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Race Thread

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The women races deliver almost every time. Val di Sole was great, Rucphen really good and Namur epic as always. The youngsters bring a lot of quality to the races and the more I see of Vos the more I like her. Superb moral and no holding back. Brand doesn’t really ride with a lot of style but she has respectable technique and tons of aerobic power. Betsema is a bit enigmatic - sometimes riding fantastically well with superb technique and sometimes very cautious and hesitant.

After Namur I hold Vanthourenhout as the technically best rider among all bar only Van der Poel.
 
idk to me it seems that WE races are less interesting than a couple of years ago. 25% of the races are Brand riding away from everyone else in the first lap and another 33% are Brand winning in a moderately closer race. CdCA and Worst were equal to Brand 2 years ago but now rarely challenge. I do agree that there are a lot of good younger riders upcoming.

One question about UCI World Cup race coverage. Why are nationalities listed on graphics but never the trade teams? It seems like it would be beneficial to give some prominence to sponsors who invest in the sport. Riders outside of the top 10 are never shown so those sponsors get no air time at all. Even on the online UCI official results, the team isn't listed in the overall standings (although they are on the online race results). Pretty bad strategy if they actually want the sport to expand beyond 2 countries.
 
Really?? One race is a small sample size........

It was the race confirming what has been apparent for some time. MV has excellent technical abilities. Differences are minute at the highest level but it was discernible already a couple of seasons back but shadowed by his underperformance relative to WVA, MVDP etc. Often he has been slightly off in terms of endurance but he rarely makes mistakes. Check the races of the last two years and he impresses a lot - technically. Missing piece was endurance power but seemingly that’s now in place.
 
It was the race confirming what has been apparent for some time. MV has excellent technical abilities. Differences are minute at the highest level but it was discernible already a couple of seasons back but shadowed by his underperformance relative to WVA, MVDP etc. Often he has been slightly off in terms of endurance but he rarely makes mistakes. Check the races of the last two years and he impresses a lot - technically. Missing piece was endurance power but seemingly that’s now in place.
MV needs to lift some weights or something. He's just weak compared to WVA and MVDP. He needs power. ;)
 
MvdP: "...The back is holding up at the moment, not how I would like it, but it is holding up..." That doesn't sound positive to me. His back issue may keep him from ever reaching his full potential. Theoretically, a male rider should keep increasing in power and strength until age 28 or 29. He may have peaked early in life.
 
MvdP: "...The back is holding up at the moment, not how I would like it, but it is holding up..." That doesn't sound positive to me. His back issue may keep him from ever reaching his full potential. Theoretically, a male rider should keep increasing in power and strength until age 28 or 29. He may have peaked early in life.

He’ll probably smash em now, or more likely start very strong but not have enough in the tank to finish it off
 
MV needs to lift some weights or something. He's just weak compared to WVA and MVDP. He needs power. ;)

Somebody mentioned CX-ers doing weights on Twitter the other day; CX is essentially a 'road' discipline, and lifting weights isn't really common practice. Whereas, most of the top MTB-ers, will do weights, core strength is important riding off road. Look at Nino's workouts.....
 
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Well today is the day, a shame it's on probably the worst track in the World Cup; if it was an Ethias Cross race, then it's okay. But I struggle to accept it's worthy of a World Cup race......
Going by the earlier races, the most powerful riders will win; Brand & Van Aert.

My thoughts but about Rucphen.

I don't think Dendermonde is worst that some world cups we had in the past. And this year it's better with more variation than last year.
 
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