The 2025 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[del1962]

Signs of life from Hayter, was thinking if he did not get close to top ten in today’s time trial I think I would lose hope for his cq season, though he still has to find consistency

 

[skidmark]

Update #11: Standings flip again as Rufs wins the week

It was a big week in terms of magnitude as Flanders topped the week, but there were a number of other 1-day races for scoring, including the WT Dwars Door Vlaanderen, the 1.Pro GP Miguel Indurain, and a handful of others.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	Rufs	737
2	MADRAZO	685
3	manafana	655
4	slow_climber	647
5	Senderos	625

Rufs' team was always likely to do well during the classics with Mads Pedersen as a unique pick, but him being in the form of his life must be a bonus as he picks up another 240 points this week to have 938 on the season so far. Wout Van Aert's 60 owners must be breathing at least a bit of a sigh of relief this week, as he picked up 233 points after scoring only 69 prior to this, and Rufs is one of those 60 as well. Rufs also got some help from Andrea Bagioli (66, 56), Laurence Pithie (54, 16) and Paul Seixas (53, 66).

MADRAZO also has a great week, coming in 2nd with 685 points from Van Aert, his DDV vanquisher Neilson Powless (185, 5), Filippo Ganna (80, 25), Bagioli, and Paul Penhoet (48, 15). manafana ekes by slow climber for third place with Van Aert, Thibau Nys's strong season debut (130, 20), as well as Ganna/Bagioli.

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	Nakazar	(+14)
2	Rufs	(+12)
2	escartin	(+12)
4	laarsland	(+11)
4	Laurens147	(+11)
4	Devils_Elbow	(+11)
4	hayneplane	(+11)

Despite not finishing in the top 5 of the Top Scorers ranking, Nakazar moves up the most this week, gaining 14 places as a Van Aert/Powless holder. Rufs ties for 2nd on this ranking with escartin, with each of them moving up by a dozen spots.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	Pantani4ever	176
2	search	131
3	Salvarani	124
4	Rufs	112
5	postmanhat	108

Pantani4ever's run of weeks in the points ends, but their lead is still pretty solid. search actually continues a run of 6 straight weeks in the points, getting another 18 this week to move into 2nd overall on this ranking. Rufs moves into the top 5 with their 45 winning points.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(+2)	search	4614
2	(-)	postmanhat	4499
3	(-2)	Pantani4ever	4292
4	(+3)	slow_climber	4137
5	(+7)	MADRAZO	4022
6	(+9)	manafana	3949
7	(+12)	Rufs	3916
8	(+1)	Qazaqstan	3898
9	(+4)	will10	3895
10	(-5)	Salvarani	3825

There is some significant upheaval in the overall standings this week, as search becomes our new overall leader by a fairly comfortable margin to the rest of the top 10. Pantani4ever falls to 3rd after one week on top, while postmanhat stands more even keel in 2nd place. MADRAZO, manafana, Rufs, and will10 all jump into the top 10 at the expense of adamski101, longtime leader Jakob747, peixotini, and DJW.

Holy Week is here, with Itzulia leading into Paris-Roubaix as the main course, but there are also points on offer in the 2.1 Pays Loire tour, the 1.Pro Scheldeprijs, and the 2.Pro Tour of Hainan for those who might have riders there.

spreadsheet link

 

[RedheadDane]

Well, Salby clearly didn't get the memo about being the Danish Mareczko! 3rd and 15th do not a Mareczko make!

Loire

Breiner
Nielsen
(None of them have managed to score points on the first day.)

Scheldeprijs

Changizi
Price
Stokbro
Wallin
Withen


And now, if you would please join me for a short prayer.

Mighty Skadi. Please protect the collarbones of all the people who'll be riding their bikes between Terneuzen and Schoten tomorrow.



(No deity of cycling. So, despite my annoyance with certain people always bringing up skiing, the goddess of skiing will just have to do.)

 

[Samu Cuenca]

now Ewan is definitely gonna score those 1000 points for INEOS.

Here we go.

 

[RedheadDane]

Right, my "Danish Mareczko" did manage to get a win in Hainan. I was worried he was mostly going to be a Danish Mareczko in the "can't get over a mole hill to save a puppy" sense...

None of my riders in either Loire or Scheldeprijs managed to score points... but at least I don't think any of them broke their collarbones, so... maybe my prayer to Skadi did work? Slightly, not for everyone...

