Teams & Riders Official Wout Van Aert thread

[theyoungest]

A one-day freak like Wout should not be on a team whose number one goal is to win GC at the TDF. He's completely wasting his time (actually worse, his career) being the "look how incredibly strong this guy is" guy at the TDF. I don't live in Belgium, but don't the real bike racing fans there (vs. most cycling fans in the US who only watch the TDF) actually value guys who win monuments, classics and WC's? As an MVDP fan I enjoyed watching him roll in today 18 minutes behind the winner looking like he made a nice deposit for the WC's in a couple three weeks...

Well, at least the Belgian media don't like the fact that he's on Jumbo, that's for sure. They do overrate him though, if that's possible for a rider who is capable of as much as Van Aert is. Yesterday Belgian tv considered the fact that he was away with Poels and Soler an advantage for him. Wout Poels, who has pulled Chris Froome to many a win on climbs just like this. It's like they couldn't believe what they were seeing when this known specialist on steep gradients dropped Van Aert on a steep gradient.

I think this is part of the "problem" with Van Aert: jack of all trades, master of none. He is really impressive on a stage like Saturday's when he pulls the peloton for kilometres on end, but if he's the one tasked with finishing the job it's a lot more difficult for him. Of course calling him a "donkey" is quite insulting but I get where this person is coming from. He's just brutally strong, both physically and mentally, but he's not a very tactically savvy rider nor a very explosive one (at least compared to the natural born killers you have in the peloton right now) which probably costs him quite a few wins.

 

[DNP-Old]

Well, at least the Belgian media don't like the fact that he's on Jumbo, that's for sure. They do overrate him though, if that's possible for a rider who is capable of as much as Van Aert is. Yesterday Belgian tv considered the fact that he was away with Poels and Soler an advantage for him. Wout Poels, who has pulled Chris Froome to many a win on climbs just like this. It's like they couldn't believe what they were seeing when this known specialist on steep gradients dropped Van Aert on a steep gradient.

Did you hear the live commentary? It goes so much further than what they showed in Vive le Velo. Classic Renaat and De Cauwer disasterclass. They couldn't believe their eyes that the GPS was showing a growing gap in favour of Poels and were theorising that there must be something wrong. The infographics then showed the look out of the ultimate climb, changing colour depending on the difficulty and percentages. Carl Berteele chimed in said that every stretch was a Van Aert stretch, even those marked as black which indicates it exceeds 10% in steepness. A short while after Poels had attacked and had dropped Van Aert, the tv camera went back and showed images of Van Aert and another rider. 'See! Van Aert returns to Poels! The GPS was wrong after all.' In all their festivities and celebrations they didn't realise that it was Soler who had overtaken Van Aert.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Seriously, if Sagan had half the team WVA has, he would win a couple more monuments. And WVA never was marked like Sagan, it was almost every race year after year.

Maybe, but if Wout had a full team at his disposal, he would average 4 stages a year most likely. I personally hate him being at Jumbo. He will probably make a switch at some point, but he's wasting his absolute prime years in TdF despite him still racking up many stages in the race, but he has the potential of winning a lot more than he does sadly.

Also, Sagan never really faced complete beasts like Van der Poel and Pogacar. The best he faced was 2017 Greg

 

[Peter von]

Remco to Ineos and WVA to Quickstep should right everything w.r.t teams

Yeah Quick-step have too often been leaderless for the classics, but they have strong riders and can give a lot of support to Wout in both classics and the Tour, though maybe not as strong as Jumbo sometimes can. However Wout is 29 at the end of the season, maybe Quick-Step would be afraid to give him a long contract?

Likewise INEOS has a lot of strong GC helpers, but not a strong enough leader since Bernal crash. Well Thomas might still do it at Giro/Vuelta level, but INEOS are in it to win TdFs.
Tough sell this idea to Jumbo though, maybe it relies on Jumbo being able to use the cash to buy out a third rider and who that rider would be.

Would it be a tough sell to Wout?
-I do think he get's quite a lot of support from Jumbo at the Tour, and they give him very good doms for his classics team. But Quick-Step also have good riders for classics, their lead-out train would be capable of having him compete for more stage wins and not being team mate with a top 2 GC guy will make it easier for Wout to get into the breaks.

