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Teams & Riders Sepp Kuss is the next Sepp Kuss thread

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Time to resuscitate this thread. If he can keep up his recent Mont Ventoux form (6.3 W/kg for ~37min, and 6.6 W/kg for the hardest 15min of the climb, see https://www.strava.com/activities/3102232162/power-curve) and replicate this in a GT context, he should be a formidable mountain domestique for TJV this year...
Good to see him improve. Last year really was a bit of a turnaround for him. Personally, i had my doubts after the immense hype and not really showing the same level in the following Vuelta or Giro. But he proved himself in a big way. I'm still not sure he's going to be a constant performer, and how he will cope with really hard stages leading up to a MTF (it seemed that most of his best performances, weren't on the hardest of stages). But his ceiling seems to be very high and the raw numbers were never an issue for him to begin with.

I hope, but he seems to have input his weight at 59 kg on Strava, while his reported weight is 64 kg. Does anyone know if he's lost some weight recently?

He seems lighter than 64kg, though he is 1m80, so not really small. But he's very skinny. I would assume the Strava data would be accurate if he wants to get the correct calculations based on weight. Unless he's trying to throw lurkers off.
 
Time to resuscitate this thread. If he can keep up his recent Mont Ventoux form (6.3 W/kg for ~37min, and 6.6 W/kg for the hardest 15min of the climb, see https://www.strava.com/activities/3102232162/power-curve) and replicate this in a GT context, he should be a formidable mountain domestique for TJV this year...

Kuss is still at Jumbo-Visma. He's working for Roglic not TJV. Powless is the one that changed teams. However, if he can find this form for the GT's he'll be a very good super dom.
 
Time to resuscitate this thread. If he can keep up his recent Mont Ventoux form (6.3 W/kg for ~37min, and 6.6 W/kg for the hardest 15min of the climb, see https://www.strava.com/activities/3102232162/power-curve) and replicate this in a GT context, he should be a formidable mountain domestique for TJV this year...
His level is actually surprisingly good for February, isn't it? I don't remember seeing Sepp this good so early in the season. If he keeps this up, he would be the one dropping off Roglic and Dumoulin, instead of De Plus & Kruijswijk.
 
Time to resuscitate this thread. If he can keep up his recent Mont Ventoux form (6.3 W/kg for ~37min, and 6.6 W/kg for the hardest 15min of the climb, see https://www.strava.com/activities/3102232162/power-curve) and replicate this in a GT context, he should be a formidable mountain domestique for TJV this year...
I loved the look on his face when he tried to follow Quintana and then suddenly realized it was not the Tour of Utah.
Still an excellent performance from him.
 
Kuss was the strongest in that group. If he hadn't done a 600-800 watt surge trying to follow Quintana's attack he could've limited his losses even more. I'm impressed at his early-season level. Pinot's manager said he's at the same level he was at last winter, and he went on to almost win the Tour. So if Kuss is timing his form correctly, he'll be very strong in July.
 
Good to see him improve. Last year really was a bit of a turnaround for him. Personally, i had my doubts after the immense hype and not really showing the same level in the following Vuelta or Giro. But he proved himself in a big way. I'm still not sure he's going to be a constant performer, and how he will cope with really hard stages leading up to a MTF (it seemed that most of his best performances, weren't on the hardest of stages). But his ceiling seems to be very high and the raw numbers were never an issue for him to begin with.



He seems lighter than 64kg, though he is 1m80, so not really small. But he's very skinny. I would assume the Strava data would be accurate if he wants to get the correct calculations based on weight. Unless he's trying to throw lurkers off.
His Wikipedia weight (64 kg) is indeed quite a bit more than what you get on Strava from dividing his Watts by his Watts/kg on the power curve (59 kg as RunningRouleur mentioned). Good point, it may or may not have been entered inaccurately on Strava (intentionally or not). This is actually another argument why publishing power data on its own doesn't really give away any sort of competitive intel on climbing form, as it is always easy enough to obfuscate your true weight...
 
Well, it's taken him two years, but i think it's safe to say my initial reservations were unfounded. He looks like the most natural "true climber" in the peloton at the moment. By far actually. I still don't think he'll become a GC guy (he seems to have too many bad days) but on his good days he's nothing short of a joy to watch. I still think he might have been able to follow Sosa last week in Burgos on the last day (even if he lost a lot of time on Picon Blanco, stage 3), unfortunately he had to drag Bennett's ass up the mountain for a 5th GC spot in Burgos. :(
 
He's really one of the few Americans who lives up to the initial hype and performes well in Europe. I wonder how much it has to do with the fact that he didn't race for Axel in the u23 ranks, many of his prospects burn out quickly and are already past their prime at the age of 25.
I've seen him in person at the Giro last year, if you saw him on the road you'd never think that he's a pro. He has the soft legs of an untrained 15 year old skinny kid, no definition at all, my dad noticed it and pointed it out to me.
Never judge a book by it's cover...
 
He's really one of the few Americans who lives up to the initial hype and performes well in Europe. I wonder how much it has to do with the fact that he didn't race for Axel in the u23 ranks, many of his prospects burn out quickly and are already past their prime at the age of 25.
I've seen him in person at the Giro last year, if you saw him on the road you'd never think that he's a pro. He has the soft legs of an untrained 15 year old skinny kid, no definition at all, my dad noticed it and pointed it out to me.
Never judge a book by it's cover...
I had the same thing with the Rabo developmental team. I don't think it's burning them out per se, but also u23s overperforming due to having an edge in professionalization, as well as maybe a bias in selecting riders that peak early.
 
Al
On his good day he makes climbing look like a no effort. Yesterday he was incredible, casually pulling back attacks from the very best climbers in the world.

I fear he'll have to change teams to have opportunities though.
All the guys he’s working for right now are 5 years+ older than he is. If, in 2-3 years, as Kruiswijk and Roglic get older, TJV start to replace from outside the organization, then yes, he should move (and it will be clear sooner than 2 years what’s happening) but if the team want to promote from within, then he’d be a fool to go anywhere.
 
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