The 2026 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[RedheadDane]

Hey, @Shakes, I think there might be a slight confusion regarding Norsgaard's name.

This is how he's listed at CQ:

CQ Ranking - NORSGAARD Mathias

CQ Ranking is the world's leading cycling ranking and extensive results database. Also known as Cycling Quotient.

cqranking.com

(So, a rare case of them not using a rider's full name.)

This is how he's listed at PCS:

Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard

Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard (born 1997-05-05 in Silkeborg) is a professional road racing cyclist from Denmark, currently riding for Lidl - Trek. His best results are 2 wins in Chrono des Nations and winning National Championships Denmark ME - ITT.

www.procyclingstats.com

And finally this is how he's listed on the CQmanager website:

Rider — CQ Game

www.cqmanager.com

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Hey, @Shakes, I think there might be a slight confusion regarding Norsgaard's name.

This is how he's listed at CQ:

CQ Ranking - NORSGAARD Mathias

CQ Ranking is the world's leading cycling ranking and extensive results database. Also known as Cycling Quotient.

cqranking.com

(So, a rare case of them not using a rider's full name.)

This is how he's listed at PCS:

Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard

Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard (born 1997-05-05 in Silkeborg) is a professional road racing cyclist from Denmark, currently riding for Lidl - Trek. His best results are 2 wins in Chrono des Nations and winning National Championships Denmark ME - ITT.

www.procyclingstats.com

And finally this is how he's listed on the CQmanager website:

Rider — CQ Game

www.cqmanager.com

Shakes has linked it to his CQ rider ID, so he could have been given a Swiss name like ?? instead of a Georgian one and he'd still receive the points he ends up scoring.

 

[Squire]

Of your rare picks this year, I'm most intrigued by your Morgado, Lafay, and Foldager picks. I was only close to picking one of those (Foldager) but considered Lafay and am intrigued by your enthusiasm about him... I can see it. He does seem versatile enough to offer a good floor, but the last few years he's followed this Ayuso pattern of just smashing it in his first 50% of race days and then just having no real consistency the second half of his season. Interested to see if that's something that can be changed or if its a trend.

I think you meant to say Morgado instead of Lafay? Because the description fits Morgado and not the Frenchman.

I think Morgado had some health issues in 2024 and 2023 too, but his 2025 season was definitely riddled with such issues from Algarve onwards. And they were of such a nature that it doesn't necessarily have to repeat itself. I have learnt that some riders are just notoriously inconsistent, with Bagioli being the poster boy for that. But it's too early to conclude about Morgado yet. At least as a junior he was very consistent.

I am indeed very excited to see how he does, and if he will be as good as I hope/think. With Buitrago I kinda know his level, he just needs to make the most of it. With Morgado there's the enormous breakout potential. At the end of the season we could still look at him as someone who's occasionally really strong but inconsistent, or he could have attained the same status as Del Toro. Or anything in between.

 

[RedheadDane]

Shakes has linked it to his CQ rider ID, so he could have been given a Swiss name like ?? instead of a Georgian one and he'd still receive the points he ends up scoring.

Yeah, but I think the "Upcoming races" list is - mostly - based on PCS names.

 

[Shakes]

@Samu Cuenca is correct. I dumped the names once from CQ and never touch them anymore. So when they change the name... mine doesn't update. As otherwise I need to have a process that keeps re-checking the names and didn't want to both.

Regarding races. Need to check, as I mapped the CQ Identifier to PCS Name. Out of laziness I might show the PCS name instead of retrieving my internal name. If its an issue I can check that later but underlying real truth is always the CQ Id. Names are just... names.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Yeah, but I think the "Upcoming races" list is - mostly - based on PCS names.

I supplied Shakes with the list of PCS names vs CQ version. It was only a few days ago, but PCS has changed its version of MN's name in that time. Because there is no apparent way of getting at the codes that PCS uses internally (on CQ the rider codes are in their downloads and in the URL), it is dependent on names remaining consistent, as Shakes has made clear. I note that the URL on PCS is still based on the two word version of his name, so while Shakes and I hoped that consistency in that would be sufficient, it apparently is not.
So it would require being changed manually and being pointed out to Shakes, if he is willing to take on additional tasks.
It won't lead to any errors in the points for the teams he is on: that is culled from CQ, but it might be that some riders will be missing from the forthcoming races lists.

