Continuing our decent form through March is nice to see, love to see Gorka fulfilling his potential especially Laporte hopefully will continue to shine in the rest of the cobbled races (duh) whilst Pais Vasco is hopefully sweet with Albasini stage wins and Yates and Gorka for GC. obviously Erviti for cobbles too
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Dwars Door Vlaanderen saw some surprises as Lampaert got the free role in the Quickstep team this time. Pure domination by them throughout the classics so far.
Big win for Tamijo of course.
Huge pick as well for alexkr00, who had Teunissen as best of the rest and also getting some decent points by Roosen. Hence a well deserved 2nd in the team rankings.
bbl312 with Vanmarcke as consistent top10 rider getting some nice points while Pedersen already showed his class for Abishek.
Stybar, Benoot, Terpstra remain very valuable classic picks this year.
Ollfardh remains struggling on home soil. Degenkolb focussing 100% on Paris Roubaix this year. So let`s hope he finds his legs there then.
Terpstra really stepped up another time this year. Without Boonen he seems to have more freedom and using this impressively. Big win in the Ronde for Trek, who also has a huge pick with Van Aert, who shows big skills on the road as well.
Abishek with the duo Pedersen/Valgren yet again scores big on the cobbles. Great future for Danish cycling clearly with those two.
Stuyven, Benoot, Stybar, Vanmarcke yet again scoring consistently without the big win though. Teunissen after his big Dwars Door Vlaanderen with some more decent scoring just like Roorsen and Politt. Great young trio for alexkr00 here.
Lots of racing did happen in March. The cobbled classics almost done with Paris Roubaix and the Scheldeprijs being the leftovers before the Ardennes start.
Pais Vasco will go into the April Ranking but all other races are shown below.
Next to the cobbles this were Strade Bianche and Milano San Ramo as also Catalunya, Paris Nice, Tirreno Adriatico and many non WT races!
Manager
2018
Last Update
Since Last Update
2017
NicoVirenque
2848
1753
1095
6149
dominox
2587
755
1832
7304
jandal7
2491
1386
1105
7095
Marcovdw
2310
869
1441
7720
trekbmc
2295
682
1613
6032
jaxika
2122
1006
1116
9385
hillis91
2060
1002
1058
8692
AbhishekLFC
1993
845
1148
8479
jseadog1
1844
1189
655
9503
Tamijo
1728
892
836
8875
Aquarius97
1673
1095
578
6264
alexkr00
1616
619
997
7158
ember
1598
905
693
7405
OZrocker
1569
758
811
7784
sutty68
1544
945
599
5643
roturn
1517
902
615
6806
ivaneurope
1506
1114
392
8804
Ollfardh
1476
787
689
4632
Croatia14
1465
898
567
5898
matt17br
1339
493
846
8238
baseballlover312
1115
568
547
7876
NicoVirenque remains in the lead but the gap is getting smaller. The top8 in the actual ranking are the only teams that passed the 1000 point mark in March races alone.
Most impressive though clearly dominox with 1832 points scored in March, which is more than the season score of all bottom table teams! Huge.
Jandal with a similar month as NV and hence dropping behind dominox and being under pressure by Marcovdw and trekbmc, who both were podium scorers in March.
jaxika, hillis and Abishek being the other top scorers.
Further below bbl312 drops to last place as matt with Benoot had some more consistent scoring while Croatia is the biggest drop in March to third last with Ollfardh surely having expected more points on favourite terrain.
Manager
2018
2017
% of 2017
NicoVirenque
2848
6149
46,32%
trekbmc
2295
6032
38,05%
dominox
2587
7304
35,42%
jandal7
2491
7095
35,11%
Ollfardh
1476
4632
31,87%
Marcovdw
2310
7720
29,92%
sutty68
1544
5643
27,36%
Aquarius97
1673
6264
26,71%
Croatia14
1465
5898
24,84%
hillis91
2060
8692
23,70%
AbhishekLFC
1993
8479
23,51%
jaxika
2122
9385
22,61%
alexkr00
1616
7158
22,58%
roturn
1517
6806
22,29%
ember
1598
7405
21,58%
OZrocker
1569
7784
20,16%
Tamijo
1728
8875
19,47%
jseadog1
1844
9503
19,40%
ivaneurope
1506
8804
17,11%
matt17br
1339
8238
16,25%
baseballlover312
1115
7876
14,16%
~3 of 10 months in and NV almost at half of the 2017 scoring. trekbmc 8% behind him in 2nd but basically everyone with 25% or more is above average.
