108th Liège-Bastogne-Liège: 24 April, 2022

[Extinction]

Jeez, you're now doing just what I pointed out; over interpreting and adding meaning that isn't here.

That the guys behind Remco doesn't have the same top level as the ones missing, doesn't mean that Remcos effort wasn't great. It's a logical fallacy.


So arguments like "LOL" and "haters gonna hate" is a good form of debate? Who do I really hate here? Again; people are adding meaning that isn't there. I think I know a little better than you and the other here what was the actual meaning behind my phrasing.

Now wait just a minute, not from me did you hear "LOL" and "haters gonna hate" in anything I have debated. I was merely responding to the asterisk you have placed on Remco's peformance, which, for the reasons I mentioned, is to me bogus. Nor have I misunderstood you. To the contrary; it's just that tarring as you have the quality of Evenepoel's almost 30 k storm to victory, based on the supposed weakness of his adversaries, while at the same time claiming it was nontheless "great," comes across as deliberately deceptive packaging to conceal your true agenda. And I am not the only one who feels you have an ax to grind. Well then, why don't you just be open and up front about it. It would save us all the hermenuetics to decifer the, as you say, actual meaning behind your phrasing (even if it has seemed quite clear from the start).

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Yeah right, I'm the one who is biased here just because I don't think the competition yesterday wasn't as good as it could have been.

Yes you are. The argument you make can be made for every win by every rider. In the 2020 TDF, Bernal hadn't been able to train due to covid. We'll never know if Pogacar would have beaten him. Froome had crashed in the Dauphiné the year before, ending his career de facto. Dumoulin was still struggling with the aftermath of his knee and an on form Dumoulin could rival any GC rider. In 2021 Roglic crashed out, Dumoulin had a mental breakdown and the runner up was a guy who had never shown anything like that before, nor since.

It works for anyone anywhere. Pog winning UAE? Who actually tries to win UAE? The others don't care and are just training there. Carapaz winning the Giro? Only because the others refused to ride and Roglic got sick. Carapaz winning the Olympics? Only because Evenepoel was overtrained and Van Aert couldn't counter every move by 15 guys, so Carapaz just got lucky. Pog winning Lombardia? Lol, the Italian Kurt Van de Wouwer finished in his wheel. Nobody else was on form.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Yes you are. The argument you make can be made for every win by every rider. In the 2020 TDF, Bernal hadn't been able to train due to covid. We'll never know if Pogacar would have beaten him. Froome had crashed in the Dauphiné the year before, ending his career de facto. Dumoulin was still struggling with the aftermath of his knee and an on form Dumoulin could rival any GC rider. In 2021 Roglic crashed out, Dumoulin had a mental breakdown and the runner up was a guy who had never shown anything like that before, nor since.

It works for anyone anywhere. Pog winning UAE? Who actually tries to win UAE? The others don't care and are just training there. Carapaz winning the Giro? Only because the others refused to ride and Roglic got sick. Carapaz winning the Olympics? Only because Evenepoel was overtrained and Van Aert couldn't counter every move by 15 guys, so Carapaz just got lucky. Pog winning Lombardia? Lol, the Italian Kurt Van de Wouwer finished in his wheel. Nobody else was on form.

Great performance by Masnada in that lombardia. Just as great performance by Remco yesterday

 

[OlavEH]

Now wait just a minute, not from me did you hear "LOL" and "haters gonna hate" in anything I have debated. I was merely responding to the asterisk you have placed on Remco's peformance, which, for the reasons I mentioned, is to me bogus. Nor have I misunderstood you. To the contrary; it's just that tarring as you have the quality of Evenepoel's almost 30 k storm to victory, based on the supposed weakness of his adversaries, while at the same time claiming it was nontheless "great," comes across as deliberately deceptive packaging to conceal your true agenda. And am I the only one who feels you have an ax to grind. Well then, why don't you just be open and up front about it. It would save us all the hermenuetics to decifer the, as you say, actual meaning behind your phrasing (even if it has seemed quite clear from the start).

No, you didn't write that, but someone else did.

And again; you are trying to add meaning that isn't there. It's almost like you just have to find something to quarrel about. Illustrated quite nicely when you talk about my "true agenda".

I think I know quite better than you what my true meaning is.