 

[RedheadDane]

I supplied Shakes with the list of PCS names vs CQ version. It was only a few days ago, but PCS has changed its version of MN's name in that time.

It is kinda weird that they did it like that. Rather than just keep the name at the top of his profile as 'Mathias Norsgaard' and then have the full name in the info-box next to his profile picture.
And no "Georgian name" needed.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

It is kinda weird that they did it like that. Rather than just keep the name at the top of his profile as 'Mathias Norsgaard' and then have the full name in the info-box next to his profile picture.
And no "Georgian name" needed.

You'd need to take that up with them...

 

[RedheadDane]

You'd need to take that up with them...

Unfortunately, the only way to contact them is some feature that doesn't work.

But non-Danish commentators may rest assured that they don't have to learn how to say 'Sunekær'.
'Norsgaard' is just fine.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Unfortunately, the only way to contact them is some feature that doesn't work.

But non-Danish commentators may rest assured that they don't have to learn how to say 'Sunekær'.
'Norsgaard' is just fine.

Everyone should do like Mareille Meijering and marry someone whose surname is already incorporated in their existing surname, in this case Meijer, so you can just remove some letters and avoid the whole adding additional names issue. I for one am hoping Grega Bole marries Cees Bol and that Nans Peters locks down Jannis Peter.

 

[LosBrolin]

Can’t comment on PCS, but on FC he’s been listed as Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard since January last year, because:

 

[RedheadDane]

Everyone should do like Mareille Meijering and marry someone whose surname is already incorporated in their existing surname, in this case Meijer, so you can just remove some letters and avoid the whole adding additional names issue. I for one am hoping Grega Bole marries Cees Bol and that Nans Peters locks down Jannis Peter.

And one of the Kopecky bros should marry Lotte Kopecky?

Anyway, I guess my main hope regarding Norsgaard is that he does all the (WT) cobbled classics, obviously helps Mads P to a good result, and then just... finishes. Coz that seems to basically be how he scores points these days.
A GT would be nice too, of course.

 

[ingsve]

I think you meant to say Morgado instead of Lafay? Because the description fits Morgado and not the Frenchman.

I think Morgado had some health issues in 2024 and 2023 too, but his 2025 season was definitely riddled with such issues from Algarve onwards. And they were of such a nature that it doesn't necessarily have to repeat itself. I have learnt that some riders are just notoriously inconsistent, with Bagioli being the poster boy for that. But it's too early to conclude about Morgado yet. At least as a junior he was very consistent.

I am indeed very excited to see how he does, and if he will be as good as I hope/think. With Buitrago I kinda know his level, he just needs to make the most of it. With Morgado there's the enormous breakout potential. At the end of the season we could still look at him as someone who's occasionally really strong but inconsistent, or he could have attained the same status as Del Toro. Or anything in between.

I think a crucial part will come down to who will ride the "Hirshi/Del Toro calendar" for UAE. That more than anything will impact a lot of points each season. My assumption has always been that it would be a suitable calendar for Cosnefroy but then people started mentioning Morgado as well and the comments he had made about climbing better and riding more italian races in the fall so it can quickly become he as well that is taking all the easy points for UAE.

Then again it might also be Jan Christen that leads those races as well so there are many options and in the end it might even be split so that there isn't just one huge points scorer from these one-day races for UAE. Or yet another alternative would be if other teams could compete with UAE and take some of the wins away from them.

 

[Shakes]

Hey, @Shakes, I think there might be a slight confusion regarding Norsgaard's name.

This is how he's listed at CQ:

CQ Ranking - NORSGAARD Mathias

CQ Ranking is the world's leading cycling ranking and extensive results database. Also known as Cycling Quotient.

cqranking.com

(So, a rare case of them not using a rider's full name.)

