The 2025 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[postmanhat]

Only had four riders at Dwars, and three of them were Powless, Del Grosso and Tiller. This was the sort of enjoyable day I picked Powless for, and makes up for his disappearance at P-N.

OTOH, have been stupid enough to include Gall and Plaap, who seem guaranteed to be annoying all season.

 

[ingsve]

Only had four riders at Dwars, and three of them were Powless, Del Grosso and Tiller. This was the sort of enjoyable day I picked Powless for, and makes up for his disappearance at P-N.

OTOH, have been stupid enough to include Gall and Plaap, who seem guaranteed to be annoying all season.

Well, Plapp should score in Hellas unless he is really out of shape from being away.

 

[hayneplane]

2nd and 4th in the Cheese race and 2nd and 6th in DDV is a pretty decent days racing for my boys.

 

[zigzag wanderer]

The lesser spotted Matthew Dinham is on the PCS provisional startlist for the Tour of the Basque Country. Leo Bisiaux also scheduled to start his season next week. My team could use some added help because (Ganna apart) it's showing early signs of hitting the wall after a promising start.

I'm probably not the only player cursing their choice of Visma riders. My four have < 100 pts between them while Brennan and Tulett are game changers.

Dinham withdrawn from Itzulia

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

My last 0-pointer was going to be either Dinham or Seixas. So of course I chose Dinham, as I had read that pretty reassuring statement from the team last November or whenever it was "Matthew is on the right track" "we are certain he will get back in the new season stronger than before" and so on.

 

[Earns1985]

The 'something that started this year' is him not having to deal with echelons a single time in 2023 or 2024, and then three times in a row now in UAE, Paris-Nice and Catalunya. Not sure how much you can really attribute that to bad luck when everyone knows he's useless on the flat and the former two are both well known for wind.

It's definitely not just bad luck. Gall is not positioning himself as one would expect of someone aiming for a good overall placing in these races. I am unsure between the three options.
1.) He just don´t care for the GC in these races.
2.) He cares and tries to position himself good, but he is just really bad in this.
3.) He cares for the GC, but not with the cost of taking any risks in these races. Because he doesn´t take the risk, he is in bad position.

 

[repre]

Cheered for Bisiaux 5th place yesterday only to find out he was last cut for me to make place for van Baarle and Isidore. Looks dumb

 

[Earns1985]

So why did I choose Tijmen Graat over Leo Bisiaux again?
Yes, I think I remember it. Tijmen Graat had been 3rd in last years Tour de l'Avenir and Bisiaux had been fourth and I thought third is better than fourth!
Did you guys know more than me or why did a lot of you decided right to pick Bisiaux (37 times) over Graat (9 times picked)?

 

[Netserk]

So why did I choose Tijmen Graat over Leo Bisiaux again?
Yes, I think I remember it. Tijmen Graat had been 3rd in last years Tour de l'Avenir and Bisiaux had been fourth and I thought third is better than fourth!
Did you guys know more than me or why did a lot of you decided right to pick Bisiaux (37 times) over Graat (9 times picked)?

Age?

 

[Salvarani]

So why did I choose Tijmen Graat over Leo Bisiaux again?
Yes, I think I remember it. Tijmen Graat had been 3rd in last years Tour de l'Avenir and Bisiaux had been fourth and I thought third is better than fourth!
Did you guys know more than me or why did a lot of you decided right to pick Bisiaux (37 times) over Graat (9 times picked)?

Bisiaux is younger and when I read about him they spoke great things. That he was a massive talent.

A few of these Visma guys have done well in Baby-Giro and Tour de l'Avenir, but then not much has happened with them. A few have moved to new teams and so on as well. Like Leemreize, Hesselman, Van Beekum, Staune-Mittet....

Feels like they benefit from being a couple of years older and in a good set-up, but peaking early or doesnt have much room for improvement going pro.

The best ones been Hagenes, Nordhagen and Brennan... but they also been regarded as massive talents and been very young. Ridden pro races and done well immediately.

