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

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Change of plans:

It looks like he will participate in the world championship MTB instead of Bretagne Classic. And then switch over to road for the worlds RR + Roubaix.
Guess he wants to set something straight in the world MTB.

Unlikely he pulls it off, but if he wins both MTB WC and Road RR he could be the first ever male rider to have the CX, MTB and RR world jersey in the same year. Copying PvP who already did that in the women a few years ago
 
Some facts:
  • UCI's Tokyo 2020 MTB Race Guide says "The ramp on the Sakura drop is only implemented for training and will be removed for the races"
  • The Offical Test event didn't have the ramp in accordance to the Race Guide.
  • Practice before the mens race has the ramp in order that the drop can be perfected in relative safety until sending it past the safety net of the ramp.
  • Team Managers met in the morning before the race and were told the ramp is being removed.
  • MVP's coach claims he told MVP multiple times the ramp would be removed.
  • UCI removed the ramp for the race
  • MVP crashed on first passing, saying he didn't know the ramp would not be there.

    As for why don't they leave the ramp? 1. It's an Olympic Course, it should be challenging in some respects within the limits of being unsafe. 2. You can't have some riders slowing right down to roll a ramp at the same moment riders are speeding up to send it over as there will be crashes then!

    The landing rocks for the women race were wet. UCI's Technical Delegate appears to have decided rather than b-line the drop, the drop can be ridden with the ramp that already exists.
 
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Unlikely he pulls it off, but if he wins both MTB WC and Road RR he could be the first ever male rider to have the CX, MTB and RR world jersey in the same year. Copying PvP who already did that in the women a few years ago
You know, a lot of people harp on about the WvA vs Vdp rivalry but I'd wager VdP's real concern is Pidcock and how he stands a real chance of achieving VdP's goals quicker than he can himself.
 
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While knowing nothing about mountain bike racing, but having watched a lot of alpine downhill ski races, is it possible that it some cases it’s faster to “roll” a section rather than air it? Skiers know the more time they spend in the air the more it will reduce their speed. Of course, skis on ice have a lot less resistance than rubber tread on wood, so probably not.
Rolling something steep necessitates that you slow down, and yes, the physics are very different on skis at speed versus a bike in that situation.
 
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The reconnaissance round must always be the same as the competition round, otherwise reconnaissance is pointless.
Unless the reconnaissance shows that a passage is too dangerous. Then you can adjust / make it safe. The opposite is happening here. But the organizers have corrected their mistake at the women's race. Too late for vdp of course. Who also bears great responsibility.
Do you race mountain bikes? What was done was not abnormal and makes perfect sense when you're adapting to a course. The issue rests entirely on the shoulders of Van der Poel who was, it should be stressed, the only racer who seemed unaware of this and made that mistake.
 
It really doesn’t and it’s very unlikely as you have to scrub much more speed to roll it than you do to drop it.
In reality the issue would not be whether to roll the whole drop versus get airtime, but to reduce the air time to a minimum possible, so I gave a pretty crappy explanation. Sending it, as they say, generally means getting as much air time as you can. Does that make more sense?
 
@Barnacle Bill

It's debatable but personally i feel that the track should be the same on reckoning and on the race. As for communication and listening. IMHO super starts are not there to do that. They are there to do their thing. For example Dončić is not on the Olympics to do the listening. He is there to do the talking. It's just their role we expect them to take.
That is patently false. Athletes, regardless of their super stardom, always need to understand the rules and do some "listening". And many take great pains to do so. MTB and CX are both disciplines that vdP focuses on, and both require understanding the course, it features, and doing walkthroughs and test laps.
 
Change of plans:

It looks like he will participate in the world championship MTB instead of Bretagne Classic. And then switch over to road for the worlds RR + Roubaix.
Guess he wants to set something straight in the world MTB.

Unlikely he pulls it off, but if he wins both MTB WC and Road RR he could be the first ever male rider to have the CX, MTB and RR world jersey in the same year. Copying PvP who already did that in the women a few years ago

That would be pretty special, and not at all impossible. Better watch out for the ramps, though.

Also, he did have Wout's number in the TT in the Tour, so he might as well one-up PVP and become a quadruple World Champion.
 
You know, a lot of people harp on about the WvA vs Vdp rivalry but I'd wager VdP's real concern is Pidcock and how he stands a real chance of achieving VdP's goals quicker than he can himself.
Tbh, i don't see Pidcock winning a CX worlds at the moment. Exactly because of VDP and WvA... He's at his most disadvantegeous in CX with his specific skillset. As crazy as that sounds.

It's a complete opposite from MTB. The power, muscle, like pure watts from VDP/Van Aert come in advantage there and VDP is more skilled on a CX bike technically than Pidcock. Pidcock for instance lost more than 1 minute 30 in the sand in the last worlds, while he only lost 16s in the power/grass sections and was even 6 seconds faster on the bridges than VDP.
 
