The 2025 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Earns1985]

Suggestion by @Armchair Cyclist has been added to the site. On each team page you can compare similarities to all other teams, in terms of overlap in number of riders or point overlap. Clicking column header sorte by that column:

https://www.savius.at/CQGame/cqgame.php?page=Team&TeamId=18&Ranking=42

On Teams Ranking you can click to your own team, above is of Armchair Cyclist just fyi

Thanks for adding this feature!

I have 21 riders in common with @MADRAZO, but only 4097 points, which means that we mostly have the cheap picks in common. Anyone has more rider overlap?

Point wise I have most in common with @Fivezzz : 5391 points.

 

[tobydawq]

I hope Yates won't have to pull on the flat, trying unsuccessfully to control a stage finish for Van Aert like what Kuss did in the Vuelta last year.

He did not do it unsuccessfully.

 

[tobydawq]

When making my team, I went to the UCI provisional suspensions list and looked for Piccolo just for fun. He was not listed there, so technically he'd be available for 29 points if anyone wanted to take a punt on him going free and joining Corratec or something. But that would not really be in the spirit of the CQ game rules, I'd say. Although the likelihood of someone benefitting from that loophole in this particular case would be basically zero.

We all know you're meticulous with the research so did you check out his OnlyFans to see if there were signs of a comeback being on the table?

 

[Anderis]

Thanks for adding this feature!

I have 21 riders in common with @MADRAZO, but only 4097 points, which means that we mostly have the cheap picks in common. Anyone has more rider overlap?

Point wise I have most in common with @Fivezzz : 5391 points.

I have the biggest overlap with Devil's Elbow in both metrics- just 19 riders but 5506 points.

 

[Netserk]

He did not do it unsuccessfully.

You're right. Thanks for keeping me honest, I'm also out of shape here in the off-season.

 

[Squire]

Some people have been saying teams are quite similar this year, so I looked at the numbers.

While 2025 equals the record number of riders picked by at least half of the teams, it's nothing very out of the ordinary. This statistic is surprisingly stable across most of the years, by the way:

2025: 16
2024: 12
2023: 12
2022: 12
2021: 12
2020: 16
2019: 15
2018: 12
2017: 11
2016: 11
2015: 12
2014: 12
2013: 11
2012: 7
2011: 3

I have 21 riders in common with @MADRAZO, but only 4097 points, which means that we mostly have the cheap picks in common. Anyone has more rider overlap?

Point wise I have most in common with @Fivezzz : 5391 points.

So it seems like MADRAZO has divorced me and taken you as their CQ companion this year!

Me and MADRAZO have shared at least 22 or 23 riders on more than one occasion, I think. I've also had roughly that many overlapping riders with skidmark before.

This year, the closest team to mine is SafeBet's (20 riders in common), which is far from a record from me despite my team being high up in the popularity rankings. It's further anecdotal evidence to show that I don't think teams are extraordinarily similar this year. My most shared points are with Hugo Koblet, with whom I share 4364 points across 18 riders in common. I share the same number of riders with MADRAZO, but only 2458 points there. Which goes along with what we discussed earlier in the thread about having completely different expensive riders.

I guess the reason my shared points numbers are on the low side (other people are way up in the 5000s) is that none of the three other Almeida teams are that similar to mine (surprisingly, as skidmark is one of them), so I have almost 1000 pretty unique points there.

 

[Earns1985]

Nice provisional spring schedule for the 36 times picked Lafay:

02.02 Grand Prix Cycliste de Marseille La Marseillaise
05.02 Etoile de Bessèges - Tour du Gard
21.02 Classic Var
22.02 Tour des Alpes-Maritimes
01.03 Faun-Ardèche Classic
22.03 Milano-Sanremo
07.04Itzulia Basque Country
23.04 La Flèche Wallonne
27.04 Liège-Bastogne-Liège

I would like to say the same for Felix Gall (22 times picked), but I would have wished me a few more hillier french one-day races for him. Hopefully it´s not the full schedule yet..

17.02 UAE Tour
09.03 Paris-Nice
21.04 Tour of the Alps
08.06 Critérium du Dauphiné
05.07 Tour de France

Also a very detailed schedule for Paul Seixas is out:
02.02 Grand Prix Cycliste de Marseille La Marseillaise
17.02 UAE Tour
22.03 Classic Loire Atlantique
30.03 La Roue Tourangelle Centre Val de Loire - Groupama P.V.L.
21.04 Tour of the Alps
28.05 Alpes Isère Tour
15.06 Giro d'Italia Next Gen
06.08 Tour de l'Ain
17.09 Skoda Tour de Luxembourg
14.10 Gree-Tour of Guangxi

 

[ingsve]

I picked Tarling btw. For a couple of reasons.

