The 2026 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[Devil's Elbow]

That was not a good MTF at all for my team, with O'Connor and Gaudu nowhere, Tiberi winning and Nordhagen looking good. Only bits of good news are Van Eetvelt on the one hand, and Evenepoel on the other...

 

[Squire]

Picking O'Connor might be the biggest waste of 500 points in a long time.

 

[Earns1985]

Positives for me today:
Nordhagen
Evenepoel
Gaudu
van Eetvelt

Negatives:
O'Connor
Tiberi

Damn it, thought my O'Connor Mas combination was a conservative one, without much risk. Have a feeling, that these two guys will annoy me a lot for the rest of the season.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Damn it, thought my O'Connor Mas combination was a conservative one, without much risk. Have a feeling, that these two guys will annoy me a lot for the rest of the season.

Mas at least had some risk with regards to his injury and therefore also has the more obvious path to still coming good (he wasn't really supposed to score anything in the early season anyway), but for O'Connor I had the same feeling as you. After Démare in 2024 and Van Aert last year, maybe the lesson is that I should stop going for boring but seemingly safe expensive riders in their early 30s...

 

[RedheadDane]

Well, if I'm lucky, Honoré can hold onto his top-10 in Oman on the climb tomorrow

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

I have to stop writing things like that!

69

9

▼60

Honoré Mikkel Frølich

EF Education - EasyPost

8:27

32

11

▼21

Øxenberg Peter

INEOS Grenadiers

4:13

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Giosue epis selected for ruta de sol. Let's go my star boy!!!

 

[Earns1985]

So first of hopefully many points for Laporte. With this route, I can see him even grap up the GC points in Andalucia..

 

[postmanhat]

Oh no. Tiberi was one of the first on my team, but the cat incident kept playing on my mind and there were a lot of alternatives this year. Not judging those who did pick him. He was young, and everyone makes mistakes. Went with O'Connor instead on the basis that he'd get a lot of relatively easy points in the Aussie and Middle Eastern races. Looks like a long road back to profitability for him?

Very unpromising start by Gaudu, but at least Gee-West looked decent after so long away from racing. Maybe Martinez and Vlasov can compensate in the other two races this week.

 

[slow_climber]

Nice to get a weekly win (with apologies to BiTB, but he has armfulls of wins). Tiberi and Laporte should be helping Morgado this week, so hopeful for another good finish. These are some of the best few weeks of the year with so many races and some random early season results

 

[jsem94]

While it was a horrific sight to see Van Gils going down the way he did, a silver lining in terms of the CQ game was that he is owned by a vast majority of the teams. The differential that's going to wreck me is O'Connor. A long way off to profitability, but that wouldn't even make him a good pick. The 500~ guys need to hit about 700~ at least to make me feel decent about them.

At least Tiberi has turned out to be a great pick so far. No idea if he will be able to fend off Del Toro for the overall, but either way he is very likely to podium which would be a haul.

I bet against Laporte as well, and I might come to regret that. Same thing with Brenner, who I easily could have picked instead of Ackermann...

 

[armchairclimber]

Well Hobbs is going to struggle this year on today's evidence..

 

[hayneplane]

Excellent day on Jebel Mobrah for my likely lads. 1st, 3rd, 7th and 9th. Hopefully no mishaps on the flatter stages in any crosswind action.

 

[Squire]

Well Hobbs is going to struggle this year on today's evidence..

Was a very technical finish against some good lead-out trains. He was very well positioned with 1.2km left, but then the EF guys got swamped and Van den Berg was unable to bring him back up. So I'm not too worried yet. There will be easier opportunities than this.

 

[ingsve]

The differential that's going to wreck me is O'Connor. A long way off to profitability, but that wouldn't even make him a good pick. The 500~ guys need to hit about 700~ at least to make me feel decent about them.

Ya, his form is not that comforting right now. Though, I take some solace in that even in his 800+ seasons he didn't pass the 105 points he currently sits on until Paris-Nice or Catalunya so he is at least still ahead of those years. But he does need to find some better shape soon to keep himself in the running to be a decent pick.