Teams & Riders Team Visma - Lease a Bike

[Bolder]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K40o7eiFEOQ


A video has apparently leaked from the JV tactics training camp 2022.

That's some sloppy bunch sprinting. Can't stay in their lanes.

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

Thanks Jumbo for a fun couple of stages.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Wout lost today but it's clear that after his ITT demolition Primoz will be carrying bidons for him in the Alps.

 

[Rackham]

Wout lost today but it's clear that after his ITT demolition Primoz will be carrying bidons for him in the Alps.

This is no joke, i.e. just check Twitter or Insta & there's people who really do believe the hierarchy should be exactly that.

I won't fall on WvA though for his mistake because what happened was just the sh*t culmination of a day gone wrong. Like when you get out of bed late, get toothpaste on your shirt & stub your toe on the doorframe. We just saw the cycling equivalent of that negative spiral.

The blame rests on the shoulders of the team car. They overestimate their own riders & underestimate the opposition. They didn't ride like a serious team today, i.e. it was a vanity exercise to make WvA win at all costs even when he was clearly over his limit & Rog was just freewheeling up the hill.

If you ride that climb with a train in which WvA drills it hard for Jonas & Roglic, the result would be much different.

 

[DoYouEvenRideBruh]

This is no joke, i.e. just check Twitter or Insta & there's people who really do believe the hierarchy should be exactly that.

I won't fall on WvA though for his mistake because what happened was just the sh*t culmination of a day gone wrong. Like when you get out of bed late, get toothpaste on your shirt & stub your toe on the doorframe. We just saw the cycling equivalent of that negative spiral.

The blame rests on the shoulders of the team car. They overestimate their own riders & underestimate the opposition. They didn't ride like a serious team today, i.e. it was a vanity exercise to make WvA win at all costs even when he was clearly over his limit & Rog was just freewheeling up the hill.

If you ride that climb with a train in which WvA drills it hard for Jonas & Roglic, the result would be much different.

Agreed, although it is definitely easier to say that in hindsight. Even if they chose the lesser option, they still came oh so close to the win (half a celebration away from it).

But as a fan I can't help but feel I was denied a very nice stomp.

 

[Jumbot]

Thanks Jumbo for a fun couple of stages.

Yeah it was very fun, but not as fun as Quickstep's Spring cobbles campaign...#notthetourofnorway

 

[Carrick-On-Seine]

Yeah it was very fun, but not as fun as Quickstep's Spring cobbles campaign...#notthetourofnorway

How many monuments have Jumbofail won this year?

 

[cen]

How was this a team fault? This one is solely on WvA. Uphill pace was just enough to prevent any attacks, then Roglic takes over, fake pacing, controls the front, nobody attacked while Jonas brings back WvA, then delivers him quite decently to finish it off. If WvA rides through or throws he has this.

The only thing they could do better is if Roglic can join the final train for a bit.

 

[Jumbot]

How many monuments have Jumbofail won this year?

Is this supposed to trigger me? You've started with banter and I've reacted with banter, and I've got no problem with banter... I can now ask you how many Grand Tours has Quickstep won in last couple of years (GT>>>monument) and we can do this all day like little kids... but I've got better things to do

 

[CyclistAbi]

I guess stage 3 exposed some real problems they will need to address.

In regards to van Aert going for green. First of all the obsession with stage wins at all costs needs to go. It looks like they are able to control the classic sprinters and to bring van Aert in good position BUT this does and will require a whole team effort. Not just lets say Laporte. In short van Aert ambition for green will likely accumulate fatigue in regards to GC ambitions. If they won't mitigate this in some meaningful way then their GC chances will get reduced substantially. Pogi likely observing them and yawning at the same time.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

I don't understand this fuss about JV tactics. Wout showed in the past he's a great team player. Remember Tour 2020? Roglic had an incredible support of the strongest team in recent years, which was bullying the rest for most of the race. OTOH Pog had no team. Remember Wout helping Rogla tremendeusly at this year's PN? I don't see a conflict: Wout will be free to fight for some stages and at the same time will surely give 100% helping Primoz when he needs him (mountains and other terrain). If they don't give any free space for such a great cyclist at the biggest race he will leave the team and nobody wants that.