Last Tour Vingegaard+Wout worked very well for both of them, this year it hasn't so far. We have seen Vingegaard left fending for himself in finals because Wout needed the entire team and we have seen Wout empty himself completely in front of the peloton or trying to go into a break where he had very little chance of actually winning the stage, but also Jonas didn't manage to drop Pogi and get Wout-moto pace to the line.

I don't know if Jumbo will continue to do Roglic Giro+Vuelta and Vingegaard to the Tour*, but if they wanted to bring both to the Tour next year, not having to work for Wout's green ambitions will help a lot unless they clone Nathan van Hooydonck .

They will also risk missing out on those two-five days at the Tour where Wout is incredibly strong.

Wonder who Jumbo would sign instead of Wout?
-They would probably look at one or more climber, ardennes specialist or GC rider, would be fun if they picked up Simon Yates . Ben Healy maybe?

I think between van Barle and Laporte they have a pretty good cobbles leaders, they are strong enough to pick up wins, but not so strong that they need a team build around them or that you have Hooijdonck abandon Jonas/Rogi in the final 5 k of a tour stage to help one of them go for a stage at the Tour.

But at the end of the day, if Wout's mind is made up, best thing for Jumbo is to make it happen and count their blessings that they got Wout in their teams for so many years, and that he did so much dom work for Roglic and Vingegaard.

*guess it depends; if Roglic wins La Vuelta I think there is a high likelihood that he will aim for #5 and if Pogi wins the Tour this year Jumbo are probably more inclined to want to bring Roglic next year. but on the other hand, if Roglic also takes LA Vuelta he will also be motivated to give the Tour another go.

He's an incredible rider that doesn't win a lot.

says a lot about how incredible he is when those palmares can be filed under "not a lot". Yet here we are.

 

[theyoungest]

Did you hear the live commentary? It goes so much further than what they showed in Vive le Velo. Classic Renaat and De Cauwer disasterclass. They couldn't believe their eyes that the GPS was showing a growing gap in favour of Poels and were theorising that there must be something wrong. The infographics then showed the look out of the ultimate climb, changing colour depending on the difficulty and percentages. Carl Berteele chimed in said that every stretch was a Van Aert stretch, even those marked as black which indicates it exceeds 10% in steepness. A short while after Poels had attacked and had dropped Van Aert, the tv camera went back and showed images of Van Aert and another rider. 'See! Van Aert returns to Poels! The GPS was wrong after all.' In all their festivities and celebrations they didn't realise that it was Soler who had overtaken Van Aert.

I did hear it and I switched to NOS. Their commentary is actually just better these days. Renaat is just unbearable, what a terrible commentator. He used to be quite okay but it seems now he got the Tour spot he feels he needs to be ultra-nationalistic and just generally completely nuts.

 

[Red Rick]

Maybe, but if Wout had a full team at his disposal, he would average 4 stages a year most likely. I personally hate him being at Jumbo. He will probably make a switch at some point, but he's wasting his absolute prime years in TdF despite him still racking up many stages in the race, but he has the potential of winning a lot more than he does sadly.

Also, Sagan never really faced complete beasts like Van der Poel and Pogacar. The best he faced was 2017 Greg

Average 4 stages a year? Basically never happening if hes not winning bunch sprints anymore

 

[tobydawq]

Wva is a thermonuclear donkey . He is the opposite of Nibali, the opposite of a rider who knows how to create and make opportunities in different scenarios. His physiology presents him with unlimited opportunities for big wins and he continues to squander them and waste. Not because he has style or charisma and knows how to party. Which would make it acceptable. But because he just rides his bike like a donkey, go to the front of whatever group you are in and push your best watts, don't look for the right moves or time your attacks, just put the head down and push. In the classics he just pulls for a sprint . Now in le tour he does everyday stupid breakaways on random stage which don't suit him and just pulls the breakaway far away from his gc leader. it's bizarre how many fans he has

Look, if you toned down the disrespectful language, I would begin to see that you might have a point sometimes.

But yesterday you were moaning and bitching because Wout Poels was riding with Van Aert because you thought that Van Aert would win. It then turned out that you were wrong and that Poels in fact was stronger but instead of acknowledging that you instead turn 180 degrees and ridicule Van Aert for trying to win a stage he never had a shot at winning. Half an hour after you said you thought he would win.

That behavior is obnoxious. And another problem is that, while criticism can be reasonable, with you it's just the standard. Van Aert can do nothing right in your eyes and no matter what he does, you will find an angle from which you can attack him.

