European Championships 2019 - Alkmaar

[Broccolidwarf]

obviously the 2-3 hardcore fanboys of him here can't wait for him to win every race. Others will be bored by this domination.

Are you still here? :O

Thought you would quit cycling, because it is getting too boring for you?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

obviously the 2-3 hardcore fanboys of him here can't wait for him to win every race. Others will be bored by this domination.

We'll cross that bridge when we get there. For the moment, it's a 19 year old who keeps surprising everyone (well, except for Flamin apparently, lol) and is showing thrilling racing (maybe you 'd rather see sprints stages and boring racing). Calling it boring at this time, is simply disingenuous. Maybe he will not evolve much more. Maybe the rest will start marking him and he won't get away in the future. Maybe he'll get tired of it and start playing football again.

Unless you actually believe he will become the next Merckx, i wouldn't panic just yet.

 

[yaco]

Affini didn't give himself the best opportunity by riding the mixed TTT yesterday - It cost him a silver medal, though in saying that it was a perfect course for him.

 

[kiszol]

Affini did also impress, too bad for him that some young Belgian phenomenon stole the show otherwise his almost win would have been the story of the race.

 

[Wvv]

Incredible, once again. What a palmares already at 19 yrs and 195 days.

The images of him in between the two other guys on the podium, regarding length and physical maturity, are brilliant. And seeing the emotions sneak up on him, thinking about Lambrecht (and Stef Loos), was very touching.

Chapeau. And thank you for the best possible tribute, Remco.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

 

[Flamin]

We'll cross that bridge when we get there. For the moment, it's a 19 year old who keeps surprising everyone (well, except for Flamin apparently, lol) and is showing thrilling racing (maybe you 'd rather see sprints stages and boring racing). Calling it boring at this time, is simply disingenuous. Maybe he will not evolve much more. Maybe the rest will start marking him and he won't get away in the future. Maybe he'll get tired of it and start playing football again.

I mean that, in a certain way, it shouldn't have been that big a surprise after what he showed recently

Six weeks ago, he finished barely 7 seconds behind Lampaert, who just won an ITT in Suisse, in the Belgian nationals, and he obviously improved since then. Still, the huge gap he won by, IS obviously surprising like I mentioned.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

I mean that, in a certain way, it shouldn't have been that big a surprise after what he showed recently

Six weeks ago, he finished barely 7 seconds behind Lampaert, who just won an ITT in Suisse, in the Belgian nationals, and he obviously improved since then. Still, the huge gap he won by, IS obviously surprising like I mentioned.

I expected a top 5. Because it was this windy, i thought the bigger guys would have the advantage, but turns out most of it was head wind or tailwind, not so much crosswinds from what i understood (like in the ITT BC). I think it might have been in his advantage in the second part especially, considering his far more aerodynamic posture.

 

[Wvv]

"Stars for the stars."

 

[Red Rick]

It's all going crazy fast.

Was he's gonna go to the men's ITT in Yorkshire?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Super impressive for such a young kid to destroy 15-20kg heavier specialists.
I still don't get how you can be 61kg and be world class in TTs and as a rouleur, but struggle against decent opponents on the climbs. Logic tells you that his power to weight ratio should be god-tier.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

It's all going crazy fast.

Was he's gonna go to the men's ITT in Yorkshire?

I'm willing to bet he is now.
It was never really ruled out before, but with van Aert not going and crashing, and Lambrecht passing away, and his current form...
EDIT: oh, for the ITT, obviously Lambrecht's accident doesn't matter, and i guess it depends on Campenaerts and Lampaert, though i can see him go together with Campenaerts.

Super impressive for such a young kid to destroy 15-20kg heavier specialists.
I still don't get how you can be 61kg and be world class in TTs and as a rouleur, but struggle against decent opponents on the climbs. Logic tells you that his power to weight ratio should be god-tier.

What "decent" opponents do you mean, on the climbs?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Guys like Conti, Kudus, Conci in AIR or his teammate Knox, who has outclimbed him in every stage race against decent opposition. Atm he seems to be a lot stronger on rolling terrain

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Interesting comparison Evenepoel vs Affini:
Last year, they rode the WC and EC on the same course, but Evenepoel rode those with restricted gears (juniors aren't allowed to ride with a full range of gears). Affini already rode in the U23 (since he's 4 years older).

For the EC in Brno 2018, over 23 km, Affini beat Evenepoel (but Evenepoel said he didn't feel good that day)
Evenepoel 's time: 29:51
Affini's time: 29:26

For the WC in Innsbruck 2018, over 27,8 km, they had the exact same time
Evenepoel 's time: 33:15
Affini's time: 33:15

Now, EC in Alkmaar 2019, over 22,4 km, Evenepoel beat Affini
Evenepoel 's time: 24:55
Affini's time: 25:16

 

[RedheadDane]

Rather sad to see how subdued his celebration was.
Understandable, but sad...

 

[kiszol]

I mean that, in a certain way, it shouldn't have been that big a surprise after what he showed recently

Six weeks ago, he finished barely 7 seconds behind Lampaert, who just won an ITT in Suisse, in the Belgian nationals, and he obviously improved since then. Still, the huge gap he won by, IS obviously surprising like I mentioned.