 

[SafeBet]

Cheered for Bisiaux 5th place yesterday only to find out he was last cut for me to make place for van Baarle and Isidore. Looks dumb

Lol I could have written this sentence word for word.

 

[repre]

Lol I could have written this sentence word for word.

At least we are not alone))

 

[RedheadDane]

Adélie

Breiner
Wallin

 

[manafana]

Well Plapp looked good anyway. I hope Dinham races soon and finishes

 

[RedheadDane]

Indurain

Charmig
Foldager
Hellemose


NXT

Kamp
Storm
Øxenberg

 

[postmanhat]

Bad news for those of us with Brennan and/or Del Grosso. Both have been withdrawn from the NXT Classic tomorrow, which should have been some fairly easy points, as well as an exciting contest.

 

[repre]

Bad news for those of us with Brennan and/or Del Grosso. Both have been withdrawn from the NXT Classic tomorrow, which should have been some fairly easy points, as well as an exciting contest.

Del Grosso is ill and Brennan got leveled up and promoted to higher level races.

 

[Qazaqstan]

So far, the most expensive riders are not really delivering for me. I expected more from Van Aert, Gall, Healy, Penhoet and Lutsenko, but especially the former 3 might be able to catch up in the rest of the season.

For that reason I am surprised that I am 8th in the standings

I did not fully understand what the Polka dot jersey and green jersey mean in this game.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Nys is also doing GP Indurain and Eschborn-Frankfurt, it might be a really explosive first month of his season for everyone who has him.

Explosion started! Hopefully time to start climbing again, Vingegaard and Van Aert's woes coupled with Magnier and Morgado's scoring drying up has made for a poor couple of weeks for my team.

 

[RedheadDane]

109th Ronde van Vlaanderen

Mikkel Norsgaard Bjerg
William Blume Levy
Mikkel Frølich Honoré
Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard
Casper Philip Pedersen
Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen

 

[del1962]

Nice to see Nys get maximum points from his first day of racing hopefully he can get big points for me

 

[RedheadDane]

Itzulia

Charmig
Foldager
Hellemose
Kamp
Skjelmose


Hainan

Salby

So, I just need Salby to continue his Mareczkoing ways over in Asia.
And Skjelmose to get a good result in Itzulia, obviously.

 

[search]

Let's see if Rikunov can will all stages in Hainan. I tried to find out a bit about his team/program last winter, but no chance unfortunately. Could turn into a good pick if he does the Chinese UCI races now.

 

[skidmark]

Well Nys got off to a good start and Wout finally got a result - I'm mildly optimistic that the start of Nys' season will be the symbolic kick in the pants my team needs. Now for my favourite wek of the season!

Itzulia

Joao Almeida
Thibau Nys
Leo Bisiaux
Romain Gregoire
Ethan Hayter
Alan Hatherly
Thomas Gloag
Ben Tulett

Not a bad lineup! In the absence of one of the huge stage racers of the day, Almeida has as good a chance as anyone, but Itzulia is always a weird (read: fantastically unpredictable) race so I won't count any chickens. All but the hardest stages should be within reach for Nys, and really I could see Gregoire finish high on most of these stages. In theory Ethan Hayter would too if he performed like his 2023-and-earlier self, but LOL if I expect that. Gloag seems to be rebuilding form and Tulett is in the form of his life, whereas Itzulia tends to eat up newcomers so I expect little from Hatherly and Bisiaux.

Pays Loire

Remi Cavagna

No TT here, but maybe he can hang on the punchy stages.

Scheldeprijs

Sam Welsford
Albert Philipsen

This is the kinda race I need Welsford to score a top 5 in, for sure.

Roubaix

only Josh Tarling for now, but incomplete start list. This is the one classic I am actually hopeful for a result from Tarling, we shall see.

 

[search]

Looks like I somehow got into the lead. And I have Harold Tejada to defend it in Itzulia