Lesser known races 2024 edition

[tobydawq]

Hagenes hasn't really been bad. He has had to ride a fair bit of domestique work for Van Aert for example and he had a crash where he broke his nose I believe so he missed a fair few races and he's also ridden a much harder program this season with the monuments for example where he at least finished decently in both De Ronde and P-R for it being his debuts.

Okay, fair enough, I've just not seen him being anywhere close to delivering on the promise his win in Münsterland gave.

 

[postmanhat]

Watson going to Ineos apparently, which I thought was a strange move as they don't do any of the types of races he's been decent in so far, and he didn't look anything like being competitive at the races they do. But I've quite often been wrong before.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Also, this is a comment on how Visma are disappointing this year. Normally, they would have been able to elevate him to a new level after his transfer and they certainly have not been able to do that

I mean, Jumbo not really elevating anyone except for Jorgenson this year is a much better indicator of decline than a bunch of guys who have mostly had bad luck doing poorly...

 

[Squire]

Okay, fair enough, I've just not seen him being anywhere close to delivering on the promise his win in Münsterland gave.

ingsve is mostly right, but I have also been slightly underwhelmed by Hagenes' recent races where he's had opportunities. Expected him to be much better in the Tour of Norway and also expected him to be more snappy in Belgium and now in Wallonie. He's showed some good strength and aggressivity, but I thought he would have a bit more punch than what he's showed. He's looked a bit sluggish. What he's done in recent weeks is not quite like when he brutalized Gregoire last year.

 

[tobydawq]

I mean, Jumbo not really elevating anyone except for Jorgenson this year is a much better indicator of decline than a bunch of guys who have mostly had bad luck doing poorly...

Yes but I didn't include the guys who could ascribe bad luck to their doing poorly. If I had done that, I would have included Wout, Laporte, Tratnik, Van Baarle, Bouwman, Kruijswijk.

 

[Coffeeplanter]

The form of some Visma riders can be explained through bad luck, crashes, illnesses or whatever, but the most glaring issue I see is how incredibly subpar they have become in time trials and therefore material. With the exception of S21 a week ago, which was mostly a climbing time trial anyway, every single time trial of theirs has been meh to rather bad.

The Cervélo has been caught up not just by Colnago, but seemingly by everyone. The helmet, aside from being ugly, seems to be performing terribly. Not to mention the helmet only works if you have perfect positioning, which very few within Visma do. Wout went from probable #2 time trialist in the world to a laughing stock.

 

[Netserk]

Uijtdebroeks? Kuss? Staune-Mittet? Vader. Tulett. Hagenes.

Uijtdebroeks: didn't ride on the team last year, but he did as well in Tirreno as Catalunya last year. Then he froze in Catalunya and fell ill in the Giro.
Kuss: No worse in the spring than last year, then ill come summer.
JSM: didn't ride on the pro team last year, but has indeed been disappointing compared to expectations.
Vader: Did no better last year and has mainly ridden as a helper.
Tulett: didn't ride on the team last year, but was good in Tirreno, and then abandoned Itzulia after illness(?). I don't see how he underperformed compared to the previous year.
Hagenes: didn't ride on the pro team last year, and he broke his nose this spring.

 

[Didinho]

Hirschi right on time to become World Champion. He wins stage 2 in Czech Republic.

 

[tobydawq]

Uijtdebroeks: didn't ride on the team last year, but he did as well in Tirreno as Catalunya last year. Then he froze in Catalunya and fell ill in the Giro.
Kuss: No worse in the spring than last year, then ill come summer.
JSM: didn't ride on the pro team last year, but has indeed been disappointing compared to expectations.
Vader: Did no better last year and has mainly ridden as a helper.
Tulett: didn't ride on the team last year, but was good in Tirreno, and then abandoned Itzulia after illness(?). I don't see how he underperformed compared to the previous year.
Hagenes: didn't ride on the pro team last year, and he broke his nose this spring.

Okay, they're doing great then

 

[Netserk]

Okay, they're doing great then

I never claimed that. Just this:

I don't know, who on the team is a good measure of that? I can't really think of any disappointments compared to last year who hasn't had bad luck this year.

There's just very few riders on the team who were able to perform both last year and this year, so that's why I find it difficult to evaluate your claim that their bad luck masked a bad trend of underperformances.

