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Teams & Riders Cian Uijtdebroeks - From the wetlands to the top of cycling

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Of course something is wrong. Anyone who says that this is his level is just being provocative.

When he returns fully fit he will turn into the finest replacement we ever had for Haimar Zubeldia.
If something really is that wrong with him and his legs are as numb as he describes, he should better quit the race. He's just risking making it worse otherwise.

Unless he's just making up excuses, which, unfortunately, fits the character he has displayed over the past 12 months.
 
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Last year as a fan who followed Bora I thought he and his team should be super happy about his performance all year. In the vuelta I didn't even think once that Vlasov attacked him and I still believe the attack had nothing to do with Uijtdebroeks. After the comments from Uijtdebroeks I realised that he already thought that he is the team leader and the next big thing while the team still wanted to develop him, which went fine until his backleash to the team which let to breaking the contract in a really bad way.
I think he already put way too much pressure on him which and now after his strange saga in december he is way more in the spotlight. This could break him now, which is unfortunate, but shomehow his fault.
 
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If something really is that wrong with him and his legs are as numb as he describes, he should better quit the race. He's just risking making it worse otherwise.

Unless he's just making up excuses, which, unfortunately, fits the character he has displayed over the past 12 months.
I am pretty sure he will abandon the race now. It may be the heat of course - then he should ride on until next week where it will be cooler. I think we shouldn't speculate in him making fake excuses for his performance. If something is seriously wring Visma would have pulled him already for sure, no?
 
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I am pretty sure he will abandon the race now. It may be the heat of course - then he should ride on until next week where it will be cooler. I think we shouldn't speculate in him making fake excuses for his performance. If something is seriously wring Visma would have pulled him already for sure, no?
What are you saying then? If something is indeed seriously wrong and you are saying Visma should have pulled him, the only option left is, that he is indeed making fake excuses. Could all be also a psychological issue, as many here already speculated that he is putting a lot of pressure on him after that... let's say "unlucky situation" last year.
 
What are you saying then? If something is indeed seriously wrong and you are saying Visma should have pulled him, the only option left is, that he is indeed making fake excuses. Could all be also a psychological issue, as many here already speculated that he is putting a lot of pressure on him after that... let's say "unlucky situation" last year.
I'll try to be clearer.

1. The level he has shown in la vuelta is not his normal level. He has been much better than this for two years already. He is basically in the grupetto now on mtn stages.
2. Thus, I think he is ill.
3. I think Visma and Cian decided to try again one more day to make sure that they didn't give up too soon.
4. I think he DNS tomorrow.
5. I don't think that his psychological state is to blame for his poor performances this vuelta.
6. I don't believe he is under a lot of pressure from the team or belgian press or anyone else. He is a young rider with a nice talent, and is expected to be solid and progress. He's doing that apart from this vuelta. I don't live on top of the paterberg but I've never heard much talk about him in the media that suggest that he should win GT or anything like Remco experienced early on from International media too. I can be wrong about this of course.

Can you point me to a concrete case where he gave excuses that in reality didn't fit the facts?
 
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I'll try to be clearer.

1. The level he has shown in la vuelta is not his normal level. He has been much better than this for two years already. He is basically in the grupetto now on mtn stages.
2. Thus, I think he is ill.
3. I think Visma and Cian decided to try again one more day to make sure that they didn't give up too soon.
4. I think he DNS tomorrow.
5. I don't think that his psychological state is to blame for his poor performances this vuelta.
6. I don't believe he is under a lot of pressure from the team or belgian press or anyone else. He is a young rider with a nice talent, and is expected to be solid and progress. He's doing that apart from this vuelta. I don't live on top of the paterberg but I've never heard much talk about him in the media that suggest that he should win GT or anything like Remco experienced early on from International media too. I can be wrong about this of course.

Can you point me to a concrete case where he gave excuses that in reality didn't fit the facts?
Thanks for clarifying. I would agree with most - let's see if he continues beyond the rest day.

And top 6): Well yeah, I guess you're right - no hard evidence. But how he left Bora when he claimed "the team didn't help me develop" "the bikes are inferior" "I was mobbed by the others" "they called me names" - doesn't it sound peculiar to you? Not even remotely?
 
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Thanks for clarifying. I would agree with most - let's see if he continues beyond the rest day.