 

[Big Doopie]

Now wait just a minute, not from me did you hear "LOL" and "haters gonna hate" ...

i stand guilty.

not @Extinction who has shown much more maturity and patience.

 

[Big Doopie]

Yes you are. The argument you make can be made for every win by every rider. In the 2020 TDF, Bernal hadn't been able to train due to covid. We'll never know if Pogacar would have beaten him. Froome had crashed in the Dauphiné the year before, ending his career de facto. Dumoulin was still struggling with the aftermath of his knee and an on form Dumoulin could rival any GC rider. In 2021 Roglic crashed out, Dumoulin had a mental breakdown and the runner up was a guy who had never shown anything like that before, nor since.

It works for anyone anywhere. Pog winning UAE? Who actually tries to win UAE? The others don't care and are just training there. Carapaz winning the Giro? Only because the others refused to ride and Roglic got sick. Carapaz winning the Olympics? Only because Evenepoel was overtrained and Van Aert couldn't counter every move by 15 guys, so Carapaz just got lucky. Pog winning Lombardia? Lol, the Italian Kurt Van de Wouwer finished in his wheel. Nobody else was on form.

bingo.

 

[Extinction]

No, you didn't write that, but someone else did.

And again; you are trying to add meaning that isn't there. It's almost like you just have to find something to quarrel about. Illustrated quite nicely when you talk about my "true agenda".

I think I know quite better than you what my true meaning is.

Me trying to find something to quarrel about, when you accussed me, under no provocation mind you, of "a sorry way to debate" is ridiculous. I would let it go if it weren't for you playing a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why else bother with "complimenting" the Belgian, if your "true agenda" (indeed as it is in your posts) is to qualify and ultimately diminish his show of strength based on a series of considerations that are simply contradicted not only by the feat itself, but by what every pro who was in the race has said about the sensational quality of Remco's performance in an absolute sense. It doesn't matter who was there or wasn't there, besides the only Big missing was Tadej and even he would not have been able to go any faster. So let's just commend a sensational performance.

 

[hayneplane]

I don’t necessarily think Wout would have been any better without Covid as he would have ridden Flanders and Amstel full gas before Roubaix and likely be running on fumes by the time LBL reached the finale.

 

[Extinction]

i stand guilty.

not @Extinction who has shown much more maturity and patience.

Yea, I am often accused of that. A true gentleman when I'm not getting banned for more or less frontal attacks. But only when something just demands to be said.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Yes you are. The argument you make can be made for every win by every rider. In the 2020 TDF, Bernal hadn't been able to train due to covid. We'll never know if Pogacar would have beaten him. Froome had crashed in the Dauphiné the year before, ending his career de facto. Dumoulin was still struggling with the aftermath of his knee and an on form Dumoulin could rival any GC rider. In 2021 Roglic crashed out, Dumoulin had a mental breakdown and the runner up was a guy who had never shown anything like that before, nor since.

It works for anyone anywhere. Pog winning UAE? Who actually tries to win UAE? The others don't care and are just training there. Carapaz winning the Giro? Only because the others refused to ride and Roglic got sick. Carapaz winning the Olympics? Only because Evenepoel was overtrained and Van Aert couldn't counter every move by 15 guys, so Carapaz just got lucky. Pog winning Lombardia? Lol, the Italian Kurt Van de Wouwer finished in his wheel. Nobody else was on form.

If there are no wins against weaker or stronger opposition than usual, that means every race has the same field quality every single year which is very obviously not true... especially not in this illness-ravaged spring.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

If there are no wins against weaker or stronger opposition than usual, that means every race has the same field quality every single year which is very obviously not true... especially not in this illness-ravaged spring.

I didn't say that. Try reading what i wrote. Especially in this illness ravaged spring. Or in a covid infested 2020, where some countries were hit harder than others, where some riders were allowed to train more than others? So who is going to decide which race had more quality than others? You can revisit every race. That was the point of my post.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

I didn't say that. Try reading what i wrote. Especially in this illness ravaged spring. Or in a covid infested 2020, where some countries were hit harder than others, where some riders were allowed to train more than others? So who is going to decide which race had more quality than others? You can revisit every race. That was the point of my post.

