Youth CQ Ranking Game 2014

[mc_mountain]

Welcome to the second annual Youth CQ Ranking Manager Game, and the first to also appear on Cycling News forum. This game allows you to showcase your knowledge of upcoming youngsters, and hopefully take a gamble on a couple of really young riders.

With the success of Hugo's original game I have found myself much more interested in u23 racing, and wanted to take this interest and make a game of it.

Mr Smith the original financier has been so pleased with the success of the team in 2011/2012(and now also in 2013) and the incredible return on investment, that he decided to launch an under 23 team. He held talks with sporting directors regarding budget and no of riders, and settled on 12-15 riders at 1000 CQ points, in its first year the team already secured some high profile wildcards, and convinced Mr Smith to maintain his support. The likely race programme for 2014 will be attractive to even the most talented riders from the u23 ranks that might otherwise seek places on a WT team.

1. How the game works

1.1. Duration
The season starts when the first race is held (Australian Road Cycling Championships 8th-12th January 2014) and ends when the last major race (.1 or higher) is held. The winner will be crowned when the next update after the last major race (x.1) is out - submissions can be made to extend the season to include late season smaller races, should there be potential for them to affect the top placings. As was the case in 2013 a victor can be declared earlier if there is no prospect of the leader being overhauled.

1.2. Updates
Each week I will publish an update similar to the ones for the main game - there may be guest updaters from time to time.

2. On doping

Hopefully doping will have much less of an impact on this game, but main game rules will apply.

3.Submitting your team

3.1. How do I?
You pick between 12 and 15 riders whose combined value doesn’t exceed 1000 points and send the list to the YouthCQ account (see post below).

3.2. Eligibility
Riders need to fit one of the following two main criteria
i) be a first year professional rider (of any age), be it at World Tour or Professional Continental team.
ii) be riding at Continental level or lower, born in 1989 or younger, without having previously ridden as a professional.

For clarity, riders should not have already ridden a full year as a professional at either World Tour or Professional Continental level – riding as a stagiaire does not prevent selection. Riders who have signed their first pro contract in August (or later), are consider for the purposes of this game as no different from stagiaire riders.

Players of the game are strongly encouraged to include at least two riders from 1992 or younger who will ride at ProConti level (ie eligible for u23 world champs) or lower and one rider from 1992 or younger who will ride at Continental level or lower (ie will be riding x.2, x.2u, x.NC races).

 

[YouthCQ]

Notes on submitting teams
As I have to manually add the teams to the spreadsheet, please be careful that you send your team YouthCQ account based on the correct criteria.
The layout you need to use is this:

CONTADOR VELASCO Alberto
POZZATO Filippo
Etc.

Nothing else. No points after the name. Also, be careful that there are no “space” after the name, because I will have to delete it manually. Please also rank your team from highest points to lowest.

To make things easier for both you and me I have created a file - you can download from here Create your team Youth CQ Edition in which you can cut and paste the riders into your team and it will automatically show you the value of each rider (as long as you delete the space) as well as the aggregated value of your team. Then you will just have to copy your team directly from this file and send it to me. Hopefully this avoids any misunderstandings of a rider’s value as well as reduces the number of errors made in a team sent to me. CQ can also change the exact spelling or use of accents, which can prevent points being pulled through.

3.3 When do I?

Deadline now confirmed as 9PM (CET) January 5th 2014.

Further notes

Please note that even though it feels as though the season is over, it’s actually not. There are still racing to be done and CQ points to be handed out that could affect the value of a rider you have picked.

cqranking.com usually uploads the final update of the season on December 31, and the values in this update are the ones we’re using. However, the changes are usually very small so there’s no reason why you can’t start selecting your team already today! I think that about covers everything. If you have any questions or if I forgot to add or explain anything, please let me know. Please feel free to PM me with any riders you want to check their eligibility.

Massive thank you to Hugo for his inspiration and hard work on the main game and of course CQ Ranking.

 

[mc_mountain]

Update Links

Update 1.1
Update 1.2

teams submitted - 75

----AG----
---Dim---
---Flo---
---ram---
--Reno--
-Fus87-
-Tuart-
18-Valve
Afrank
al_pacino
allobroges
ansimi
Armchair cyclist
asdfgh101
Bellsax
Ben1376
BYOP
comodoro
CraZyCaLL
Cyivel
del1962
DJ Sprtsch
EvansisTheBest
fauniera
froome19
Geraint Too Fast
gustienordic
hilltopfinisher
Hugo Koblet
IlPirata92
ingsve
Jakob747
JeroenK
Jpettersen
just some guy
karaev
Kazistuta
Leadbelly
Lortnoc
Lupetto
MADRAZO
Martin
mc_mountain
Mellow Velo
minessa
NairoQ
Nicosix
olafjt
olisimpson22 (C4F)
oliveira
olopaine
Pentacycle
ray200
Roubaix
Ruudz0r
Ruvu75
rywann
search
Serva la Bari
skidmark
Slow Rider
SteelyDan
The Amateur
The Arbiter
the asian
The Hitch
the_fool_on_the_hill
Trudgin
Vlaanderen90
vmart77 (C4F)
wagenge C4F
waleweter
Wallenquist
Yellow Knight
Zam_Olyas

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Great! It's so nice to have all these young guys to root for during the year, even though my peculiar picks didn't do well last year. I'm looking forward to doing better this year

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Team submitted! Ready to roll and hopefully improve on my 9th place and 2363 points - I actually have one repeat from last year's team even though he improved by more than 1000%! I feel pretty good about my team this year, although finding this year's Coquard seems tougher.

