The 2025 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Armchair Cyclist]

I'm in, with my regular bid for a place in the mid 20s.

>1000 pts: 1
501-1000: 4
251-500: 4
101 - 250: 10
51-100: 6
11-50: 5
0- 10: 3

Non European :2
European, non EU: 8
Joined EU after 2000: 1
Joined EU pre 2000: 1
Joined EEC pre EU: 3 (or 9)
European Coal and Steel founder member: 18

>35: 1 (what was I thinking?)
31-35: 6
28 - 30: 12
24 - 27: 8
20 - 23: 4
teenagers: 2

 

[Berflamand]

Submitted a team.

No research, just some riders I could think of (probably missed many obvious picks) and playing favorites (10 riders from Soudal Quick-Step on my team, probably not a winning strategy).

Mid-table is probably best I could realistically hope for but at least it'll be fun to follow the game!

 

[RedheadDane]

European Coal and Steel founder member: 18

Gotta love those important statistics!

 

[Earns1985]

Also submitted my team now. Will go into details after the submitting deadline!

Once again this thursday will be one of the most interesting days of the year! Looking forward!

 

[Salvarani]

Submitted a team.

No research, just some riders I could think of (probably missed many obvious picks) and playing favorites (10 riders from Soudal Quick-Step on my team, probably not a winning strategy).

Mid-table is probably best I could realistically hope for but at least it'll be fun to follow the game!

4 teams represents around 64% of my team, so there you go.

Who knows what the winning tactic could be

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

My team is in.
Average age 24.4 years

>1000 pts: 1
501-1000: 2
251-500: 7
101 - 250: 9
51-100: 5
11-50: 6
0- 10: 3

17 teams represented, 13 WT and 4 conti
Only 2 riders from the Americas!
3 Aussies and one from NZ.
The rest are all Europeans. No Africans this time, really a pity. And no Asians.

 

[ingsve]

I'm in, with my regular bid for a place in the mid 20s.

>1000 pts: 1
501-1000: 4
251-500: 4
101 - 250: 10
51-100: 6
11-50: 5
0- 10: 3

Non European :2
European, non EU: 8
Joined EU after 2000: 1
Joined EU pre 2000: 1
Joined EEC pre EU: 3 (or 9)
European Coal and Steel founder member: 18

>35: 1 (what was I thinking?)
31-35: 6
28 - 30: 12
24 - 27: 8
20 - 23: 4
teenagers: 2

That's a fairly old team compared to mine.

My ages breaks down like this:
31-35: 3
28-30 : 8
24-27 : 10
20-23 : 8
Teen : 4

Cost distribution seems similar though

>500 : 2
251-500: 7
101-250: 11
51-100: 5
11-50: 5
0-10: 3

14 teams represented and 12 nationalities.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Team sent in!

I decided to do things a little bit differently this year. Usually I have a relatively young team, but this one takes the prize.

Age distribution:

25: 1
24: 0
23: 3
22: 8
21: 8
20: 5
19: 6
18: 2

Obviously there's this one old guy whom I might swap for someone younger. Let's see how this plays out. Good luck everyone!

 

[RedheadDane]

As you have probably guessed, I've gone for the "Danes Only" approach again.

Birth-year distribution:

1992 - 1
1993 - 2
1994 - 1
1995 - 1
1996 - 3
1997 - 3
1998 - 4
1999 - 3
2000 - 3
2001 - 3
2002 - 2
2003 - 3
2004 - 1
2005 - 2
2006 - 1

(None younger, coz they're still juniors. I'm not that crazy...)

Team-level distribution:

WorldTeam: 18
ProTeam: 11
Conti-Team: 4

 

[abbulf]

Looking forward to participating again for the first time in a few years. When in doubt I picked riders I like, so I do not have too high hopes for a high score.

Team submitted with the following riders:

1000 + 1
500-1000 4
200-500 6
100-200 9
1-100 10
0 3

Year of birth:
1992 1
1993 1
1994 3
1995 4
1996 1
1998 2
1999 5
2000 1
2001 1
2002 2
2003 3
2004 3
2005 4
2006 2

Country:
France 6
Belgium 5
Norway 5
UK 5
Switzerland 2
Holland 2
Australia 2
Denmark 2
Spain 1
Germany 1
Italy 1
Colombia 1

14 teams.

 

[repre]

Sent my team. Had even less time this year and didn't actually follow news since october.

First time i have two 1000+ point riders and a lot of young cheap guys. Went with this tactics as 500-800 range riders burned me almost every year. Young cheap riders seems to do well mostly and i fell more confident about my two stars than semi-stars from next level.

Good luck to everybody! And many thanks to skidmark for organizing the game!

 

[Nevs]

Yeah, if only it were possible for riders to have negative points.

Tao gave it a go...

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I also submitted my team, easily my most boring entry ever and I don’t really expect to have a single rider who is on a single-digit number of teams. I continue to expect this one to be the main game equivalent of the 2023-25 emerging riders game with really similar teams and tightly bunched scores. Coincidentally that was the only other CQ game of any kind where my team is extremely boring, hoping for similar results

 

[Nevs]

So I am submitting a team with four points to spare this year. which is rare for me.

