The 2024 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[ingsve]

We as not Ayuso owner´s should write an open letter to the UAE management that we no longer accept Ayuso driving his own race instead of fully sacrificing himself for Pogacar.

Ya, it seems he is trying to be sneaky and avoiding doing the work that is assigned to him based on Yates comments. I think they should punish him by having him sit at the front of the peloton on all the flat stages to limit the gap to breakaways.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Looks like last place will be mine. First Izagirre drops out of the Tour, now Bilbao, and Landa will probably crash soon, while Lazkana and Aranburu will manage to get food poisoning from an egg sandwich on the second rest day.

 

[RedheadDane]

Looks like last place will be mine. First Izagirre drops out of the Tour, now Bilbao, and Landa will probably crash soon, while Lazkana and Aranburu will manage to get food poisoning from an egg sandwich on the second rest day.

I wouldn't be so sure about that...
I've got Cort left in the Tour, and (so far) no riders for upcoming races.

At least Salby is scoring points over in China...

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I wouldn't be so sure about that...
I've got Cort left in the Tour, and (so far) no riders for upcoming races.

At least Salby is scoring points over in China...

You still have a buffer of close to 200 points, and without Bilbao and Izagirre I doubt I will be closing that gap during the Tour. Skjelmose will also likely help you a lot during the rest of the season.

 

[Earns1985]

Girmay really seems to become a must pick in this game! Ackermann also scored nicely in the last couple of stages. Now nearly into profit!

And I´m moving up to 4th overall! Wow, never had been so high up in the ranking.

 

[Panda Claws]

Girmay really keeping me somewhat in this game. Aiming for that top 50% finish this year. Will likely need some performance from Mas in the Vuelta though given his disappointing Tour so far.

Edit instead of making another post:
Battle of the Spaniards:
Juan Ayuso: went from 1023 to 1144
Carlos Rodriguez: went from 810 to 712
Enric Mas: went from 736 to 396

 

[Squire]

Ayuso leaving the Tour is potentially quite bad for us non-Ayuso pickers. Vuelta podium with a bunch of stage points is worth much more than a mid top ten in the Tour plus fatigue for the rest of the season.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Girmay really seems to become a must pick in this game! Ackermann also scored nicely in the last couple of stages. Now nearly into profit!

And I´m moving up to 4th overall! Wow, never had been so high up in the ranking.

I'm going to need you to slow down now.

 

[Squire]

Oh no.

Ayuso leaving the Tour is potentially good for his backers. On the other hand, Pidcock leaving is disastrous for me. Really needed a good few stage results from him.

 

[ingsve]

Ayuso leaving the Tour is potentially quite bad for us non-Ayuso pickers. Vuelta podium with a bunch of stage points is worth much more than a mid top ten in the Tour plus fatigue for the rest of the season.

It also depends on how bad it actually is to have Covid just over a month before the race starts and potentially closer depending on how long it takes to get well from it. He might have that fatigue for the rest of the season just from Covid.

 

[Squire]

It also depends on how bad it actually is to have Covid just over a month before the race starts and potentially closer depending on how long it takes to get well from it. He might have that fatigue for the rest of the season just from Covid.

True, but I have the impression that most Covid cases in the peloton in recent times have had roughly the same consequences as a regular flu or something. At least on average.

I also think that the Vuelta field will not be too strong. Ayuso might well be the favourite for the win, along with Roglic maybe. A consolation is that this opens the door for some decent points for some of my riders, too, like Tiberi or Poole. But also for guys I don't have, like Rodriguez, Blobloblo and Mas.

 

[ingsve]

True, but I have the impression that most Covid cases in the peloton in recent times have had roughly the same consequences as a regular flu or something. At least on average.

I also think that the Vuelta field will not be too strong. Ayuso might well be the favourite for the win, along with Roglic maybe. A consolation is that this opens the door for some decent points for some of my riders, too, like Tiberi or Poole. But also for guys I don't have, like Rodriguez, Blobloblo and Mas.

Interestingly Ayuso is not on the PCS startlist for the Vuelta atm but Yates and Almeida are but I suppose that is subject to change. Was Ayuso not meant to ride the Vuelta originally perhaps?

 

[Squire]

Interestingly Ayuso is not on the PCS startlist for the Vuelta atm but Yates and Almeida are but I suppose that is subject to change. Was Ayuso not meant to ride the Vuelta originally perhaps?

Not supposed to do the Vuelta, as far as I know (he's even listed for the Candian races on PCS), but that will surely change now.

 

[ingsve]

Not supposed to do the Vuelta, as far as I know (he's even listed for the Candian races on PCS), but that will surely change now.

Question is if he goes in as captain if they had already planned for Yates and Almeida to ride. Would they add him just to be a domestique for them or do they change their whole intended plan.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Question is if he goes in as captain if they had already planned for Yates and Almeida to ride. Would they add him just to be a domestique for them or do they change their whole intended plan.

What the UAE DS says: "Juan will be on domestique duty and Adam will be our leader".
What Ayuso hears: "Juan will be [...] our leader".

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Signs of life in the smaller races today. Shame Pedrero didn't stay away in Ain to make it two and three for my team together with Oldani (surprised he survived this one) but there should be some GC points there tomorrow to go with Christen's win today. Tour final week should also be decent with Rodriguez, although the race overall has not been good for me with Girmay cleaning up in the sprints and Ayuso's DNF (Juan, please ride the Vuelta).

 

[tobydawq]

Girmay really seems to become a must pick in this game! Ackermann also scored nicely in the last couple of stages. Now nearly into profit!