 

[Ruvu75]

3.2. Eligibility
Riders need to fit one of the following two main criteria
i) be a first year professional rider (of any age), be it at World Tour or Professional Continental team.
ii) be riding at Continental level or lower, born in 1989 or younger, without having previously ridden as a professional.

Shouldn't it be 'born in 1991 or younger'?

 

[LaFlorecita]

Shouldn't it be 'born in 1991 or younger'?

Mc decided to allow older riders

 

[mc_mountain]

Shouldn't it be 'born in 1991 or younger'?

As Flo said, I decided to allow a bit more leeway on the continental riders, so rather going '90 in 2013 to '91 in 2014, its dropped back to '89. good to see someone is checking the rules thoroughly!

 

[mc_mountain]

There are 10 teams now entered (my aim is for a minimum of 50 teams).

a total of 74 different riders have so far been chosen and of those 45 are currently unique selections.

 

[mc_mountain]

Deadline now confirmed as 9PM (CET) January 5th 2014.

(ie 3 hours before the main game deadline)

 

[fauniera]

Why not the exact same time as the main game? Would make more sense to me, but whatever. Good game.

 

[Froome19]

Why not the exact same time as the main game? Would make more sense to me, but whatever. Good game.

I see what Mc wants to do.

But last year, I took a while, dilly dallying to get my team in and due to practicalities could only get it in right on the edge of the deadline. So having two deadlines, for the procrastinators like me, to meet is a bit more impractical.

 

[mc_mountain]

Why not the exact same time as the main game? Would make more sense to me, but whatever. Good game.

Well its a little bit abstract but the reasoning is to not take the main focus away from the main game, but also for people that do things last minute, they hopefully will get a youth team entered before they have to do their last minute submission for the main game.

also gives me a headstart on entering the teams to hopefully publish that night (I was up til about 3 doing it last year!)

 

[skidmark]

Well its a little bit abstract but the reasoning is to not take the main focus away from the main game, but also for people that do things last minute, they hopefully will get a youth team entered before they have to do their last minute submission for the main game.

also gives me a headstart on entering the teams to hopefully publish that night (I was up til about 3 doing it last year!)

Well, that works well, because I guarantee the main game isn't likely to be up that night (in Europe at least). It depends on how many entries there are of course, but it might be good to have people be able to pore over the youth game revelations for a good half day before the main game gets up.

 

[mc_mountain]

Well, that works well, because I guarantee the main game isn't likely to be up that night (in Europe at least). It depends on how many entries there are of course, but it might be good to have people be able to pore over the youth game revelations for a good half day before the main game gets up.

Exactly - while it should be possible for me to get up the youth team spreadsheet relatively soon, the extra numbers involved with the main game, would naturally require longer to finalise and publish the spreadsheet, and then of course there's the time difference.

 

[mc_mountain]

Now have 15 teams entered (was 10 at this stage last year). 6 of the teams entered so far are new to the game.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

I've entered this year after the early disappointement that late season points meant my final draft was 1012 points and not 993 points as expected. I'm still on 993 but I definitely traded down by taking out one french rider and bringing in a british one.

 

[mc_mountain]

20 teams now entered, with 101 different riders chosen, of which 48 are unique.

 

[mc_mountain]

Now have a record number of entries for the game eclipsing the 32 of last year. Thanks to everyone who has entered so far. I do really appreciate every entry even if I didnt PM to say so, sometimes the temptation to comment on the team would be too much.

getting close to 150 individual riders picked, and of those about 70 are unique.

 

[LaFlorecita]

Now have a record number of entries for the game eclipsing the 32 of last year. Thanks to everyone who has entered so far. I do really appreciate every entry even if I didnt PM to say so, sometimes the temptation to comment on the team would be too much.

getting close to 150 individual riders picked, and of those about 70 are unique.

Nice!

 

[Nicosix]

70 unique riders!

That's impressive!

 

[DJ Sprtsch]

2014 is going to be a great year with all these CQ games!

 

[mc_mountain]

Now 40 + teams entered and now a couple of teams breaking the 200 point barrier for the 'popularity score' (the number of times the riders on that team appear in the game), but also still a couple of teams with unique enough (oxymoron alert) selections to have not yet passed 100.

 

[karaev]

This game should be really fun...I'm really curious about some other guys teams...

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

Now 40 + teams entered and now a couple of teams breaking the 200 point barrier for the 'popularity score' (the number of times the riders on that team appear in the game), but also still a couple of teams with unique enough (oxymoron alert) selections to have not yet passed 100.

I wonder where I'm going to be with probably the 4-5 most popular picks in the game and bunch of riders that nobody (including me) has ever heard about.