared to the average year. For instance, Blues in the Bottle was well clear of everyone else at that point last year but would only rank 6th this year with the same total.

Shalgo's post-Giro score: 10031
Previous record for most post-Giro score: 9410 (bminchow, 2020)
Previous record for most post-Giro score, non pandemic year: 9338 (TeoSheva, 2012)
Skidmark 2012 (best team ever) post-Giro score: 8976

In four instances (out of 13) the leading teams had a lower total after the Tour than shalgo after the Giro.

Shalgo already has more points than the 2020 winning team (obviously not a full season that year but still).

Just absurd.

I'm liking these semi-regular comparisons!

I see no reason for shalgo not to continue their domination. None of the competitors have a significant enough number of different picks that could pop off and help catch up. It's at least as likely that Cosnefroy, Bennett, Laurance, Girmay etc. continues to mop up easy points. And Ayuso probably continues to mop up difficult points.

As for highest score of all time, I'm not sure. From when I was compiling some numbers way back, I seem to remember that 2012 skidmark had some ridiculous late summer/early autumn weeks, with consecutive weekly wins with big scores. But the spring, with Boonen going nuts, was a big contribution for the 2012 numbers of course, and if shalgo is currently outscoring that by an insane margin, I guess it's possible.

 

[Anderis]

And what i find crazy, is that I share 9 out of top10 shalgo's picks.
Cosnefroy is making such a huge difference.

Morgado and Capiot are 2 popular picks that are doing well and I don't have them.

 

[Earns1985]

Girmay into profit!!

 

[Devil's Elbow]

16th to 44th over the course of the Giro and I don't have Girmay either. This is my worst ever month in the game by a country mile. At least rare pick Albanese went into profit today too...

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I'm liking these semi-regular comparisons!

I see no reason for shalgo not to continue their domination. None of the competitors have a significant enough number of different picks that could pop off and help catch up. It's at least as likely that Cosnefroy, Bennett, Laurance, Girmay etc. continues to mop up easy points. And Ayuso probably continues to mop up difficult points.

As for highest score of all time, I'm not sure. From when I was compiling some numbers way back, I seem to remember that 2012 skidmark had some ridiculous late summer/early autumn weeks, with consecutive weekly wins with big scores. But the spring, with Boonen going nuts, was a big contribution for the 2012 numbers of course, and if shalgo is currently outscoring that by an insane margin, I guess it's possible.

Yeah there's nothing to suggest shalgo's team is going to slow down. In fact, if anything, their team is just gathering more momemtum (another 150+ points with Girmay, Riccitello and Ryan today). Still when the bar is matching the pace of the best team ever, the most likely outcome is that shalgo comes back to earth at some point.

I remember that late season run skidmark went on in 2012 with multiple weekly wins. I was actually leading the competition after the Tour and ended up more than 2000 points back by the time the Vuelta was over. That was super impressive.

Outside of the pandemic aided 2021 teams, nobody has been a real threat to skidmark 2012 until now. My 2022 team is the only non-2021 team to finish within 1700 points of skidmark 2012 and even then it wasn't even that close (700 points behind) and it was also fueled by a crazy late season Remco scoring binge so it was never like I was on pace to approach that milestone. It's pretty cool that we have an actual record chase to track no matter where shalgo's team ends up, even if being in second place, I would have prefered something slightly easier to chase down than arguably the greatest team ever.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

205 points today. I like it.
But the TdF will be a dry three weeks for me I guess.

 

[the asian]

Really pleased with a decent showing from my team and being mentioned in the update after a long time!

With Wout Van Aert hopefully starting to rack up some points, it will all be upwards from here !

 

[Armchair cyclist]

I was just happily surprised to learn that riders earn 15 points for finishing a GT, rather than the usual 5 points for finishing a WT race. So, that was a lot more points that I expected!
Made even better by Valgren sneaking into the top-40.

Where did you think most of your GT CQ game totals came from?

 

[manafana]

Colombo opting out of road racing was a wasted pick for me especially when I had 100pts + to spend instead of him

My biggest regret is why I went Hollyman over Blackmore, I also left Nys out as he'd miss whole spring

 

[escartin]

good day with wins for Lenny and Girmay plus 2 others in the top 10 in France.

 

[RedheadDane]

Really pleased with a decent showing from my team and being mentioned in the update after a long time!

With Wout Van Aert hopefully starting to rack up some points, it will all be upwards from here !

Have you considered making a team of only Asians?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Have you considered making a team of only Asians?

Then he would still be able to pick Van Aert.

 

[Earns1985]

"Thomas Gloag recovery has come to an end and he has already been training for a few weeks at full capacity. However, no one wants to force his return and risk further problems, so caution will dictate the precise timing to ensure that his return to racing is as safe and efficient as possible."

Initially his return was scheduled for Tour de Suisse, but his team changed that now. Let´s see, if he can still grab up some points this season..

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Démare out yet again, this time with a fractured finger. He's going to be a worse pick than Piccolo was for me last year the way he's going...