And I´m moving up to 4th overall! Wow, never had been so high up in the ranking.

Well, luckily I have Jakobsen and Bennett for this sprint-heavy Tour.

 

[Earns1985]

I'm going to need you to slow down now.

I think until the end of the tour, I will be fine. Question is, if I can keep up in the autumn without having Ayuso and Uijtdebroeks. Really have to hope, that strong riders a la Roglic will also participate in the vuelta and Ayuso doesn´t score that much..

Not having J. Christen also starts to hurt a bit. Don´t know, why I exactly decided myself against him anymore in the end, but I think it was something like:
He mainly got his results in the U23 ranks from breakaway attacks in hilly races, he is not good enough in the high mountains to be a good GC rider. This didn´t become totally untrue, but what I didn´t consider is, that UAE also rides a lot of these hilly classics, which are perfect to score here for a rider like J. Christen.

 

[repre]

Question is if he goes in as captain if they had already planned for Yates and Almeida to ride. Would they add him just to be a domestique for them or do they change their whole intended plan.

lol no way Ayuso will be domestic. He didn't help Pogi why on earth he would help freaking Almeida who is not better than him, at his home tour.

 

[ingsve]

lol no way Ayuso will be domestic. He didn't help Pogi why on earth he would help freaking Almeida who is not better than him, at his home tour.

Well, if there are promises made to Almeida and Yates to be leads for the Vuelta then that would be the option if he wanted to race it unless there are no set plans or they decide to screw over Yates and Almeida in favor of him.

Then again Ayuso might just end up sticking with it original program for all we know.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Really don't think it matters who starts as the GC leader for UAE at the Vuelta. TT, two relatively flat stages, then immediately onto the hellslopes on the first MTF where the legs will tell everything independent of who's riding on the front. If Ayuso were to start, pace the steep section and drop at least one of Yates and Almeida there, no way he's a domestique after that.

 

[Earns1985]

Interesting provisional startlists for the Tour de Wallonie (Cosnefroy, Nys, Teuns) and the Czech Tour (Schachmann, Lamperti, Staune-Mittet, Gloag)

Edit: Schachmann is also scheduled for the Olympic TT, so the provisional startlist for the Czech Tour has to be taken with a lot of caution.

 

[skidmark]

Update #26: Pogi points shake up Green Jersey competition

With the Tour as the main attraction this week, it makes sense that those teams who chose the double stage winner and all week leader would be on top of things. Let's see how it shook out!

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	Amethyst	613
2	Googolplex	487
3	Object	438
4	HoudiniCycling	418
5	NorthAmericanScum	397

Amethyst breaks Yellow Knight's two week reign at the top, winning convincingly by over 120 points. And - spoiler alert - their team might be well set up next week too. Their team's selection strategy included spending 3602 points on Tadej Pogacar (who got 332 this week for his 2 owners), 2933 on Remco Evenepoel (105 points for 2 owners), and a whole lot of other riders less than 100 points cost. Basically built for weeks like this. Amethyst did also get points from Jan Christen (80, 36), Santiago Umba (56, 7) and Davide Persico (40, 3), so an all around solid week.

Googolplex was the other team to have Pogi - sidenote: it is wild that the most expensive rider in CQ history may end up on the optimal team this year - and also got points from Christen, Riccitello (45, 22) and Higuita (30, 20). Object rounds out the podium thanks to Girmay (155, 48), Ackermann (105, 11), Christen and Umba.

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	Object	(+9)
2	Googolplex	(+8)
3	Amethyst	(+5)
3	vsd88	(+5)
3	Riverside	(+5)
3	the asian	(+5)

The same podium here, but in reverse order as Object makes the biggest leap up 9 spots in the overall.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	Googolplex	264
2	shalgo	226
3	Jakob747	186
4	HoudiniCycling	149
4	Shakes	149

It turns out picking Pogacar is a decent way to get high weekly points - Googolplex gets 35 points to extend their lead in the points competition. shalgo gets 4 points for yet another top 15 placing on the week, so consolidates 2nd place but loses net 31 to Googolplex. HoudiniCycling leaps into the top 5 as well, with 26 points this week drawing them into a tie with Shakes.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	shalgo	12067
2	(-)	adamski101	10577
3	(-)	EvansIsTheBest	10357
4	(+1)	Earns1985	10345
5	(-1)	skidmark	10297
6	(+1)	MADRAZO	10223
7	(+3)	HoudiniCycling	10142
8	(-2)	Nakazar	10040
9	(-)	Total Package	9973
10	(-2)	Squire	9935

adamski101 gains another 11 points on shalgo this week, and so at that rate only needs 135 more weeks to overtake shalgo's team. Some jockeying lower down in the top 10, but no teams moving in or out.

This week, of course, the GC points from the Tour are given, but with the top 5 riders owned by 2, 0, 2, 0, and 1 team respectively, they probably won't have as broad an impact in the game as they could. The only other CQ points on offer this week are the U23 Aosta, the first stage of Wallonie, and some .2 races, so the week will probably be dominated by those few who have the top GC guys, and some overall will be gained and lost based on stages and minor placings.

spreadsheet link

 

[Devil's Elbow]

The only other CQ points on offer this week are the U23 Aosta, the first stage of Wallonie, and some .2 races,

Yesterday's final stage + GC of Ain too!

 

[Squire]

Despite having Oldani in 3rd in Ain, I think my very long stint in the top 10 is coming to an end. There are too many Girmay teams around me. And Gotland just behind me also has Oldani. I need an Oscar Onley back-to-back stage wins miracle.