I have four riders between 600-800 points, four riders between 300-500 points and everyone else is under 265 (only two absolute zeroes for the year)

33 riders from 13 different countries on 15 different teams, but the vast majority are European.

Agewise, I have 8 riders born before the year 2000 (aka, the olds), 2001-2003 being tied for the mode birth year.

 

[Nevs]

I also submitted my team, easily my most boring entry ever and I don’t really expect to have a single rider who is on a single-digit number of teams. I continue to expect this one to be the main game equivalent of the 2023-25 emerging riders game with really similar teams and tightly bunched scores. Coincidentally that was the only other CQ game of any kind where my team is extremely boring, hoping for similar results

I usually get one or two uniques in there. I'll be surprised if I don't this time as well.
I have FOMO that I forgot an "obvious" pick - last year it was Ayuso.

I have a lot of young and exciting (i hope) riders and some olds bouncing back (I hope) from injuries and some getting (I hope) new opportunities.

I did consider the ultimate stars and scrubs by taking Pogocar and the youth. There's no way it's the optimum score - but there's a good chance it beats the team that I picked

 

[armchairclimber]

Mine
501-1000 5
251 - 500 6
101-250 7
51 -100 4
11 -50 4
0 - 10 7

My team is very very young. Oldest two riders 28. One at 26.
The rest between 18 and 25. Mostly Europeans.
Obviously, I chose riders that I expect to improve ... but, as usual, the greatest consideration was picking a team that I will enjoy following ... including some new riders that I'd never heard of. This at the expense of picking lots of riders from successful teams that I somehow can't enjoy supporting.

 

[MADRAZO]

Im about to sent my team in very soon also as I will never get any sleep tonight if I wait to tomorrow.

Until a couple of days ago my team had been almost the same since the first team I quickly made back in October and I felt really confident it had to be like that, but ofcourse in the last days I ended up suddenly getting doubts on some important choises and ended up making a lot of significant changes in the end to fit the puzzle. Im definetly not sure if it is better now than before, but I feel relatively satisfied with it now, so I guess its best to just send it now and not go insain changing back and forth anymore between 2 or even 3 very different plans.

No info on priceranges in my team as that is too revealing this year, but can say that after I tried to force myself to not be too conservative last year and generally pick youth over comebacks, but still ended up with the most popular team, this year I have probably been a bit more conservative with it again, though hopefully not too much. So it will be interesting if that means I will still be in the top of the popularity or if the more conservative approach is becomming less and less popular so Im not.

 

[Panda Claws]

Sent my team in for the Skidmark check. I was continually swapping riders and it wasn't fun anymore.

 

[postmanhat]

Thanks so much again skidmark!

Quite late to putting a team together this year and the only 'tactic' has been trying to avoid including the obvious 'big two'. Mainly to keep it interesting, and not keen on lumping half my points on them, preferring to spread the risk.

It's looking possible, and maybe this will be one of the main differentiators this year?

 

[ray10]

I just sent my team of 33 men for 7490pts (if I am not wrong...)

 

[the asian]

Just sent my team.

33 riders for exactly 7500 points.

One RIder over 1000 points.

A couple of Zero Pointers as well.

And have Five riders in the 400-600 point range and these guys either make or break the team.

 

[skidmark]

Hey everyone, just over 24 hours until the submission deadline, and 48 hours until the publication deadline! Submissions are coming thick and fast today and we're close to 60 teams it looks like (I'm trying to work through a backlog of messages but they keep coming!)

Just noting that a larger number of teams than usual are submitting teams in improper formats, most commonly including a second column with rider scores. I don't need rider scores, the master spreadsheet for the game is designed to read the names and calculate scores from that. So please make sure your team is submitted in the proper format. I am barely able to keep up with teams as it is, so I don't have enough time to manually edit teams to fit the format. Thank you!

As well, please make sure your zero-pointers are spelled correctly in CQ format. There is one pick that is zero points that I have seen in at least 4 different formats, and the spreadsheet won't necessarily pick that up since he's zero points anyway.

That's it for now! Keep 'em coming!

 

[Kazistuta]

Well, I too sent in my team to Skidmark after a last-minute reshuffle of four guys to include my highest valued rider ever in my CQ game history. I didn't include at least one of the "obvious big two", as I found other interests and really don't like to spend that many points on one rider.

The fact that I ended up doing it this year also made me capable of reaching the exact 7500 points barrier - like several others it seems.

Sadly enough I had to let go of two riders I really want to root for this year, whereas the four guys I replaced them with don't exactly scream "interesting character" to me.

I have a alarming feeling I'm missing this years Amaury Capiot, whom I found in the last minute last season.

Looking forward to the reveal, might have to do a little write-up as usual.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

It seems like a lot of people found some value in the 600-800 range this year which I don't really agree with, so I'm curious to see those picks. Thursday will be pretty busy at work which kinda sucks timing wise but at least I'll have a nice evening catching up on all the discussion.

 

[Wvv]

Hi guys! It's my first time ever participating in this game.

+ 1000: 2
1000-500: 1
500-400: 2
400-200: 4
200-100: 9
100-50: 4
50-01: 7
0: 4

Average age is 24,45. Oldest two are from 1991, the youngest three were born in 2006.

I have a selection of, yes indeed, 33 riders with a total of 7499 CQ points. I kid you not.