...but if nobody can 'decide' what the relative quality of any given race was, doesn't that automatically imply that there is no (discernible) difference in quality between any two given races, or any two editions of a given race? And hence that every win is against equally good opposition? There's always going to be a degree of disagreement on how strong any particular field is, but that doesn't mean there aren't objective differences in quality between races or editions of the same race, nor that we can't discern these. It's hardly going full Pisti to say that the standard in yesterday's Liège, or indeed most big classics so far this year, was a bit lower than most recent editions of the same race.

While that doesn't put a Giro 2020-sized asterisk on Evenepoel's win, it's perfectly reasonable to discuss what would have happened had the field been better - not a mythical field where Pogacar, Roglic, Alaphilippe and all the other big names had all contested the finale in peak shape, but one where the entire podium of the last edition and the winner of the one before it hadn't been missing from the finale. When all of those riders are still in their primes but absent for various reasons, it's perfectly logical to say that the field was underwhelming by the standards of a monument yesterday.

And in any case, if field quality is not discernible and/or objective, there's suddenly a lot less to discuss on a forum like this...

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

...but if nobody can 'decide' what the relative quality of any given race was, doesn't that automatically imply that there is no (discernible) difference in quality between any two given races, or any two editions of a given race? And hence that every win is against equally good opposition? There's always going to be a degree of disagreement on how strong any particular field is, but that doesn't mean there aren't objective differences in quality between races or editions of the same race, nor that we can't discern these. It's hardly going full Pisti to say that the standard in yesterday's Liège, or indeed most big classics so far this year, was a bit lower than most recent editions of the same race.

While that doesn't put a Giro 2020-sized asterisk on Evenepoel's win, it's perfectly reasonable to discuss what would have happened had the field been better - not a mythical field where Pogacar, Roglic, Alaphilippe and all the other big names had all contested the finale in peak shape, but one where the entire podium of the last edition and the winner of the one before it hadn't been missing from the finale. When all of those riders are still in their primes but absent for various reasons, it's perfectly logical to say that the field was underwhelming by the standards of a monument yesterday.

And in any case, if field quality is not discernible and/or objective, there's suddenly a lot less to discuss on a forum like this...

Yup, and exactly what you are describing goes for the 2020 and 2021 TDF, doesn't it. Has there been a lot of debate about that on the forum? Frankly i hadn't seen it but i could be wrong. Again i'm not saying every race has the same quality field, i'm saying you can argue against any. Last year Colbrelli won PR in the sprint against a guy who had been in the break the entire day. This year Van Baarle won, and none of the guys of last year where anywhere near, so clearly Van Baarle's win doesn't mean much.

The bias is about when you bring it up. Because you can bring it up anytime, any race.

 

[Extinction]

...but if nobody can 'decide' what the relative quality of any given race was, doesn't that automatically imply that there is no (discernible) difference in quality between any two given races, or any two editions of a given race? And hence that every win is against equally good opposition? There's always going to be a degree of disagreement on how strong any particular field is, but that doesn't mean there aren't objective differences in quality between races or editions of the same race, nor that we can't discern these. It's hardly going full Pisti to say that the standard in yesterday's Liège, or indeed most big classics so far this year, was a bit lower than most recent editions of the same race.

While that doesn't put a Giro 2020-sized asterisk on Evenepoel's win, it's perfectly reasonable to discuss what would have happened had the field been better - not a mythical field where Pogacar, Roglic, Alaphilippe and all the other big names had all contested the finale in peak shape, but one where the entire podium of the last edition and the winner of the one before it hadn't been missing from the finale. When all of those riders are still in their primes but absent for various reasons, it's perfectly logical to say that the field was underwhelming by the standards of a monument yesterday.

And in any case, if field quality is not discernible and/or objective, there's suddenly a lot less to discuss on a forum like this...

Your argument makes sense in every respect before the bolded, once we realize that yesterday's Liege was the fastest on record and that, the winning time upon which it was ultimately based, was set by one who road solo for the last 30 kms into headwind. So that pretty much says it all. Ergo this year's edition was not in any way deficient in quality, to the contrary...

 

[Red Rick]

Your argument makes sense in every respect before the bolded, once we realize that yesterday's Liege was the fastest on record and that, the winning time upon which it was ultimately based, was set by one who road solo for the last 30 kms into headwind. So that pretty much says it all. Ergo this year's edition was not in any way deficient in quality, to the contrary...

Are we really going to equate overall race speed to field strength? That makes 0 sense.

