Teams & Riders The Remco Evenepoel is the next Eddy Merckx thread

[AmRacer]

What was not perfect about Pogs prep?

Giro

 

[Rackham]

Feel ya. The other two are just crazy strong.

For me however, I didn't expect him to compete for the win, just not realistic. I have been happy to see him confident, consistent, and climbing like I thought he could in the furnace that is the Tour. He's answered a LOT of questions so far.

So many positives. Lots to grow from, physically and mentally. Really looking forward to seeing him on the podium this year. Fingers crossed. Big steps. Would love to see him pull out a win in the final TT, but that might not happen. That would be the icing on the cake.

I'm still a bit dazed by the performances we saw today, i.e. from both Pog & Vinge.

It was a step up, evidently. If we look back at roughly the same stages of the 2023 Tour after two weeks of racing, their respective performance today makes their climb up Joux Plane last year look amateurish by comparison. Back then Carlos Rodriguez was able to return after the two of them stared at each other a bit & mug them for the win. Today, he was 5 minutes down... but still good enough to finish 8th on the stage, which is wild.

So yes with Evenepoel there's a lot of positives (he really did destroy the 'human field' today) but also the reality there's a chasm which is currently unbridgeable, i.e. unless he also takes several steps forward in the coming years.

The problem with that scenario is Pog & Vinge are now on paper pretty much producing the greatest climbing performances in the history of the sport. I really don't know how many others can ever hope to invite themselves to that particular table.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Giro

So his prep was perfect according to the plan they made. Him winning the Giro at 85% might prove to have an impact in the 3rd week. I doubt his performances so far would have been much different.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

Brilliant racing so far from Remco. He's paced himself really well. Let's not forget, this is his first TdF and he's smashing everyone except Pog and Vingo.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

Lots to build on for Remco. Vingegaard is seeing what Remco has dealt with in terms of having little help in a GC. Landa has been great, but Quickstep is still well behind Vlba and UAE.

Will be interesting to see what what his team looks like in 2026.

He'll race to conserve enegery for the Olympics where he'll be a medal favorite in the ITT and have a shot at getting a medal in the road race.

 

[Cookster15]

Really happy for Remco’s Tour so far - solid! Riding to his limits and is well on track to secure a TdF podium. Still the Alpes to come but hopefully he can get to the final TT fresh enough to do something.

 

[red_flanders]

Lots to build on for Remco. Vingegaard is seeing what Remco has dealt with in terms of having little help in a GC. Landa has been great, but Quickstep is still well behind Vlba and UAE.

Will be interesting to see what what his team looks like in 2026.

He'll race to conserve enegery for the Olympics where he'll be a medal favorite in the ITT and have a shot at getting a medal in the road race.

Interesting. I'll be honest, I think it would be nuts for him to worry about anything but finishing well in this race. There are huge stages ahead. Hold your podium, finish your goals for the Tour. Then think about the Olympics.

My strong sense, especially with injury in Basque Country, is that he's been aiming his peak for the last week, then hoping to ride that peak into the Olympics.

 

[Andre]

But if you account for the injury, you're kinda seeing Evenepoel at 23 or so, with his palmares. Crazy. But Pog is just a freakazoid...

I would be surprised at this point if Remco doesn't find himself to at least 1 Tour win.

...or three

 

[DoYouEvenRideBruh]

Great stuff by Remco. He's one of the riders I feel most ambivalent about, but I'll need a third wheel to cheer for when Rog is retired.

Hopefully this Tour will put all the talk about him "not being a GT rider" behind us. The new question will be much more interesting: can he ever win the Tour? I'll go out on a limb and say he will finish his career with at least one victory.

 

[red_flanders]

Great stuff by Remco. He's one of the riders I feel most ambivalent about, but I'll need a third wheel to cheer for when Rog is retired.

Hopefully this Tour will put all the talk about him "not being a GT rider" behind us. The new question will be much more interesting: can he ever win the Tour? I'll go out on a limb and say he will finish his career with at least one victory.

