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Remco Evenepoel

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None. Even if he won by 10m it would never be as unbelievable as Dopestrong comeback and destruction of the tour peloton in 99.
1999 TdF wasn't such a shock after Lance came 4th in the 1998 Vuelta. That was when we all suddenly realized he could climb. Plus many (most?) were swallowing the cancer miracle in 1999 before the truth started to trickle out. But I don't know what to make of Remco just yet. I suppose we know after the first MTF.
 
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1999 TdF wasn't such a shock after Lance came 4th in the 1998 Vuelta. That was when we all suddenly realized he could climb. Plus many (most?) were swallowing the cancer miracle in 1999 before the truth started to trickle out. But I don't know what to make of Remco just yet. I suppose we know after the first MTF.
Oh, yes it was. Going from a 4th place at the Vuelta to Tour winner was big enough, but dominating like he did was a shock. For instance: Olano, who won the Vuelta in 98 with 2m on Dopestrong, was almost 17m down at the Tour...

The cancer miracle thing was actually part of the wow effect regardless if you believed in his miracle of not. Some were happily shocked and others in pure disbelief but the awe was obvious.
 
Oh, yes it was. Going from a 4th place at the Vuelta to Tour winner was big enough, but dominating like he did was a shock. For instance: Olano, who won the Vuelta in 98 with 2m on Dopestrong, was almost 17m down at the Tour...

The cancer miracle thing was actually part of the wow effect regardless if you believed in his miracle of not. Some were happily shocked and others in pure disbelief but the awe was obvious.
I believe there were quite a few people laughing in the press room. That was the level of disbelief
 
People laughing in the press room seems pretty apocryphal.
It's a well known story, told many times by David Walsh.

It was the Sestrières stage and eight kms out from the summit Armstrong closed 20 seconds to the break in a kilometre and then soloed to the finish, 30 seconds clear of his nearest rival.

Here's Walsh in Seven Deadly Sins:
I had watched the final climb to Sestriere on a big screen in the salle de presse. At the moment of Armstrong's acceleration there was a collective and audible intake of breath and, as he rode clear, there was ironic laughter and shaking of heads. Not every journalist was overcome with scepticism, not even the majority, but there was enough to form a platoon of sceptics. This wasn't everyone's Tour of Renewal
You'll also find the story told in The Armstrong Lie. While frequently embellished, and often oversold by people who've only heard it 94th hand, it did happen, people in the press room did laugh.

I should, of course, point out that Walsh himself is guilty of overselling and embellishing. Here he is in 2009 in convo with the NYVeloCity crew:
And I should say, when we talk about doping and Lance, and this is the thing I will always remember, maybe as much as anything, on the day that he made ‘brilliant’ ride up Sestriere in the ’99 Tour, the journalists in the press room, the majority of them, were laughing cynically. They thought this was the greatest joke. This guy, riding up this mountain, at this speed? With this apparent effortlessness, in The Tour of Renewal? In the Tour post Festina, when they were all riding clean?

All the journalists laughed, because they saw how ridiculous it was. We knew what EPO had done to the sport, guys riding up mountains at flat-road speed without hardly taking a breath. So pretty much all of the journalists believed Lance was using EPO at that moment. But by the time they came to write at the end of the Tour, they’d all been persuaded by their editors back at their offices, that this was a great story. This was the cancer icon coming back to give everybody hope. And the response that the journalists got when they spoke to their editors was utterly and totally connected to Lance as cancer icon and how this was a story of true heroism. So the cynicism was put to one side, and the belief that this wasn’t true was suspended. And pretty much everybody went with the heroics.
 
It's a well known story, told many times by David Walsh.

It was the Sestrières stage and eight kms out from the summit Armstrong closed 20 seconds to the break in a kilometre and then soloed to the finish, 30 seconds clear of his nearest rival.

Here's Walsh in Seven Deadly Sins:You'll also find the story told in The Armstrong Lie. While frequently embellished, and often oversold by people who've only heard it 94th hand, it did happen, people in the press room did laugh.

I should, of course, point out that Walsh himself is guilty of overselling and embellishing. Here he is in 2009 in convo with the NYVeloCity crew:

My own issue with Sestrières is the fact Armstrong was on EPO... whilst it would appear Escartin, Zülle & the rest had toned down their EPO regime after 1998 & were on more traditional doping programs, ergo Lance had a bit of a head-start (& the insinuations Hein Verbruggen was also in his pocket are pretty damning).

But Walsh is useless due to his grovelling at the feet of Sky & Froome (who arguably had an identical pharmaceutical & political advantage as US Postal did).

That seems to be the major takeaway from eras of dominance, i.e. a perfect combination of base athletic ability, science & politics to make the wins stick. Because without Floyd Landis making a dosage miscalculation in 2006 & then Lance compounding the error by arrogantly leaving Landis to rot, people here would be left still just "speculating" about Lance's suspected doping.
 
1999 TdF wasn't such a shock after Lance came 4th in the 1998 Vuelta. That was when we all suddenly realized he could climb. Plus many (most?) were swallowing the cancer miracle in 1999 before the truth started to trickle out. But I don't know what to make of Remco just yet. I suppose we know after the first MTF.
What on earth would that tell you? The guy has been crushing everyone since he threw his leg over a bike 4 years ago. How could a dominant performance here convince anyone of anything one way or another?

I think the peloton is laughably dirty at this point and I’m sure he’s no exception but at least we know the guy actually has generational talent.
 
