Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres 2023, one day monument, April 2 (men's)

[Krzysztof_O]

One of the best Pogacar performances ever? Right up there with the Planche Des Belles Filles imo.

Yes, to me his best performances so far have been PDBF'20 and Le Grand Bornand'21. Alien performances demolishing his rivals. I think this is up there - beating an in-form MVP in his playground in this style is special.

 

[Gargamel35]

Yes, to me his best performances so far have been PDBF'20 and Le Grand Bornand'21. Alien performances demolishing his rivals. I think this is up there - beating an in-form MVP in his playground in this style is special.

It's very special. A two time TdF champion that is winning monuments like this. Crazy.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Congratulations to Tadej Pogačar for winning in grand style.

UAE made the race hard, van der Poel likely made a tactical mistake, deciding to drop van Aert. He should just wheelsuck. For as long as possible. Pogačar did the rest. Glad to hear Moho is OK after the crash. Especially as his main target for the spring always was PR.

 

[Bolder]

Congratulations to Tadej Pogačar for winning in grand style.

UAE made the race hard, van der Poel likely made a tactical mistake, deciding to drop van Aert. He should just wheelsuck. For as long as possible. Pogačar did the rest. Glad to hear Moho is OK after the crash. Especially as his main target for the spring always was PR.

I think Mvdp and Pog were in similar condition (that is, incredible), but MvdP would have needed a perfect race to beat him. He spent some energy chasing back, and I think you are right that he should not have dropped Wout. My only "complaint" about MvDP is that he's not as good as some in conserving energy. Pog, because he's so good at GTs, knows how to save energy when ever possible in the pack. I'm sure he does it by instinct. So that might have made a difference, too.

I don't really know what to say about Pog; he's just an alien. In this era of training and specialization, how he can dominate the two main disciplines is nuts. The only parallel in modern sport is Shohei Otani, the baseball star. And he's another alien!

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Bolder

When racing against Pogi you basically must not make any tactical errors. As that will cost you. But in the end Pogi is beatable too. Just not all the time.

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

I beg to differ here.
Belief in the strong sense of the word is sensible only when not having credible evidence or evidence not being possible at all.
When you think something is true because it follows logicaly from some other facts or because you have evidence that support it with high certainty, then you don't need to believe, you can presume it or just be certain that it is true, because it follows logically from other "true facts" and you believe in logic.

Belief is 100% certainty with no evidence. If you ever want to get to 100% certainty based on evidence, you'll always need more evidence.

Evidence is a thing that makes other things more evident, evident means clear to understading... we can ask for more evidence untill we reach "self-evident fact" - a thing so clear to understanding that we do not question it, or ask for more evidence, but just accept it as true as it is - believe in it.
So the things we believe are the things that are self-evident (for us).
It's not only religion that works like that, mathemathics also has axioms that are regarded as self-evident without need or possibility for further basis (inside mathemathics).
If you go deep, there are only 3 ways to ground things... You either keep providing evidence for evidence ad infinitum, or you start to circle in your evidence of evidence or you say that some evidence is simply true without providing further evidence for it.

(I also object knowledge being justified true belief, but that can stay for another time)

I disagree intensely, but this is not a philosophy forum, so I won't go further.

 

[Red Rick]

I hope he prioritises Glasgow above Lombardia.

Glasgow is 2 weeks after the Tour? It doesn't clash with anything other than the Tour.

It's kinda the good thing about Lombardia, it's always there and it's never really superceded by a more important objective, unless riders just decide they're tired and they want the long holiday.

And yes I'm supressing Dumoulin going to Hammer Series instead of Lombardia.

 

[Barkintheeye]

Congratulations to Tadej Pogačar for winning in grand style.

UAE made the race hard, van der Poel likely made a tactical mistake, deciding to drop van Aert. He should just wheelsuck. For as long as possible. Pogačar did the rest. Glad to hear Moho is OK after the crash. Especially as his main target for the spring always was PR.

Maybe a little too much focus on WVA and a little too less on Pogi Bear. It probably was correct to drop Wout but maybe Mathieu spent too much on the way to Oude Kwaremont the final time and catching up with the front group whilst dropping Wout and his team mate. Probably it would have been more important for Pog to get rid of Wout than for Mathieu?

Yet, the difference was some 15 seconds on Oude Kwaremont. Hadn't Pog been able to make that difference just there I believe he would have lost against Mathieu. Very small margin between success and a second place.

 

[Red Rick]

Maybe a little too much focus on WVA and a little too less on Pogi Bear. It probably was correct to drop Wout but maybe Mathieu spent too much on the way to Oude Kwaremont and catching up with the front group whilst dropping Wout and his team mate. Probably it would have been more important for Pog to get rid of Wout than for Mathieu?

Letting that group up the road really played into Pogacars hands. I think it's much harder for Pog to win if they just sit on him hard.

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Barkintheeye

Yes. Pogačar was rather open by saying to win this race i must finish alone. And i am here to win. UAE and Pogačar were doing a good job in that regard. Hence there was no real need for van der Poel to try to help. Likely he believed he can cope with Pogačar just fine after dropping van Aert. But that didn't pan out for him. A bit to cocky. Lesson learned.

 

[Elos Anjos]

Congratulations to Tadej Pogačar for winning in grand style.

UAE made the race hard, van der Poel likely made a tactical mistake, deciding to drop van Aert. He should just wheelsuck. For as long as possible. Pogačar did the rest. Glad to hear Moho is OK after the crash. Especially as his main target for the spring always was PR.

It was not a tactical mistake, WVA is likely a better sprinter than MDVP. It was in his interest to drop him ASAP.