Why don't you just admit that you hate him and that the mere sight of him makes your blood boil? That would be a lot more honest than the modus you have got going on now...

 

[tobydawq]

Maybe, but if Wout had a full team at his disposal, he would average 4 stages a year most likely. I personally hate him being at Jumbo. He will probably make a switch at some point, but he's wasting his absolute prime years in TdF despite him still racking up many stages in the race, but he has the potential of winning a lot more than he does sadly.

Also, Sagan never really faced complete beasts like Van der Poel and Pogacar. The best he faced was 2017 Greg

I think Cancellara was beastly enough...

 

[Peyroteo94]

Maybe, but if Wout had a full team at his disposal, he would average 4 stages a year most likely. I personally hate him being at Jumbo. He will probably make a switch at some point, but he's wasting his absolute prime years in TdF despite him still racking up many stages in the race, but he has the potential of winning a lot more than he does sadly.

Also, Sagan never really faced complete beasts like Van der Poel and Pogacar. The best he faced was 2017 Greg

The best he faced is clearly Cancellara

 

[KZD]

He is not going to win a stage unless he starts to fight and care about sprint stages. And he is heading to have the worst season of his road career without one big win. His baby will born during the worlds so there is a chance he might not participate in Glasgow.

From what I've read the baby is schedule to be born in between the Tour and the World Championships but we never know with these things.

One thing is for sure, unless he comes out of Glasgow with a rainbow jersey, preferably for the road race, his season will be a disappointment even if he manages a stage win in this third week.

 

[Salvarani]

Maybe, but if Wout had a full team at his disposal, he would average 4 stages a year most likely. I personally hate him being at Jumbo. He will probably make a switch at some point, but he's wasting his absolute prime years in TdF despite him still racking up many stages in the race, but he has the potential of winning a lot more than he does sadly.

Also, Sagan never really faced complete beasts like Van der Poel and Pogacar. The best he faced was 2017 Greg

Sagan often faced good/great opponents, that had a lot of better support than he had. He was always marked by the other guys and teams. Maybe that is why he got his moments to shine in worlds, instead. The bigger nations riding more against each other... than against Sagan. When he went to Bora he got better support.

Just for reference when he won Flanders in 2016 he had this team, riding for Tinkoff:
11 SAGAN Peter
12 BRUTT Pavel
13 BLYTHE Adam
15 GATTO Oscar
16 GOGL Michael
17 SAGAN Juraj
18 TRUSOV Nikolay
19 KOLÁŘ Michael

While he faced Cancellara (arguably a beast) who had Devolder, Styuven, Popovych, Rast, Irizar, E. Theuns and Coledan with him in that race.

Boonen in his penultimate season had Keisse, Maes, Stybar, Terpstra, Trentin, Vandenbergh and T. Martin.

Van Avermaet, you mentioned, but another who seems to be underrated is Kristoff. He had a very good run 2013-2017, which could be stretched to 2020 if you are generous. Always a factor in both MSR and Ronde, which he won once each with many top 10s outside of that. Degenkolb won both MSR and PR during this time period, until his crash. Point is... there were good riders, good classics squads, around but I guess memory fades.

 

[Blanco]

Maybe, but if Wout had a full team at his disposal, he would average 4 stages a year most likely. I personally hate him being at Jumbo. He will probably make a switch at some point, but he's wasting his absolute prime years in TdF despite him still racking up many stages in the race, but he has the potential of winning a lot more than he does sadly.

Also, Sagan never really faced complete beasts like Van der Poel and Pogacar. The best he faced was 2017 Greg

Are we really gonna pretend that Sagan didn't rode against Cancellara, Boonen, Gilbert..?

 

[Volderke]

The best he faced is clearly Cancellara

Cancellara on his top was 2013-2014, and he toyed with Sagan in 2013 (see T of Flanders). Admittedly, Sagan was still young / inexperienced. Sagan had his absolute peak in 2016. You knew when he would attack and you didn't immediately respond, he would be gone.

 

[Volderke]

Average 4 stages a year? Basically never happening if hes not winning bunch sprints anymore

He was literally winning the bunch sprint when he was blocked in a not-OK way in stage 3 to Bayonne.
His team prevented him from coming back on the race circuit on stage 4 (Nogaro).
This year he seems to do his best to aim for 2nd places, also in the Tour, but with a bit of a team or a jury that applies the rules, he had at least one stage in a bunch sprint. It's not like he doesn't have it anymore.

