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Teams & Riders Ilan Van Wilder - Pale Rider

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http://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20211122_97667358

Patrick Lefevere is excited for the 'opportunity' Ilan Van Wilder. “I'm glad we got Ilan out of the impasse this way. I am also grateful for the way in which we were able to act correctly with Iwan Spekenbrink (of Team DSM, Van Wilder's previous team, ed.), with the knowledge of the UCI. Van Wilder does not need to be introduced. With the juniors it was always: 1. Evenepoel, 2. Ilan. The intention is that he continues to grow with us. In function of Evenepoel? No. There are three Grand Tours in a season. Although Remco was very happy that Ilan is again his teammate.”

Lodewyck also strongly applauds the arrival of Van Wilder. “Ilan is a GC rider. We want to make him better at both time trialing and climbing. We will use next year to get him to a high level again. He will also be allowed to chase his own ambitions. Will he eventually replace Almeida? You can't possibly say that now." Steels agrees: “Ilan is only 21. He also starts with a blank sheet. Once they are both fully grown, as a team you will of course put all your best forces into the same Grand Tour. It's too early for that now."

---

It's a bit of an overstatement that Van Wilder was always 2nd after Evenepoel as a junior, but he was usually in the mix, along with Vacek. He was usually better at GC and TT's than Vacek, and also gathered more points throughout the year (2nd behind Evenepoel), but Vacek was the one who managed to beat Evenepoel a few times.

The comment about Evenepoel being happy Van Wilder being his teammate again, is also true. Van Wilder was aware of this before he signed (i know) and that might have influenced his decision (i think).
 
I'm gonna quote these here:

Ilan van Wilder could really bring a lot to Remco and the team this year, sharing the spotlight and taking the role of Almeida on key races (Lefevered mentioned the Giro).
They did a 15' test 2 days ago during the team stage :
  • Remco : 14'50"i - 430Wii - 7W/kg if 61kgiii
  • Ilan : 15'00"i - 402W i- 6.3W/kg if 64kgiii
Remco's power numbers seem too high for such a small time difference meaning that either the numbers aren't accurate (not the first time) or that Ilan did the first part of the climb in Remco's wheel (seems possible since they have the same climbing time for the first 3km of this 6km segment, then Van Wilder lost 10' on the second part of the climb).

Anyway, Van Wilder finished second of this all-out test with really nice numbers so early in the season and lost only a few seconds on Evenepoel, meaning he probably closed the DSM chapter, ready to open a very nice new one.

i Source : Strava
ii Remco hid his power data but some followers saw it before he did and shared it in the Strava comments
iii Source : ProCyclingStats
Yep, already saw this. I have also heard Ilan looks lean, so he might have lost some weight, which could help with those power numbers.
Compare his numbers to those of Bagioli who did the same test with them, who pushed way higher numbers than Van Wilder and supposedly weighs 4kgs less... yet finished way behind Ilan. In fact, looking at all three of their numbers, it's not Remco's that seem off. But indeed Van Wilder might be one of the few that could actually benefit in Evenepoel's wheel.

Furthermore, Lefevere said Ilan hasn't been training as long as the others, so he might have some more room to improve as well.

But they won't ride a lot of races together this year it seems. Different prep races and different GT.

Doing some more digging, it seems Van Wilder already did this same test with Sunweb two years ago, in 2020, his first wintercamp with the pros. The strange part is, his watts seem to be roughly the same, but his time is completely off. Pushing the same numbers at a similar heartrate, he "lost" 6 minutes on that climb. When "analyzing" the Strava segment, it seems he had stopped (0 km/u) on two occasions during that climb, but somehow he was still pushing watts? I'm not sure what went wrong there.


Anyway, it seems Benoot and Arensman 's times weren't that far off of what Evenepoel and Van Wilder did, so maybe those are simply "very good training numbers" but nothing more? It's like Pogacar with his recent Strava ride, looking like a monster nobody could ever beat, just to notice his 19 year old teammate was only a few seconds behind him.
 