It's not that obvious. Six weeks is not a long time, not even for him. And he was the fastest in the first part as well as the second part. More impressive than what it first looks like I think.

 

[Red Rick]

Super impressive for such a young kid to destroy 15-20kg heavier specialists.
I still don't get how you can be 61kg and be world class in TTs and as a rouleur, but struggle against decent opponents on the climbs. Logic tells you that his power to weight ratio should be god-tier.

All I can imagine is if his weight is underreported/not accurate anymore. That or slight differences in which muscle groups you use when climbing vs TTing

 

[red_flanders]

Super impressive for such a young kid to destroy 15-20kg heavier specialists.
I still don't get how you can be 61kg and be world class in TTs and as a rouleur, but struggle against decent opponents on the climbs. Logic tells you that his power to weight ratio should be god-tier.

I’m not sure how much he’s struggling on climbs, but it would certainly make sense that a kid that young needs time to figure out how to gauge his efforts during road races as opposed to relatively short TT efforts.

Tactics, race length, terrain never seen before, distances never ridden...takes some experience to figure it out. He’s winning on sheer power right now. The climbing will come.

 

[Red Rick]

I’m not sure how much he’s struggling on climbs, but it would certainly make sense that a kid that young needs time to figure out how to gauge his efforts during road races as opposed to relatively short TT efforts.

Tactics, race length, terrain never seen before, distances never ridden...takes some experience to figure it out. He’s winning on sheer power right now. The climbing will come.

Hard to say gauging his efforts has been the problem in climbing races when he literally won San Sebastian cause he could go balls deep and never slow down.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Guys like Conti, Kudus, Conci in AIR or his teammate Knox, who has outclimbed him in every stage race against decent opposition. Atm he seems to be a lot stronger on rolling terrain

I don't know if you watched that stage and I don't know if those guys were actually better than him, if you consider the effort he made in his break attempt . He made the mistake, to attack at nearly 9km from the finish, which was an attack that went nowhere, because Hermans let his teammate ride full gas. He went in the red and got dropped as soon as he got caught 3k later, but managed to limit his losses. He was 1m30s behind in GC due to a crash in the first stage, otherwise he might not have felt the need to attack so early. In which case i'm sure he would have been able to hold on much longer. The AI Race is no real point of reference imho, because of that. It was also his first multi mountain stage (and he finished 10 minutes ahead of Rivera ). He's been climbing on the level of Jan Polanc in both Turkey and AIR, that guy finished 14th in the Giro. UAE was his first ever MTF at the pro's, and Romandie was just a fluke. Saying he doesn't climb as well as Knox, based on these results seems silly. Knox, by the way, is the same age as De Plus.

Also consider he went on altitude camp just before AIRace. Usually, for best results, you need to wait a week or two.

You've brought this up before and it kind of seems you are trying to make a point which is not there to be made. "Getting outclimbed by Kudus". Ok, what was it, 9 seconds?

 

[Mayomaniac]

It's just an observation and on the Misurina stage he attacked because he wanted to, Knox told him to ride for himself on the final climb.
People just seem to expect him to crush everyone on a MTF, but he still hasn't done that.
I think we both agree that his climbing will only get better, so let's just agree that we disagree on the other stuff, we both made our points and a further discussion seems rather pointless to me.

 

[red_flanders]

Hard to say gauging his efforts has been the problem in climbing races when he literally won San Sebastian cause he could go balls deep and never slow down.

I'm not convinced there is a problem, I'm just saying it wouldn't be a surprise if a neo-pro had these kind of issues. I didn't see a problem at San Sebastian.

From what I've seen, he dropped Masnada on a climb, albeit a shallow section of one, and dropped Skujns on a climb. We've not seen him display GT style long climbing prowess but I don't see a lot of evidence that he has trouble climbing. He's certainly on far better form now than he was earlier this year.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

It's just an observation and on the Misurina stage he attacked because he wanted to, Knox told him to ride for himself on the final climb.
People just seem to expect him to crush everyone on a MTF, but he still hasn't done that.
I think we both agree that his climbing will only get better, so let's just agree that we disagree on the other stuff, we both made our points and a further discussion seems rather pointless to me.

I just don't think getting "outclimbed" by 7 seconds by Kudus and Conti has to be an issue for a 19 year old. Whatever the reason of his attack in AIR, is irrelevant. He attacked too soon, blew himself up, still managed to lose only 1m30s. I'm sure Knox was ok with him attacking, because it was in Knox best interest as well.

 

[Red Rick]

I just don't think getting "outclimbed" by 7 seconds by Kudus and Conti has to be an issue for a 19 year old. Whatever the reason of his attack in AIR, is irrelevant. He attacked too soon, blew himself up, still managed to lose only 1m30s. I'm sure Knox was ok with him attacking, because it was in Knox best interest as well.

1m30 is kinda much considering Evenepoel seems physically unable of blowing up elsewhere. Anyway, could just be a bad day, it doesn't really matter.
Maybe he actually sat up a little bit.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

1m30 is kinda much considering Evenepoel seems physically unable of blowing up elsewhere. Anyway, could just be a bad day, it doesn't really matter.
Maybe he actually sat up a little bit.

1m30 on 6km climbing isn't much if you blow up imho.