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Strade Bianche 2024, March 2, one-day classic (men's)

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Bernal choosing not to ride.

Egan Bernal will not be in #StradeBianche :"There will be other changes to your calendar, we will talk about it in the coming days"
Here we go again. He was at the start list but I am not surprised. They are following Horner's advice to detail. LOL.

Reading the article, it talks about optimizing his racing kilometers now. O Gran Camiño was a good surprised to the team so that they decided to sit down and change his program. Not sure what that means. Oh well.
 
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Forty to fifty years ago it was all about the Tour of Zurich being the sixth monument.
Guess what, race no longer exists.
I think if altitude training camp shenanigans and ultra focused peaks keep prompting the best riders to skip it then the race is going to lose some of its recent luster. Still a gorgeous race to watch regardless of who is there.
 
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Can't overstate my disappointment at WvA , VdP ,and Remco for not racing this.
And et tu, Egan? You join Team Charmin as well?
Best one-day race. But ok, you guys go race through some industrial park in Flanders instead.
Remco hates gravel, look at his reaction to the Strade stage in the Giro. No way he is ever racing here! He doesn't have the bike handling skills to compete here
 
Remco hates gravel, look at his reaction to the Strade stage in the Giro. No way he is ever racing here! He doesn't have the bike handling skills to compete here

It should be noted that that was 3 years ago, and that he's physically, and perhaps also mentally, stronger than back then, when he was returning from injury in what appeared to be a less than optimal way. I can't see why he shouldn't be able to do well in this race, if he targeted it. Sure, he wouldn't be a favourite against Pogačar or Van der Poel at the moment, but nobody else would be either.
 
It should be noted that that was 3 years ago, and that he's physically, and perhaps also mentally, stronger than back then, when he was returning from injury in what appeared to be a less than optimal way. I can't see why he shouldn't be able to do well in this race, if he targeted it. Sure, he wouldn't be a favourite against Pogačar or Van der Poel at the moment, but nobody else would be either.
It was another fck up of epic proportions by the team, as they knew from Adriatica Ionica '19 that he was helpless on gravel. They did f* all to prepare him for that stage. One or two off-seasons ago, they finally sent him to do a Specialized sponsored gravel race in the US, i think with Cattaneo. It didn't get a lot of attention and he said he enjoyed it. Whether he did i don't know, but at least i hope he learned how not to crash.
 
It should be noted that that was 3 years ago, and that he's physically, and perhaps also mentally, stronger than back then, when he was returning from injury in what appeared to be a less than optimal way. I can't see why he shouldn't be able to do well in this race, if he targeted it. Sure, he wouldn't be a favourite against Pogačar or Van der Poel at the moment, but nobody else would be either.
He could be mentally stronger, but one can not control the psychological reaction entering a gravel section. In addition, there are also descents on gravel. Even as a fan of Evenepoel I'm convinced that his legs will still slam shut entering a gravel section. On the downhill stretch where Pidcock rode away last year with his technique and courage, Evenepoel would lose 40 seconds compared to Pidcock, also 30 seconds to the other topriders. If he wasn't already quite far behind before then.
 
He could be mentally stronger, but one can not control the psychological reaction entering a gravel section. In addition, there are also descents on gravel. Even as a fan of Evenepoel I'm convinced that his legs will still slam shut entering a gravel section. On the downhill stretch where Pidcock rode away last year with his technique and courage, Evenepoel would lose 40 seconds compared to Pidcock, also 30 seconds to the other topriders. If he wasn't already quite far behind before then.

We'll see how much he's improved when we get to the Tour, unless that stage gets altered due to bad weather, or it simply turns into a random crash fest.