The 2025 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Salvarani]

I meant the "very good level for two seasons in a row" part, where I thought his decent 2022 (in addition to 23-24) would make it three seasons in a row with a good level.

I absolutely see him as a possible 1000 point rider though. But even that wasn't quite enough for me this year with his price, the other options and how likely he is to suddenly have a significant step up in points.

Hmm, I guess I more see 2022 as year of further development and 2023 showing he has potential for the big races. Many points.

2024 he was unlucky to not have that big breakthrough after showing all the signs in the seasons prior.

He looked the part in P-N, until his crash, last season. I think his performances in both the Dauphine and the Tour reinstated this too. It is consecutive GTs where he is climbing among the best.

I feel like he is on the verge for a bigger breakthrough in these races. Showing he could also add points in one-day races as well. One-week races. GTs.

Dont think many would be surprised if he does score +1000 points given his track record in the last two seasons. I guess somewhere you have to take a leap of faith in my opinion to try to win it. Either by choosing a different strategy, individual picks or a combination of both.

 

[Hugo Koblet]

But the thing is; for Vingegaard to be inferior to Almeida/Gregoire you need to hit bullseye with your predictions for two riders instead of just one (and that one rider is much a much safer bet to boot), and you need two guys instead of one to have a relatively issue-free season. As I touched on when discussing Nys in this post, actually breaking even is not a total gimme for your non-Vingegaard riders, especially Gregoire in my view.

If I was to boil this comparison down in my way, I'd just say that I can be reasonably confident in Almeida and Gregoire reaching 1000 points each, and I can be reasonably confident in Vingegaard reaching 2000. And I trust myself more to get one bet right instead of a double bet. I do make these gambles quite a lot myself though (like not having Remco and Roglic for 2022 & 2023 respectively, but those also had other reasons than pure optimization). But in this case I just think Vingegaard is such a points guarantee in all sorts of stage races that his floor is vastly superior.

This is very true and something I forgot to add in my post about Vingegaard being "under picked".

When some say that they want to "spread out the risk" or they they don't want to rely too much on one rider, I think it's a misunderstanding of the game.

For simplicity sake let's say that Vingegaard cost 1800 points, and you've got the option between choosing Vingegaard and two zero pointers or choosing three 600 pointers. Let's also assume they all double their score 80% of the time, and the remaining 20% of the time they score 0 points because of crashing. What would you choose? The EV is the same, so do you spread your risk or put all your eggs in the Vingegaard basket?

The answer in a game like this is that it's better to not spread your risk, but to go the Vingegaard route. The reason is that if you choose the Vingegaard setup, only 20% of the time are you out of the competition (it doesn't matter if your zero pointers crash because, well, they score zero points anyway). If you choose the other setup, the three 600 pointers, then you're out of the competition any time just one of your three riders crash and score zero points. That's 48.8% of the time (1-0.8x0.8x0.8).

Of course you don't get hit as hard when one of your riders crash and score zero points as the Vingegaard team does when he scores zero points, but the difference between finish 20th and 90th in a game like this is neglectable, so it doesn't really matter anyway. It should be noted, though, that this logic only is completely true in a winner takes all game, and the more you value secondary placings, the less true it is.

Obviously this is extremely simplified, but I think it examplifies the logic anyway.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Alright, I finally caught up to the thread. A few notes about what I read, I'll try to get to my analysis of my own team later.

There are 467 riders picked this year. The first by alphabetical order is Pascal Ackermann and the last is Nickolas Zukowsky. @skidmark, there are both VLIEGEN Loic and VLIEGEN Loïc spellings in the popularity table.

Among the popular guys, I'm missing:
- Tao Geoghegan Hart: past his best I think and even at his best he had like one good race before disappearing the rest of the year.
- Rémi Cavagna: decent pick but I don't see much upside to be honest.
- Florian Sénéchal: I like him but I had him a million times when he was still coming up through the ranks so I wanted to go in a different direction.
- Victor Lafay: if 2023 is an outlier which I believe it is to a certain extent, there's not much upside there.

On my long list (144 candidates), the following riders weren't picked by anybody else:
BARGUIL Warren
CARDIS Romain
CASTROVIEJO NICOLAS Jonathan
CHRISTEN Fabio (WTF)
EDVARDSEN-FREDHEIM Stian
GAUTHERAT Pierre (WTF)
PALETTI Luca
PRIDAL Tomas
ROMELE Alessandro
RONHAAR Pim
SEVILLA RIVERA Oscar Miguel (sad)
PIGANZOLI Davide

I can't quite figure out why someone would've picked Soderqvist- scoring some 400-500 points (that's minimum where he needs to be to be a really good pick for a price of 164) riding for a devo team is really rare.

