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

[Red Rick]

But there is still 2 more hills in the circuit. Something like 500-600m at 6%. This where Pogacar can build his gap after going solo on the main hill. I still think MVP can be in the top10 but fighting for the win is out of reach. We are talking about MVP, no chance he will race it if he doesn't think he can compete there.

I didnt say he could win. I think the parcours is good enough for him to possibly beat everyone else than Pogacar and maybe Evenepoel.

Maybe Pidcock on a super day is also better

 

[canina82]

I didnt say he could win. I think the parcours is good enough for him to possibly beat everyone else than Pogacar and maybe Evenepoel.

Maybe Pidcock on a super day is also better

I didn't say you said that. But I think you are implying he should race it. The question is: If he can't win, why should he race in Montreal?

 

[Berniece]

I didn't say you said that. But I think you are implying he should race it. The question is: If he can't win, why should he race in Montreal?

So we have a peloton of 3 riders then?

 

[Jagartrott]

Agreed. On LBL, would be great if Pogi decided to sit it out now that winning all the Monuments in the same year is off the table. Without Pogi MVDP would have a fighting chance of winning there. Wishful thinking though and I doubt MVDP goes there just to fight for a podium spot.

I don't think he is competitive in LBL even without Pogacar. Evenepoel, Seixas, Healy, Ciccone - he cannot follow those on the longer climbs. You'd have to have extremely passive riders for him to have a chance of a podium, but the current crop of riders isn't like that.

 

[Red Rick]

I didn't say you said that. But I think you are implying he should race it. The question is: If he can't win, why should he race in Montreal?

No other valuable targets

 

[canina82]

No other valuable targets

Why not the Vuelta? Plenty of stages (3 or 4) where he can win.

 

[gavia88]

for what instead , bingobongo benelux tour ?

he can take it easy and chill most of the race while helping phil and then target paris

to race on the MTB

 

[Axel Hangleck]

No other valuable targets

Hmmm.....have you heard of MTB? The XCO Worlds is a big aim.......maybe he should target it properly.........

 

[Sciatic]

Doesn’t Mathieu seem almost too casual here? In his interview afterward he said he knew his race was over, despite the fact he chased hard the rest of the race.

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[Krzysztof_O]

Well, no monuments for the first time since 2021 is poor for an ATG rider like him. Obviously he had really bad luck in PR (unlike previous years), which is a part of the game there. In terms of form he still looked very good during cobbled monuments (i.e. the strongest in PR and 2nd strongest in RVV).

 

[Red Rick]

Doesn’t Mathieu seem almost too casual here? In his interview afterward he said he knew his race was over, despite the fact he chased hard the rest of the race.

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His teammate was fixing the bike. He could run in there but he wouldn't have been able to start back any faster unless he could yoink it out of his teammates hands and fix it himself faster

 

[RealKwaremonster]

Well, no monuments for the first time since 2021 is poor for an ATG rider like him. Obviously he had really bad luck in PR (unlike previous years), which is a part of the game there. In terms of form he still looked very good during cobbled monuments (i.e. the strongest in PR and 2nd strongest in RVV).

Not really. This is bound to happen sometimes. Look at Boonen and Cancellara, many times it didnt go their way when they were favourites. Boonen had three springs without monument victories between his first and his last monument win and Cancellara 4. Mathieu, if he ever wins a monument again, is now at 2.

This year was just a bad cocktail of bad luck and one rival being in better shape.

To immediately class his spring as poor given 2nd in Flanders and a few high profile victories goes a bit far imo.

 

[ChasingPotatoes]

I think MvdP was really good in the 3 monuments and had, as always in the last couple of years, the potential to win all 3 of them with highest chances in Roubaix (without bad luck he would have been in the mix, 100% sure) but also chances in MSR and Flanders if riding a bit more conservative.
If anything, he rode a bit too active in MSR between Cipressa and Poggio (but mainly the crash was the culprit for him being a bit cooked on Cipressa and the run-in), and he rode a bit too active too soon with Pog in Flanders.

This spring just goes to show how lucky he has been in some previous seasons in terms of not crashing, not having mechanicals, but of course he made his luck so many times by just riding away from it all and thus staying out of danger (crashes, flat tires,...).

All small details but the difference in outcome is huge. Also, racing against someone like Pog narrows down the margin of error (both in terms of bad luck and in terms of applying sound racing tactics).