All others need big races soon. In especially the bottom 5, who struggle with their picks a lot.
Slowly all riders should have started with their main early season races and hence the comparison between 2017 and 2018 score says a bit more. Sure picking different GTs this season and hence changing the race program might explain differences here and there but in general the overview shows the season performances in 2018 quite good now.
Injuries obviously is another factor that changes the full picture.
First of, Impey lost his individual lead. He is past by Viviani. Surely a huge breakthrough season by the Italian. Though in general. Riding for Quickstep in 2018 is like using cheat mode it seems. No matter who. They are all so successful. Huge pick by Jaxika there as he seems one of the top3 sprinters so far this year.
Impey still sitting in 6th and even if no longer scoring that big in the rest of the season, he already was a great pick by sutty.
Then some more big performances. Terpstra for trekbmc clearly takes profit from the strong Quickstep team in combination of no more Boonen and has already scored more than in the last season.
Same goes for Benoot (matt), who is having his breakthrough year it seems (if you can say it for him even as he is super consistent for 2-3 years already but now also getting the big top results such as his first win ever at Strade Bianche).
Ewan also made another step into the top sprinter league. Next to Viviani.
And Wellens is similar to Benoot. Consistent for years but now apparently having made the final step.
LLS will always be there it seems while the Yates brothers are impressive early on and in especially Simon is super consistent already before the GTs with Hofstetter being clearly the biggest surprise here!
Valgren ahead of the Ardennes, Laporte, Hivert, Devenyns, Pedersen, Latour, Landa. All those either made the next step or take profit from a changed role in the team.
Riders
Team
2018
% of 2017
MOSER Moreno
OZrocker
142
568,00%
DE BIE Sean
trekbmc
178
312,28%
HOFSTETTER Hugo
dominox
403
283,80%
IMPEY Daryl
sutty68
647
267,36%
GUARDINI Andrea
NicoVirenque
104
266,67%
CRADDOCK Lawson
Ollfardh
30
200,00%
JAKOBSEN Fabio
dominox
199
168,64%
WISNIOWSKI Lukasz
Croatia14
164
156,19%
TERPSTRA Niki
trekbmc
647
155,16%
MORENO BAZAN Javier
NicoVirenque
131
147,19%
Spoiler
NIZZOLO Giacomo trekbmc 87 131,82%
PHILIPSEN Jasper dominox 132 123,36%
NARVAEZ PRADO Jhonatan Manuel dominox 139 115,83%
DEVENYNS Dries jandal7 284 111,37%
VAN HOOYDONCK Nathan Ollfardh 89 108,54%
LAPORTE Christophe jandal7 334 107,74%
BASKA Erik Ollfardh 73 104,29%
HOELGAARD Daniel ember 88 98,88%
MOLARD Rudy NicoVirenque 220 96,92%
SERRY Pieter OZrocker 112 95,73%
SANCHEZ GIL Luis Leon hillis91 493 91,47%
ROELANDTS Jürgen roturn 208 91,23%
TEUNISSEN Mike alexkr00 175 87,94%
MCCARTHY Jay Aquarius97 326 86,02%
IZAGIRRE INSAUSTI Gorka jandal7 450 84,91%
FORMOLO Davide alexkr00 182 83,87%
HAUSSLER Heinrich trekbmc 49 81,67%
EDMONDSON Alexander ember 132 80,49%
SARREAU Marc NicoVirenque 209 79,77%
OWSIAN Lukasz roturn 135 79,41%
MARTINEZ POVEDA Daniel Felipe dominox 171 78,80%
HIVERT Jonathan jseadog1 322 77,59%
EWAN Caleb NicoVirenque 556 77,01%
BENOOT Tiesj matt17br 625 76,88%
GROSSSCHARTNER Felix ivaneurope 149 76,80%
ROSA Diego Croatia14 160 76,56%
COQUARD Bryan Aquarius97 168 76,36%
DE TIER Floris roturn 70 75,27%
Moser still being top here with 568%. A bit similar to Velits last season but with some more scoring. Still so far a one-hit-wonder this season due to one result and a very weak 2017.
De Bie also high at 312%. The stepback into PCT delivered some nice consistent results for him so far.
Hofstetter than impressively high and here it is combined with very big scoring just like Impey at 4th. Both incredibly good picks.
Guardini after his yearly Langkawi stage win also at a decent level while Craddock with 30 points only being a real Velits. After a good 2016 and a weak 2017 he seems to be in better shape again. "Just" 30 points but in general a solid race in Italy most recently.
