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.

 

[ingsve]

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.

I think the argument is more that Nordhagen likely/hopefully won't keep being sent to races that doesn't suit him.

 

[manafana]

They are, and it's not even you with the most irrational picks. @latinos has some very mainstream picks where he has spent most of his budget (some very popular, others a bit left field but not necessarily unique), but seems to have found himself with 37 points left for his final 15 slots, which have been filled* quixotically, to say the least.

*: not quite filled: he perhaps didn't realise that riders at zero points are available, and left the last three places empty.

would be interested in a team of best performing unique picks over time

 

[Netserk]

I think the argument is more that Nordhagen likely/hopefully won't keep being sent to races that doesn't suit him.

i assume it was his own idea to focus on u23 races. with his illness in the beginning of the year, i dont see what else he should have ridden

 

[ingsve]

i assume it was his own idea to focus on u23 races. with his illness in the beginning of the year, i dont see what else he should have ridden

It's not the U-23 races I'm talking about. Of course should have ridden them. There he had a chance to compete and win against his peers. It's more races like Tour of Norway he shouldn't ride. It's obvious why he was sent there being Norwegian but it's a bit of a waste. There are also better races than Tour de l'Ain for him to race I think.

 

[Netserk]

It's not the U-23 races I'm talking about. Of course should have ridden them. There he had a chance to compete and win against his peers. It's more races like Tour of Norway he shouldn't ride. It's obvious why he was sent there being Norwegian but it's a bit of a waste. There are also better races than Tour de l'Ain for him to race I think.

so which other races should he have ridden instead

 

[Squire]

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.

Quoting this, but I'm just continuing the general discussion on this topic really.

There's a lot of focus on Nordhagen's actual results. Doing maths by extrapolating points per race etc. is not my thing. My question is more like 'with how good he is, what can he do with the opportunities he will get'. And when it comes to scoring big, as in significantly outperforming whoever else I could have picked in that range, I think the probabilities are in Nordhagen's favour over Tarling. And I'm very happy that people are disagreeing, because having a different view than the majority is quite beneficial in this game, provided one's judgement is right of course.

Everyone has picked Widar, who will have a rather difficult schedule. I don't think Nordhagen is any worse than Widar as a GC talent (less punchy though, but Nordhagen won't be targeting Ardennes anyway). I think both can top 10 WT stage races on 2025 level given a clean run. Which of course could be me overestimating the Norwegian (or both), but what we assess someone's level to be is the crucial thing in this discussion. Already in 2024 Nordhagen was beating Pellizzari.

And you say Tarling has days like the WC ITT where he will score big. First of all, that's one specific day (or a couple, with British NC) where he has to be present, in good shape and avoid bad luck, and I don't agree that it necessarily takes Nordhagen weeks to compensate. Win the Czech Tour and you score more than 2nd in the WC ITT.

In my experience, top level ITT riders just don't score that much unless they also come with very good climbing abilities or absolute elite classics abilities. And Tarling showing any of those is not something I consider more likely than Nordhagen doing very well in a bunch of easy-ish stage races. Ganna's two high-scoring years have been because of several lucrative GC podiums, Küng has either needed big GC points or several top 5s in big classics to have his great years. Tony Martin's high-scoring years all had huge contributions from big stage races. Same with Rohan Dennis. So I don't fear the opportunity cost that much with Tarling.

With all that said, I still think Tarling is an excellent pick. Out of all riders between 250-500 points, he was next in line for my team. Give me 120 points extra budget and I switch him in for Asgreen (who is a bit of a hypocritical pick considering I'm arguing against Tarling ). I just think Nordhagen is better on average.

 

[Avoriaz]

My Tour Down Under team:

Van Eetvelt
Teutenberg
Lamperti
Pithie
Thornley
Peace

 

[Squire]

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.

Yeah, I see what you mean. The interesting thing this year is that there are no consensus picks in that range that I don't have. The closest would be Mas, and he's only on 27 teams. So for me, the opportunity cost of someone like Buitrago is mainly foregoing the Evenepoel strategy. And maybe acting on my strong Van Poppel gut feeling, but picking him would more likely have been in place of Gaudu/Asgreen and somebody else.

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.

My Valverde pick might have gotten you thinking in those terms, but I'm pretty sure I didn't discuss his merits then (but I did some years later in a different context). Because I don't think there were any merits to it. He was just a massive fanboy pick at a time when I didn't really know what I was doing in this game. And part of the opportunity cost was catastrophical: Not having Boonen. It was only the year after when I started getting a grasp of what to do and managed to finish just outside the top 10. Then I didn't take part for two years, before coming back and taking my research very seriously in 2016.

Hagenes - Top 10 GC potential (or more? Go Norway!)

I would be absolutely thrilled! But I don't quite see it. Anything more than the 5 GC participation points would be a bonus. Hagenes' time to shine is later. The climbs in TDU aren't the hardest, but in January they are quite hard. Usually the climbers come to the fore, and the almost 80kg Hagenes is definitely not one of them.

 

[Earns1985]

So @Shakes website is telling us, that 80! of our picked riders are in the pre-startlists of the Mallorca races.
Of course not every rider of these will participate in every race, but it´s still a big number I would say..

 

[Devil's Elbow]

So @Shakes website is telling us, that 80! of our picked riders are in the pre-startlists of the Mallorca races.
Of course not every rider of these will participate in every race, but it´s still a big number I would say..

Quite a few people, a.o. Evenepoel, Lipowitz and Mas, are supposedly only there for the TTT they've introduced this year.

 

[tobydawq]

So @Shakes website is telling us, that 80! of our picked riders are in the pre-startlists of the Mallorca races.
Of course not every rider of these will participate in every race, but it´s still a big number I would say..

80! is indeed a (n unfathomably) big number.

 

[Earns1985]

Quite a few people, a.o. Evenepoel, Lipowitz and Mas, are supposedly only there for the TTT they've introduced this year.

yeah, heard about that for Evenepoel. Would be surprised, if Lipowitz would not race at least another one.
Mas also only the TTT? What sense does this make? I mean, he is not riding the tour this year, where an TTT will be and he is not even a good time trialist..