DQS are never far behind in the arms race but I do wonder how far ahead of the curve they've been, and there's a chance that some of his best results at DQS have come down somewhat to DQS being ahead of the pack in being on the special sauce. Especially Alaphilippes Tour and Pogacar's final stage win in the Vuelta stand out to me.
 
The Giro has a habit recently of being a radioactive freak show.

I expect nothing less this time.
Nothing too crazy so far since stage 1. I'm somewhat disappointed considering Ganna's display of power in the TT. That man's ability to peak is god-like.

Some GC riders need to step it up though, with the very important Montalcino and Zoncolan stages looming. Week 1 was a disaster in terms of stage design. RCS got the GC action they wanted... the whole top-20 within 2:30 so. Pretty weak field, too.

Pre-race favorites Evenepoel and especially Yates don't seem to be in winning shape, but are only 15 and 55 seconds behind, respectively. I half expect that at least one of them will step on the gas and steamroll stage 11. If the GC riders don't improve we could be looking at one of the cleanest GTs in recent history.
 
Nothing too crazy so far since stage 1. I'm somewhat disappointed considering Ganna's display of power in the TT. That man's ability to peak is god-like.

Some GC riders need to step it up though, with the very important Montalcino and Zoncolan stages looming. Week 1 was a disaster in terms of stage design. RCS got the GC action they wanted... the whole top-20 within 2:30 so. Pretty weak field, too.

Pre-race favorites Evenepoel and especially Yates don't seem to be in winning shape, but are only 15 and 55 seconds behind, respectively. I half expect that at least one of them will step on the gas and steamroll stage 11. If the GC riders don't improve we could be looking at one of the cleanest GTs in recent history.
Till Hindley and Almedia gain 6 minutes over everyone.
 
Nothing too crazy so far since stage 1. I'm somewhat disappointed considering Ganna's display of power in the TT. That man's ability to peak is god-like.

Some GC riders need to step it up though, with the very important Montalcino and Zoncolan stages looming. Week 1 was a disaster in terms of stage design. RCS got the GC action they wanted... the whole top-20 within 2:30 so. Pretty weak field, too.

Pre-race favorites Evenepoel and especially Yates don't seem to be in winning shape, but are only 15 and 55 seconds behind, respectively. I half expect that at least one of them will step on the gas and steamroll stage 11. If the GC riders don't improve we could be looking at one of the cleanest GTs in recent history.

Performance enhancing drugs aren't just evident when someone does a Landis/Pantani/Lance/whomever thermonuclear radioactive one man annihilation of the field.

We've had loads of races in the most dirty eras (think 2000's for example) where domestiques were so strong, no one could actually attack & the climbs became a sort of a procession to the top with very little GC action (I'm thinking the Tour 2005 for example which was mind-numbingly boring & without memorable exploits, despite the fact everyone at the top was juicing hard).

But with regards to this Giro, what we're seeing in terms of results so far seems totally "normal" (in terms of hierarchy I mean, i.e. PED's are a different matter) considering the two best stage racers in the world aren't there, i.e. Pog & Rog.

Ineos are super strong, we knew that. And Bernal is where you'd expect him to be considering the competition, i.e. Yates is super inconsistent, Remco is untested in this sort of GT, Landa (who finished ahead of Bernal in Tirreno) crashed, Vlasov is close, whilst Carthy isn't out of contention yet. And we haven't even had a real proper mountain stage yet (nor a real time trial).
 
Performance enhancing drugs aren't just evident when someone does a Landis/Pantani/Lance/whomever thermonuclear radioactive one man annihilation of the field.

We've had loads of races in the most dirty eras (think 2000's for example) where domestiques were so strong, no one could actually attack & the climbs became a sort of a procession to the top with very little GC action (I'm thinking the Tour 2005 for example which was mind-numbingly boring & without memorable exploits, despite the fact everyone at the top was juicing hard).

But with regards to this Giro, what we're seeing in terms of results so far seems totally "normal" (in terms of hierarchy I mean, i.e. PED's are a different matter) considering the two best stage racers in the world aren't there, i.e. Pog & Rog.

Ineos are super strong, we knew that. And Bernal is where you'd expect him to be considering the competition, i.e. Yates is super inconsistent, Remco is untested in this sort of GT, Landa (who finished ahead of Bernal in Tirreno) crashed, Vlasov is close, whilst Carthy isn't out of contention yet. And we haven't even had a real proper mountain stage yet (nor a real time trial).
Add that every sort of MTF has been hampered by rain/headwind so any W/kg calcs are unreliable.
 
Vam on the last 5km of stage 6 equated to 6.2W/kg ignoring the tailwind so presumably the W there were still really good. Was a little disappointed noone reported the VAMs for stage 9 but that's obviously dirt roads.

The big MTFs + Giau should be interesting.
Bernal did 437W (VAM of 1900) for 3min 51sec on the sterrato section, accoding to the file that he uploaded on Strava.
That's pretty high, but not out of this world for a sub 4min effort.
 
Lol, that reminds me of my dad reading in the La Gazzetta preview of the wole Giro that they'll cimb the Giau at 20km/h and saying that's bs, that can't be true.
Maybe 2006 Basso could have done that, but doing that in a proper Dlomites stage would be some full mid 90ies stuff.
Guess it just depends on where the climb "officially" starts but yeah the main thing should be at ~19km/h
 
Giau at 20 km/h is just lazy rounding up, right? Please tell me that it is.

Slightly off-topic, I remember reading the race report from Vuelta a Asturias 1998 (at least I think that was the race and the edition) where the author unironically claimed that riders were going uphill at 40 km/h.

So I guess it could also be a cycling version of this trope
 
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