Agree on him winning a Tour. I think it happens, things change. People get injured, change teams, have bad years. He's 24.

To the bolded, it seems like this is where the goalposts will be moved by those who don't like him. "Not a GT rider" and "Not good in the high mountains" will move to "Never gonna win the Tour". Well, I hope not, I'm wrong and most folks give him his due if he wraps this up.

2 more huge stages to go. I think he holds on, but hope he holds on well. I hope the race chills out a bit actually, and a break can win. The GC battle is essentially over. I hear Jonas making "It's not over" noises however. I mean good for him for keeping it going, but...not sure what else exactly he thinks is gonna happen differently at this point. The only stage where he gained hope was 11, and I think we can all recognize that Pogi bonked to some extent.

Would be nice to see someone from Bora able to win a big stage (Hindley?) and salvage the Tour for Bora.

 

[jmdirt]

keep fighting RE!

 

[Flurk1982]

What is the possibility that the TdF will add more ITT km's in the future?

 

[Peyroteo94]

What is the possibility that the TdF will add more ITT km's in the future?

I would love too. I miss a good old TT of 50 km in the first week.
We don't a long TT since Kyrienka beat Contador in the 2015 Giro (this one was in the second week)

 

[jmdirt]

Agree on him winning a Tour. I think it happens, things change. People get injured, change teams, have bad years. He's 24.

To the bolded, it seems like this is where the goalposts will be moved by those who don't like him. "Not a GT rider" and "Not good in the high mountains" will move to "Never gonna win the Tour". Well, I hope not, I'm wrong and most folks give him his due if he wraps this up.

2 more huge stages to go. I think he holds on, but hope he holds on well. I hope the race chills out a bit actually, and a break can win. The GC battle is essentially over. I hear Jonas making "It's not over" noises however. I mean good for him for keeping it going, but...not sure what else exactly he thinks is gonna happen differently at this point. The only stage where he gained hope was 11, and I think we can all recognize that Pogi bonked to some extent.

Would be nice to see someone from Bora able to win a big stage (Hindley?) and salvage the Tour for Bora.

Anyone who says or types that...

 

[red_flanders]

Anyone who says or types that...

Can't count how many times I've read this here in the last months.

 

[Izzyeviel]

What is the possibility that the TdF will add more ITT km's in the future?

a 60km TTT & a 50k solo TT if the ASO had any guts.

 

[red_flanders]

a 60km TTT & a 50k solo TT if the ASO had any guts.

The argument (and this is probably not news to you) for not having a long TTT is that it favors the big money teams too much. I'm OK with that. But I'd love to see a 35k hilly TT and a 55k flat TT.

Miss seeing bigger guys have a shot.

 

[houtdffan]

a 60km TTT & a 50k solo TT if the ASO had any guts.

and a second 65km ITT, plus a 7km prologue. Along with 2 mountain stages similar to today

You know, a balanced tour route

 

[Andre]

What is the possibility that the TdF will add more ITT km's in the future?

80 percent that they will

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

a 60km TTT & a 50k solo TT if the ASO had any guts.

I'm a fan of TTT's because it is an interesting discipline, but not for GC. Imho, they should have TTT's with boniseconds and disregard the actual timedifferences. I don't even think at this point a TTT would be in Evenepoel's favor. What i don't understand though, is why every stage podium gets boniseconds, but ITT podium don't. So if you are only able to outclimb a rival by 2 seconds, you should be rewarded for that, but if you are able to outpace a rival in a TT by 2 seconds, tough luck. Makes no sense.

At this point i don't really think more TT's would favor Evenepoel that much. It's clear that in order to be able to come close to Vingegaard and Pogacar uphill, he should lose a bit more weight, but then the advantage in the TT's would shrink as well. I'm sure he'd be able to take 60s or more out of the other two in a 50k flat TT even when skinny, but in the grand scheme of things, that's likely not going to be a deciding factor.