I mean Joseph Blackmore scored 700+ points last season after starting on the development team. Obviously that's not the norm but the best U23 riders (most of them far less proven than Söderqvist at the highest level) get 250-350 points all the time. So if his ceiling is like 500 points and 300 points is a reasonable expectation how is that different than say Victor Lafay who was picked 36 times ?

wish I could do that in the games I run by spreadsheets: keeping up with CQ name changes is the bane of the task.

I'll try to see if I can make the spreadsheet work with the rider ID instead of their names (but not before this week).

Another MEGA post incoming, answering some stuff I found interesting!


It almost feels like you've stolen my girlfriend or something!

Piganzoli has been 'my' rare pick for two years now, but this time I didn't consider him in the slightest. Just decided he was way too expensive. Last year he basically reached what I saw as his Fortunato-esque ceiling (for now at least), but I guess you put more stock in his Emilia than I do.

Other than that, the differences between our teams are mostly as expected. Some differences in the expensive department, and a few more uninspiring Frenchies for you (I don't get the Gesbert hype). I did look at Hatherly when he was announced, but none of the big MTB names have made it in road cycling recently, so I didn't quite see what would be different about him.


As you've said earlier, we usually have quite similar teams, but not this time. I don't have any of your top 5 most expensive picks and you don't have my top 4. After he made himself expensive, Powless was out of the question for me. I think his 2023 was the outlier and his other years more of the norm. He won't get 300 points from French .1 races in February every year. Ganna is probably solid enough, but again I see 2023 as an outlier. Two GC wins and a 2nd in 2.PS races is quite the points haul, which won't happen every year. The other three I did consider, as I mentioned in my team breakdown.


I like most of your team, but this one I disagree with. A bit like in my comment to MADRAZO above, I think 2023 won't be representative of a normal Healy year. I expect 2024 to be more the norm. I see him as a bit of a glorified Thomas De Gendt, and I don't think he can consistently expect so many top placings in big races as he got in 2023.


Quoting you here, but @Devil's Elbow has also preached the Nys gospel quite affectionately. I don't quite see it. Yes, he did look awesome at times, but he won't get another WT stage race where he just needs to outsprint Kelderman for three stages (don't at me! ). More seriously, I just can't trust a short season for someone that expensive. Not much room for failure.

And also something that people seem to be forgetting a little bit in many cases, not just in Nys' case potentially: Unless you are in the Pog or Vingegaard sphere, actually replicating the points you cost is not a complete gimme. It's easy to say this and that rider missed out on this and that, but they still need to recuperate their cost before they add on the profit. And I don't know if Nys will do the Tour of Hungary for 221 points, for example. Of course he will do other things then, but even a Fleche Wallonne win won't replace all of that (very close though).


In my view, that's a VERY optimistic estimate for Van Aert, as I say a bit more about in my team post from earlier. But I'm loving that you're a fellow Almeida enthusiast! Especially since I think you've gone with an inferior strategy to complement him.

I'm a big Gregoire fan actually. Loved having him on my team in his neo year, and I looked long and hard at him for last year's game before deciding on Pidcock/Sheffield. Did skim through his page this year also, but he wasn't really on the cards with what other options were available this time.


Yes, I agree this is a fun exercise, and it's one I use a lot when making my team (as I think you do too). I do think you're kinda forgetting (or just chosing not to mention) an important detail in this particular one though. Or we just judge floors differently.

Before we get to that, I'd say Bagioli is almost irrelevant here. He's only really there as an added bonus possibility of someone scoring quite a lot on top of the Vingegaard contribution.

But the thing is; for Vingegaard to be inferior to Almeida/Gregoire you need to hit bullseye with your predictions for two riders instead of just one (and that one rider is much a much safer bet to boot), and you need two guys instead of one to have a relatively issue-free season. As I touched on when discussing Nys in this post, actually breaking even is not a total gimme for your non-Vingegaard riders, especially Gregoire in my view.

If I was to boil this comparison down in my way, I'd just say that I can be reasonably confident in Almeida and Gregoire reaching 1000 points each, and I can be reasonably confident in Vingegaard reaching 2000. And I trust myself more to get one bet right instead of a double bet. I do make these gambles quite a lot myself though (like not having Remco and Roglic for 2022 & 2023 respectively, but those also had other reasons than pure optimization). But in this case I just think Vingegaard is such a points guarantee in all sorts of stage races that his floor is vastly superior.


I thought his decent 2022 kinda disqualified him based on your statement. So I didn't guess that it was Buitrago. The only one I found to fit what you said (the way I interepreted it) was Wærenskjold. Which would have been quite the gamble with the other options available. Buitrago I did at least briefly look at, though he wasn't really seriously considered. But I can see the appeal.


