He sent Sven Nys a text message, to rectify earlier statements about his weight. Apparently, he currently weighs 77.4 kgs.
Mavic said:
Based on that fact and the last two CX seasons it would indicate that Mathieu has the bigger "engine". I'm not saying that it's true, I'm just saying that going by those metrics one would think that the opposite of the general consensus is true.
Based the last two CX seasons... I'm sorry, but it has been painfully obvious that since the summer of 2017, Wout has been working towards his carreer on the road, and looking at CX as a stepping stone. In September 2017, in the opening races in the USA, Wout was comepletely out of shape, he got passed left and right by riders that he would normally beat on one leg. That entire season was a build up towards his first spring season on the road. The fact that he won the WC, and how, is testament to that. He knew very well he couldn't do a regular CX season from September to Februari, and be fresh in March.
The past winter there was also too much going on to conclude anything. He even got surpassed by Aerts. So, unless you are going to argue that Aerts has a bigger engine than Wout, your assessment holds little water. What he have seen though, the 3 years prior, is that in hard CX races on long climbs, Wout has usually been superior to Mathieu. We have also seen Wout beat Tony Martin in an ITT 3 years ago, and we have seen him finish second by 8 seconds in an ITT in August, handily beating Bjerg by half a minute. The same Bjerg that would become World Champion ITT U23 one month later by a huge margin. The same Bjerg that attacked Wiggins' Hour Record two months later and came up short about 700 meters.
I refuse to believe that Wout has raced the past 2 CX seasons at full potential, because that would indeed mean, that guys like Aerts (who mainly beat Wout on power) would be even better than Wout on the road. And there is just no way. Clearly, the Van Aert from Strade or San Remo, isn't the same Van Aert that was left for dead by Mathieu on a straight easy riding pitch in November.
As for Mathieu, i've said that before. He's not only punchier, he's also technically a few levels better than Van Aert. A CX race lasts one hour, and there are give or take 9 laps to complete. With each of them maybe 40 corners, obstacles, sandboxes... Because his technical superiority, he can attack each of those at a higher speed. Because he is punchier, he can accelerate faster as well, on top of being able to maintain a higher speed throughout the corner/obstacle... Let's say he gains 0.2 second on average (and honestly, i think it's more) per corner/obstacle or technical passage. That's easily 8 seconds (and again, it's going to be more, but for arguments sake) per lap. That's 8 seconds per lap any competitor has to make up for by sheer effort if you want to keep up. That's well over a minute throughout the entire race. And nobody can keep making up for that. Wout would have to be physically superior by quite a margin, to still be able to beat Mathieu. You could even say that it's somewhat of a miracle that he beat him so often in the past.
So, as far as road racing goes, they both start from scratch. CX comparisons simply go out the window because they each had a different aproach the past few seasons, and because the advantage that Mathieu has in CX (due to technique and punchiness), is of little importance in a 260km road race.
They have been my two favorite CX riders (along with Meeusen, for comical reasons) and i hope they do well on the road, but i won't be comparing them or making judgement calls on "who is the best" out of both. Is Alaphilippe a better rider than Sagan? Is Van Avermaet a better rider than Terpstra? It's pointless and context is everything.