The 2026 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[bminchow]

TDU Starters:
Only four, which is an all time low for me. Just as at seems more CQ points are becoming available down under.

Pithie - he HAS to be better than last year, right? Haven't checked the route yet but it can't be all for Danny.
Van Eetvelt - Top 5 GC potential
Hagenes - Top 10 GC potential (or more? Go Norway!)
Dinham - Top 10 GC potential. Seriously. He's not just a cheap filler

 

[Netserk]

Because of the way it was raced, the riders basically finished in order of climbing ability. Nordhagen really should have been able to climb with the Tulett/Jegat/Rouland/Moniquet group, and he didn't. Especially given that even Uijtdebroeks, despite crushing everyone, failed to beat THJ's climb record from Avenir 2021.

he should. and he would have, if he had targeted that race instead of avenir

 

[Devil's Elbow]

he should. and he would have, if he had targeted that race instead of avenir

Normally speaking, you aren't too far off your peak form two weeks before the one-week race you're targeting.

 

[Kazistuta]

Wait. you obviously think you're making the right assessment? That is def NOT me. I am always second guessing myself. Then panic picking and changing at the last minute. That's how i end up with Nys, Pithie and Baudin last year. And I'm already regretting Del Grosso this year (and possibly Albert Withen). Maybe I need to write and assessment of my team (a week late) so y'all can see how scattered my process is

Yes, please do And the second guessing on my part only comes after reading other participants thoughts and praises of other riders, that's partly why it's a fun read for me, to get reassured or the opposite until the season really gets on the way.

 

[RedheadDane]

Predicting scores is hard. It is common to overestimate ones ability and skill to do that.

I would like to go on the record and say that I have never done that.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I wouldn't focus too much on the average points scored over those 5 non-U-23 races. Tour of Norway is not his terrain at all. Coppi e Bartali was when he was still recovering from the illness that kept him out of Oman so he wasn't in full race shape yet so extrapolating that to a whole season is misleading. Even l'Ain even though it had a big climb in the middle of the final stage wasn't a perfectly suited race for him.

If he rides a whole season with more Romandie type stage races then I'm sure his average score would be higher even on current capacity.

I mean squire's entire argument is based on Nordhagen being "presented with GC scoring opportunities pretty much every time he puts a race number on" versus Tarling's wasting a bunch of race days doing a GT/stage races where he'll only get a TT or two to shine. That's already a bit tenuous considering Tarling also has race days (WC ITT being the obvious one) that it will take Nordhagen weeks of GCs to compensate. If you have to dismiss out of hand half the stage races Nordhagen does because they don't fit him, I think the entire argument falls apart.

 

[skidmark]

I appear to have 9 riders for TDU:
Dinham, Strand Hagenes, T. Rex, Glivar, Ballerstedt, Greenwood, Fontaine, Van Eetvelt and Pithie.

Wow, how does he hold the handlebars with those tiny arms?

 

[Netserk]

Normally speaking, you aren't too far off your peak form two weeks before the one-week race you're targeting.

i dont think he was too far off climbing with those four considering the work he did before the climb

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Wow, how does he hold the handlebars with those tiny arms?

Like this apparently, but I'm not sure it's the same Tim Rex.

 

[skidmark]

Yeah, these discussions are part of the beauty of the set-and-forget style of this game. And because the premises are wildly different every year, it's not like one is giving away many 'secrets' either. Not that there really are many secrets anyway, as many different approaches have all been successful. And I don't think you can easily adopt somebody else's intuitive assessment of picks, as @SafeBet touched on in their team presentation.

I think I've alluded to this in previous years, but it's interesting how you categorize my approach as more risky and cite Buitrago as an example. In my eyes it's almost the opposite. I look at the upside of course, but I'm also thinking 'what does a bad season look like'. And in Buitrago's case, it still looks pretty good. There's always a stage race or three where he can recover points. A bad season for your Nys and Mohoric f.ex. has the potential of being much more of a bust. And I often stay away from the Tarling types (although him in particular was in the running for my team), where an okay season is barely more than just a repeat of his cost and he needs an actual good season to be a good pick.


The risk that I'm aware that I'm taking is in who I'm omitting sometimes, like Poole (and the aforementioned 2023 Roglic f.ex.). I'm probably more in the 'past results don't guarantee future results' camp than most players. But with Poole, that omission was also kind of a risk-minimizer in terms of ensuring I have riders who I'm very confident will at least have an unimpaired run. But with Poole's recent interview, that particular one may have been a mistake. Wish he had opened his gob slightly earlier.

I've clipped and bolded a piece of this, just to say that on reflection, I think I meant what you are saying by what I was saying, but probably should have chosen a better word than 'risk', or added context. I just mean risk as in opportunity cost of other riders that you could have picked, who show up higher in the popularity table ie other people have also thought they were likely to increase value. To reframe, I should say that you have proven to be able to see value in riders that aren't 'obvious' that almost everyone in this game overlooks. Buitrago is a perfect example - this is someone whose CQ profile would not catch the eye of me, at least, if I'm scrolling through lists of riders. Breakout year in 2022 with 500 points, then 3 years between 600 and 800, cost of 688 (82 points below his best year so far). But he's still 26 and he's shown flashes of real ability, so it does make sense what you're saying about him having a high floor, and if you've looked into his context and seen opportunity for improvement, that will serve you well. And even if he gets the regular setbacks that cyclists mostly face (sickness, a crash here and there), he'll be a good 'anchor' for your team in terms of the points you spent and making sure they're not wasted.

Anyway, I guess I see riders that you could get for an equivalent amount, like say Thibau Nys and Laurence Pithie together - I see those guys and say "well I know Nys has the talent to get 1000 but does he have the calendar, and Pithie has already got over 600 once so there's proof of concept there" and I'm more inclined to take them and leave Buitrago off as a rider who hasn't suggested that upside to me. (I mean, I don't actually have Pithie on my team so maybe that's not the best example). I tend to get nervous about upside/opportunity cost risk and that limits the riders I consider. But anyway, this is all complimentary - I mostly mean I didn't even think to think about Buitrago more, and that's a pick where you could zag and it could work out for you more, and mostly has, which is why your combo of knowing which picks not to miss (mostly) and mining picks that other people don't notice as much has worked out for you to get a high placing quite often.

I remember in an early year of this game when you picked Valverde and I was like 'what?' because he was so expensive and then you discussed (and demonstrated) that having an expensive rider could be good depending on the rest of the team context as they could eat up points and provide a solid base - I'd never thought of that before and it changed my perspective on team building. So I'm definitely going to reflect on this in terms of which riders I might be overlooking.