Thank you! We are always glad to be popular among European fans!
But indeed, our predicted places differ from 5th to 21st so don't know what to expect now I can't see us finishing fifth, but I do hope we're above the relegation line. Unless bad luck strikes, it should be possible to survive I think.
might get to a PT preview in the upcoming days, who knows - but will start doing some minor tabulations of all the rankings for CT in the upcoming days as well to combine.
Am sure many folks would be happy to see a few more predictions come in.
Another lazy prediction for the CT. I couldn't decide on the actual order, so instead I've divided the teams into four groups/tiers.
The first tier is for the teams where promotion seems sure. The second tier are the ones I expect to see fighting for promotion. The third tier are for the mid-table, where we'll find the last teams within the top 10. Lastly, we have the fourth tier which I see as the teams who should be fighting to avoid last place.
Initially I wanted to put 4-5 teams in each tier, but I only see one clear favorite in the division, and thus it ended up like this:
#1
Newton Foundation p/b Zwift
One team to rule them all.
Duvel-Tsingtao
Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team
See Turtles
#2
Simba Cement - Tanga Fresh
Spark Team NZ
Team Würth MODYF
Zain Omantel
These seven additional teams will be fighting for promotion, I think. They all have strong leaders, and all of them could actually promote depending on disbands.
Babymetal
Cervelo Test Team
#3
Ethopian Airlines
Euskadi-Murias
Trans Looney Tunes
In the mid-table I find these strong teams, where there's room for surprises. A couple of them could break into top 8, but top 5 would be a small surprise for me.
Air New Zealand-Alfa Romeo
Euskotren - Pays Basque
#4
Genii Hyundai N Cycling
Glanbia
Hilcona
In the bottom of the table, we're going to find one of these teams I'm sure. With fewer expectations, the teams might also see more opportunities though, which could enable a few of them to climb higher.
Here is my PCT algorithm applied to PCT. Again I just assign points to riders and do not consider team or division structure. Because of this ELCO is probably over estimated as they have 26 riders. Even adjusting for that I would still have them number 1 I think. Also, I looked back at last year and I had 4 of 5 promoted and relegated teams right, so I guess there is some logic here.
I thought based on my impressions and other predictions that the range would be tighter this year than last but actually it is pretty similar. This year does have a clear break after 9th, with McCormick in 10th, but not much comfort for me as the gaps back to 16th and even 20th are pretty tight.
Used my model for PT scoring with some simple adjustments for RD usage and point distribution to get the numbers below. A retrospective fit using 2023's modelled figures and the same adjustments results in a correlation coefficient of around 0.8, so certainly not a perfect model but hopefully not completely wrong!
1
Evonik - ELKO
9372
2
Team Puma - SAP
8920
3
Polar
8396
Worth pointing out that the model overrated Evonik, Puma and Lidl the most in the retrospective 2023 look back, and underrated Vesuvio, cycleYorkshire, Carlsberg and MOL in particular. There's a potentially smarter way of doing RD adjustment which may smooth some of that out (a question for any v2), but would not be surprised if it is again the case here.
I'd say that the model once again overrates Evonik and Puma at least. Hard to see a world where 8300 points are only good for third. I would be curious to see how those numbers got this high as the bottom half scoring looks much more realistic to me. Looking at the top teams, maybe it overrates or double counts certain type of stage racers?
Spoiler
I know the order and differences are the real interesting talking points but I'm also curious here since the order & other point totals look mostly reasonable here
I would agree with that, it's definitely an effect resulting from the model tending to see the strongest stage racers (Herklotz, Lecuisinier, Bernal) as being top riders on two other terrains as well. Therefore they get inflated projected scores, which in turn makes those three teams look so much stronger.
