The 2026 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Salvarani]

Encouraging signs for (the many) Cosnefroy owners, however. After having looked less than impressive in his first races, he showed a lot of grit today by getting the fourth place after having looked like the weakest rider for a while in the 10 man chasing group.

Think he may just have needed some warm-up races after being out for most of last season.

 

[Squire]

Encouraging signs for (the many) Cosnefroy owners, however. After having looked less than impressive in his first races, he showed a lot of grit today by getting the fourth place after having looked like the weakest rider for a while in the 10 man chasing group.

I'm also encouraged. Even though he's very popular, it would have been annoying to have a somewhat costly pick not doing much, especially since I wasn't as convinced when picking him as his popularity should suggest.

I actually thought he looked like one of the strongest in the group. The UAE riders took turns covering attacks and being annoying by forcing other riders to close gaps, and I thought whenever Cosnefroy had to do something, he looked really comfortable.

 

[tobydawq]

I'm also encouraged. Even though he's very popular, it would have been annoying to have a somewhat costly pick not doing much, especially since I wasn't as convinced when picking him as his popularity should suggest.

I actually thought he looked like one of the strongest in the group. The UAE riders took turns covering attacks and being annoying by forcing other riders to close gaps, and I thought whenever Cosnefroy had to do something, he looked really comfortable.

Hmm, I just thought he looked like he was hanging on for dear life quite early.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

We are 48 that have the combo of Van Gils and Cosnefroy, but there's a silver lining for 47 of us since Rufs is the only one who also has Christen.

 

[Squire]

Hmm, I just thought he looked like he was hanging on for dear life quite early.

After seeing how easily he covered some of the attacks and his positioning near the front around the time when Hermans, Vermeersch, Mohoric and Pellizzari pushed the pace, I was quite certain he'd finish among the best of the chase group. Didn't notice much hanging on, but maybe he went through a rough patch at some point. Anyway, he should be good for some points in the upcoming weeks to make us feel better for picking him even if he won't make much of a difference.

 

[repre]

Ok, van Gils's season is done with pelvic fracture. Minus one for me.

 

[Kazistuta]

What a crazy (and odd) way to fracture the pelvis. Crossed fingers for a speedy recovery, game related disregarded.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Depending on speed of recovery and how good he would have been otherwise, that could be anywhere between 500 and 1200 points knocked off the winning score given that basically every serious player has Van Gils. Can't remember many such moments in this game.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Depending on speed of recovery and how good he would have been otherwise, that could be anywhere between 500 and 1200 points knocked off the winning score given that basically every serious player has Van Gils. Can't remember many such moments in this game.

It's good to know that I'm apparently not a serious player. Maybe I can compete for the meme team classification jersey.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

If my attempt to assign an expected importance in the outcome of the game to each rider has any statistical validity, we have lost the 8th most influential rider in the game for at least a large part of the season.

Spoiler: Basis of the numbers if you want to be reminded

I have some recollection of a theory being espoused that the relevant metric maximised riders who are selected by half the entrants. A rider who is chosen once will only make a difference to one team: a rider on nearly every team has his relevance to the game effectively obliterated: he might change the size of the scores, but not much difference to the rankings. We shouldn't multiply by price such that free picks are irrelevant, no matter how often they were picked, so something needs to be added to get a non-zero rating: lets make that 100. (I tried it as 1, but that made cheap, very high frequency picks like Williams and Agostinacchio too far down the rankings: in the end, I thought if the minimum expectation of a rider is to return a 200 point profit, I'd post half of that)

So if we take (45-|frequency-45|) x (price+100), and then index that so that the top score is 100 and the free picks that are on only one team have 1, the importance metric is:

	picks	price	importance index
WITHEN PHILIPSEN Albert	44​	459​	100.0​
EVENEPOEL Remco	12​	1929​	99.0​
NYS Thibau	46​	423​	93.6​
O'CONNOR Ben	28​	563​	75.6​
MAS NICOLAU Enric	27​	560​	72.6​
TARLING Joshua	36​	328​	62.9​
GAUDU David	37​	315​	62.7​
VAN GILS Maxim	58​	362​	60.3​
PITHIE Laurence	46​	228​	58.9​
BRENNAN Matthew	11​	1115​	54.6​

 

[Samu Cuenca]

It's good to know that I'm apparently not a serious player. Maybe I can compete for the meme team classification jersey.

I am certainly not a serious player. I couldn't even remember that I had decided to omit Van Gils from my team.

 

[Squire]

Depending on speed of recovery and how good he would have been otherwise, that could be anywhere between 500 and 1200 points knocked off the winning score given that basically every serious player has Van Gils. Can't remember many such moments in this game.

Yeah, talking strictly in game terms, it will be unsatisfying to have what will possibly be a not so great pick even if it's not that likely to make much difference against the competition.