The race has not finished yet, but I should (hopefully) get a good chunk of points from a top-10 in Itzulia from Skjelmose, and the "at least they finished" 5 points from Hellemose and Kamp. Charmig and Foldager unfortunately out.
Edit:
Skjelmose top-5.
Hellemose finished.
Kamp? Seems to have disappeared off the face of the Earth... it was mentioned in the race thread that 4 Wanty riders were DNS today, but no information anywhere about who...
Out too... which I guess he would also be if he had indeed disappeared off the face of the Earth...

122nd Paris-Roubaix

Kasper Asgreen
Mikkel Norsgaard Bjerg
William Blume Levy
Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard
Andreas Stokbro Nielsen
Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen

Come on, guys. Just finish! That's all I'm asking; just... get to the finish-line, within the time-cut.

 

[del1962]

Lorenzo Finn gets points today after James Shaw and Ben Healy yesterday, all reasonably rare, in Shaw’s case only one other team. All I need is a Lipowitz to take Itzulia and a 1,2,3 from Van Aert , Ganna and Pithie tomorrow 😀

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Yeah a Paris-Roubaix 1-2 for my team... in the U23 category. So no points basically. Even Brennan who looked pretty much nailed on to a top 10 spot at one point, rolled in for finisher points. Season from hell continues.

 

[Salvarani]

Classics is soon coming to an end and I am better positioned than I expected at this stage of the season.

Hope my GC-guys can keep ticking along. Some of them should have their best time coming up in the next few months.

 

[hayneplane]

4,5 and 20 in Roubaix plus points for AWP and Widar made a decent week. If only Del Toro was less diligent in his domestique work and lost less time early on in Itzulia he could have finished a few spots higher on GC.

 

[RedheadDane]

Back to the weekly listings it is. Half the riders I have racing end up not even scoring points anyway, so it doesn't really matter if they end up not racing at all.

d'Abruzzo

Johansen
Well, he's gonna do his thing. Unfortunately for me, "his thing" means pulling a lot, and then not scoring a fish of points.

Limburg

Nielsen
Stokbro
Withen

Brabantse

Bjerg
Gregaard
Kamp
Stokbro

Those French Races

Cort (J+D)
Dalby (B+J+D)

Amstel

Charmig
Foldager
Kamp
Skjelmose
Stokbro

 

[Earns1985]

So after the cobble classics van Aert is with 427 points a bit behind his 2024 score (439 points), but that 1st place @search also have him in his team means, that it´s still possible to be high in the ranking when you have him.

What is striking is, that the first out of the overall, who has Vingegaard is already quite far back (@HoudiniCycling) at 14th overall 1100 points behind already.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

We have missed a major landmark in this year's game.

I wondered whether finisher's consolation points in Paris-Roubaix might have brought anyone to the happy place of all their riders being off the mark for the season, and thus confidence for the manager in knowing that no-one was worth no more than leaving a place blank on their entry.

If Jordi Warlop had finished yesterday, Amis Velo would now be in that happy position; but slipping in below the radar, and despite a humble 91st place currently in the table, it turned out that @Tricycles had already sealed that, by virtue of Mikel Bizkarra completing the Volta of Catalunya two weeks ago.

For most teams, some combination of Kron, Behrens, Dinham, Kragh Andersen and Kamp are at least part of the reason they are not there yet.

 

[RedheadDane]

For most teams, some combination of Kron, Behrens, Dinham, Kragh Andersen and Kamp are at least part of the reason they are not there yet.

Yeah, my "K-Combo" is leaving something left to be desired... and then there's Køster, whom Ag2R seems to have forgotten even exists...
Though, he could be having injury troubles, like Kragh. Not necessarily the same type of injury troubles.

 

[Earns1985]

We have missed a major landmark in this year's game.

I wondered whether finisher's consolation points in Paris-Roubaix might have brought anyone to the happy place of all their riders being off the mark for the season, and thus confidence for the manager in knowing that no-one was worth no more than leaving a place blank on their entry.

If Jordi Warlop had finished yesterday, Amis Velo would now be in that happy position; but slipping in below the radar, and despite a humble 91st place currently in the table, it turned out that @Tricycles had already sealed that, by virtue of Mikel Bizkarra completing the Volta of Catalunya two weeks ago.

For most teams, some combination of Kron, Behrens, Dinham, Kragh Andersen and Kamp are at least part of the reason they are not there yet.

*lol* This team of @Tricycles looks so random, can´t believe, that this team is really the first one, where all riders already scored some points..

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

*lol* This team of @Tricycles looks so random, can´t believe, that this team is really the first one, where all riders already scored some points..

It is a very egalitarian team. the average budget per team member is 227.27; of the 33 riders in th team, 31cost in the range 216-240. I'm guessing that the other two are accounted for by a determination to include Lutsenko (cost 345), and inclusion of Budyak (157) to use up every last drop of the budget.

