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Teams & Riders The "MVP" Mathieu Van der Poel Road Discussion Thread

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He doesn't which is a real pity as it was so glorious. Also some of the stage wins in the Tour of Oman was next level.

But I guess that his weight increase also makes it more difficult for him to sprint uphill like that.

I remember honestly worrying that cycling would get too boring for the next decade as Sagan racked up Merckxian palmares. But I've ended up being a much bigger fan for the kind of wins he has managed to earn.
 
I've seen enough to know that you don't see that very often!
It's not something you see every day, for sure, but it's not something for which you have to wait 6 months to see either, especially since this wasn't a top field. The hysteria isn't doing him any favors tbh. De Gendt's stagewin in TDF is something you don't see very often. Van der Poel in Amstel is something you don't see very often. A 20 year old winning 2 stages in the Vuelta is something you don't see very often. A 19 year old winning San Sebastian... And all of it happened within 5 months.
 
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If Sunweb and Correndon teams end up merging and Van der Poel going to the World Tour in it wouldn't be that bad, particularly if some of Correndon teammates and staff go along with him.
The worst part would be losing the freedom to race mountain bike and maybe losing his Canyon bikes. He could still race some cyclocross in winter and have a reasonable team in the classics and freedom in the Tour.
For me it would be much better than him going to Katusha (terrible) and even Movistar because his style is much different to Unzué's and they would still support a GC leader in the Tour besides the lack of support he would have in the cobbled classics too.

Regarding today, given that he rarely trains on a TT bike I can't really expect a great result. Losing 30 seconds to people like Politt, Affini or Dowsett wouldn't be bad and he would still be in contention for the overall win.
 
I thought Corendon had said in the past they would try to move up to WT. And honestly, i think this would be the best for all parties involved. Canyon, van der Poel & Corendon. Moving him to Movistar or even Sunweb makes little sense imho.
Thing is, Sunweb and Correndon are now owned by the same company and I don't think they want to sponsor 2 WT teams. I think team management would have to find a big sponsor and move away from Correndon altogether for that to happen.
But I expected more, to be honest.
He hasn't done a TT in ages. Who knows the last time he's even been on a TT bike? I think he did pretty well considering. Even if the field wasn't top notch he beat some solid TTers.
 
But I expected more, to be honest.
I expected less.

A quick glance at his ITT past shows no greatness, and most of his TT's were 5 years ago, when he was 19. Only exception being his yearly boucles de la mayenne prologue which tells us absolutely nothing.

He beat 2 Giro TT winners today ;) So I wouldn't say it is bad. This without any specific ITT training and he probably didn't touch his TT bike in a long long time
 
But I expected more, to be honest.
I expected less.
A TT of only 14k is too short to really come to any conclusions. With his natural punch, a short ITT should suit him, even if he didn't spend dozens of hours on a TT bike the past weeks. But this result is far from bad by any standard. Like i said yesterday (and repeatedly in the past) the hysteria isn't doing him any favors. People are actually starting to believe he can/will win any race he enters when he feels like it. That's simply not the case, and certainly not in every discipline/type of race.

Frison is a very accomplished ITT'er. Sivakov is a future GT contender, who always had a great TT as one of his main weapons. Van Emden, even when clearly over the hill, can still do a decent ITT. Van Moer, beat Bjerg a few times this year, silver medalist WC ITT U23. Yet he finished ahead all of those. Expecting more without any real reference seems a bit foolish imho, and only based on hype. Ok, Langeveld & Van Baarle finished 5 seconds ahead of him, while i no longer consider them top tier ITT'ers, but other than that... He only loses 12 seconds to Affini, who podiumed on the EC ITT.

I'd like to see him try a a longer ITT, and prep for it. Only then would we have a point of reference.
 
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