 

[Rackham]

It's probably because Roglic is on such a tightrope versus Pog (i.e. he has zero room for manoeuvre or performance cushion), Jumbo just can't afford to send domestiques to blow their energy chasing stages or intermediate sprints for WvA.

Having a super strong team is one thing, having multiple objectives is another. Roglic would arguably be better served by having his Vuelta loyalists (Bouwman, Oomen, Gesink, Van Hooydonck etc.) in stages like yesterday, i.e. when Rog is specifically letting the entire stage slide (which even when the profile 'suits' him, is not uncommon in a stage race), Gesink would get on the front of the peloton & send everyone to sleep. If others want the stage, they do the chasing, if not, the breakaway wins.

And if the breakaway is caught & the GC favorites fight for the stage, once the climb is underway Kruijswijk will pull for a bit & then Kuss dances around at the front of the group, chasing down whomever attacks, whilst Rog sits on the wheels of his main rivals before either just rolling over the line behind them or stomping the stage himself.

Short summary. But it's not about having the bestest super squad ever, it's about everyone being on the same page. I mean in the TdF "if" WvA targets stages which Rog might need to win or intermediate sprints which demand Jumbo pulls the peloton (when they should be resting), this all affects on Roglic & Vingego. Tough situation, no doubt, but Zeeman is lying to himself if he thinks yesterday's spectacle is advisable in the TdF because even if WvA had won the stage, it's still stupid to blow up Laporte, Benoot, Harper & Kruijswijk 'just' for WvA to win a stage. Even in this Dauphiné, Roglic is going to need these riders at the weekend.

 

[Rackham]

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, basically, i.e. Roglic wasn't strong enough to win the 2020 TdF, so Jumbo splits the team between green/yellow & also places Jonas as second GC leader.

Result? Rog has even less chance now than in 2020. I also won't forget stage 4 of the 2020 TdF when Rog won Orcières: In the documentary which aired on Dutch tv, the stage was a bizarre 'made in Jumbo' clusterf*ck at the end with WvA doing a monster pull whilst Dumoulin (i.e. one of the 3 GC leaders anointed before the Tour) was shouting on the radio asking him to slow down (he got dropped).

Rog stomped & won but the team cohesion wasn't there (this culminated a few days later when Dumoulin went rogue & did a monster pull against team orders in the Pyrenees before collapsing in tears after the stage).

'If only' riders like Sam Oomen & Koen Bouwman had been there with their smiley faces, a lot of drama & tactical confusion would have been avoided. So I don't give Jumbo any particular credit for helping Rog much in that TdF either because that result (second) could have been achieved without the team crushing every mountain stage with a Skytrain (a tactic Roglic himself questioned after the Tour).

Jumbo basically get their panties in a twist every TdF & totally overthink the problem by throwing in too many chefs & not enough cooks: multiple GC leaders, stage hunters, sprint hunters etc.

It's nuts IMO but here we are. I hope I'm wrong of course but based on what we've seen in this Dauphiné after 3 stages, next month could be a little sad.

 

[CyclistAbi]

I don't understand this fuss about JV tactics. Wout showed in the past he's a great team player. Remember Tour 2020? Roglic had an incredible support of the strongest team in recent years, which was bullying the rest for most of the race. OTOH Pog had no team. Remember Wout helping Rogla tremendeusly at this year's PN? I don't see a conflict: Wout will be free to fight for some stages and at the same time will surely give 100% helping Primoz when he needs him (mountains and other terrain). If they don't give any free space for such a great cyclist at the biggest race he will leave the team and nobody wants that.