He's still very young, already an established TT'er but also with some potential for the northern classics. As shown in last year's Dwars door Vlaanderen, de Ronde and maybe even Roubaix without that jury penalty. In his first pro year he got more points (!) than last season, and we even had an olympic time trial. And one of his biggest rivals against the clock, Evenepoel, will be MIA during the first part of the season.

I think in general Tarling needs to find another weapon other than just ITTs. He already has very high success rate in ITTs but needs to convert that into GC results or turn into a sprinter or something. Perhaps cobbles is closest at hand for that, we'll see.

 

[Nevs]

Suggestion by @Armchair Cyclist has been added to the site. On each team page you can compare similarities to all other teams, in terms of overlap in number of riders or point overlap. Clicking column header sorte by that column:

https://www.savius.at/CQGame/cqgame.php?page=Team&TeamId=18&Ranking=42

On Teams Ranking you can click to your own team, above is of Armchair Cyclist just fyi

Great feature - thanks for all the work you do

I did notice that I had a 3 rider overlap with the Danes team and knew I had 6 Danish riders on my team.
I wondered which 3 Danes I picked which were obviously the wrong Danes.

But when I compared we shared four riders Lund, Kron, Kamp and Philipsen.

Is it possible your code doesn't count zero-point riders (in this case Albert Withen

(and the wrong riders if any wonders were Per Hagenes and Jorgen Noordhagen)

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Great feature - thanks for all the work you do

I did notice that I had a 3 rider overlap with the Danes team and knew I had 6 Danish riders on my team.
I wondered which 3 Danes I picked which were obviously the wrong Danes.

But when I compared we shared four riders Lund, Kron, Kamp and Philipsen.

Is it possible your code doesn't count zero-point riders (in this case Albert Withen

(and the wrong riders if any wonders were Per Hagenes and Jorgen Noordhagen)

I hope you mean they were the wrong Danes, because they are in fact Norwegians.

I was disappointed that @RedheadDane didn't have Niklas Larsen, but that means I'll have a chance of victory in the game if he and Taaramäe suddenly start winning everything.

 

[RedheadDane]

I hope you mean they were the wrong Danes, because they are in fact Norwegians.

Yes, very wrong Danes!

Also a very detailed schedule for Paul Seixas is out:
*Snip*
15.06 Giro d'Italia Next Gen

I'm a little surprised by that. I thought the new rule said that WT riders couldn't do U23 races... or is that only for World Championships?

 

[Squire]

Another important rider´s spring schedule for this game is out!

Paul Magnier:
01.03 Omloop Nieuwsblad
04.03 Ename Samyn Classic
10.03 Tirreno-Adriatico
22.03 Milano-Sanremo
30.03 Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields
02.04 Dwars door Vlaanderen - A travers la Flandre
09.05 Giro d'Italia

What do you think about his schedule? Would have wished, that he will start a bit earlier, last time his first points were already in Mallorca. On the other hand in february there are mostly only stage races, which means that scoring for a sprinter is limited anyway.
Aout his participaticion in the cobble classics. Well, if he is doing well there, could be a really good schedule. But if not, it´s not so good for us Magnier owners. So I am a bit uncertain, what I should think about this schedule..

Bessèges and Algarve (with the Figueira classic) have been added to his schedule. While Bessèges has what must be the strongest field ever for that race, Magnier should be the best sprinter in Algarve among the ones announced so far. And there are three flat stages there this year. Also curious if he can survive the one-day race. Van den Berg finished in the 18-man group sprinting for 2nd last year, so it's borderline, I'd say.

 

[Netserk]

Do you rate him over Van Aert?

 

[Squire]

Do you rate him over Van Aert?

In a bunch sprint in a warm-up race in February I do, yes. And possibly in any bunch sprint, but we don't have that much data on Magnier on flat roads, because he hasn't done many flat races. He just seemed to be absolutely made for it in the Tour of Britain. Almost all of his other results are on rather tough courses.

Of course this argumentation don't quite hold water in other parts of the forum where people are obsessed with the need for riders to have 'proven' they can do things (and WVA is clearly more proven), but the CQ game is all about prediction.

 

[Netserk]

I didn't watch the sprints in Britain last year, but Van Aert did win the one sprint he tried in last year, despite saying before the race that he wouldn't sprint at all. With Vingegaard present, I think Wout will focus on the three sprints.

 

[postmanhat]

I saw room for huge improvement in Yates. His 2024 was already some 300-400 points below his average from the previous few years but he's moving to a better and more GT focused team (and it's the first team change in his entire pro career) so I can see a potential stimulus that would make him improve, just like his brother had the best season of his career right after he moved to UAE or how Laporte and Jorgenson exploded when joining Visma. Guess I was hoping this pattern would repeat with Simon and that he could even score some 1500-2000 points.
Perhaps there were riders out there more likely to bring some improvement but when you want to win, you just have to find someone who will make a very big step. I guess I liked the odds with Yates.

