The 2026 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Earns1985]

That's pretty unlucky as I was going leave him out for similar reasons, then saw he was bib 1 at The TDU, so decided to take a risk again. This starlist-based 'strategy' has worked very well so far with Brenner, Dinham, O'Connor and Brennan too. Was hoping for a little more from the latter two, but Brennan's surprise win today has hopefully given him the confidence to get some relatively easy points in the upcoming one-day races.

Can´t agree more on that one. Basically the same happenend to me. Wanted to leave Kron out, but than saw him on the startlist with the 1 and I thought it was too risky too leave him out, so luckily he made my team again. Brenner was already on my team before the startlist came out, but I had thoughts of excluding him, but with the startlist these thoughts had been gone..

So basically also a good start for my team. Let´s see, where my name will come up in the first update tomorrow?
Next week doesn´t look too promising for me startlists wise, but the lists are still incomplete so let´s see.
Looking forward to Vansevenant in AiUla and good for me is, that Omrzel had been removed from the startlist for this race. He had also been a rider, where I though a lot of including him. His price in the end made the decicion against him. But as he is in 19 teams, he is of course a rider to look at.

 

[RedheadDane]

Yeah, I was seriously considering leaving out Kron too, but then I decided that even if he had a third bad year in a row, at a cost of 50, it wouldn't be too much of a disaster.
And now I'm wondering if he could go into profit, not just compared to last year - which he already has - but compared to 2023 as well.

 

[Wvv]

13th spot right now, mostly thanks to Kron and Brenner. Much better start than last season, when I never made up lost ground.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Last year I had the lead after week 1 and 2. It was a long, slow and steady downhill after that.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Going into the sprinters race yesterday with only one rider, one who is a non-sprinter (Masnada) , sums up the state of my team at the moment. Hopefully can get some points in the desert and Mallorca because I am way down.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

A bit hard to tell with the lack of a last week tab on the site, but I think I just barely managed that top-10 in the week I was hoping for.

On the downside, I also managed the most unbelievable way to miss out on scoring opportunities I've had in five-and-a-bit years playing this game courtesy of that kangaroo causing Bjerg (of course it had to be my rarest pick) to sustain multiple broken bones. It's still hard to believe that that was real life and not a below-average article on The Onion. Pretty hard to see him finding both fitness and form in time for the classics...

 

[RedheadDane]

I'm sure that last year, as soon as we had an actual ranking - as opposed to the early days of the game, when we're still partially ordered alphabetically, not by points scored - I was last, and then I pretty much stayed there.

It'll be interesting to see how long I can cling onto this for me rather unprecedented top-10 spot.

Oh, hello!
De Kleijn not doing Alula Tour because he just had a baby, which could mean that Changizi will get a chance to sprint.
You know the saying; "One's baby is the other's sprint opportunity", or... something...

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

De Kleijn not doing Alula Tour

Well, that's a bummer.

 

[postmanhat]

Surprise win?

Surprising in that he looked like repeating last year's TDU performance of starting well, then fading. Really wasn't expecting him to win yesterday, and hopefully he's found a bit of form/confidence now that Visma are participating in the one-day races?

Disproportionately picking riders based on riders with bib1 in The TDU starlist has paid off as briefly first. I am sad enough to have checked, and it's very noticeable how different the first four teams are already. Should be a really interesting year in the game!

Alula
My alternative pick for SOQ was Zana, so hoping Vansevant can get off to an equally good start
Erm, Jakobsen

 

[hayneplane]

3 riders making their seasonal debuts tomorrow at Alula Tour. Some potential for good points if they don’t end up working fully for a teammate. Vermaeke hopefully has some UAE stardust sprinkles on him and Garofoli to continue the rich promise from the EC road race at the back end of last year.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Somehow missed my second rider going into profit over the week-end. Congrats to Cesar Perez Lopez who has already 5x his 2025 score. 2 down, 31 to go. Vamos.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Surf Coast Classic also out, that will probably be more impactful than the Willunga Hill cancellation. Obviously it's most painful for the Brennan/Welsford teams (and the TLA one) but with Lamperti and Taminiaux on my team I'm not convinced it's a net positive for me either.

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Vermaeke hopefully has some UAE stardust sprinkles on him and Garofoli to continue the rich promise from the EC road race at the back end of last year.

I couldn't have said it better myself.
I'm also not convinced about my Dunbar and Vansevenant picks. Looking forward to see how they perform over in the desert.

 

[Salvarani]

Somehow missed my second rider going into profit over the week-end. Congrats to Cesar Perez Lopez who has already 5x his 2025 score. 2 down, 31 to go. Vamos.