So that remains a challenge to figure out going forwards - it isn't the most robust method of modelling, but I'm yet to find a better one within my technical capabilities
However, I have re-run the modelling on the basis of terrain/overall ranking. v1 below is more simplistic, and simply ranks the riders on projected scores and ties them to the ranking points of the same slot last season. Adjustments then made based on RD usage etc:
1
Evonik - ELKO
8415
2
Polar
7585
3
Gazelle
7385
4
Xero Racing
6948
5
King Power
6586
6
Aker - MOT
6484
7
Lidl Cycling
6410
8
Team Puma - SAP
6329
9
Rabobank
6243
10
Moser - Sygic
5859
11
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
5737
12
ZARA - Irizar
5599
13
Assa Abloy
5533
14
Grieg-Maersk
5485
15
Cedevita
5187
16
Jura GIANTS
5031
17
cycleYorkshire
4865
18
EA Vesuvio
4858
19
Oxxo - Frisby
4747
20
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
4728
21
Fastned
4724
22
MOL Cycling Team
4421
v2 is slightly different, instead ranking riders by terrain and then linking to the corresponding slot in the scoring ranking for each. Same caveats apply as above, and there's an element of subjectivity in here with what is classed as scoring on each terrain. The gap between 5th and 6th suggests some of the same issues as in the original modelling, though it seems a bit more in line with usual scoring patterns:
1
Evonik - ELKO
8615
2
Polar
8297
3
Xero Racing
7938
4
Gazelle
7936
5
Team Puma - SAP
7905
6
King Power
6648
7
Rabobank
6343
8
Lidl Cycling
6223
9
Tinkoff Team - La Datcha
5853
10
Aker - MOT
5692
11
Moser - Sygic
5547
12
ZARA - Irizar
5430
13
Grieg-Maersk
5328
14
EA Vesuvio
5045
15
Assa Abloy
4998
16
Fastned
4801
17
Jura GIANTS
4718
18
Cedevita
4688
19
Carlsberg - Danske Bank
4500
20
cycleYorkshire
4434
21
Oxxo - Frisby
4210
22
MOL Cycling Team
4010
Overall I think there are still some teams lower than there should be, but hopefully these predictions are a bit closer to reality than the first one. That being said, I keep trying to get an accurate prediction for my team (17th would be a great season) and have had no luck with any of the three methods
If time permits in the next few days I'll try to do the same for PCT and CT using the two methods above!
Don’t worry, I was thinking the same thing Some ridiculous predictions of us in here. Luckily it looks like Abhi might be doing something better
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [PT] Xero Racing
PCT projection, using a model along the lines of the PT v2 above. Really likes ELCO, and suggests that there are some heavy favourites for promotion/relegation. Lower on Everesting and Popo4Ever than I'd expect, and perhaps a bit higher on Lotto and Tafjord then I'd originally thought:
1
ELCO - ABEA
4871
2
Sony - Force India
4154
3
ISA - Hexacta
4121
4
Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam
3714
5
Tryg - Eni
3487
6
Indosat Ooredoo
3167
7
McCormick Pro Cycling
2947
8
Lotto-Caloi
2790
9
Benetton Bimex Cycling
2772
10
Bralirwa - Cegeka
2720
11
DK Zalgiris
2695
12
Minions
2513
13
Specialized
2498
14
Sauber Petronas Racing
2483
15
Kraftwerk Man Machine
2273
16
Team UBS
2240
17
Tafjord Kraft
2228
18
Everesting
1905
19
Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska
1892
20
Llapi-Vita
1833
21
JEWA TIROL
1540
22
Manada Coyote
1516
23
Ekoi - Le Creuset
1476
24
Podium Ambition
740
Same top 5 and 4 of the same bottom 5 as UU, which makes me wonder how similar our respective approaches may be!
And CT, using the same methodology again. Pretty consistent with the top 6 in the aggregate prediction, but a lot lower on Cervelo and Spark than the others - which surprised me a little as well, though seems to be as it doesn't particularly rate Moscon and Bennett!
I can't see us finishing fifth, but I do hope we're above the relegation line. Unless bad luck strikes, it should be possible to survive I think.