From what I can see on social media, VDP is dealing with it quite well and in a mature way. I also think he realizes that it was his own mistake.

It also isn't his first defeat, and won't be his last. The most important thing is that he wasn't injured. Given the spectacle of the crash, it looked like that could have gone easily another way.

The half lap that he did looked solid. Given that Pidcock was behind him and the two were closely chasing the front doesn't really tell me anything about his form, but I had a feeling he was sharp for the medals. Alas, is what is - he will find new goals and cause new sensations. In a way it might be even good to keep him hungry for another 3 years at least.

I would love to see him get 3x rainbow jersey this year but if I had to choose I'd prefer the road title for him.
 
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That is patently false. Athletes, regardless of their super stardom, always need to understand the rules and do some "listening". And many take great pains to do so. MTB and CX are both disciplines that vdP focuses on, and both require understanding the course, it features, and doing walkthroughs and test laps.

That was my point all along. If Mathieu Van der Poel did the reckoning and the ramp was there. And after on the race the ramp was not there. In that case he can be blamed up to 99% but not above that.

P.S. And i will lower the percentage to 98%. As Dutch women team demonstrated there is not just radio silence that is the problem. More like total lack of communication in the team.
 
Tbh, i don't see Pidcock winning a CX worlds at the moment. Exactly because of VDP and WvA... He's at his most disadvantageous in CX with his specific skillset. As crazy as that sounds.

It's a complete opposite from MTB. The power, muscle, like pure watts from VDP/Van Aert come in advantage there and VDP is more skilled on a CX bike technically than Pidcock.

I agree, in fact I've said it a few times on here, MTB suits him better as it's more technical, and the climbs are far longer. It depends on the type of course they have for future CX Worlds, but they tend to be flat, and with short climbs if they have any. I'm not sure Fayetteville be a lot different, see below. But the World Cup in October may give us a better idea. In the future, it would be nice to see less power courses, and more climbing, technical courses.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW_jGGNZBoo&ab_channel=KerryWerner
 
Change of plans:

It looks like he will participate in the world championship MTB instead of Bretagne Classic. And then switch over to road for the worlds RR + Roubaix.
Guess he wants to set something straight in the world MTB.

Unlikely he pulls it off, but if he wins both MTB WC and Road RR he could be the first ever male rider to have the CX, MTB and RR world jersey in the same year. Copying PvP who already did that in the women a few years ago
Not surprising and great to hear. He's got to be chomping at the bit...
 
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In reality the issue would not be whether to roll the whole drop versus get airtime, but to reduce the air time to a minimum possible, so I gave a pretty crappy explanation. Sending it, as they say, generally means getting as much air time as you can. Does that make more sense?
I disagree, rolling is not leaving the trail, sending is leaving the trail and can be used because occasionally jump is inappropriate, such as on a drop. But it is a bit semantic. In this case, Nuno's line seemed fastest which was to get more distance than others and land on the grass after the rock landing which wasn't as flat a landing.

This is getting a lot off topic, but I think you're really thinking of table-tops etc. in DH where squashing the jump and getting back on the track is always going to be quicker. Its not the same in XC where there's usually a couple of landing options and definitely not the same with drops, where there can be several choices of landing point that might change how something is handled depending on race, speed, conditions etc.

Also, in this case I'm not sure it really matters much. The difference between a longer landing, the shorter landing and rolling it looked to be very small, there was enough run off that lost momentum was going to be small and there wasn't enough room that you'd get overtaken by people for picking the wrong option (unless you tried to roll something that wasn't there...). I've heard the b-line was 7 seconds slower which would have made a big difference, but I'm not sure anyone used it.
 
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I've said all I have to say on this really, I'll finish after this, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Imo it's evidently not safer. For me it's like someone following Nibali on a descent and thinking "hey, I'm not following his line in the bend, I'll go inside" and be shocked when he overshoots. VdP was not in front, he saw everyone before him take the jump all out, but he wanted to do his own thing, and crashed.

The root cause of this crash is his bad preparation, including studying the course and regulations of the race.
He wanted to do his own thing, use the ramp. What he thought was safer. And what should have been safer, if the organizers hadn't removed the ramp before the race. That's what the discussion is about. Not about whether Vdp chose to jump or use the plank.
 
They changed the course today because of the earlier rain, and a possible downpour due to the incoming storm. Certain sections were removed/amended, including that drop - the ramp was put back in, as the take off is on rocks, which may be slippery. PF-P was the only one who wanted to 'roll it' - most of the others 'sent it'. There really is no issue.....

That's what they wanted the outside world to believe. But the reason was that they had realized their mistake.
 

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