I looked at both him and Unai Ramos, but nice to see Cesar was picked by two teams.

 

[RedheadDane]

Obviously it's most painful for the Brennan/Welsford teams (and the TLA one)

Otoh, I benefitted a bit from the cancellation of Willunga... Lund wouldn't have been second on the top of Willunga.

 

[Squire]

Although I haven't really scored many points, there are both positives and negatives from the first few weeks.

No Willunga stage was really bad for my team. But no Surf Classic is good for me as I had nobody for that race anyway and it hurts the Brennan teams. And my DVP regret has definitely been reduced a lot by him crashing out.

O'Connor has been underwhelming, but he has at least scored almost half of what I saw as the optimal scenario from Oz. Buitrago was a disaster, but at least he was on the attack on two stages after the bad queen stage. So maybe it was just a bad day. And his opportunity to properly redeem himself was taken away by forest fire risk. On the other hand, I wasn't really aware that Kron was so rare. That's amazing, as he was pretty much the most obvious pick in my entire team.

The next few days will paint a clearer picture of who I'm going to regret not picking. Vansevenant, Garofoli, Vermaerke, Higuita and Eulalio are all potential scorers in AlUla. Hopefully my Dunbar can show that he is the man to have among all those. Hugo Page looks great in that race, but I don't love how he's working for Fretin.

Brenner, who I for a long time had decided I was gonna pick, has already caused a lot of regret. But I just have to get used to it, as it's inevitable with how many options there were. Luckily there haven't been that many others so far and some, like Dinham, aren't as scary as I feared. And the guys I picked instead of Brenner haven't really started racing yet anyway, so the jury is still out.

It seems like most of the really unlucky events are for once hitting riders not on my team or are even benefitting my team. Bjerg getting kangarooed, Narvaez crashing and giving my guys (and Brenner) more points, Vine out of UAE Tour where I have some GC guys.

Another thing that has really been apparent at the start of the season, is how impactful random things like race development and weather is, things that you can't quite predict when picking the team. If Vine hadn't been angry in the Nats, O'Connor could have gotten 100 instead of 10 points. Then there's the annoying route alterations, but also stuff like wind in Valencia. Without strong headwind, the Morgado group could maybe have gotten away in GP Castellón. This game really gets annoying sometimes when you realize all the strange things happening in this sport that you can't predict or account for.

 

[del1962]

I’m guessing luck balances out over the season

 

[Squire]

Vansevenant, Garofoli, Vermaerke, Higuita and Eulalio are all potential scorers in AlUla. Hopefully my Dunbar can show that he is the man to have among all those.

Aged like milk.

All of them making the front echelon in the crosswind and finishing with Milan. Except Dunbar who got blown away at the first sign of crosswind, not even making the front two groups in the wind and finishing way down. Why do I never learn.

Not that it's a surprise. From my team presentation:

[W]ith Dunbar you just know you're signing up for crashes and mishaps. If he misses out on some easy 2.Ps GC podium points because of desert crosswind again, I'll be fuming.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Double losing minutes in crosswinds on a .pro race with a terrible GC field is another massive blow to my team. Already we are looking like we will be in the fight for last place. Are we allowed to trade or substitute riders?

 

[skidmark]

Is it an option to mention the website Shakes build in the opening post? Had to search quite a bit for the link.

Hi, just catching up on the thread - this is a great suggestion, I've thought of it before but just haven't done it. Will put in the heading of the first post later today.

Also apologies everyone, bad form to not get an early update out as quickly as possible, just had some unexpected turns of events that kept me unavailable the last few days. Will update in the next 12 hours I promise

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

Double losing minutes in crosswinds on a .pro race with a terrible GC field is another massive blow to my team. Already we are looking like we will be in the fight for last place. Are we allowed to trade or substitute riders?

Relax, the season hasn't really started yet.
Apparently Dunbar lost 7 minutes today (not surprised) and Vermaerke 12 minutes. Wasn't he up there in the last sprint, 12k or so from the finish? (Vermarke).

 

[Squire]

Relax, the season hasn't really sarted yet.
Apparently Dunbar lost 7 minutes today (not surprised) and Vermaerke 12 minutes. Wasn't he up there in the last sprint, 12k or so from the finish? (Vermarke).

He was! Vermaerke, that is. He must have had some mechanical or crash in the final kilometres. He looked pretty strong all day, consistently being in the front echelon. That's lucky for me, at least. But he did at least look way more promising than Dunbar.