Was really torn about Yates. He should have left Jayco years ago if he wanted to fulfil his potential, and assumed this move was a comfortable first step to retirement as a dom, but it seems not? Could be that great combination of a profitable pick, and entertaining to follow.

 

[repre]

Was really torn about Yates. He should have left Jayco years ago if he wanted to fulfil his potential, and assumed this move was a comfortable first step to retirement as a dom, but it seems not? Could be that great combination of a profitable pick, and entertaining to follow.

Had him for a while. But took edition with Vingo instead. Yates could score big, but he burned me before and last Visma signings was disappointing for the game, so i went Sheffield way

 

[postmanhat]

Some people have been saying teams are quite similar this year, so I looked at the numbers.

While 2025 equals the record number of riders picked by at least half of the teams, it's nothing very out of the ordinary. This statistic is surprisingly stable across most of the years, by the way:

2025: 16
2024: 12
2023: 12
2022: 12
2021: 12
2020: 16
2019: 15
2018: 12
2017: 11
2016: 11
2015: 12
2014: 12
2013: 11
2012: 7
2011: 3


So it seems like MADRAZO has divorced me and taken you as their CQ companion this year!

Me and MADRAZO have shared at least 22 or 23 riders on more than one occasion, I think. I've also had roughly that many overlapping riders with skidmark before.

This year, the closest team to mine is SafeBet's (20 riders in common), which is far from a record from me despite my team being high up in the popularity rankings. It's further anecdotal evidence to show that I don't think teams are extraordinarily similar this year. My most shared points are with Hugo Koblet, with whom I share 4364 points across 18 riders in common. I share the same number of riders with MADRAZO, but only 2458 points there. Which goes along with what we discussed earlier in the thread about having completely different expensive riders.

I guess the reason my shared points numbers are on the low side (other people are way up in the 5000s) is that none of the three other Almeida teams are that similar to mine (surprisingly, as skidmark is one of them), so I have almost 1000 pretty unique points there.

Regarding the high number of shared riders, WVA apart, the vast majority are the sort of low-cost riders often included in most teams, and there just happens to be a lot more of them to pick from this year? Some could have a big upside, but not sure how much they'll affect the results overall.

Conversely, it seems to me like there's a much greater variety than normal amongst the 300-800 riders than normal? Against my initial expectations, think this could be one of the most exciting games for a while.

 

[postmanhat]

Had him for a while. But took edition with Vingo instead. Yates could score big, but he burned me before and last Visma signings was disappointing for the game, so i went Sheffield way

Yes, had him before and was put off by his previous flakiness, which might prove to be a mistake now he's finally moved teams. Also went Ineos instead with Ganna.

 

[repre]

Yes, had him before and was put off by his previous flakiness, which might prove to be a mistake now he's finally moved teams. Also went Ineos instead with Ganna.

Might be, might not, Ganna is a better choice i think. I still a little mad that i had him as a certain pick, then got ill, abandoned the process and forgot about him. Nice pick, that could be winning pick

 

[postmanhat]

I think in general Tarling needs to find another weapon other than just ITTs. He already has very high success rate in ITTs but needs to convert that into GC results or turn into a sprinter or something. Perhaps cobbles is closest at hand for that, we'll see.

Something else to consider with riders like Tarling is that this might be the year that Ineos realise they're now a mediocre WT stage race team, and so go point-farming in smaller races. They're riding Marseille for the first time I can remember?

Didn't go for Tarling after opting for Ganna and Turner, but wishing I had now. And Laurance, who could also benefit hugely if this proves to be correct.

 

[hayneplane]

Will be fascinating to see if Seixas can hang on to the second tier climbers in the MTFs in UAE tour.

 

[ingsve]

Something else to consider with riders like Tarling is that this might be the year that Ineos realise they're now a mediocre WT stage race team, and so go point-farming in smaller races. They're riding Marseille for the first time I can remember?

Didn't go for Tarling after opting for Ganna and Turner, but wishing I had now. And Laurance, who could also benefit hugely if this proves to be correct.

That would be way premature for Ineos. The race to stay in the WT is in it's final year for this cycle and they are in 5th place so they are nowhere near at risk of getting relegated so it would be utterly pointless to go chase points just for the hell of it. Best to just focus on developing their riders well.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Will be fascinating to see if Seixas can hang on to the second tier climbers in the MTFs in UAE tour.

Considering Pogacar is in his own tier, that would mean hanging with guys like Van Eetvelt or Gall. Surely it's too early for that.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

When are they announcing the UAE routes?
Last year they did it on the 17th, but the races are starting two days earlier this time around.