And top 6): Well yeah, I guess you're right - no hard evidence. But how he left Bora when he claimed "the team didn't help me develop" "the bikes are inferior" "I was mobbed by the others" "they called me names" - doesn't it sound peculiar to you? Not even remotely?
Yes, when I heard the "bikes are not good enough" thing. That was a ridiculously stupid comment - Specialized bikes are good enough for Remco, so they must be good enough for Cian. I think Aldag dismantled the comments very well in an interview i heard. He was on point about that.

And yes, it sounds peculiar to me too. Also remotely ;)

What was the end of the bullying saga btw? It became a story so I assume that is something there? Even Aldag aknowledged that "some older riders" didn't like it when a younger riders told them how they should improve.

There is tension in every team. Maybe Cian is bad at dealing with interpersonal conflicts or something. Dosent make him a villain - just immature imo.
 
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Yes, when I heard the "bikes are not good enough" thing. That was a ridiculously stupid comment - Specialized bikes are good enough for Remco, so they must be good enough for Cian. I think Aldag dismantled the comments very well in an interview i heard. He was on point about that.

And yes, it sounds peculiar to me too. Also remotely ;)

What was the end of the bullying saga btw? It became a story so I assume that is something there? Even Aldag aknowledged that "some older riders" didn't like it when a younger riders told them how they should improve.

There is tension in every team. Maybe Cian is bad at dealing with interpersonal conflicts or something. Dosent make him a villain - just immature imo.
Yeah, you're right. Let's give him a few years and see what happens. But I'm afraid most people don't get punchier with age, so he will atleast have to improve his TT greatly.
 
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Yeah, you're right. Let's give him a few years and see what happens. But I'm afraid most people don't get punchier with age, so he will atleast have to improve his TT greatly.
Having a slightly higher level will give him more punch compared to his rivals. Mas is hardly punchy ;) but on a very high level.
 
Yes, when I heard the "bikes are not good enough" thing. That was a ridiculously stupid comment - Specialized bikes are good enough for Remco, so they must be good enough for Cian.
And top 6): Well yeah, I guess you're right - no hard evidence. But how he left Bora when he claimed "the team didn't help me develop" "the bikes are inferior" "I was mobbed by the others" "they called me names" - doesn't it sound peculiar to you? Not even remotely?
So you two are now just making stuff up? When has he ever said Specialized bikes aren't good enough? He was complaining about the TT bike not being set up for him and there not being a spare bike or something, IIRC, at Chrono Des Nations. There was no complaining about the brand as far as i know. He has told his teammates at Visma that he didn't know where the story about him getting bullied came from. He himself has never made such claims, those were claims made by a Dutch journalist.
 
So you two are now just making stuff up? When has he ever said Specialized bikes aren't good enough? He was complaining about the TT bike not being set up for him and there not being a spare bike or something, IIRC, at Chrono Des Nations. There was no complaining about the brand as far as i know. He has told his teammates at Visma that he didn't know where the story about him getting bullied came from. He himself has never made such claims, those were claims made by a Dutch journalist.
Yet he kept quiet the whole time because it helped him get his way while press was killing Bora for bullying poor Cian.

He's a red flag without results.
 
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I think the mentality angle works a little bit but not like "he's gone to pack fodder cause he's choking" but more in the way that the belief he should be better than he is may lead him to think he knows better than his trainers and overtrain. And if that's been going on a while and gone on pretty hard then it fucks with you.
From what I have heard, overtraining is kind of realistic. Again, Danish commentators were talking about the various reasons for him underperforming, and Rolf said something along the lines of "maybe he just hasn't trained enough" after going through various of reasons, and Moberg, the guy I was referring to earlier who were in the camp at Visma, said something along the lines of "if anything, with Cian, he's just trained too much".

Something like that is quite helpful though if thats the case. You learn from it, and I generally feel its a positive that you are very interested in training, how the body works, is doubting trainers etc. etc. instead of acting like a robot and doing exactly what is being prescribed without ever thinking about whether it could be optimized or anything like that.
 
I'm of the opinion the psychological aspect plays a huge role with this rider.

Think back to Catalunya in March: he basically rage quit when they entered the final circuit & he got instantly dropped. Kruijswijk ended up getting freedom that day because one of the guys he was supposed to be working for pulled over & got off the bike. Without illness or injury.

That's just one example.
 
So you two are now just making stuff up? When has he ever said Specialized bikes aren't good enough? He was complaining about the TT bike not being set up for him and there not being a spare bike or something, IIRC, at Chrono Des Nations. There was no complaining about the brand as far as i know. He has told his teammates at Visma that he didn't know where the story about him getting bullied came from. He himself has never made such claims, those were claims made by a Dutch journalist.
No. I am obvisouly paraphrasing what Cian said and the implication is that he thought his equipment (specialized tt bikes) was not good enough. So no i'm not making stuff up.