It's scary to see how similar they are. They both did 23.9km/h for their 3' test (remco did not aligned his effort on the KOM) a few days after they completed their 15' test with a 10" gap. Same size, same FTP, same explosivity? (It wout be unfortunate for Ilan...).
Which 3' segment are you speaking of exactly?

Maybe they'll end up more alike than the Yates twins. Seriously though, i think Evenepoel has the bigger sustained effort potential, Van Wilder might be a bit more zippy on shorter efforts. That's my impression. But the biggest difference might be their personality.
 
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Which 3' segment are you speaking of exactly?

Van Wilder Started faster, and then lost speed while remco remained more constant.

Van Wilder : average 23.9km/h (516W), start speed 19km/h, first minute 25km/h, last minute 22.6km/h
Van-Wilder.png


Remco : average 23.9km/h, start speed 14km/h, first minute 24.2km/h, last minute 23.5km/h
Remco.png


Devenyns 23.3km/h, Bagioli 23.2km/h, Serry 23km/h. Alaf not on Strava but he was more than probably with them.
 
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February 12th 2021 during the final days of a team DSM training camp in Calpe (meaning, last year), he must have changed the FTP value on his Strava from 360 to 400, based on the average weighted power / intensity % which is set to public on his account. Before that all his rides showed a calculated FTP of 360, and ever since it's been 400 (or slightly above or below) and currently still is. I'm guessing they did some test during the team camp that week and he updated his data then and there.

Last week he did a 15' FTP test, and the Strava result calculates (*95%) to an FTP of 385. But he's rumored to have lost some weight this winter. Let's say he lost roughly 2kg, that could explain the drop from 400 to 385, while his w/kg would remain roughly the same.

Assuming he indeed lost weight and currently weighs ~62kg (coming from 64 previously), what resulted in a current FTP of 385 watts, that would mean he can push ~6.20w/kg for an hour. At this moment, pre-season. Lefevere also said last week, that Ilan is "behind schedule" due to the late transfer and DSM issues late last year.

I'm told he's very motivated and eager and i expect him to come flying out the gates in Tour de la Provence. Can't wait to see where he's currently at, since we'll have had to wait 8 months since his previous stagerace.


EDIT: In August of 2020 he already did a section of 18 minutes in Tour de l'Ain on Col de Mentières at 393w meaning he had an FTP of 375 watts already, so that 360 was outdated even back then.
 
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...

Last week he did a 15' FTP test, and the Strava result calculates (*95%) to an FTP of 385. ...
That is a surprising calculation; 'mostly' FTP is calculated from a 20 minutes test (95%). From 15 minutes, I see references to take 90%.
But at this moment FTP is less important; lactate threshold is more important as it takes longer to improve and more difficult to improve during the race season.
 
That is a surprising calculation; 'mostly' FTP is calculated from a 20 minutes test (95%). From 15 minutes, I see references to take 90%.
But at this moment FTP is less important; lactate threshold is more important as it takes longer to improve and more difficult to improve during the race season.
Thanks. I've seen a 0.9 multiplier being used for 8' tests, not 15'. Maybe a 15 minute test isn't ideal, but has to be closer to 20 than to 8 in terms of reference.

PS: FTP and LT are strongly correlated: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29745765/
 
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I was hoping for a little better than 10th place today. But still not too bad.
Yeah, but a panflat only 7k prologue; take a few corners less than ideal, lose three seconds and you drop 4 places. He's also a rider for longer, preferably hilly TT's so this is pretty good, but not great or superb. It's also only his first race of the season. I also see he's still riding without custom aerobars like most specialists. That's another couple of seconds that he loses on some competitors.
 
5Ilan Van Wilder (Bel) Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team0:00:17
He jumped up 5 spots. There was a small distance break at the end of the stage. Well done!
Doesn't matter that much, what matters is that some GC guys were taken out of contention. Even Carapaz loses an additional 16s which means he now has to take 34s on Van Wilder, which is certainly doable but i'm not sure Carapaz is 100% atm (then again, Van Wilder might not be either). Both Quintana and Carapaz are still in the race. Then there's Alaphilippe himself, and Latour, Skjelmose & Jorgenson who could potentially do better.

