The 2026 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[RedheadDane]

I just want to point out that I'm very serious when it comes to sticking to whatever theme I have picked for selecting riders.
It's not my fault the guy who was supposed to be my main guy did some head-diving into a stone wall...

Not his fault either. In fact, it doesn't really appear to be anyone's fault; just one of those unfortunate accidents.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

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.

Keep thinking that I'm not a serious threat for the win. When zambanini wins the Ardennes triplet and Mattia gaffuri is holding onto the maglia Rosa a little too long,.reality will start to dawn....

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

There is a difference between having a few risky picks ... and not having any of the ten most popular riders.

That table I put up yesterday was not the most popular picks: it was an attempt to identify the most important. The most popular 8 picks were missing from that top ten. As explained in the bit behind the spoiler, a rider on every team is entirely irrelevant in terms of competitiveness in the game. The most popular 8 picks were not in that top ten that I posted, so the comment about having none of those riders could have been made by someone with all of Seixas, Rodriguez, Widar, Van Eetveldt, Zingle, Cosnefroy, Poole and Laporte (and Ilmaestro does have some of those).

So is missing the group I posted yesterday really proof of a reckless/thoughtless/unserious approach?

And frankly, so what if someone chooses to do that? It is far from unknown, entirely harmless, and even lets one more player claim to have finished in the top half/quarter of the field.

 

[repre]

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, and to get injured or bad is one thing and to be in such a good form and be taken out like that for a season is another. Can't remember either such circumstances. Just sad. And Christen won't be penalized by UCI and his managers profiting adding another twist to the situation.

 

[YellowSocks]

YellowSocks 666

As a not very serious team I didn’t choose Van Gils, but I have Cosnefroy, and thanks to some devilish scheming, he is the one who earned me the fatal points. Now I bear the mark of Satan, and I blame UAE for this.

 

[YellowSocks]

Keep thinking that I'm not a serious threat for the win. When zambanini wins the Ardennes triplet and Mattia gaffuri is holding onto the maglia Rosa a little too long,.reality will start to dawn....

... not to mention Giosuè Epis.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Expected 1-2 in the ITT but still good to bank in those points. Let's see how well Tarling holds up on GC the rest of the week and if anybody from the Hirt, Dinham, Nordhagen cohort can claw their way back into GC points.

Pretty excited to see Seixas, Widar and Poole all in action in Algarve before the highlight of the week: Pierre Barbier in the Grand Prix Alaiye.

 

[tobydawq]

Expected 1-2 in the ITT but still good to bank in those points. Let's see how well Tarling holds up on GC the rest of the week and if anybody from the Hirt, Dinham, Nordhagen cohort can claw their way back into GC points.

Pretty excited to see Seixas, Widar and Poole all in action in Algarve before the highlight of the week: Pierre Barbier in the Grand Prix Alaiye.

I don't think Tarling will even try to hold on in GC - tomorrow's climb is Mortirolo level.

 

[Earns1985]

Blackmore not in the startlist anymore in Algarve.. nearly as disappointing/worrying as Lafay dropping from Murcias startlist last weekend..

It´s very difficult to get news about them. Somebody has any information about both cases?

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Hopefully I can get a rider over 100 points for the first time this week. Would be a nice milestone

 

[RedheadDane]

and if anybody from the Hirt, Dinham, Nordhagen cohort can claw their way back into GC points.

Meanwhile, I'm happy if all my guys just finish the race, getting me 5 points each for that.

Of course, I won't mind if Øxenberg can hold on to top-30.

 

[Squire]

There are 5 teams in the game, who are in the top50 of the populartity ranking, who don´t have him.

@SafeBet's lack of FOMO regarding Van Gils seems to be paying off, but perhaps not for the reason they envisioned. On the other hand, leaving out previous pelvic fracturee Carlos Rodriguez seems to not have been a great idea for SafeBet, but it's still early days of course. With the weak field in Provence I guess maybe almost any version of C-Rod could have been top 2.

 

[tobydawq]

@SafeBet's lack of FOMO regarding Van Gils seems to be paying off, but perhaps not for the reason they envisioned. On the other hand, leaving out previous pelvic fracturee Carlos Rodriguez seems to not have been a great idea for SafeBet, but it's still early days of course. With the weak field in Provence I guess maybe almost any version of C-Rod could have been top 2.

C-Rod did indeed come second in two different stage races last week.

 

[postmanhat]

Have been quite lucky regarding Van Gils. Pretty much the last one shuffled out of my team after the deadline day choice of Gee-West, but kept Gaudu at a similar point level, who I was much more dubious about. Just a bad, panicky decision, which I seem to have got away with. Fortune turns and it was the same for those of us with Ayuso last year, who was flying until a Bee, Knee, and UAE effectively ended his season in April.

Big week particularly against the Evenepoel teams with my main differentiator, Gee-West, racing for the first time since last July. Hoping that O'Connor can have a bit more luck than the Aussie summer. Vlasov has a great chance to move up the RBH pecking order, but maybe not a great parcours for him?

2026-02-16	UAE Tour	DINHAM Matthew
2026-02-16		GAUDU David
2026-02-16		GEE-WEST Derek
2026-02-16		JAKOBSEN Fabio
2026-02-16		O'CONNOR Ben
2026-02-16		STEINHAUSER Georg
2026-02-16		VAN EETVELT Lennert
2026-02-18	Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta	KRIJNSEN Jelte
2026-02-18		MARTÍNEZ Daniel Felipe
2026-02-18		POOLE Max
2026-02-18		SEIXAS Paul
2026-02-18		TRATNIK Jan
2026-02-18		VAN GESTEL Dries
2026-02-18		WIDAR Jarno
2026-02-18	Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol	COSNEFROY Benoît
2026-02-18		LAPORTE Christophe
2026-02-18		VLASOV Aleksandr
2026-02-21	Classic Var	BRENNER Marco

 

[armchairclimber]

Van Gils was in my long list but I like picking younger riders in general ... for entertainment purposes. One year it will deliver.
even before Van Gils' unfortunate brush with Christen, I think I'd have more fun with a bunch of cheaper young riders with potential.