I also tried to make space for a third expensive rider. Mainly had Pidcock in mind, as making space for Van Aert would have been even more difficult. But as with you, I had some other guys I also really wanted to include, those being Vine/Plapp/Penhöet/Magnier. In my brief experimentation with trying to accommodate a third big one, it was mostly Magner or Penhöet who got the hypothetical boot, along with Dunbar and Riccitello (although I did want to keep the American too after I had convinced myself he was actually good).

I feel like yours is a bit like the vanilla team of this year, which you probably won't be too pleased to hear, but it has the clean Vingegaard/Van Aert combination, with the rest of the team also being very good.


Can't say I considered him this year, but I absolutely did last year. And ended up regretting not having him as a super-rare pick. Now granted, my other cheap picks did pretty well, but he still would have been a very satisfactory under-the-radar pick. And maybe he would have replaced Rafferty, so that would have been an upgrade. I can see improvement happening this year, but not enough most likely.


You also have a nice-looking team again this year. Hope we can renew our battling in the top 10!

As I have said already, I share your Vingegaard surprise. As for Dinham being the new Capiot, keep in mind that Capiot didn't turn out to be such a must-have. I think we'll be fine (I willingly did not prioritize Dinham, although he was close).


Oooh, I wanted to! But I just couldn't justify it. Would have been fun though, especially if I had won the game. Sevilla deserves to have been on the winning CQ team at least once in his long career.


I considered Gazzoli last year (didn't pick him), but he basically blew his one chance in my book by having such a bad season. Cras was the only one on my longlist this year. Could be a solid points forager in stage races, but likely nothing spectacular I think, and there was a lot of other more attractive options. Mintegi I've never even heard of. Hope he does well though. We need some Euskaltel glory.

I'll go over Piganzoli more in depth later, but I don't share your assessment of my French guys. I've been way more disciplined about picking them than in the past I thought. I have only six. Magnier, Bisiaux and Seixas are mega talents (and you have too so you must agree on some level). Rondel and Isidore are perfectly reasonable gambles I thought (Isidore is near the top of my team in terms of how excited I am to see them race). Gesbert is the only questionable pick and I don't like it either. I just disliked it less than the other options available with like 18 points remaining.

 

[Shakes]

I'll try to see if I can make the spreadsheet work with the rider ID instead of their names (but not before this week).

I can easily make a dump of ids and names if you want. My database is populated automatically. Will only have different names if they changed in the last year (as I started populating last year).

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I'll try to see if I can make the spreadsheet work with the rider ID instead of their names (but not before this week).

That would be good, but I may have overstated it: probably not worth a huge amount of time. It's the Emerging Riders games where it really has an impact, as I keep track of a huge number of names to make sure that newly emerging riders are not missed in case they become relevant, but 95% don't.

 

[Squire]

This is very true and something I forgot to add in my post about Vingegaard being "under picked".

When some say that they want to "spread out the risk" or they they don't want to rely too much on one rider, I think it's a misunderstanding of the game.

For simplicity sake let's say that Vingegaard cost 1800 points, and you've got the option between choosing Vingegaard and two zero pointers or choosing three 600 pointers. Let's also assume they all double their score 80% of the time, and the remaining 20% of the time they score 0 points because of crashing. What would you choose? The EV is the same, so do you spread your risk or put all your eggs in the Vingegaard basket?

The answer in a game like this is that it's better to not spread your risk, but to go the Vingegaard route. The reason is that if you choose the Vingegaard setup, only 20% of the time are you out of the competition (it doesn't matter if your zero pointers crash because, well, they score zero points anyway). If you choose the other setup, the three 600 pointers, then you're out of the competition any time just one of your three riders crash and score zero points. That's 48.8% of the time (1-0.8x0.8x0.8).

Of course you don't get hit as hard when one of your riders crash and score zero points as the Vingegaard team does when he scores zero points, but the difference between finish 20th and 90th in a game like this is neglectable, so it doesn't really matter anyway. It should be noted, though, that this logic only is completely true in a winner takes all game, and the more you value secondary placings, the less true it is.

Obviously this is extremely simplified, but I think it examplify the logic anyway.

Good post, and I agree completely.

For even more simplicity, and still using my Vingegaard vs Almeida/Gregoire example, you can see it as one route to 2000 points encountering twice the amount of potholes, twice the amount of other riders weaving about in the peloton, twice as many people potentially infecting you with illness etc. as the other route to 2000 points. Or three times as many in your example.

