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

[VayaVayaVaya]

Ridiculous if you think about it. Third best performance of the 21st century. Third best performance of July 14th 2024.

I am by no means here to knock Remco, who is performing extremely well and would certainly be capable of winning many of the GTs this century, no doubt. But doesn’t it give any pause to see that these are the top 3 performances of the century, all on the same day, and the top 3 beat Pantani’s record, top 10 faster than Lance, and on and on. Like sure, one anomalous performance, two, OK, but three, four, five, ten? I think they are outrageously good but it seems like the fact that ALL of these guys rode so fast indicates that maybe there is something else going on here. Are they really all better than Lance? Remco can’t even consistently outclimb Roglic, who barely beat an old G in the last Tour, who was Froome’s domestique. It just doesn’t totally make sense, but maybe that’s just me.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Only Remco can improve on his best performance ever. Got it. 🙄

Could you please point out where i said this or implied this. If not, please don't make sht up i didn't say, thx.

 

[Moose McKnuckles]

But for Pog and Vingo's times, people would be losing their shaite over Remco smashing Pantani's time in his first TdF. While I was excited to see Remco's potential here, I admit some skepticism over his ability to stay with the best in the high mountains at the Tour. He's answered that. I don't think Roglic could have stayed with Remco on Sunday.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

But for Pog and Vingo's times, people would be losing their shaite over Remco smashing Pantani's time in his first TdF. While I was excited to see Remco's potential here, I admit some skepticism over his ability to stay with the best in the high mountains at the Tour. He's answered that. I don't think Roglic could have stayed with Remco on Sunday.

It's reasonable to see someone break Pantani's time 25 years later when looking at advances in the bikes as well as nutrition.

It's not unreasonable that one of the best cycling talent of the last 25 years or more who can climb would beat Pantani's time by 1.6% over a 25 year span in constrast to Jonas who beat Pantani's time by 5.86%
and Tadej who beat it by 8.46%. Figures that should be analyzed against a variety of factors such length of course, wind currents, peloton speed prior to the final climb, along with stage number number of climbing stages and miles travelled to date.

To get a detailed analysis you would need to look at recorded versions of the TDF and assess trends of improvement to factor correlation as well as statistical deviations for all these factors.

This doesn't even get things that are harder to assess like communication on the bike and moto/car pacing and nutritional analysis.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

I am by no means here to knock Remco, who is performing extremely well and would certainly be capable of winning many of the GTs this century, no doubt. But doesn’t it give any pause to see that these are the top 3 performances of the century, all on the same day, and the top 3 beat Pantani’s record, top 10 faster than Lance, and on and on. Like sure, one anomalous performance, two, OK, but three, four, five, ten? I think they are outrageously good but it seems like the fact that ALL of these guys rode so fast indicates that maybe there is something else going on here. Are they really all better than Lance? Remco can’t even consistently outclimb Roglic, who barely beat an old G in the last Tour, who was Froome’s domestique. It just doesn’t totally make sense, but maybe that’s just me.

Evenpoel has 2 climbing performances in the top 40 of all time. Roglic has none.

The fact that many climbed that fast is undoubtedly related to the pace the first part of the climb. The fact that Pogacar beat it by so much is undoubtedly related by the fact that he had a domestique de luxe in Vingegaard who further paced him into the final 5k. The stage was long, hard and also raced hard early on. I have not heard of super tailwinds, but i may be mistaken. I don't suppose half of the peloton had a blood transfusion overnight or was riding with motors.

 

[Oldermanish]

I am by no means here to knock Remco, who is performing extremely well and would certainly be capable of winning many of the GTs this century, no doubt. But doesn’t it give any pause to see that these are the top 3 performances of the century, all on the same day, and the top 3 beat Pantani’s record, top 10 faster than Lance, and on and on. Like sure, one anomalous performance, two, OK, but three, four, five, ten? I think they are outrageously good but it seems like the fact that ALL of these guys rode so fast indicates that maybe there is something else going on here. Are they really all better than Lance? Remco can’t even consistently outclimb Roglic, who barely beat an old G in the last Tour, who was Froome’s domestique. It just doesn’t totally make sense, but maybe that’s just me.

Part of it was the absolutely rabid setup by domestiques to bring back the break. A concerted effort by several teams and the guys that "beat" a record achieved largely solo by Pantani got pretty much launched into the last 5km. That they saw their best "numbers" was a product of continuing that setup without holding strategic reserves. Tadej just attacked and paid attention to his redline, Jonas found and went beyond his and lost unnecessary time in the last km because of it. Again, they're looking at pulse rate/watt output...the speed top to bottom was established for them and they countered. Remco stayed right where his computer told him to because he was maxxed out. Maxxed out means your greatest output.

The takeaway is that the top guys (and others) had the stage set for them to apply their best efforts with strategy being irrelevant as the #2, #3 riders were all riding individually to not lose time. It seems only Jonas went beyond what was perfect but this sort of climbing situation is rare.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Why is that reasonable? Because they didn't come even close to such records just 5 years ago. Nevermind breaking it by 3+ minutes. If you had told people in 2019 that in 5 years, riders would climb 5-10% faster than Pantani, you would have been ridiculed. But now it is suddenly "reasonable".

2010-2019: 10% slower than Pantani.

2024: 10% faster than Pantani.

"Better nutrition."