Anyway, I don't think anyone's really arguing Evenepoel isn't the deserved winner of the race. However context and field and strategy matters if you wanna extrapolate the race to predict future races.

 

[dercuforever]

From the top of la Redoute to the RAF. Remco was alone vs a peloton with 7-8 domestics.
Anyone not named Remco would have been catched, or would be completly burned on the foot of the RAF.
He only lost 15 second from the bottom to the top, while Mas did a strong pace then the 3 better riders attacked one after each other without stopping between the 3 attacks.
Those leaders were freewheeling in the peleton for 20 km, yet they failed to take back 30 seconds from Remco.
He was very strong, stronger than them.
If you do not jump on Remco's wheel when he attacks from far, you lose.
If Remco is unable to have a gap from far, he will lose because on a short effort he isnt the best.

From what I've seen, Remco has the strongest 30min-1h effort. His 10 min best is not that great but he can keep 95% of it for much longer than other riders.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Your argument makes sense in every respect before the bolded, once we realize that yesterday's Liege was the fastest on record and that, the winning time upon which it was ultimately based, was set by one who road solo for the last 30 kms into headwind. So that pretty much says it all. Ergo this year's edition was not in any way deficient in quality, to the contrary...

Race speed is a terrible metric for top-end field quality in a race where it's domestique tempo for approximately 90% of the race. Evenepoel would have needed to go a full two minutes slower, which is a lot over 30 kilometres, for the race to drop from second to third on the all-time fastest edition ranking (the 1963 edition is still faster).

Yup, and exactly what you are describing goes for the 2020 and 2021 TDF, doesn't it. Has there been a lot of debate about that on the forum? Frankly i hadn't seen it but i could be wrong. Again i'm not saying every race has the same quality field, i'm saying you can argue against any. Last year Colbrelli won PR in the sprint against a guy who had been in the break the entire day. This year Van Baarle won, and none of the guys of last year where anywhere near, so clearly Van Baarle's win doesn't mean much.

The bias is about when you bring it up. Because you can bring it up anytime, any race.

Field quality is brought up for almost every big race, so if there's one race where every edition is analysed to a ridiculous extent on here it's the Tour.

So your argument is that field quality is a thing, but that it's not a valid and/or valuable point of discussion because 'you can bring it up anytime'? That's... a take.

 

[Red Rick]

From the top of la Redoute to the RAF. Remco was alone vs a peloton with 7-8 domestics.
Anyone not named Remco would have been catched, or would be completly burned on the foot of the RAF.
He only lost 15 second from the bottom to the top, while Mas did a strong pace then the 3 better riders attacked one after each other without stopping between the 3 attacks.
Those leaders were freewheeling in the peleton for 20 km, yet they failed to take back 30 seconds from Remco.
He was very strong, stronger than them.
If you do not jump on Remco's wheel when he attacks from far, you lose.
If Remco is unable to have a gap from far, he will lose because on a short effort he isnt the best.

From what I've seen, Remco has the strongest 30min-1h effort. His 10 min best is not that great but he can keep 95% of it for much longer than other riders.

If they're mostly W/CdA efforts then yes. His greatest asset is that his cruising speed on flats is better than tired climby domestiques taking turns.

 

[Bonimenier]

Procyclingstats has a starting quality score for each race. For what it's worth LBL had by far the highest score on this scale of all one day WT races thus far this season.

 

[Bolder]

From the top of la Redoute to the RAF. Remco was alone vs a peloton with 7-8 domestics.
Anyone not named Remco would have been catched, or would be completly burned on the foot of the RAF.
He only lost 15 second from the bottom to the top, while Mas did a strong pace then the 3 better riders attacked one after each other without stopping between the 3 attacks.
Those leaders were freewheeling in the peleton for 20 km, yet they failed to take back 30 seconds from Remco.
He was very strong, stronger than them.
If you do not jump on Remco's wheel when he attacks from far, you lose.
If Remco is unable to have a gap from far, he will lose because on a short effort he isnt the best.

From what I've seen, Remco has the strongest 30min-1h effort. His 10 min best is not that great but he can keep 95% of it for much longer than other riders.

Wout on paper should have been be able to make a similar effort. His TTing is superb, he can certainly put down a lot of power for a very long time, and he's punchier than Remco so he can get away solo. Not quite sure why he was lacking a tiny bit yesterday.