 

[Squire]

I guess somewhere you have to take a leap of faith in my opinion to try to win it. Either by choosing a different strategy, individual picks or a combination of both.

It's a good point, and this is exactly what I tried in 2022 and 2023 when omitting Remco and Roglic in consecutive years. My main reason for it (other than some minor question marks about both) was that I knew both would be mega popular, and I didn't trust my other picks enough to beat all the other Remco or Roglic teams if I went that route, so I judged that my best route to victory was to rely on some bad luck/underperformance on the part of those very popular and expensive picks. I did acknowledge that picking them was objectively the best strategy.

This year, however, I predicted that with the available options in the expensive bracket a lot of teams would have different approaches to filling out their budget (or at least as a companion to Vingegaard; after the reveal I'm even more happy with my strategy), so I wouldn't have to come up against a bunch of teams with the same main strategy, and thus my road to victory would be easier if my judgement of what is the best strategy is correct. And I'm also more happy with the rest of my team this time, so I'm more confident than earlier years in taking on teams with a similar main strategy.

 

[Salvarani]

It's a good point, and this is exactly what I tried in 2022 and 2023 when omitting Remco and Roglic in consecutive years. My main reason for it (other than some minor question marks about both) was that I knew both would be mega popular, and I didn't trust my other picks enough to beat all the other Remco or Roglic teams if I went that route, so I judged that my best route to victory was to rely on some bad luck/underperformance on the part of those very popular and expensive picks. I did acknowledge that picking them was objectively the best strategy.

This year, however, I predicted that with the available options in the expensive bracket a lot of teams would have different approaches to filling out their budget (or at least as a companion to Vingegaard; after the reveal I'm even more happy with my strategy), so I wouldn't have to come up against a bunch of teams with the same main strategy, and thus my road to victory would be easier if my judgement of what is the best strategy is correct. And I'm also more happy with the rest of my team this time, so I'm more confident than earlier years in taking on teams with a similar main strategy.

I think a lot of teams could be similar though, that has the same strategy this season.

Just comparing my own team vs others. And I picked a different strategy in the expensive bracket.

I didnt pick Vingegaard, Van Aert or Uijtebroeks... but I have about all the rest of the most popular picks.

Hayter, Nordhagen, Brennan, Torres, Berhens, Kämna, Bagioli, Kron, Bisiaux, Veermersch, Gloag, Senechal, Van Baarle, Tulett, Seixas, Philipsen...

The least picked rider out of these ones mentioned is Brennan. 33 picks.

I think many will recognize most of the above as well. Maybe only missing a couple of those at most.

 

[skidmark]

Mentally, I think Vingegaard is in a much better place (for this game) than Van Aert is, so I would gladly bet (for bragging rights or avatar) that he not only scores more, but that he will earn a greater profit in this game than Silver Pozzato will. At this point, I simply think Van Aert has tilted too hard and that he doesn't have the physical edge to make up for it.

Hmm, interesting... I don't necessarily disagree with your reasoning, but a bet is a fun enough idea. I wouldn't bet on just h2h CQ score, I actually think I'd favour Vingegaard 60-40 on that one (I would have taken Vingegaard if they cost the same, for sure). In terms of profit, I'd lean WvA on that; in terms of % points gained, I'd take WvA for sure. Since I've never had or cared about an avatar, let's just bet for bragging rights that WvA will improve his raw CQ point total more than Vingegaard in 2025 (vice versa for you).

 

[Netserk]

Hmm, interesting... I don't necessarily disagree with your reasoning, but a bet is a fun enough idea. I wouldn't bet on just h2h CQ score, I actually think I'd favour Vingegaard 60-40 on that one (I would have taken Vingegaard if they cost the same, for sure). In terms of profit, I'd lean WvA on that; in terms of % points gained, I'd take WvA for sure. Since I've never had or cared about an avatar, let's just bet for bragging rights that WvA will improve his raw CQ point total more than Vingegaard in 2025 (vice versa for you).

Great! Now I'll have even more reason to root against Van Aert (and to eagerly defend Vingegaard never taking a pull for him).

 

[ingsve]

I mean Joseph Blackmore scored 700+ points last season after starting on the development team. Obviously that's not the norm but the best U23 riders (most of them far less proven than Söderqvist at the highest level) get 250-350 points all the time. So if his ceiling is like 500 points and 300 points is a reasonable expectation how is that different than say Victor Lafay who was picked 36 times ?

For Söderqvist it will likely come down to what his race schedule will be. If they can bring him along with the first team to for example Tour Poitou - Charentes and Tour of Belgium then he has a shot at getting some good overall GC placements based on his ITTs. If the schedule stays similar to 2024 then it will be harder since he had close to maximal output in the races he is suited for.

