Ronde van Vlaanderen 2025, one day monument, April 6 (men's)

[Medvind]

Pedersens problem in Ronde is that he can't match Pog and MVDP on certain climbs, especially Kwaremont and Koppenberg. On other shorter less steep climbs he is quite good. His attack in E3 on Taaienberg was quite strong, only MVDP could follow. Other "weakness" is that he isn't as strong as Pog and MVDP after 6 hours of hard racing.

But if the race becoms tactical and Pedersen doesn't burn all his matches to early as last year, I give him a tiny chance of success. And he has good power on the flat and has a strong sprint (beat MVDP convincingly in the sprint in GW last year).

 

[E_F_]

But if the race becoms tactical

That's a very big if.

 

[scribers]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1908460289818755389

View: https://x.com/davidguenel/status/1908460289818755389?s=46&t=X4NqNG7J5ZQ-MxPOi53ECQ

 

[repre]

Pogi will make this race boring (again). Only hope is his team suck, which can be the case and still don't matter.

 

[gregrowlerson]

Pogacar, MVDP

Orbiting the same planet
Pedersen. Jorgensen, WVA

Unlikely asteroid impact
Powless, Ganna, Kung, Mohoric, Stuyven, Vacek
Someone else from UAE/VLAB
Someone from Astana

Kuiper Belt
Everyone else. Theoretically there, but little TV evidence after 200K

Great post! And extra points for not saying which planet Pogacar and MVDP are from

 

[repre]

Great post! And extra points for not saying which planet Pogacar and MVDP are from

They are stars, so it's not planet, it's the sun

 

[Eyeballs Out]

So the biggest question when Pog launches on Kwaremont is "will the drone be able to keep up"?

 

[gregrowlerson]

As long as Pog doesn't play his music too loud tonight, he should be ok.

Well played.

 

[DaLong]

Ganna gonna be MVPs best teammate again? Mathieu seemingly always has a trick up his sleeve.

 

[Unchained]

Pogi will make this race boring (again). Only hope is his team suck, which can be the case and still don't matter.

Didn't Nils Politt show up to the race last year? I heard something about that. I heard that some guy Wellens is riding okay..

 

[meat puppet]

Yes exactly this. I always thought my dad was chatting old boomer nonsense when he used to bang on about how bad things were in 1974 with the blackouts and such, but apparently things got to the point where we even had the Central African's taking pity on us.

What does this have to do with anything you might say? Perhaps Pogacar and Van Der Poel can channel their inner-Idi Amin and generously donate a Flanders victory to Wout, the man in need.

That's very subtle. But yes, coming from the Nordics, and thus from a cluster of countries whose fikkups precipitated the EMS crisis in the 1990s, I can just say it: every respectable nation has caused a major financial crisis at a point.

Anyway, typing in a haste I left Mrs. Thatcher out, didn't I? As in, someone who had the nous to benefit from the incompetence, timidity, and confusion of the incumbents.

Looking at you, Mr. Pedersen.

 

[Berniece]

Finally the most beautiful race of the year again. Have a great day everyone!

 

[Medvind]

Ganna gonna be MVPs best teammate again? Mathieu seemingly always has a trick up his sleeve.

I will bet more on van Aert and/or Pedersen. Ronde with all the climbs is just a little bit too tough for Ganna. He lost 25s to Mathieu on Kwaremont in E3.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Not gonna lie, the anticipation is big: duel of the year incoming. The reddest date in my cycling calendar. Hopefully nothing will spoil the party (i.e. crashes) because big expectations are followed by a big disappointment quite often.

 

[Heston]

Couldn't sleep any more. This race will be one for the ages.

 

[SafeBet]

Who mixes eggs with pasta...

What?
Eggs are the main ingredient in one of the most iconic Italian pasta dish, ie Carbonara.
Plus fresh pasta (like lasagna or tortellini or tagliatelle) is actually made with eggs. And that's long before you decide what you wanna mix it with.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I will bet more on van Aert and/or Pedersen. Ronde with all the climbs is just a little bit too tough for Ganna. He lost 25s to Mathieu on Kwaremont in E3.

Ganna's technique on the cobbled climbs is also all wrong.

 

[memyselfandI]

Ganna's technique on the cobbled climbs is also all wrong.

Well he's had some results in cobbles after all, so his technique is thereabouts, no?

 

[search]

Looks like Benoot gets a little bit worse each year. After a 5th place in his first Ronde, he went on to finish 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th, 13th and 15th.

 

[Medvind]

Pog has said he needs to drop MVDP so that it doesn't come down to a sprint and for that to happen he and his team need to make the race hard. And Kwaremont and Koppenberg are probably the climbs he thinks he can drop MVDP.

So question is if MVDP trust he can follow Pog on Kwaremont and Koppenberg. In that case we will probably see a passive MVDP, not even throwing in an attack on Kruisberg or Taaienberg, instead save all the energy for Pog's attacks.

If he isn't sure he can follow he might try to spice it up in some way. Maybe using Visma and Pedersen to cause some havoc.

So which Mathieu will we see? I go with the more passive one. Think he want's to prove a point: you can't drop me Pog.

How Pog will ride we all know: brutal attacks are coming up!

 

[hayneplane]

Couldn't sleep any more. This race will be one for the ages.

Same. Still tired but can’t get back to sleep. Ready to get up soon and prepare an epic breakfast ready for the flag drop.

 

[Red Rick]

Well he's had some results in cobbles after all, so his technique is thereabouts, no?

No. His power is extroardinary so it does a lot to compensate, but if you really wanna win you can't do it with subelite technique.

It's a bit like Gael Monfils. Probably the greatest athlete to ever play tennis professionally, not a top 100 guy in terms of technical skills, and his results show

 

[Red Rick]

To me the only real interesting thing is if UAE is gonna just drive a hard pace all day or if they're gonna send guys in the break that are supposed to threaten MvdP and force MvdP to cooperate.

If no serious break gets ahead I don't see why Van der Poel doesn't just suckwheel Pogacar adn then does turns at 80%.

Rewatching pieces of 2023 it's pretty clear Pogacar really only did go all out on the Kwaremont and Koppenberg. On the Koppenberg Van der Poel already struggled a lot to follow and it was actually Van Aert who closed the gap Van der Poel was dropping there.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Not gonna lie, the anticipation is big: duel of the year incoming. The reddest date in my cycling calendar. Hopefully nothing will spoil the party (i.e. crashes) because big expectations are followed by a big disappointment quite often.

It's gonna be epic, that's what my gut says.
That's what we should manifest.
No crashes and a race for the ages.

Trying to keep my expectations in check, I attempt to have no expectations and just enjoy it for what it will become. But I must say I kinda fail to so.
So:
It's gonna be epric!

 

[Medvind]

To me the only real interesting thing is if UAE is gonna just drive a hard pace all day or if they're gonna send guys in the break that are supposed to threaten MvdP and force MvdP to cooperate.

If no serious break gets ahead I don't see why Van der Poel doesn't just suckwheel Pogacar adn then does turns at 80%.

Rewatching pieces of 2023 it's pretty clear Pogacar really only did go all out on the Kwaremont and Koppenberg. On the Koppenberg Van der Poel already struggled a lot to follow and it was actually Van Aert who closed the gap Van der Poel was dropping there.

Maybe I'm being hard on MvdP here, but relative how he looks on other cobble climbs he doesn't look as good on steep one's like Koppenberg and Paterberg. Seems like he is forced to lean of the handlebars in way that cost him some power. Pog looks like he get power through in better way. But maybe I'm wrong, Pog just might be stronger on those climbs.