 

[OlavEH]

I would let it go if it weren't for you playing a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why else bother with "complimenting" the Belgian, if your "true agenda" (indeed as it is in your posts) is to qualify and ultimately diminish his show of strength based on a series of considerations that are simply contradicted not only by the feat itself, but by what every pro who was in the race has said about the sensational quality of Remco's performance in an absolute sense. It doesn't matter who was there or wasn't there, besides the only Big missing was Tadej and even he would not have been able to go any faster. So let's just commend a sensational performance.

I haven't said one time that Remcos effort wasn't great. That was you and other using straw man arguments to claim that I did. There wasn't any hidden agenda or attempt to discredit Remco's race. It is just you who choose to interpret it that way and grinding on about it again and again even though I've explained a half dozen times that is not the case.

 

[red_flanders]

Wout on paper should have been be able to make a similar effort. His TTing is superb, he can certainly put down a lot of power for a very long time, and he's punchier than Remco so he can get away solo. Not quite sure why he was lacking a tiny bit yesterday.

Too much climbing! I'm mot sure we can say a guy who got second in Roubaix and third in LBL can be said to be lacking anything. Sometimes guys are on a better day, sometimes tactics, usually a bit of both. Wout was strong, but this race isn't exactly his wheelhouse. Could he win it? Sure, but I think tactics will have to really go his way.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Procyclingstats has a starting quality score for each race. For what it's worth LBL had by far the highest score on this scale of all one day WT races thus far this season.

That's a really limited metric though. This is the methodology:

The quality score of a startlist is computed as follows. For each rider on the startlist the position on the PCS ranking on the date of the start of the race is computed. For a top-10 position 50 points are awarded, top-25 position 35 points and on according to this scheme (top10: 50, top25: 35, top50: 20, top100: 10, top200: 5, top500: 2, top1000: 1).

You can see what the issues are. In order of feasibility for a quantitative ranking, it ignores form as there is no time decay in the PCS ranking, it ignores the degree of overlap between specialisms and parcours, it ignores riders crashing out and it ignores the role of riders in the race. So for the Liège quality, Alaphilippe, Vingegaard and Mohoric contributed the maximum 50 points; two of those DNFed and one was on domestique duty. Meanwhile, for the 2020 edition for example, Hirschi only contributed to the quality score with 20 points and this would have been 10 points had he been just one spot lower on the PCS ranking, when everyone could see that he was as good as anyone going into the race.

 

[Extinction]

Are we really going to equate overall race speed to field strength? That makes 0 sense.

Anyway, I don't think anyone's really arguing Evenepoel isn't the deserved winner of the race. However context and field and strategy matters if you wanna extrapolate the race to predict future races.

Who is doing that? Not me. What the average speed does indicate is the sustained tempo at which the race was ridden, which, also given what the riders said, was fast and furious. And this is why when Remco went nobody had a response or why even an organized chase had no answer for his move, simply because they were all too exausted by then to do otherwise.

 

[Extinction]

Race speed is a terrible metric for top-end field quality in a race where it's domestique tempo for approximately 90% of the race. Evenepoel would have needed to go a full two minutes slower, which is a lot over 30 kilometres, for the race to drop from second to third on the all-time fastest edition ranking (the 1963 edition is still faster).

Every single Monument has a top-end qualtiy field, while one rider more or one less doesn't matter in terms of the sustained tempo, which is the metric for how arduous a given edition has been raced (similar or worse weather conditions and total elevation gain considered). Remember it isn't just the top guns, but their entire supporting casts, selected from the strongest on the roster to be the best help to the particular leader and they are expected to arrive in top condition for the appointment. At Liege, therefore, we're are talking about a running on all cylinders peloton. Race speed simply means the sustained tempo ridden from start to finish and, as such, (again variables such as weather conditions taken into consideration and total course elevation) indicates across editions relative arduousness. And judging from the riders' comments, yesterday's pace was relentless. This is why nobody had an answer for Remco when he blasted away, because they were already tiring and it also explains why even an organized chase could not catch up to him. For they were by then all too exhausted. That Remco basically did his exploint in their faces, let's us know the quality of his performance. Lastly the 1963 edition was 20 kms shorter and I highly doubt the elevation gain was quite as much either.