 

[hayneplane]

Very satisfied with my team despite being near the bottom of the popularity ranking (I like picking outsiders so no real surprise)! The only one I had overlooked of the popular picks is Tao G Hart, and he wouldn't have made the cut anyway. So I have five unique picks and 7 others picked by less than 10 teams to root for in 2025. Would probably have replaced Caleb Ewan if I knew that he wasn't listed for Jayco, but apart from that I still think that my team has every chance to do well in 2025. Would be interesting to hear if anyone actually considered any of my five unique picks:
Steff Cras
Kim Heiduk
Pavel Novak
Michele Gazzoli
Iker Mintegi

I had Cras in my team last year. Impressive how he recovered from the horror crash but I feel I have improved my knowledge of the game this time and he wasn’t value enough.

 

[armchairclimber]

I think (hope) Blackmore may turn out o be a bit of an anomaly. Fairly outlandish score last year for someone who started the year on a dev team. And watching youtube clips of him, I saw he was smoking the likes of Torres, and duking it with Remco. He is a racer. He'll be fun I suspect.

 

[hayneplane]

Oh no, I said his 2023 score! See quoted post below.

He was thereabouts in a few stage-races in 2023. 3rd in LBL and following up with a good Giro was impressive. Very good performance in the Vuelta as well. 8th on the stage to Angliru. Ended the year with 770 points. To me that felt/looked like a rider that has potential to score +1000 in the future.

So he was on my radar going into 2024, but I didnt pick him then. The way he started last season was also... "damn, I should have picked him". Especially seeing the first stages of Paris-Nice... and then he crashed in a good position. Didnt even finish the race in the end.

He scored in races after that leading up to the Tour, without getting the big points. 5th in Fleche says something though.

Climbed well in both Dauphine and the Tour.

Didnt do much after that though and "only" ended up with 619 points. Below what I think his ability is as a rider and performances could dictate.

To me it feels like he has potential for more. Given his performances in tough one-day races and the stage-races + GTs he has performed well in. The way he is climbing. He finished 7th on the stage to Plateau de Beille last season.

We will see how it goes but an exciting pick nonetheless.

I am shocked that I am the only other person to pick him this year.

I see him as able to podium one week stage races and with a chance to top 5 a Giro/Vuelta of everything goes to plan as well as having enough punch to do well in some hilly classics.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Vingegaard, Van Aert, both, neither ?

Probably the biggest decision of the game this year was what to do about Vingegaard and Van Aert. I'm not going to rehash the pros (they are awesome at riding their bike) and the cons (they are expensive) but rather look at which choices were the most popular.

63% (60 out of 95) of players selected Van Aert, 35% (33) selected Vingegaard, 25% (24) selected both and 27% (26) selected neither.

Of the 33 that picked Vingegaard, 72% (24 out of 33) also selected Van Aert. So people that picked Vingegaard were more likely to also pick Wout than the average team despite the already huge commitment to get Jonas on their team.

The reverse isn't really true however. From the 60 that picked Van Aert, 40% (24 out of 60) also picked Vingegaard. So Wout backers weren't really more likely than the average team to select Jonas.

The go big or go home teams (Vingegaard + Van Aert + other 999+ points rider)
Amethyst (Milan), HoudiniCycling (Ayuso), hfgon and tobydawq (Van Eetvelt)

The other Van Aert + Vingegaard teams
Anderis, Berflamand, Devils Elbow, Earns1985, EvansIsTheBest*, Fivezzz, Hugo Koblet, ingsve*, laarsland, Leadbelly, NorthAmericanScum, Panda Claws, R O Shipman, Rakim, repre, SafeBet, Shakes, shalgo*, Wvv, zigzag wanderer

The Vingegaard alone teams
18-Valve(Pithy), firefly3323, Josedin, Kazistuta, letstalkcycling, Amis Velo, oliveira, serhio, Squire

The Van Aert alone teams
abbulf, AlTarf_Ua, Armchair Cyclist, Samu Cuenca, Blues in the bottle*, bminchow*, del1962, DJ Sprtsch, escartin, Googolplex, greenedge, Hayneplane, Jon Ezeitza, Jpettersen, Laurens147, Lortnoc, MADRAZO, manafana, Gotland, Mountain Newts, Nakazar, nbfc1962, Nyssiniator, Object*, Boris98, Qazaqstan, Riverside, Rufs, search, Senderos, skidmark*, Sneekes, the asian, Total Package, vladimir, will10

The neither teams
The rest

* marks a former winner. Of the 7 former winners competing this year 4 chose Van Aert alone and 3 chose both.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

@Amethyst, by the way was one of the two Pogacar team last year, so I'm sensing a pattern emerging there.