 

[RedheadDane]

hold on... how did I only just realise there's both a @Yellow Knight and a @YellowSocks in this game?

 

[repre]

Van Gils was in my long list but I like picking younger riders in general ... for entertainment purposes. One year it will deliver.
even before Van Gils' unfortunate brush with Christen, I think I'd have more fun with a bunch of cheaper young riders with potential.

He is 26. Is this too old for you? Are you Leonardo DiCaprio or what???

 

[skidmark]

Update #5: Morgado, More Success

It was a relatively quiet week sandwiched in between a glut of higher level races in other weeks, with the 2.PS Tour of Oman having the most points on offer, and a couple of 1.PS races offering early season point opportunities (along with the mini-sized 2.1, 3-stage Tour de Provence and the even mini-er "2.1" Vuelta a Murcia).

This Week's Top Scorers

Rank	Team	Points this week
1	slow_climber	421
2	Shakes	387
3	karaev	384
4	Popchu	383
5	Salvarani	369

slow climber proves that internet forum handles aren't necessarily determinative, finishing as the only team with >400 points this week. The standout name in their team this week was Antonio Morgado, bringing in 130 points for his 5 owners after repeating last year's win in the Figuera Classic. More popular Carlos Rodriguez (90 points, 71 teams) also contributed on his return to racing after a long recovery, while Jarno Widar (58, 69) and Benoit Cosnefroy (40, 64) were other notables. Things were quite close right below that, with 2nd-4th all having the above-named combo of 4 riders but slightly varying levels of support from the smaller scorers below that - and actually, I just realized after I typed the whole rest of the update that Shakes in fact has another 130-point, 5-team scorer in Biniam Girmay so it's not quite the same combo after all.

This Week's High Movers

Rank	Team	Up/down
1	Salvarani	(+18)
2	vickyriso	(+17)
3	del1962	(+15)
4	Popchu	(+14)
5	armchairclimber	(+12)
5	Yellow Knight	(+12)

Last year's winner Salvarani moves up the standings 18 spots this week, winning the High Movers without Morgado but with the 3 other popular riders held by all the top teams and some astutely picked rare riders such as Diego Pescador (55, 7), AJ August (40, 11) and Louis Rouland (38, 2). vickyriso ends in 2nd place on this ranking (as one of six teams to benefit from Riccitello's 136 points) and del1962 in third as a Morgado holder.

Green Jersey Competition

Rank	Team	Total
1	karaev	92
2	Pantani4ever	79
3	slow_climber	71
4	postmanhat	56
5	Popchu	52
5	SafeBet	52

karaev takes back the lead of this ranking, scoring for a 4th out of 5 weeks so far after missing out last week. Pantani4ever drops to 2nd after getting shut out, while slow climber moves into 3rd with the weekly win.

Top 10 Overall

Rank	Up/down	Team	Points
1	(-)	Pantani4ever	1487
2	(+2)	karaev	1366
3	(+10)	slow_climber	1312
4	(+11)	Shakes	1275
5	(-2)	Wvv	1266
6	(+5)	jsem94	1221
7	(-1)	postmanhat	1220
8	(+1)	ingsve	1204
9	(+14)	Popchu	1198
10	(-2)	Riverside	1197

Things are the same at the very top rung of the ladder, with Pantani4ever maintaining a 100+ point lead. Further down, there's a lot more movement, with slow climber, shakes, jsem94 and Popchu moving into the top 10, and Rufs, 18-Valve (falling out from 2nd last week!), JumboVismaFan and SafeBet falling out.

It's a busy, point-filled mid-February week this week, with 3 1.1 races overshadowed by two 2.PS stages (Andalucia and Algarve) and a 1.WT race in the UAE.

spreadsheet link

 

[skidmark]

I forgot to mention this back in January - longtime game participant (and former winner!) Blues in the bottle messaged me a little over 24 hours after the publication deadline expressing chagrin over realizing that they had missed the deadline this year. I agreed to do what I've done in the past in such circumstances - the team is not 'officially' entered, meaning that it won't feature in the overall or weekly/green jersey points, but I made a team page for them and included their team highlighted in yellow in the 'Rankings' tab but not the 'Update' tab, the latter of which I consider to be the official standings.

I know that may be confusing to some as the 'Rankings' tab will have slightly different standings than the 'Update' tab, but I've found in the past that it's a good solution to keep everyone on the same rules while providing the opportunity to follow along for someone who just earnestly missed the deadline. Plus I usually put the Popularity Team in there (I forgot to do that this year! AC I'm gonna message you asap to get that lineup), so those standings are usually a bit different already.

Anyway, Blues would have won the week as a holder of both Morgado and Riccitello, so it reminded me that I had yet to explicitly mention that situation on this thread.

 

[Squire]

I proudly claim the Piganzoli award this week. 14th on the week and moving up to 15th overall.

Meanwhile, all the other Morgado teams are in the top 6 on the week, and I even have the exact same riders that skidmark has listed for weekly winner slow_climber (congrats!). I guess it makes a bit of a difference that in addition to those I only have Torres scoring 6 points instead of Tiberi, Gloag, Nerurkar and DFM scoring between 16 and 28.

Evenepoel is listed with 56 points for this update, so it looks like the first two stages of UAE were also included. None of the Evenepoel teams are anywhere near the top of the weekly standing, so I guess that's a nice nerf for them in terms of weekly score in the coming week.