 

[manafana]

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

he underwhelmed in stage race then

 

[Earns1985]

One more obervation:

Two riders, which we though one month ago could be crucial to have this year with an impressive start in the season, weren´t so good anymore the last couple of weeks:

Paul Magnier and Antonio Morgado. Both nearly didn´t score at all the last couple of weeks, altought they hadn´t been out with an injury...

 

[skidmark]

Update #12: A fun day for del

The classic-est portion of classics season has ended with the Hell of the North in the books, and the always fascinating Itzulia gathering points for teams this week, among some other races such as the typically crash-filled Scheldeprijs. Let's see who made it out of the carnage.

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	del1962	665
2	Rufs	658
3	Berflamand	647
4	skidmark	619
5	peixotini	589

The week belongs to del1962, who scores an almost-devilish 665 points, thanks to an array of scorers including Florian Lipowitz (132 points, 11 teams), Wout Van Aert (125, 60), Florian Vermeersch (112, 74), Ben Healy (91, 15) and James Shaw (76, 2). Just outdone is last week's winner Rufs, who keeps an impressive run going (4 weeks in a row at the top, with two wins, a 2nd place, and a 5th place) thanks to Van Aert/Lipowitz/Vermeersch and unique pick/secret weapon Mads Pedersen (145 points). Berflamand finishes off a very tight podium with 647 as one of the 3 teams who took a chance on Max Schachmann (241 points), as well as Van Aert/Vermeersch.

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	Berflamand	(+19)
2	del1962	(+18)
3	Mountain_Newts	(+13)
3	Googolplex	(+13)
3	Blues in the bottle	(+13)

Berflamand moves to top spot here, just preventing del1962 from claiming a double. Three teams tie for 3rd, with Mountain Newts, Googolplex and Blues in the bottle all moving up 13 spots.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	Pantani4ever	176
2	Rufs	147
3	Salvarani	144
4	search	131
5	postmanhat	108

This competition has been bouncing around for weeks now, and that trend continues. Pantani4ever still has a decent lead, but Rufs gets 35 points and Salvarani 20 more to close the gap.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	search	5006
2	(-)	postmanhat	4726
3	(+4)	Rufs	4574
4	(-1)	Pantani4ever	4572
5	(-1)	slow_climber	4508
6	(+4)	Salvarani	4410
7	(-2)	MADRAZO	4385
8	(-)	Qazaqstan	4363
9	(-)	will10	4357
10	(-4)	manafana	4324

Not as much chaos this week as search becomes the first team to cross 5000 points for the season, and extends the lead to postmanhat by 170ish points. Rufs' hot streak gets their team the last spot on the podium by a mere two points! But lower, nobody enters or drops out of the top 10, with some shuffling around but the 3-10 spots only separated by 250 points.

This week sees the transition from the cobbles to the hills, with Brabatse Pijl and Amstel, as well as 3 1.1 French races and a 2.1 Italian race.

Programming update: I'm heading out for my annual jaunt to a remote worksite for two months, so EvansIsTheBest will be taking over updates for that time as has been the case the last few years. Thanks EITB!

spreadsheet link

 

[RedheadDane]

Meanwhile, Breiner has broken his collarbone (well, one of them) because he got hit by a commissaire car during Loire.
You'd think the driver of the commissaire car would have gotten the lesson of "Please, do not hit the riders."

This week sees the transition from the cobbles to the hills, with Brabatse Pijl and Amstel, as well as 3 1.1 French races and a 2.1 Italian race.

I was so confused about what level 3 1.1 was supposed to be, and especially how it would be relevant for this game.

 

[del1962]

Thanks for the update

Having not that long ago been down in the bottom 3 it’s nice to move into top half. With a week win a bonus, can’t remember the last time (if there was)

Lot of riders with late starts to season hopefully they can push on and others start performing

 

[Panda Claws]

Signs of life with a 15th place this update but man did Lazkano screw me over.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Decent result for Rondel in Italy.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Van Aert now has more points than he had at this stage last year. Every Wout has a silver lining.

 

[Netserk]

Van Aert now has more points than he had at this stage last year. Every Wout has a silver lining.

But it will be hard to defend his Vuelta points in the Giro without a strong sprint. And hard to justify much freedom in the Tour, but little to defend there.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

But it will be hard to defend his Vuelta points in the Giro without a strong sprint. And hard to justify much freedom in the Tour, but little to defend there.

He'll just have to ride the Vuelta, too, I guess.

There's also still time for him to improve his sprinting, if it really isn't something they've particularly focused on in training this year, and if his knee permits it. One victory could probably also do wonders for his confidence.