I can easily make a dump of ids and names if you want. My database is populated automatically. Will only have different names if they changed in the last year (as I started populating last year).

Appreciate the offer. I don't anticipate that it will be the most time consuming part but if you have already done the work there's no point in doing it again and I'd like to copy your homework thanks.

 

[Shakes]

@Amethyst, by the way was one of the two Pogacar team last year, so I'm sensing a pattern emerging there.


Appreciate the offer. I don't anticipate that it will be the most time consuming part but if you have already done the work there's no point in doing it again and I'd like to copy your homework thanks.

Will get it on a csv for you tomorrow.

 

[skidmark]

This is very true and something I forgot to add in my post about Vingegaard being "under picked".

When some say that they want to "spread out the risk" or they they don't want to rely too much on one rider, I think it's a misunderstanding of the game.

For simplicity sake let's say that Vingegaard cost 1800 points, and you've got the option between choosing Vingegaard and two zero pointers or choosing three 600 pointers. Let's also assume they all double their score 80% of the time, and the remaining 20% of the time they score 0 points because of crashing. What would you choose? The EV is the same, so do you spread your risk or put all your eggs in the Vingegaard basket?

The answer in a game like this is that it's better to not spread your risk, but to go the Vingegaard route. The reason is that if you choose the Vingegaard setup, only 20% of the time are you out of the competition (it doesn't matter if your zero pointers crash because, well, they score zero points anyway). If you choose the other setup, the three 600 pointers, then you're out of the competition any time just one of your three riders crash and score zero points. That's 48.8% of the time (1-0.8x0.8x0.8).

Of course you don't get hit as hard when one of your riders crash and score zero points as the Vingegaard team does when he scores zero points, but the difference between finish 20th and 90th in a game like this is neglectable, so it doesn't really matter anyway. It should be noted, though, that this logic only is completely true in a winner takes all game, and the more you value secondary placings, the less true it is.

Obviously this is extremely simplified, but I think it examplifies the logic anyway.

Haha, I was just working on a reply to Squire's prior post but gave up/took a break as it was going in circles a bit, but a snippet of what I was saying in response to that post was "in the hypothetical, Bagioli (or a replacement level Bagioli stand-in) is absolutely not irrelevant to my consideration, but essential. The question for me isn't "will Gregoire and Almeida score more than Vingegaard" but rather "what is the best use of two spots in the scarce resource context of 33 riders and 7500 CQ points".

And then I basically elaborated that 'spreading out the risk' was my preferred strategy, all being held equal. Then I read on in the thread and learn that I'm misunderstanding the game

But I guess I don't think of that kind of risk in terms of 'if one of my guys crashes I get zero points'. Very specifically, in choosing Gregoire and Almeida, my calculus was 'if they crash somewhere and miss a month or two, they are so versatile and consistent that I think they can score highly anywhere'. (same idea with WvA) That's what I want out of my high cost guys, that even if random chance has calamity befall them, they can cover enough that if my cheaper guys hit enough, I can still do quite well in the game. And also their potential ceiling is exciting, of course.

I think about 'floor' in terms of a) what if I've overestimated how good they're going to be and b) what if they miss time due to misfortune. I'm quite confident in those two riders on both those fronts, that even if my assessment is 'wrong' they'll be pretty good picks.

But that's how I've always thought about it - I'm pretty risk averse. I remember the first year of the game, my most expensive pick was Riccardo friggin' Ricco, who cost 756 points or something and then ended his career in February trying to blood dope himself, basically tanking my team's hopes. So maybe that colored it. And then the second year I was proud that my most expensive pick was merely 532 points or something, which I think was the lowest highest-cost rider of all the teams (ie certainly risk averse). And I was like 'oh yeah most expensive pick Modolo is my rarest rider, he'll be my secret weapon'. And a lot of things went well for that team, but that was not one of them. So that taught me that I don't really know anything about this game, and just trust my process. So in summary, I dunno?

To cap off the Vingegaard discussion, yes I can see the strong case for him (that was another reason I paused my response to Squire, I was convincing myself Vingegaard was the better choice lol). But in the end, when I was constructing my team my assessment was that my average EV for either combo (Vinge/random 62 pointer vs Almeida/Gregoire) was a wash, so I'd opt for the two-pronged strategy to a) spread the risk and b) have riders I was more excited about.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Can I sneakily take advantage of the post-reveal busy-ness of the thread to remind you that you have about 49 hours to get teams in for the Women's CQ game: same basic idea, a team of 16 women at a maximum cost by 2024 CQ scores of 4000 points.