This is how he's listed at PCS:

Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard

Mathias Sunekær Norsgaard (born 1997-05-05 in Silkeborg) is a professional road racing cyclist from Denmark, currently riding for Lidl - Trek. His best results are 2 wins in Chrono des Nations and winning National Championships Denmark ME - ITT.

www.procyclingstats.com

And finally this is how he's listed on the CQmanager website:

Rider — CQ Game

www.cqmanager.com

This will keep happening with changing names unfortunately, as I dont have a robust way to map to PCS. Would need a unique identifier. I tried something else, let's see if it gets picked up. I'm getting throttled at Github so my scripts don't run at the moment. The PCS scraping apparently consumes quite some resources the free plan doesn't agree with

 

[RedheadDane]

This will keep happening with changing names unfortunately, as I dont have a robust way to map to PCS. Would need a unique identifier. I tried something else, let's see if it gets picked up. I'm getting throttled at Github so my scripts don't run at the moment. The PCS scraping apparently consumes quite some resources the free plan doesn't agree with

Just to be clear; the confusing was mostly pointing out that it means he's invisible for Valencia. At least on the "upcoming races" list, I don't think he'll be invisible in the race...

As long as I get whatever few points he scrapes up along the way. (I suppose the other players who have him want the points too... silly them.)

 

[skidmark]

I think you meant to say Morgado instead of Lafay? Because the description fits Morgado and not the Frenchman.

I think Morgado had some health issues in 2024 and 2023 too, but his 2025 season was definitely riddled with such issues from Algarve onwards. And they were of such a nature that it doesn't necessarily have to repeat itself. I have learnt that some riders are just notoriously inconsistent, with Bagioli being the poster boy for that. But it's too early to conclude about Morgado yet. At least as a junior he was very consistent.

I am indeed very excited to see how he does, and if he will be as good as I hope/think. With Buitrago I kinda know his level, he just needs to make the most of it. With Morgado there's the enormous breakout potential. At the end of the season we could still look at him as someone who's occasionally really strong but inconsistent, or he could have attained the same status as Del Toro. Or anything in between.

Oops yeah poor sentence construction - should have said 'Morgado' instead of 'him' there.

 

[Shakes]

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..

83 now!

 

[Earns1985]

Just looked up the popularity table.
Did this year really nobody selected Johannes Staune-Mittet?

This guy was picked 52 times in 2024 and 32 times in 2025.
In 2023 his score was 108
In 2024 his score was 150
In 2025 his score was 206.

I didn´t pick him, because there had been just better options this year, but that really nobody picked him is in my eyes really a surprise..

 

[vladimir]

Just looked up the popularity table.
Did this year really nobody selected Johannes Staune-Mittet?

This guy was picked 52 times in 2024 and 32 times in 2025.< But t
In 2023 his score was 108
In 2024 his score was 150
In 2025 his score was 206.

I didn´t pick him, because there had been just better options this year, but that really nobody picked him is in my eyes really a surprise..

Well I picked him last year, and as a Norwegian obviously considered him this year too. But there are so many possible good picks arounf 200 points, so I opted for Poole at 215 points, Gautherat at 213 points and Finn at 211 points as better options in that price range.

 

[skidmark]

Did this year really nobody selected Johannes Staune-Mittet?

In 2023 his score was 108
In 2024 his score was 150
In 2025 his score was 206.

I believe the explanation for his non-picking is in your post.

I mean, last year was his 'lets see how he does outside of stacked Visma on a different teams with an explicit focus on his own chances', and the profit was 56 points. Just so many more inspiring choices at around his cost.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Between you all, players of this game picked 191 riders that are also eligible for the Emerging Riders CQ game, i.e. they have not yet achieved 200 CQ points in their career. Many of you will therefore already have the backbone of a team in your spreadsheets or on the backs of your envelopes. All you need to do is bring that list up to 18 strong (you don't even need original ideas, the list of 191 is in the thread) and then you can claim to have got on the bandwagon early when they become superstars by the end of the game, at the conclusion of the 2028 season. Entries before the TDU starts on Tuesday (but be aware that that will be in the unsociable hours of the night for most of us): don't miss out.

If you believe that you can bring the same degree of expertise/luck/lack of embarrassment at your errors to the younger element of the women's peloton, there is Samu's Emerging Female Riders game (also 18 riders, also less than 200 lifetime CQ points, also has a cheat sheet of riders chosen for the season-long game, but you only need to wait 2 years to see if yuo have won): PMs to Samu Cuenca by tomorrow night.

 

[Squire]

So does the end of the nations cup and new categorization for Tour de l'Avenir, Peace Race etc. mean that they now only give 2.2 points like the Baby Giro and Valle d'Aosta? I can't quite imagine that CQ will give l'Avenir some special status. Slightly bad news for those who picked Finn, Ramirez or Lindholm, I guess.

