Teams & Riders The Big 6

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UCI points:
  1. Pogi — 11680
  2. Vingegaard — 5944
  3. Evenepoel — 4118
  4. Van der Poel — 3838
  5. Van Aert — 2908
  6. Rogla — 1856
Race days:
  1. Van Aert — 65
  2. Vingegaard — 62
  3. Rogla — 54
  4. Pogi — 50
  5. Evenepoel — 45
  6. Van der Poel — 41
Race km:
  1. Van Aert — 10,860
  2. Vingegaard — 9,182
  3. Rogla — 8,744
  4. Pogi — 8,635
  5. Van der Poel — 6,881
  6. Evenepoel — 6,809
Stats by PCS.

So who should get criticised the most for how much he races?
 
Ok. If this is about counting days and kilometers without context, this means that five days in Algarve are more intense and require more physical effort than Paris-Roubaix because they involve more days and kilometers.

Obviously, you have to break down which races and their intensity are distributed among those kilometers.

It's not as simple as just adding days and kilometers, or a Volta Algarve counts more than Paris-Roubaix because it has more days and kilometers, without taking into account that there's a lot of training behind Paris-Roubaix, however in Algarve they're not even in top-shape.

That this has to be explained in a cycling forum...
 
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Ok. If this is about counting days and kilometers without context, this means that five days in Algarve are more intense and require more physical effort than Paris-Roubaix because they involve more days and kilometers.

Obviously, you have to break down which races and their intensity are distributed among those kilometers.

It's not as simple as just adding days and kilometers, or a Volta Algarve counts more than Paris-Roubaix because it has more days and kilometers, without taking into account that there's a lot of training behind Paris-Roubaix, however in Algarve they're not even in top-shape.

That this has to be explained in a cycling forum...
Who spoke of intensity and effort?

Assuming a false implication and then responding to that is the classic "So you hate waffles".

When I say that I like pancakes, it'd be more prudent to take the intermediate step of asking "do you hate waffles?".
 
How much wear and tear is Roubaix really when you're already peaking for the classics anyway.

The real difference is that Vingegaard took some down time in March/April while Pogacar did in August. Van der Poel meanwhile takes downtime like 360 days a year, same as Van Aert this year.
Algarve would be equal to Strade, Flanders, Roubaix, Amstel and LBL in such a comparison. Which one of those two would you think has the most wear and tear?
 
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Dead serious.

If I said Roubaix is a meme race historically glorified by pubcrawlers who were too shite to get over any seriously hilly parcours, then I would not be serious.
Racing Paris-Roubaix to win takes way more out of you than any other one-day race in cycling. I think you can gather that from riders' reactions and also the fact anyone who then does Brabantse Pjil or Amstel tends to underperform (apart from Van Aert, though his only Amstel win was after he skipped PR).

I guess in terms of cumulative, year long fatigue it's not a huge factor, but in the immediate term I don't think any other race has that impact.
 
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So who should get criticised the most for how much he races?
I don't think anyone criticised Vingegaard for racing too little once he did the Tour-Vuelta double.

I do think he under-raced in the run up to July, and it didn't help his performances. That was the bulk of the criticism, and 18 days of racing pre-Tour is a bit ridiculous (and detrimental). There's quite a high likelihood that had he won the Tour, he'd have stopped there and finished with sub-40 race days.
 
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I don't think anyone criticised Vingegaard for racing too little once he did the Tour-Vuelta double.

I do think he under-raced in the run up to July, and it didn't help his performances. That was the bulk of the criticism, and 18 days of racing pre-Tour is a bit ridiculous (and detrimental). There's quite a high likelihood that had he won the Tour, he'd have stopped there and finished with sub-40 race days.
Maybe his concussion did affect his Tour level, but I don't think riding Romandie would have helped the least.

It was always known that he would ride Tour-Vuelta, and he explicitly said before the season began that he approached the spring differently because of that. And no, had he won the Tour like in 2023, he would still ride the Vuelta if not injured.

Somehow, being unable to ride because of a concussion gets you flack, but waiting 4 months from a winter injury before your first race day doesn't.
 
UCI points:
  1. Pogi — 11680
  2. Vingegaard — 5944
  3. Evenepoel — 4118
  4. Van der Poel — 3838
  5. Van Aert — 2908
  6. Rogla — 1856
Race days:
  1. Van Aert — 65
  2. Vingegaard — 62
  3. Rogla — 54
  4. Pogi — 50
  5. Evenepoel — 45
  6. Van der Poel — 41
Race km:
  1. Van Aert — 10,860
  2. Vingegaard — 9,182
  3. Rogla — 8,744
  4. Pogi — 8,635
  5. Van der Poel — 6,881
  6. Evenepoel — 6,809
Stats by PCS.

So who should get criticised the most for how much he races?
Van der Poel gets criticised every year.