From my point of view it's not about blaming. Or saying they are not a great team or they don't help each other. It's just that when analyzing the current state of things you need to make some conclusions. You have to take into consideration the amount of additional accumulated fatigue. When racing like that. If nothing else for later to be able to say what exactly they achieved. As imagine they do take both yellow and green on the Tour. When racing like that. Likely we would be talking about the best performance in the whole history. But lets be realistic. With such lavish building up of accumulated fatigue they are likely a bit naive in this regard. Expectations. Bottom line. They won't change their yellow and green goals and that is fine. But they still need to find some answers inside this boundaries. On how they are going to approach it.

P.S. Pogi did have a superb team support in 2020.

 

[Jumbo Visma Fan :)]

From my point of view it's not about blaming. Or saying they are not a great team or they don't help each other. It's just that when analyzing the current state of things you need to make some conclusions. You have to take into consideration the amount of additional accumulated fatigue. When racing like that. If nothing else for later to be able to say what exactly they achieved. As imagine they do take both yellow and green on the Tour. When racing like that. Likely we would be talking about the best performance in the whole history. But lets be realistic. With such lavish building up of accumulated fatigue they are likely a bit naive in this regard. Expectations. Bottom line. They won't change their yellow and green goals and that is fine. But they still need to find some answers inside this boundaries. On how they are going to approach it.

P.S. Pogi did have a superb team support in 2020.

I wouldn’t call a past his prime Aru, De La Cruz, and Formolo “superb”.

 

[CyclistAbi]

I wouldn’t call a past his prime Aru, De La Cruz, and Formolo “superb”.

That other team.

 

[CyclistAbi]

As they pretty much have other areas covered they likely should have thrown in some additional defense against Pogi attack. What they did instead is they have throw in the battle for green. And it's obvious now this requires a team effort. Just throwing in Laporte won't do.

You just got to love them.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

@CyclistAbi @Rackham

They just can't say to Wout: "You are a dom at the Tour and nothing else". He guarantees success, nobody won more than 6 stages in recent 2 Tours (including magical triple last year).
They know it. Primoz knows it and he can't complain as he has great support: guys like Vingegaard, Kuss, Kruijswijk in the mountains (and yes, Van Aert as well). Nobody has stronger support. If he loses to Pogacar it's not because of the team. Whta's more, Vingegaard option can be very helpful in tactical games against Pog (or as the ultimate dom to chase down Pog's strong attack, Vinge won't hesitate to work for Rog if needed).

 

[Red Rick]

@CyclistAbi @Rackham

They just can't say to Wout: "You are a dom at the Tour and nothing else". He guarantees success, nobody won more than 6 stages in recent 2 Tours (including magical triple last year).
They know it. Primoz knows it and he can't complain as he has great support: guys like Vingegaard, Kuss, Kruijswijk in the mountains (and yes, Van Aert as well). Nobody has stronger support. If he loses to Pogacar it's not because of the team. Whta's more, Vingegaard option can be very helpful in tactical games against Pog (or as the ultimate dom to chase down Pog's strong attack, Vinge won't hesitate to work for Rog if needed).

Pog won more stages in last 2 years

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Pog won more stages in last 2 years

Ah, yes. WVA had 5 (I thought that 6).

 

[CyclistAbi]

@Krzysztof_O

Without Pogi in the peloton likely JV would be looking at hat-trick this year. With Pogi in the peloton they need to accumulate less fatigue during the race or they will lose the GC battle. Looking at how they race at Dauphiné. They haven't yet figured it out. As they are utilizing the whole team too much chasing for green (and other secondary goals). And the next day to chase Pogi up the hill too? On green stages at least put Rogla and Kuss in the grupetto.

 

[CyclistAbi]

The way they race at Dauphiné. Best to try to decide the Tour in the first hectic third then. In that case accumulated fatigue from all the partial intrest involved won't play such a big role.

 

[Rackham]

Koen Bouwman broke his left wrist whilst mountain biking today: After Giro luck, now bad luck: mountain king Bouwman breaks wrist in mountain biking | NOS

So he's out of the Tour de Suisse.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Sad to hear that. Get well soon King Bouwman.

 

[hayneplane]

Has Laporte been doing a huge amount of donkey work on the front this Dauphine or is he simply a shadow of the rider he was in Spring when he was one of the strongest around.