Are we really gonna pretend that Sagan didn't rode against Cancellara, Boonen, Gilbert..?

Cancellara, Boonen past their peak. Gilbert mostly riding different races and different peak years (e.g. Gilbert 2016 was under par, while Sagan had his best year), and 8 years older as well. Sagan filled up the gap AFTER Cancellera / Boonen / Gilbert.

 

[Kaptain Kool]

I love how many qualifications there are to WvA's lack of wins. Sagan had weak competition because Cancellara past his peak. Sure, but he was still good enough to have a better wins than this year's WvA.

 

[senna6541]

Did you hear the live commentary? It goes so much further than what they showed in Vive le Velo. Classic Renaat and De Cauwer disasterclass. They couldn't believe their eyes that the GPS was showing a growing gap in favour of Poels and were theorising that there must be something wrong. The infographics then showed the look out of the ultimate climb, changing colour depending on the difficulty and percentages. Carl Berteele chimed in said that every stretch was a Van Aert stretch, even those marked as black which indicates it exceeds 10% in steepness. A short while after Poels had attacked and had dropped Van Aert, the tv camera went back and showed images of Van Aert and another rider. 'See! Van Aert returns to Poels! The GPS was wrong after all.' In all their festivities and celebrations they didn't realise that it was Soler who had overtaken Van Aert.

 

[senna6541]

Damn, I watch the feed with Nick Roche and he seems to be as smart and real as they come. He wasn't the least bit surprised that Wout got dropped by Wout. I didn't know the stage map and didn't realize there was one more climb left after the penultimate. As soon as I saw they finished at the top of a 7/7 (vs. a valley road) even a dumb___ like me knew WVA was done. WVA needs to stop dicking around at the TDF and start winning RVV's and PR's.

 

[SHAD0W93]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/CujEFFTMdvz/?igshid=MTIzZWMxMTBkOA==

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/CujEFFTMdvz/?igshid=MTIzZWMxMTBkOA==

He simpleton Pidcock? Looking at his posts, that sounds about right.

 

[SHAD0W93]

He simpleton Pidcock? Looking at his posts, that sounds about right.

Something like that.

 

[Berniece]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/CujEFFTMdvz/?igshid=MTIzZWMxMTBkOA==

Merijn Zeeman said in an interview that they failed Wout Van Aert in the San Sebastian race.

 

[Peter von]

Merijn Zeeman said in an interview that they failed Wout Van Aert in the San Sebastian race.

Was about to point out they rode for Benoot in classica San Sebastian

but yeah they did, they very impressively had two doms in the deciding group, but they caught Pello Bilbao way too soon, instead of just letting him dangle in the wind until the flamme rouge.

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Did you hear the live commentary? It goes so much further than what they showed in Vive le Velo. Classic Renaat and De Cauwer disasterclass. They couldn't believe their eyes that the GPS was showing a growing gap in favour of Poels and were theorising that there must be something wrong. The infographics then showed the look out of the ultimate climb, changing colour depending on the difficulty and percentages. Carl Berteele chimed in said that every stretch was a Van Aert stretch, even those marked as black which indicates it exceeds 10% in steepness. A short while after Poels had attacked and had dropped Van Aert, the tv camera went back and showed images of Van Aert and another rider. 'See! Van Aert returns to Poels! The GPS was wrong after all.' In all their festivities and celebrations they didn't realise that it was Soler who had overtaken Van Aert.

i switched off the belgian because they were too chauvinistic. But I did wonder how great the panic would be when Poels was nearing a minute. Classic.

 

[meat puppet]

Lol, that picture is the most important diagram to decipher the tour thus far 😆🫡

 

[Valanga]

Damn, I watch the feed with Nick Roche and he seems to be as smart and real as they come. He wasn't the least bit surprised that Wout got dropped by Wout. I didn't know the stage map and didn't realize there was one more climb left after the penultimate. As soon as I saw they finished at the top of a 7/7 (vs. a valley road) even a dumb___ like me knew WVA was done. WVA needs to stop dicking around at the TDF and start winning RVV's and PR's.

And yet he climbed as fast as Landa and Pinot, also no pancakes when it comes to climbing.

Poels is the better climber, no doubt, and I would have put my money on him as well, but he still needed a strong performance to drop the other Wout, and keep the gap.
Easy to say in hindsight that you were the smart kid that could easily predict this from the start and the Belgians were stupid to even think he had a chance, but it's actually complete nonsense.