 

[Cookster15]

@Bolder

When racing against Pogi you basically must not make any tactical errors. As that will cost you. But in the end Pogi is beatable too. Just not all the time.

Ironic we mention others making tactical errors against Pogi. I just hope Pog doesn't repeat that tactical error of Granon in the TdF. For me, his Flanders heroics will leave an empty feeling if he can't go on to avenge 2022.

Yes, Pog was only ever going to win against this competition on this parcours by going alone. It was great to see 2019 World Champion Mads Pedersen up there.

It looks like the last Grand Tour winner to win RVV was Gianni Bugno (1994). Merckx won in 1975. Pogi is in lofty company.

 

[Netserk]

Glasgow is 2 weeks after the Tour? It doesn't clash with anything other than the Tour.

Yes, but I think it would be easier to win Lombardia if he would pull the plug immediately after the Tour. I hope he doesn't do that, but arrives in Glasgow in his best possible condition (conditional on not compromising the Tour), even if that in turns means that he needs a longer, maybe even too long, break afterwards.

 

[Red Rick]

Yes, but I think it would be easier to win Lombardia if he would pull the plug immediately after the Tour. I hope he doesn't do that, but arrives in Glasgow in his best possible condition (conditional on not compromising the Tour), even if that in turns means that he needs a longer, maybe even too long, break afterwards.

I'm fairly sure 2 weeks after is a lot better for the Worlds than 1 week, juding by Worlds vs LBL 2020.

Last year he came out of Tour super tired but was in decent enough shape by Montreal but maybe the slightly easier style races require actually less form for Pog than Emilia style races.

Don't think a week makes a huge difference in contrast to a 2021 like season.

That said, I think De Ronde suits Pog a lot better than Glasgow.

 

[QuickZulu]

Is there a thread yet for Roubaix?

 

[CyclistAbi]

It was not a tactical mistake, WVA is likely a better sprinter than MDVP. It was in his interest to drop him ASAP.

Pogačar was doing a good job at that.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Ironic we mention others making tactical errors against Pogi. I just hope Pog doesn't repeat that tactical error of Granon in the TdF.

Currently i would say it's not possible for that exact situation to occur at TDF 2023 again. As the current field doesn't have what it takes. Maybe after Giro things could change. We'll see.

 

[repre]

Is there a thread yet for Roubaix?

Lesser known races 2023

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

One of the things that satisfied me about that race was the group of second favourites performing well - Mads, Asgreen, Kung, Jorgensen, Fred Wright etc all did brilliant rides. No shame in losing out to the two monsters.
MIA though were Pidcock and Ala (who seemed to get caught up in crashes yet again).

 

[Didinho]

One of the things that satisfied me about that race was the group of second favourites performing well - Mads, Asgreen, Kung, Jorgensen, Fred Wright etc all did brilliant rides. No shame in losing out to the two monsters.
MIA though were Pidcock and Ala (who seemed to get caught up in crashes yet again).

Pidcock had a major food bonk. Was fading really hard. But his form looks good for next weeks.

 

[Netserk]

One of the things that satisfied me about that race was the group of second favourites performing well - Mads, Asgreen, Kung, Jorgensen, Fred Wright etc all did brilliant rides. No shame in losing out to the two monsters.
MIA though were Pidcock and Ala (who seemed to get caught up in crashes yet again).

Ala was there on Molenberg, he just didn't have the legs Asgreen had.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Ala was there on Molenberg, he just didn't have the legs Asgreen had.

Overall Quickstep did a good race. Really solid tactics and signs of life from Asgreen. Merlier also put in tons of work by entering the breakaway and working for his teammate, like Greipel back in the day at Lotto. Who cares if he potentially isn't competitive after the first week of a gt if he's a big teamplayer and a workhorse in the cobbled classics? Their main problem is that 3 guys are clearly head and shoulders above the rest in this race and they usually take the bull by the horns and blow the race apart rather early, so they are less vulnerable to getting outplayed by the numbers gain and Quickstep also lacks someone who can stay with them.

I do wonder if Sagan and Cancellare should have tried the same in 2016 when they were clearly the 2 strongest (or Sagan + GvA later). Blow the race apart earlier, so Quickstep no longer have the numbers to make your job harder.

 

[IndianCyclist]

I think E3 was a test to find out how much Power was required to drop WVA and MVDP. From that he knew that he had to go at peak power to drop them. In Flanders, he knew that it was useless to go to the line with either of them. So he went as hard as he could and nearly broke himself and cracked the other favorites.

 

[Boehmand]

If you believe something to be true, you presumably have evidence that makes it credible?

I guess you never met a religious person?

 

[Boehmand]

Overall Quickstep did a good race. Really solid tactics and signs of life from Asgreen. Merlier also put in tons of work by entering the breakaway and working for his teammate, like Greipel back in the day at Lotto. Who cares if he potentially isn't competitive after the first week of a gt if he's a big teamplayer and a workhorse in the cobbled classics? Their main problem is that 3 guys are clearly head and shoulders above the rest in this race and they usually take the bull by the horns and blow the race apart rather early, so they are less vulnerable to getting outplayed by the numbers gain and Quickstep also lacks someone who can stay with them.

I do wonder if Sagan and Cancellare should have tried the same in 2016 when they were clearly the 2 strongest (or Sagan + GvA later). Blow the race apart earlier, so Quickstep no longer have the numbers to make your job harder.

I think Asgreen in his top condition can stick with the big 3.

We have to remember, he is still coming back from his knee operation, which cost him a lot of muscle mass in the leg, and we are probably still a few months from him hitting his 2021 condition.

As for Alaphilippe - who would also be able to stick with the big 3 in his peak condition - I am at a loss to understand what has happened to him, the last year+ he has looked ordinary on most racedays.