 

[tobydawq]

I never claimed that. Just this:

Why would you compare 20-24 year olds to last year? They're supposed to progress. Nobody has done that on Visma this year apart from Jorgenson.

 

[Netserk]

Why would you compare 20-24 year olds to last year? They're supposed to progress. Nobody has done that on Visma this year apart from Jorgenson.

Only JSM had good opportunities to show progress (or to make a clean comparison to last year). What should Tulett have done differently to not disappoint you?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Nordhagen has a monster engine, bit one only had to look at how he demolished the field at the junior WC in XC skiing to know that. He also doesn't seem to be as physically developed as some other riders and fully focussing on cycling means that he'll loose some upper body muscle mass.

 

[Samamba]

He wins on Strong's declassification yesterday.

Which was a typical "oh someone crashed we need to DQ someone" case. Painful.

 

[RedheadDane]

So German - who is in fact Argentinian - won in Portugal.

 

[Samamba]

Only JSM had good opportunities to show progress (or to make a clean comparison to last year). What should Tulett have done differently to not disappoint you?

Show why he went to Visma

No seriously, I agree that some of them had some bad luck, but it's too easy to say it's all due too bad luck. Visma's talents this season have simply been a bit disappointed. Staune Mittet is definitely the biggest one imo cause he doesn't have any excuses, but others also have had some opportunities and haven't shown that much progress. I do think Hagenes did pretty ok the times he could race for himself. Some of them are pure domestiques ofcourse, but then you gotta question, why tf are they at Visma when they have the tallent to do stuff for themselves. Cian also wasn't sick the whole year, he was just bad in Catalunya for example. People expect to see why he absolutely had to go to Visma.

 

[Netserk]

I fully grant JSM, and normally you'd expect way more from the team, but I just find it too hard to disentangle controllable and uncontrollable variables for the majority of riders to claim that there's a bad trend of underperformances independent of bad luck.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Looks like Tivani is clearly the fastest guy (who can get over some small hills) in the Volta.
A shame that PCT never really worked out for him, he was a good rider in the u23 ranks (riding alongside Almeida at Unieuro-Trevigani) and got to ride as a stagiaire at UAE.

 

[tobydawq]

Only JSM had good opportunities to show progress (or to make a clean comparison to last year). What should Tulett have done differently to not disappoint you?

Ridden well... He was quite good at Ineos and just anonymous pack fodder at Visma.

 

[Unchained]

Norway is known for their poverty. Maybe the cost of making a petition is too daunting for them.

When I was in Norway in 2022, I paid the equivalent of @$8 dollars per beer, so with the money my group spent on eating and drinking, they have the money to send a rider or 2!!

 

[Netserk]

Ridden well... He was quite good at Ineos and just anonymous pack fodder at Visma.

So nothing concrete? I'd say that he did better this year until he had to abandon Itzulia than he did last year. I hope he'll get a clean run-up to the Vuelta as that has been his main season goal.

 

[Samamba]

I fully grant JSM, and normally you'd expect way more from the team, but I just find it too hard to disentangle controllable and uncontrollable variables for the majority of riders to claim that there's a bad trend of underperformances independent of bad luck.

It's definitely too early or to easy to say there's a bad trend, BUT that's what you get when you're Visma, the self proclaimed best team in the world, the team every talent wants to be at cause they get everything right (supposedly). A bad trend isn't fair, but I also think saying "OMG Visma is so good" every time a super talented rider does progress there isn't fair towards other teams.

 

[Netserk]

It's definitely too early or to easy to say there's a bad trend, BUT that's what you get when you're Visma, the self proclaimed best team in the world, the team every talent wants to be at cause they get everything right (supposedly). A bad trend isn't fair, but I also think saying "OMG Visma is so good" every time a super talented rider does progress there isn't fair towards other teams.

Agreed. Many teams seem quite able to get talents to perform.

 

[Valv.Piti]

I wonder how much is down to dollars and how much is down to "oh my god Visma and UAE are so far ahead, even though they are stacked I will progress infinite the next couple of years and move up in the hierarchy".

 

[ingsve]

I saw a comment on twitter that said that Nordhagen is only 50kg. If that's true then that sort of explains that he might be a little behind on ITTs vs other pros. Even with a good engine that is a little light weight to be able to push a high enough gear on the flat.