 

[Squire]

Haha, I was just working on a reply to Squire's prior post but gave up/took a break as it was going in circles a bit, but a snippet of what I was saying in response to that post was "in the hypothetical, Bagioli (or a replacement level Bagioli stand-in) is absolutely not irrelevant to my consideration, but essential. The question for me isn't "will Gregoire and Almeida score more than Vingegaard" but rather "what is the best use of two spots in the scarce resource context of 33 riders and 7500 CQ points".

And then I basically elaborated that 'spreading out the risk' was my preferred strategy, all being held equal. Then I read on in the thread and learn that I'm misunderstanding the game

But I guess I don't think of that kind of risk in terms of 'if one of my guys crashes I get zero points'. Very specifically, in choosing Gregoire and Almeida, my calculus was 'if they crash somewhere and miss a month or two, they are so versatile and consistent that I think they can score highly anywhere'. (same idea with WvA) That's what I want out of my high cost guys, that even if random chance has calamity befall them, they can cover enough that if my cheaper guys hit enough, I can still do quite well in the game. And also their potential ceiling is exciting, of course.

I think about 'floor' in terms of a) what if I've overestimated how good they're going to be and b) what if they miss time due to misfortune. I'm quite confident in those two riders on both those fronts, that even if my assessment is 'wrong' they'll be pretty good picks.

But that's how I've always thought about it - I'm pretty risk averse. I remember the first year of the game, my most expensive pick was Riccardo friggin' Ricco, who cost 756 points or something and then ended his career in February trying to blood dope himself, basically tanking my team's hopes. So maybe that colored it. And then the second year I was proud that my most expensive pick was merely 532 points or something, which I think was the lowest highest-cost rider of all the teams (ie certainly risk averse). And I was like 'oh yeah most expensive pick Modolo is my rarest rider, he'll be my secret weapon'. And a lot of things went well for that team, but that was not one of them. So that taught me that I don't really know anything about this game, and just trust my process. So in summary, I dunno?

To cap off the Vingegaard discussion, yes I can see the strong case for him (that was another reason I paused my response to Squire, I was convincing myself Vingegaard was the better choice lol). But in the end, when I was constructing my team my assessment was that my average EV for either combo (Vinge/random 62 pointer vs Almeida/Gregoire) was a wash, so I'd opt for the two-pronged strategy to a) spread the risk and b) have riders I was more excited about.

Don't know if you'll reply to my post or not, but I think we understand each other's position well enough on this anyway now that I've read this post.

Anyway, just wanted to add that the risk I'm talking about isn't necessarily whether anyone crashes and loses a big part of the season (although I think that risk assessment is also in favour of the expensive rider unless you value a 40th place or something, but if you did you wouldn't worry too much about such strategies anyway), but more about being correct in the overall assessment of essential picks. I don't think I've ever hit the mark on all my expensive/semi-expensive picks. When I somehow finished in the top 10 in 2022 without the amazing Remco pick, I also had my three most expensive picks being pretty much complete busts (Pidcock, Jakobsen, Moscon, of which only Jakobsen turned a very modest profit). That could be a case for saying that no picks are really essential of course, but my point here is that Remco was much easier to predict as a great pick. And I think this is also very much the case with Vingegaard vs any combination equaling his cost.

And as an add-on to this, another reason why I say the cheap rider included with Vingegaard is irrelevant, is that this rider would pretty much be my least confident pick. I would already have included the cheap picks I deem must-haves. I can't straight-swap Vingegaard for a combination of two riders without removing another one, so I would naturally aim to then remove one or more of my worst picks to accomodate it.

 

[Qazaqstan]

Hello everyone. It is the first time that I participate to this game and to some game on this forum in general. It was quite fun to select the riders. A little research was required, mainly to find out which riders were injured in 2024.
Finally, I am satisfied with my team. I am surprised that only 3 people chose Gregoire and only 6 chose Gee. If those two perform well, I might have a chance to end up high in the ranking.

Thank you for organising!

 

[Panda Claws]

Overall I'm glad with my team and being 18th in the popularity ranking (placing 70th-79th in earlier editions). Gives me some hope I might improve on last year's result. As others have said, this may have been an easier edition to pick riders as it required less overall knowledge/awareness of the broader cycling scene (incl. U23 etc.) but I still stand behind the cyclists I ended up picking.

Still, as always it has been fun to read the expert analysis of others in this thread and there are definitely some riders I wish I had looked further into. But these are mostly picks like GLOAG Thomas that I wouldn't ever have picked anyway. They weren't prominent in any races I cared about and I don't find their CQ page to be particularly impressive.

Very surprised that pretty much no-one picked Roglic though. Is it just because Vingegaard seems like the obvious better pick? I'd have expected more fans to still go with Roglic or some participants to go all-out and pick both.