Terpstra being obviously the big guy here. Just like Impey on 647 points after Ronde Van Vlaanderen which is 155% of his full 2017.
Laporte as well above his 2017. Breakthrough year with Bouhanni struggling with the team and his performances.
Big scorings and still under 2017 performance for Benoot and Ewan as also Gorka Izagirre or LLS.
Usually those should all get above last years score easily if they keep their form.
Rohan Dennis being the rider with the biggest negative difference to 2017. Just like Durbridge he is more than 350 points behind last years score and except some performances couldn`t find their rythm yet or had bad luck.
Vichot 2017 basically is Hivert 2018. Though this is not ideal for Vichot 2018. Not much scoring so far just like Felline, Gibbons, Cattaneo or Hardy. All without much to show in 2018.
Henao Montoya, Degenkolb, Roglic already scored here and there but also far less than expected. Later at least might go big in Pais Vasco by the look of it.
Below Rowe, Hermans or Calmejane are others just like Kittel or Gaviria.
Next races: Pais Vasco running already and will get results next week or so together with the Scheldeprijs and likely Paris Roubaix. Later will get a startlist update for sure on Friday most likely. Earlier likely won`t as I don`t have the time today.
Then some break until the Ardennes week with Amstel, Fleche and LBL.
Lastseason of April then Romandie. Not much else this month as also HC events are rarely with Croatia and Trentino being the only stage races with Brabantse Pijl being the only classic.
Hence startlist and result updates might be a bit less with 2-3 per week only.
My team really did sound stronger with Lopez Moreno, Henao, Meintjes, Kudus, Senni...
After 3 month I am in later end of the table, which is easy to explain if your low picks are the only only scoring similar as in 2017.
Owsian as last pick being my 4th best rider says a lot.
Neilands following as 5th best and pick #21 says the rest.
Basically those two and #15 De Tier being the 3 positives this season.
Roelandts at #5 being solid at least to be fair on him.
Meintjes, Haig, Kudus, Senni, Moreno and Fernandez basically have same points combined as Owsian alone.
I can only hope they all changed their race schedule a lot and focus on later races. So far their week long stage races weren`t successful at all.
What a horrible season, surprised I'm not last really. Degenkolb doing nothing, a few injuries bothering me and mostly just guys underperforming. Floris Gerts' Ronde said it all really. The big talent from BMC gets in the breakaway and is dropped on the first climb.
Can't believe Hofstetter was a last round pick by Dominix, seriously awesome!
Amazing by Terpstra! Van Aert as well is going strong, we aren't doing as well at this point as I remember us doing last season, but I think that's a consequence of us picking a more balanced team and (more specifically) more riders who will score better in Conti ranks once the WT riders start to leave those races alone more, we'll see though. It is nice to be nearing the top of the table though.
I thought it'd be interesting to compare my riders with the round I picked them to see who was doing best:
Spoiler
Country
Riders
Team
2018
2017 Same Date
Difference
Round Picked
NED
TERPSTRA Niki
trekbmc
647
282
365
3
FRA
GALLOPIN Tony
trekbmc
264
387
-123
2
BEL
VAN AERT Wout
trekbmc
236
0
236
4
BEL
DEBUSSCHERE Jens
trekbmc
194
166
28
5
BEL
DE BIE Sean
trekbmc
178
37
141
12
BEL
PLANCKAERT Baptiste
trekbmc
120
184
-64
10
ITA
MOSCA Jacopo
trekbmc
103
10
93
8
ITA
NIZZOLO Giacomo
trekbmc
87
0
87
1
ITA
BRAMBILLA Gianluca
trekbmc
64
60
4
7
FRA
LE BON Johan
trekbmc
60
0
60
16
FRA
TOUZE Damien
trekbmc
49
41
8
14
AUS
HAUSSLER Heinrich
trekbmc
49
0
49
21
BEL
VAN GESTEL Dries
trekbmc
45
10
35
13
BLR
SIUTSOU Kanstantsin
trekbmc
44
19
25
22
UKR
GRIVKO Andriy
trekbmc
39
35
4
19
ITA
VENDRAME Andrea
trekbmc
36
34
2
18
AUS
CANTY Brendan
trekbmc
32
50
-18
23
COL
ATAPUMA HURTADO Jhon Darwin
trekbmc
19
102
-83
6
LTU
NAVARDAUSKAS Ramunas
trekbmc
10
77
-67
15
SLO
BOLE Grega
trekbmc
10
5
5
24
USA
ROSSKOPF Joey
trekbmc
6
21
-15
20
CZE
CERNY Josef
trekbmc
3
0
3
11
NED
VAN DER HOORN Taco
trekbmc
0
35
-35
9
GER
HERKLOTZ Silvio
trekbmc
0
29
-29
17
The difference and 2017 score doesn't mean so much for most of our riders though as a large portion had weak 2017s.
