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Lesser known races thread 2021

Page 12 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
I believe that Merlier is riding the Giro - He's a chance to win a stage.

Very much so. I hope there’s a decent sprint field.

Merlier is very hard to assess as a sprinter because he rides a calendar consisting of MVDP’s leftovers on a team that itself, at least until this year, had quite a limited programme.

He’s had three wins already this year... but only had three in all of last year. He looked very good in those wins... but there were very few other real sprinters present. He compared very well to Pedersen today... but Pedersen is hard to rank himself.

My working assumption is that he’s as good as he looks, but he could just be spending the early season as an honorary French sprinter, bulking up on wins at the little race buffet. I want to see him against the big boys regularly.
 
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Very much so. I hope there’s a decent sprint field.

Merlier is very hard to assess as a sprinter because he rides a calendar consisting of MVDP’s leftovers on a team that itself, at least until this year, had quite a limited programme.

He’s had three wins already this year... but only had three in all of last year. He looked very good in those wins... but there were very few other real sprinters present. He compared very well to Pedersen today... but Pedersen is hard to rank himself.

My working assumption is that he’s as good as he looks, but he could just be spending the early season as an honorary French sprinter, bulking up on wins at the little race buffet. I want to see him against the big boys regularly.
He's very quick, i think he might be faster than the best of the field, you name 'm. Bennett, Ewan, Groenewegen, Ackermann... but i don't know if he can do it in big races. I'm not talking about stress or fear, but about his engine/endurance. Merlier was a guy that initially made a name for himself as van Aert's CX domestique. He was always blazingly fast out of the gates, helped van Aert position himself well through the first 1 or 2 laps, and then he would get dropped like a brick.
 
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Does anybody have a profile for Per Sempre Alfredo?

Nevermind, I found one on PCS:
per-sempre-alfredo-2021-result-profile-efea5ad4f6.jpg
 
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One thing I've always wanted to ask a Belgian: Is it Tim Merlier, like an englisch -leer or more Merlyée?
Often a problem when a new Belgian appears with a name that features neither the letter V nor accents, especially if the forename offers no Flemish/French clues.

I have struggled with:
Xandro Myurrisssse, or Xandro Murrisuh ?
Lao renz Deh Ploos or Lorewn De Ploo?
among others.

And then you get the cross community families where the forename gives a false clue about the surname: Aimé De Gendt and Yves Lampaert (which looks like a Flemish family name but usually given a French pronunciation)
 
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Brugges- De Panne tomorrow. The old 3 days of de Panne now permanently reduced to a one day race it seems. I remember the Steppers completely bossing it last year.

Interesting seeing top flight sprinters alongside 2nd tiers. But how much havoc will the wind play I wonder? From what I can gather from the forecast, wind direction will be cross winds mostly, but not overly strong.
 
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