 

[skidmark]

Don't know if you'll reply to my post or not, but I think we understand each other's position well enough on this anyway now that I've read this post.

Anyway, just wanted to add that the risk I'm talking about isn't necessarily whether anyone crashes and loses a big part of the season (although I think that risk assessment is also in favour of the expensive rider unless you value a 40th place or something, but if you did you wouldn't worry too much about such strategies anyway), but more about being correct in the overall assessment of essential picks. I don't think I've ever hit the mark on all my expensive/semi-expensive picks. When I somehow finished in the top 10 in 2022 without the amazing Remco pick, I also had my three most expensive picks being pretty much complete busts (Pidcock, Jakobsen, Moscon, of which only Jakobsen turned a very modest profit). That could be a case for saying that no picks are really essential of course, but my point here is that Remco was much easier to predict as a great pick. And I think this is also very much the case with Vingegaard vs any combination equaling his cost.

And as an add-on to this, another reason why I say the cheap rider included with Vingegaard is irrelevant, is that this rider would pretty much be my least confident pick. I would already have included the cheap picks I deem must-haves. I can't straight-swap Vingegaard for a combination of two riders without removing another one, so I would naturally aim to then remove one or more of my worst picks to accomodate it.

Yeah I've abandoned my other reply, said mostly what I was trying to get across, we get each other here

A final clarification: I get that you don't particularly care about the particular rider that's included in a combo comparison; I was bringing it up as essential to me to basically say that it's important to me because I have two potentially high-performing hedges, rather than a really expensive rider and a marginal rider I could take or leave. Just talking about the meta of it, the fact that it's two riders is important for me as a hedging strategy. Of course you (and Hugo) see that risk from the opposite side, but it's fundamental for me.

The final thing I'll say is that crafting my first rundown of 'why no Vingo' and subsequent responses, is that I've talked myself into Vingo's upside a bit more than I had thought lol. In the context of making a team I had looked at his record and thought that his dominant run has been impressive, but relatively limited. Like, the Tour win in 2022 was kind of a surprise, and in 2023 he was beyond dominant at Gran Camino before being humbled in Paris-Nice. Then it really started in earnest - Itzulia, Dauphine, Tour, before F'ing around and finding out at the Vuelta, where he 'should' have won if he hadn't been held back on the last mountain stage by team orders, but also shouldn't have been in a position to win save for the time he gained back when no one wanted to drag his teammates. Then was 2024 - Gran Camino again, Tirenno, crash in Itzulia, return to form in France but finishing 2nd, fairly close win in Pologne.

For me, that wasn't enough of a baseline to feel convinced that huge upside results were a given. Was P-N 2023 a normal fluctuation and the string of wins the anomaly? I wasn't sure. And no longer being the favourite of the Tour made me think he might be more restrictive in his schedule, like if he finished 2nd again he might shut down his season and work all towards 2026 Tour rather than go to the Vuelta to chase Pogi again.

But I have to say that I've come around a bit. I have fresh eyes for his upside, partially due to looking at it outside a strictly numbers perspective, and remembering how much he leaves everyone in the dust save one guy. He was the best climber of all time (and did the best TT of all time) for a year and a half. But being the 2nd best climber of all time can still get you plenty of points in plenty of races.

Anyway, hope that last thought is wrong, for my team's sake. Good luck!

 

[shalgo]

Among all the revelations of thoughts and philosophies behind the teams, the one I'm really looking to hear from is @Tricycles : 21 unique picks; only 2 riders that are on more than 10 teams; Caleb Ewan as the most popular pick; bang on budget, but only 188 points difference between the most expensive and the cheapest rider.

Huh?

I can't say I can read Tricycles' mind, but if you look at the 2024 CQ Ranking table (https://cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/cqRankingRider.asp?year=2024&current=0&start=201), start at rider 285 (BERNARD Julien) and then scan down the list to rider 315 (EWAN Caleb), you will get 31 of the riders on Tricycles' team. The only riders missing are the most expensive (Lutsenko) and the least expensive (Budyak).

 

[armchairclimber]

I can't say I can read Tricycles' mind, but if you look at the 2024 CQ Ranking table (https://cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/cqRankingRider.asp?year=2024&current=0&start=201), start at rider 285 (BERNARD Julien) and then scan down the list to rider 315 (EWAN Caleb), you will get 31 of the riders on Tricycles' team. The only riders missing are the most expensive (Lutsenko) and the least expensive (Budyak).

One suspects then that he/she calculated an average cost per rider required to arrive at 7,500 points with 33 riders and selected from a range around that value in the rankings.