Obviously Terpstra and Van Aert are going great for us, while Gallopin looks pretty consistent if not a tad underperforming. instead Debusschere, Planckaert and (in particular) De Bie are excelling, I picked them as cobbles leaders because they seemed like the most likely leaders for their teams, so it's good to see them using that.
Van Gestel and Mosca are looking set up to be go well already though, while otherwise we're pretty consistent, only Atapuma (believe he got sick), Van Der Hoorn (worth it with the name Taco) and Herklotz (I knew he was a risk) are flops, however Nizzolo really needs to pick up his game being our #1 pick, Terpstra is filling his shoes, but he in turn needs to fill Terpstra's shoes with a good Giro, we'll see though.
Not a great time in Flanders really with Laporte sick unfortunately in RVV, the others invisible. Lucky to be on the podium still really
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
The Scheldeprijs saw yet another fantastic Quickstep win. This time by Jakobsen, who is having a huge season with his second Belgium HC classic win already in his neo pro season.
dominox must enjoy his season as he picked him in the 16th round.
sutty scores. Yes, scores with someone else than Impey! Lawless with 72 points showing his potential for Sky while Debusschere delivers some points for trek and Lecroq goes for NicoVirenque.
The names already show it. The race was a weirdo with several top favourites being disqualified. Good for the league managers of course.
Startlists
Paris - Roubaix
2018-04-08
Paris - Roubaix finishes the cobbled season more or less. Some top undraftable riders are challenged by the league. As most recent results show, the league managers should expect big points.
Terpstra for trek, Stuyven for jaxika, Trentin for Tamijo, Naesen for dominox or Vanmarcke for bbl312. Lots of potential winners.
Degenkolb must step up for Ollfardh surely. Lampaert (Tamijo), Van Aert (trek), Cort Nielsen (NV), Stybar (Marcovdw) clearly can be named as well as Moscon (ember).
- 53% of the peloton are in the Fantasy League
- Top Riders: N.Terpstra, S.Vanmarcke, Z.Stybar, O.Naesen
- Watch out: J.Degenkolb, G.Moscon, W.VanAert, M.Trentin, Y.Lampaert, C.Laporte
De Brabantse Pijl
2018-04-11
The startlist clearly not 100% exact yet. But here already the start of the Ardennes classics. Cobbles become hills and the favourites change.
By the look of it mainly league favourites, which is nice to see. Boasson Hagen and Colbrelli the main undraftable riders.
Wellens (Marco), Teuns (OZrocker), Benoot (matt) on the other hand leading the league with Jungels (dominox), Barguil (croatia), Impey (Sutty), Canola (hillis) following.
Not yet the big star line up as we will see in the Ardennes week.
- 54% of the peloton are in the Fantasy League
- Top Riders: T.Benoot, D.Teuns, T.Wellens
- Watch out: B.Jungels, M.Canola, W.Barguil, A.Bettiol, J.Vanendert, B.Coquard, C.Juul-Jensen
Undrafted/Undraftable Riders
I finally updated the formulas for those two categories. So here you go:
Valverde being the top rider this season so far and hence also leading the undraftable list stepping up from 4th in the 15-17 seasons to 1st in 2018 with Sagan following.
Kwiatkowski, Demare and Gilbert all improved again from weaker years in the past 3 seasons while Van Avermaet and Nibali at the same time stepped down a bit. That said in especially for later the big events are yet to come. With MSR he showed, that he might be the best rider of the last 20 years winning all 3 GTs, Lombardia and this year Milan San Remo. Pure allround skills.
Further down Bouhanni, Aru, Zakarin, Froome, Martin and Dumoulin still struggle with form or bad luck.
Quite possible some of these might be draftable next year if this continues.
But here the more interesting list. Who did you miss to draft? Who has a breakthrough year, that likely nobody expected!
Ovechkin is highest on the list. Changing from Gazprom to Terengganu saw a change of race schedule. To his favour it seems. Winning Langkawi and being 2nd in the Princess Tour of Thailand after already winning the Tour of Antalya earlier this year. Not too bad. 2.HC points in Malaysia obviously being the main score and while more points should be added, he might get passed later on.
Areruya is an interesting one. Winning Tropicale Amissa Bongo this year and I think being the first Rwandan to ever win a UCI race even?