What's the expected time out for such an injury? Surely there are variations in terms of severity? But a return to any serious form before late summer is perhaps unrealistic even in the best case scenario?

Edit: PCS estimates 9 weeks for a fractured pelvis. But I don't seem to be able to grab much from their database in terms of injury type, so I can't look at other riders with fractured pelvises and see how long it actually took them to get back. C-Rod didn't come back last year after the TDF, but his build-up didn't seem to be hampered, so maybe some late-season races for Van Gils if he's lucky and it's not too complicated.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

If my attempt to assign an expected importance in the outcome of the game to each rider has any statistical validity, we have lost the 8th most influential rider in the game for at least a large part of the season.

I dont have any of these riders. Proud to not be the mainstream

 

[Shakes]

I am screenshotting the website.

 

[tobydawq]

I dont have any of these riders. Proud to not be the mainstream

Then you should not be surprised when called unserious.

 

[Salvarani]

I dont have any of these riders. Proud to not be the mainstream

Being contrarian can be a good strategy. It just depends on if the riders you picked performs better and score more.

I think calling someone unserious because of such a strategy is wrong though. Poor choice of words. One has to look closer at what riders a more contrarian team picked instead, before calling it unserious.

Having a few riders, or a part of your team, not being that popular... could definitely be an edge if you are right in your perspective on them and they outscore other picks. However, your downside could be big if you are wrong and others right. Hence how you build your team and how much risk you are willing to play with is up to you. What your process/checklist is for identifying picks and how you assess riders, their abilities.

Maybe this isnt how people think when they are selecting riders or how they build their team, but a few probably do.

At the end of it, its about outscoring everyone else and how one goes about that could probably be done in a lot of different ways given the amount of options.

 

[tobydawq]

Being contrarian can be a good strategy. It just depends on if the riders you picked performs better and score more.

I think calling someone unserious because of such a strategy is wrong though. Poor choice of words. One has to look closer at what riders a more contrarian team picked instead, before calling it unserious.

Having a few riders, or a part of your team, not being that popular... could definitely be an edge if you are right in your perspective on them and they outscore other picks. However, your downside could be big if you are wrong and others right. Hence how you build your team and how much risk you are willing to play with is up to you. What your process/checklist is for identifying picks and how you assess riders, their abilities.

Maybe this isnt how people think when they are selecting riders or how they build their team, but a few probably do.

At the end of it, its about outscoring everyone else and how one goes about that could probably be done in a lot of different ways given the amount of options.

There is a difference between having a few risky picks (which I do with Vacek, Del Grosso and Bettiol (the latter has been a regret from day one and his outings in Arabia have definitely not changed that)) and not having any of the ten most popular riders.

 

[Salvarani]

There is a difference between having a few risky picks (which I do with Vacek, Del Grosso and Bettiol (the latter has been a regret from day one and his outings in Arabia have definitely not changed that)) and not having any of the ten most popular riders.

Yes, as I said there, the downside could be pretty big if those ten most popular picks would all perform if you didnt pick them. You could lose ground, that you wont make back.

But then the probability of all those ten picks performing really well is maybe not as big as one think either. However, probably a high probability that 6-7 of those could turn out very good.

So if you disregard most of the popular picks, one has to have a lot of conviction in other riders and them delivering. Which is easier said then done, but not impossible imo. It becomes really important in how good ones ability is to assess riders that could have great upside, that many are for some reason overlooking, and making a bet on it. A lot of people, in general, probably overestimates their ability to do this and hence picking most of the popular picks is probably the best strategy. Making fewer "own" choices so to speak, but that may not be as fun.

How much one allocates to "popular picks" and how much one should try to find other picks, is definitely something that can be debated a lot. Then one also has to factor in everything that can happen to a rider over the season, which one has little control of. It is not easy.

 

[tobydawq]

Yes, as I said there, the downside could be pretty big if those ten most popular picks would all perform.

But then the probability of all those ten picks performing really well is maybe not as big as one think either. However, probably a high probability that 6-7 of those could turn out very good.

So if you disregard most of the popular picks, one has to have a lot of conviction in other riders and them delivering. Which is easier said then done, but not impossible imo.

How much one allocates to "popular picks" and how much one should try to find other picks, is definitely something that can be debated a lot.

You can't disregard all good picks and then expect to do well in the game. The collective wisdom isn't that stupid.

 

[Salvarani]

You can't disregard all good picks and then expect to do well in the game.

I didnt say that either, but other factors can be involved.

Right now, we dont know who the good picks are yet.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

It should really go without saying that what I meant was 'team that is a serious threat for the win', not 'anyone who hasn't picked Van Gils is a fundamentally unserious person'. I find it a little bit ridiculous that it's even turned into a point of discussion.