If he doesn't collapse he should be able to finish well inside the top 10. With top 5 not unlikely, and who knows maybe the podium is possible if things go very well. I hope the team doesn't make the same mistake as they did in San Juan 2019, when they had Evenepoel (who was 3rd in GC) drop back from his counterattack, to help Alaphilippe, who lost GC anyway, leaving them empty handed. If it pans out, they should let Ilan ride his own race on Montagne de Lure. I don't think he'd make it to the top (at least not alone) before the big names catch him should he be able to ride off in case the others hesitate or play poker, but at least he'd be able to ride his own pace. If Alaphilippe can't follow Quintana for instance, it doesn't matter much if Van Wilder is still there. With Serry, Devenyns and Vervaeke, he should have decent support for most of the climb anyway.

EDIT: I don't think Battistella will survive as BYR so i guess the white jersey will be between Van Wilder, Skjelmose and Jorgenson. Imho the latter has the slimmest chances.
 
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Not sure he's waiting for these articles, but anyway:




Ilan Van Wilder whipping up a storm as next Belgian sensation at Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl

Quick-Step is braced for big things ahead of Van Wilder's debut this week: 'If Remco is the new Merckx, then he is also the new Merckx'Belgium could have two Eddy Merckx-a-likes on its hands.


Ilan Van Wilder is locked onto Remco Evenepoel’s wheel in the race to become the modern-day “Cannibal.”

“If Remco is the new Merckx, then he is also the new Merckx,” Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team director Rik van Slyke told VeloNews. “There are a lot of nicknames and comparisons, so it’s better we don’t do it and take them as they are. But they both are, or will be, very big riders.”
Van Wilder, 21, makes his debut for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl at the Tour de la Provence this week after a high-profile split from Team DSM in the off-season. “The Wolfpack” is braced for big things from its young cub.
“If you look to how he was, Ilan could be very, very big,” van Slyke said on a call this week. “If it goes well he will be launched and could do some special things this season. But if he struggles to find his rhythm, which I don’t expect, it might be a bit more difficult.”

Van Wilder emerged as the “next big thing” of Belgian cycling in 2019 with his third-place finish at the talent-marking Tour de l’Avenir.
Eighteen months with DSM in 2020 and early last season saw the supertalent bothering the top of WorldTour results-sheets in ITTs and kicking with the cream of the climbers in the hills. Then things turned sour with the German squad in the summer, and a long and messy divorce played out as Van Wilder battled to break contract.
Court cases came and went, accusations flew, and eventually an agreement was reached. DSM released its young talent ahead of time, and Quick-Step snapped up its next home talent.
 
Great tactics by Lotto Quickstep, to have Van Wilder go deep in the final 3k, so that he has to let a gap on the finish, and loses valuable seconds in GC, so now Skjelmose and Jorgenson are ahead of Van Wilder in BYR classification. Just finishing in the same group tomorrow isn't good enough, now he has to drop them. Genius. Looks like they learned nothing.
 
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Great tactics by Lotto Quickstep, to have Van Wilder go deep in the final 3k, so that he has to let a gap on the finish, and loses valuable seconds in GC, so now Skjelmose and Jorgenson are ahead of Van Wilder in BYR classification. Just finishing in the same group tomorrow isn't good enough, now he has to drop them. Genius. Looks like they learned nothing.
It's a team that optimises for wins, so helping Alaphilippe to win today and to be more likely to win the overall is expected. We'll see tomorrow how costly it was for Van Wilder to lose those seconds today.
 
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It's a team that optimises for wins, so helping Alaphilippe to win today and to be more likely to win the overall is expected. We'll see tomorrow how costly it was for Van Wilder to lose those seconds today.
Obviously that's the team's directive and completely understandable. However, i feel they could have managed their efforts better, so that it wasn't Van Wilder who had to go all out in the final. The difference for the BYR classification is night and day. Finishing along with Skjelmose (who is a more zappy climber than Van Wilder) would be manageable, dropping Skjelmose tomorrow will prove a more difficult task. Now they -again- risk to leave empty handed. To be clear, my issue isn't that he had to do a turn, but that having him do that turn at that moment, made him lose valuable seconds.
 
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