Continueing to win the Coupe des Nations and also being in the top10 in all 3 African Continental Championships delivered him a contract with Delko Marseille in the PCT. Not having raced since then but surely a rider to watch.
Hodeg then a rider to follow this season. Starting as you would expect it from a neo-pro he then surprised with the win in the Handzame Classic sprint followed by the opening stage in the WT event Volta a Catalunya.
Ackermann might be the more surprising non-draft then. Already showing up here and there last year, he stepped up his game. 2 podiums in Abu Dhabi, 3rd in Handzame, 2nd in Driedaagse de Panne and Scheldeprijs. Surely a win is looking around the corner for him this season. As he is getting a lof of leading opportunities with Bora by the look of it, he is one of the favourites to be the top undrafted rider in the end.
In total 24 undrafted riders passed the 100 points mark. Something that just 25% of the league acchieved so far.
Last big race for my cobbles guys, after this I think we'll mostly score points off .HC and .1 races, until Autumn at least. Terpstra and Van Aert will hopefully have a good day, I think the more difficult cobbles will suit the CX handling as well, maybe. At least for the spots behind Laporte and Pedersen.
Haussler is actually pretty interesting too, he won't have to work for Nibali (but maybe for Cortina) and he's had a couple top 10s in the past.
We shouldn't feature in Brabantse but maybe Nava will show up.
Cool to see the undrafted riders standings, a few like Capiot, Reguigui and Sisr were on my long list for that final round and picking Bole over them may not have been the best choice (to be fair, it wasn't much of a pick to have them there, it was a very long list ).
Hodeg, Areruya and of course Ackermann look really interesting though, guess there'll always be riders like that though (and Arashiro <3)
Thanks Roturn! Edited by trekbmc on 06-04-2018 10:04
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." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Pais Vasco looks to be a nice scoring race for us, but i really need Chaves to do well in Giro to save our season, or idk, surprise result in Roubaix from Cortina
Abishek had race winner Roglic and hence a big score as 376 points for the Lotto - Jumbo NL rider is massive.
That said Aquarius came very close due to the huge amount of 9 starters and actually 3 stage winners in McCarthy, Fraile and Mas plus the young Spaniard doing well in the GC as well. Herrada and Hansen as well not to be forgotten.
jseadog with Landa as well doing very nicely while Buchmann for NV and Bilbao for ember deliver those two teams as well more than 100 points in total.
Several disappointing managers clearly. Ollfardh with Latour, Craddock and Carthy looked quite decent, dominox with Spilak was doing a lot better in the past, Marcovdw with Caruso or Juul-Jensen as well could have gone better than minimum points or bbl312 with Woods/Kiserlovski close to nothing.
Whoever had believed Dillier would be the league`s top scorer in Paris Roubaix, could have won a lot of money as bookies had him on 500+ before the race. Massive surprise result for ember clearly. Jansen, Bystrom and some minimum points add nicely to 227 in total. Moscon or Edmondson, who were his expected better riders with a day off here but depth proving to be valuable in this case.
But it`s trekbmc winning the ranking as the pick of Terpstra yet again is gold. Probably the best Northern classic rider of the league this year and likely to become undraftable next season.
Debusschere, Van Aert, Haussler all add nice points that deliver him 278 in total and the big win in Roubaix.
alexkr with 154 on 8 riders with Politt and Teunissen being great picks as also finally Ollfardh with Phinney/Degenkolb scoring decently following.
bbl312 and jaxika the only other 100+ managers due to Vanmarcke/Marcato for first and Stuyven for later.
Dillier turned out to be such an awesome pick! Gratz Ember!
Awesome race for us, Terpstra in 3rd of course but Debusschere, Haussler and Van Aert all picking up minor points, it's a shame Van Aert had that mechanical and Debusschere couldn't hang on just a tiny bit longer though.
The tours are hurting us though, we only have a couple real climbers (Atapuma, Brambilla, Siutsou & Rosskopf) but the former two are more breakaway guys in GTs, Siutsou is kind of a question mark in general and Rosskopf I only really expect to score points in America, so we aren't going to take any points out of these races, fortunately it's likely only Romandie, Dauphine and Suisse left of those types of races where we'll take a big hit, provided we can get points in GTs on other stages.
Laporte hopefully will continue to shine in the rest of the cobbled races (duh) whilst Pais Vasco is hopefully sweet with Albasini stage wins and Yates and Gorka for GC. obviously Erviti for cobbles too 
Dwars Door Vlaanderen
(Maybe if i had picked some cobblers 
Paris - Roubaix 
Itzulia Basque Country