 

[houtdffan]

I'm a fan of TTT's because it is an interesting discipline, but not for GC. Imho, they should have TTT's with boniseconds and disregard the actual timedifferences. I don't even think at this point a TTT would be in Evenepoel's favor. What i don't understand though, is why every stage podium gets boniseconds, but ITT podium don't. So if you are only able to outclimb a rival by 2 seconds, you should be rewarded for that, but if you are able to outpace a rival in a TT by 2 seconds, tough luck. Makes no sense.

At this point i don't really think more TT's would favor Evenepoel that much. It's clear that in order to be able to come close to Vingegaard and Pogacar uphill, he should lose a bit more weight, but then the advantage in the TT's would shrink as well. I'm sure he'd be able to take 60s or more out of the other two in a 50k flat TT even when skinny, but in the grand scheme of things, that's likely not going to be a deciding factor.

the thing about 50-60km ITTs is, minutes not seconds are gained. The time differences really start to expand exponentially after 35-40km

We'd probably see Remco do an Indurain performance and dust the field by 2-3 minutes (then likely lost that in a real mountain stage to the other aliens)

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

I'm a fan of TTT's because it is an interesting discipline, but not for GC. Imho, they should have TTT's with boniseconds and disregard the actual timedifferences. I don't even think at this point a TTT would be in Evenepoel's favor. What i don't understand though, is why every stage podium gets boniseconds, but ITT podium don't. So if you are only able to outclimb a rival by 2 seconds, you should be rewarded for that, but if you are able to outpace a rival in a TT by 2 seconds, tough luck. Makes no sense.

At this point i don't really think more TT's would favor Evenepoel that much. It's clear that in order to be able to come close to Vingegaard and Pogacar uphill, he should lose a bit more weight, but then the advantage in the TT's would shrink as well. I'm sure he'd be able to take 60s or more out of the other two in a 50k flat TT even when skinny, but in the grand scheme of things, that's likely not going to be a deciding factor.

I mean the obvious answer is bonus seconds, like the most aggressive rider award, are there to incentivize people to attack where they might otherwise role through as a group. It serves no such purpose in an ITT.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

the thing about 50-60km ITTs is, minutes not seconds are gained. The time differences really start to expand exponentially after 35-40km

We'd probably see Remco do an Indurain performance and dust the field by 2-3 minutes (then likely lost that in a real mountain stage to the other aliens)

I think that's optimistic. He gained 45s to Roglic in the '22 Vuelta over 31km. He gained 12s to Pogacar over 25km. Even if the latter TT would have been completely flat, that might increase the gap to 25-30s. There is no way he is going to expand that to 2-3 minutes over 50-60km imho. At least not at his optimal climbing weight.

I mean the obvious answer is bonus seconds, like the most aggressive rider award, are there to incentivize people to attack where they might otherwise role through as a group. It serves no such purpose in an ITT.

I understand that is where it originates from, but shouldn't stage victory be incentive enough? So how exactly does that change anything. People will sprint for victory, be it in the mountains or a flat stage. There are already many more mountainstages than TT's, so climbers are already at an advantage. Now the best mountain sprinter can gain roughly a minute just from boniseconds alone. For instance, Pog already has 52 and there is still a week to go. It's completely out of balance.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

Interesting. I'll be honest, I think it would be nuts for him to worry about anything but finishing well in this race. There are huge stages ahead. Hold your podium, finish your goals for the Tour. Then think about the Olympics.

My strong sense, especially with injury in Basque Country, is that he's been aiming his peak for the last week, then hoping to ride that peak into the Olympics.

I should have clarified. He's going to ride defensively, try to win the ITT on stage 21. He just needs to keep things simple to hold on the podium and white jersey,

 

[houtdffan]

I think that's optimistic. He gained 45s to Roglic in the '22 Vuelta over 31km. He gained 12s to Pogacar over 25km. Even if the latter TT would have been completely flat, that might increase the gap to 25-30s. There is no way he is going to expand that to 2-3 minutes over 50-60km imho. At least not at his optimal climbing weight.

Those distances are below where the gaps start to expand exponentially. As we saw in the WTT last year, it's really beyond 35-40km where the gaps just balloon. One you lose it in an ITT, you lose buckets really quickly