 

[RedheadDane]

Actually, I think the 73 selected riders for the TDU is more impressive than the 83 selected riders for the Mallorca races, because it's out of a much smaller pool of riders.
In TDU it's 73 out of 140, in other words; just 67 riders who aren't on anyone's team.
In the Mallorca races it's 83 out of... a much larger pre-selection of riders. I can't tell you exactly how many, because the preliminary startlists don't have numbers yet.
(BTW, isn't it on Mallorca where they do that thing where everyone just gets a number they use the entire week, rather than having it switch around on a daily basis?)

 

[Earns1985]

So does the end of the nations cup and new categorization for Tour de l'Avenir, Peace Race etc. mean that they now only give 2.2 points like the Baby Giro and Valle d'Aosta? I can't quite imagine that CQ will give l'Avenir some special status. Slightly bad news for those who picked Finn, Ramirez or Lindholm, I guess.

Well the difference would be 25 GC points for the winner... stage winning points would go from 8 to 4. So will perhaps make a difference of 35 points for a guy like Finn, which is still less points than a 10th place at the Cadel Evans Race. Would be a bit annoying for his owners, but I think more important for guys like Finn will be, how he will perform, when he is riding for the ProTeam, so in races like Mallorca now, Sardegna, Milan-Turino or Coppi e Bartali.

 

[Shakes]

Well, I briefly explained my team before but that was really short. There I also mentioned my disappointment with the cross performance of Gerben Thijssen! Hopefully the lack of his performance there was because of his focus on training, not CX performance.

Anyway, bit more quality on explanation.

The expensive pick: Girmay. Hopefully his new team gives him a lot of freedom. He has a lot of opportunities to score, classics and sprints. Admittedly I'm not confident about this but let's go Green Jersey at the Tour and good placements in various classics.

GC upside: Ben o'Connor, Enric Mas, Rodriguez, Tiberi, van Eetvelt, Poole, Steinhauser and Widar. They won't all outperform the previous year. However, I am hoping some youngsters will have some serious outperformance. I spread my bets a bit there while hoping for revival of o'Connor, Mas and Rodriguez. In any case there is not much downside on those established names and lots of upside for my youngsters. Especially optimistic about Max Pool. Picnic has a lot of experience with building up youngsters. Not all of them are successful but if you fit within the system there are always various amazing performances. Dumoulin, Arensman, Onley for GC for instance.

Point farmers: Riders that might not win a lot but can be expected to place well often. Van Gils, Cosnefroy, Zingle, Laporte, Nys, Zana, Lamperti, Vansevenant, Williams and Page. Hopefully they ride many races and indeed get a lot of top 10 placements. Little downside, lots of upside. Maybe DF Martinez here? Or will he do GC? No idea.

Random Bets: Not breaking the bank. Davide de Pretto (unique pick), Pietro Mattio (two picks), Valgren (bumped into, I think, his brother in Zwift races a lot; lets' hope for more Amstel magic), Taminiaux, Krijnsen, Vermaerke, Tuckwell (did well in U23; could be with GC upside as well), Valter (Attila is an amazing name), Thijssen (despite his lack of CX performance!), Decomble (go Frenchie youth) and the other Carlos Rodriguez. My fake twins, let's hope neither disappoints.

My downside? No sprinters. Had Jakobsen last year and should have bought him again but have something against him. Just seems blase about it all and was never that amazing. Should get more points than he did last year but... should he? Sprinting is boring anyway.

Mostly went for GC hopefuls that will make the stage races more interesting to watch then when I have sprinters. Classics I'm low on as well but I'll just fanboy Wout then (which I had last year but... hoping he wins a monument but unfortunately doubt he will). Hoping Girmay and Laporte do well in early season but let's see. Doubt Valgren can repeat his Amstel performance but one can hope (despite it never being a great strategy).

I expect to do better than previous seasons where I was middle of the pack. However, probably missing Del Toro's of this world so doubtful but hey, will be fun to follow.

Most important: I seriously overlooked the Pune Grand Tour and to my shock, embarassment and disbelief do not have a single rider competing there. I'll cry myself to sleep every night that race is on.