His actual quotes:
- it would be nice if my bikes were in order.
And that spare bike turned out to be completely out of order. Then you can still ride as fast as you want, but that's not cool. I came here to learn. Then it would be nice if my bikes were in order
- It's something we really need to improve,

Uijtdebroeks continued: "There is still a lot of margin, especially in terms of aerodynamics and the construction of the bicycle itself. I have the power. Here too, with my 65 kilos, I pedal almost 400 watts on average over an hour. However, the entire framework needs to be fine-tuned. We just lose a lot with that.

In bold you can very clearly see that direct criticism of Specialized and the Team.

You don't understand why Specialized was unhappy with those statements? Rolf Aldag literally apologized to specialized and made an announcement in press to say that those statements from Cian was incorrect.

So no I am not lying and i've been defending Cian for most of these posts. Those comments were not ideal.
 
On The Move Johan Bruyneel said he wasn't that suprised that Cian struggled to improve now. He said he's basically been super precise in training for many years and he specualted that maybe he had maxed out a lot of areas already.

Interessting comment imo. Maybe this will happen to a lot of young riders now. The relationship between age, level and future level may be less and less true. My mental model still see a lot of people bursting on the scene around 20-21-22 - then stagnate - then level up around 25-26-27 again - then stagnation.
 
Red flag for me is he's been traditionally been really bad at fresh 10 minute climbs, which are close to VO2 max efforts, which should represent a pretty hard ceiling on how far you might max out.
Let's say 10 years from now, do you think Cian has..

1. Won TDF?
2. Won a GT?
3. Podiumed a GT?
4. Top 5 GT?
5. Won a monument like liege or lombardy?
6. Top 10 more than 5 GT's

I'm interested to hear your opinion.
 
On The Move Johan Bruyneel said he wasn't that suprised that Cian struggled to improve now. He said he's basically been super precise in training for many years and he specualted that maybe he had maxed out a lot of areas already.

Interessting comment imo. Maybe this will happen to a lot of young riders now. The relationship between age, level and future level may be less and less true. My mental model still see a lot of people bursting on the scene around 20-21-22 - then stagnate - then level up around 25-26-27 again - then stagnation.
He isn't struggling to improve. He is struggling to follow sprinters on a climb. What is this crap, lol.
 
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While I do think he's a bit overrated and I don't really like his fake nice persona, why are we ignoring him saying his legs literally feel numb. This kid could have a serious nerve problem or iliac artery problems and Visma just thinks it's fine to let him ride GTs? Overrated or not, this is obviously not his normal level. Let's not forget he started the Giro this in a decent way.
 
No. I am obvisouly paraphrasing what Cian said and the implication is that he thought his equipment (specialized tt bikes) was not good enough. So no i'm not making stuff up.

His actual quotes:
Guess what... those aren't his actual quotes. You are quoting a journalist who (had) translated the actual quotes. So it is not you, but the journalist you quoted, that made stuff up. Bottom line, he never said that, which is what i was coming from. His entire rant was clearly directed at Bora, and the part about the bike, he even specifically mentions Evenepoel and his low CdA. He never said anything about the frame of the bike, he spoke of "building the bike" by which, from the context, he clearly meant assembling the bike by the Bora mechanics.
 
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Because he is clearly not on his normal level this vuelta for whatever reason. In general he's been good but not better than last year.
He said he's had this feeling a few times before. I suggest Visma actually look into this and people wait a bit before jumping to conclusions based on conditions they know nothing about. If this is an ongoing issue since some time, it could well explain a few things this year.
 
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Guess what... those aren't his actual quotes. You are quoting a journalist who (had) translated the actual quotes. So it is not you, but the journalist you quoted, that made stuff up. Bottom line, he never said that, which is what i was coming from. His entire rant was clearly directed at Bora, and the part about the bike, he even specifically mentions Evenepoel and his low CdA. He never said anything about the frame of the bike, he spoke of "building the bike" by which, from the context, he clearly meant assembling the bike by the Bora mechanics.
So I'm directly quoting the news article that directly quotes Cian. They even use Cian said: "......"

If you are right - How am I supposed to know that the journo just make things up? How do you know that the Journo directly made this up? That is actually punishable if journo's present direct quotes in a fake manner never mind making things up. I wasn't there and I hedged against this in my first comment by saying that people misquote. This seems legit and Aldag never denied that he made those statements - which would be in his and the teams interest.