Since you are a new account, with a name like the slogan used by a twitter nutjob who sees himself as a doping investigator, and before you take your line of reasoning any further, you should know that the insinuation you are making aren't tolerated by the admins and mods in this part of the forum. You'll probably be better off reading/posting the clinic section of the forum, which is entirely doping related.

If you already knew that, sorry to impose. But better safe than sorry.

 

[BigCoward]

Ridiculous if you think about it. Third best performance of the 21st century. Third best performance of July 14th 2024.

Reminds me of Rai Benjamin after the Olympics 400m hurdles. 'If you would have told me I would run 46.1 and lose, I would probably beat you up'.

 

[bNator]

Vingegaard confirmed this was his single best performance ever. Pogacar the same. It's Pog's 5th Tour. It's Vingegaard's 4th Tour. It's Evenepoel's first. His performance was better than any of Pogacar's and Vingegaard's other performances ever before.

Where did you get that idea?

 

[Berniece]

Where did you get that idea?

Because it was the third best performance of this century

 

[Salvarani]

Reminds me of Rai Benjamin after the Olympics 400m hurdles. 'If you would have told me I would run 46.1 and lose, I would probably beat you up'.

Probably how Remco feels or thinks atm as well.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Where did you get that idea?

From assuming Pogacar at age 1 and Vingegaard at age 3 didn't perform better.

Evenepoel’s performance still is the third best in the 21st century.

Greatest Climbing Performances Of All-Time on Plateau de Beille | Tour de France 2024 Stage 15 - Lanterne Rouge

Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard both did the best and second-best climbing performance of all time on the Plateau de Beille climb, making this the greatest climbing stage of all time.

lanternerouge.com

Vingegaard already confirmed those numbers to be shockingly accurate, so i assume those guys have some basic idea of what they are doing.

 

[stekelegel]

With so many "best" performances, there probably is a case that the circumstances (wind, temprature) were ideal on sunday. Maybe even the road had been renovated? And riders like Remco but also Pogacar riding their best GT ever. For me, the best ever Vingegard ride was last years ITT, but he is getting carried along to.
You could also make a case that Remco is a lot more an established rider vs tour debuts of Pogacar and Vingegard. He has won Spain. He was leading Italy before Covid. Everybody who has been following cycling the last years knows that Remco is capable of incredible rides on his day but question marks are / were can he do it fo 3 weeks on the biggest stage of all?
So I think Remco is in a good place right now, and can build for the future.

And sometimes it just happens that great athletes spur the other on to new heights. I was lucky to watch Carl Lewis and Mike Powell jump against each other in Tokio. It was not an accident that the two best long jump performances came in the same game.

 

[red_flanders]

My opinion is worthless, so just ignore it.

Just trying to make sense of it. Opine away.

 

[red_flanders]

He needs to try for the next step but the stages don't favor him if the status quo is maintained. Back to Jonas; he may be approaching a limit for his post-crash preparation that would allow Remco space to regain some time. There is no incentive for UAE and Pogacar to pursue Remco, particularly if it puts the fork into Visma's remaining options. He's at this Tour to find his limits and he's managed well, so far.

I think he should get through the onslaught of those two mutants with as little energy spent as possible and try and win the second TT.

 

[red_flanders]

I am by no means here to knock Remco, who is performing extremely well and would certainly be capable of winning many of the GTs this century, no doubt. But doesn’t it give any pause to see that these are the top 3 performances of the century, all on the same day, and the top 3 beat Pantani’s record, top 10 faster than Lance, and on and on. Like sure, one anomalous performance, two, OK, but three, four, five, ten? I think they are outrageously good but it seems like the fact that ALL of these guys rode so fast indicates that maybe there is something else going on here. Are they really all better than Lance? Remco can’t even consistently outclimb Roglic, who barely beat an old G in the last Tour, who was Froome’s domestique. It just doesn’t totally make sense, but maybe that’s just me.

It seems fairly obvious this is the best form we’ve seen from Remco and he timed it really well, getting stronger into the latter bit of the race. Roglic had a good day on stage11 and still crashed. Fatigue? Seems like a potential contributor. Maybe not. He hung on for stage 9, Would have easily been taken out of the race on stage 4 had UAE or Visma been remotely worried about him. Looked rough on stage 2. Remco has been on the front and at the sharp end the entire race, whenever it mattered.

That there’s something going on seems clear, but tangential.

 

[AmRacer]

With so many "best" performances, there probably is a case that the circumstances (wind, temprature) were ideal on sunday. Maybe even the road had been renovated? And riders like Remco but also Pogacar riding their best GT ever. For me, the best ever Vingegard ride was last years ITT, but he is getting carried along to.
You could also make a case that Remco is a lot more an established rider vs tour debuts of Pogacar and Vingegard. He has won Spain. He was leading Italy before Covid. Everybody who has been following cycling the last years knows that Remco is capable of incredible rides on his day but question marks are / were can he do it fo 3 weeks on the biggest stage of all?
So I think Remco is in a good place right now, and can build for the future.

And sometimes it just happens that great athletes spur the other on to new heights. I was lucky to watch Carl Lewis and Mike Powell jump against each other in Tokio. It was not an accident that the two best long jump performances came in the same game.

Pogi is lot more an established rider vs Giro debuts of Remco.

 

[bNator]

@Berniece & @Logic-is-your-friend
Maybe I am misinterpreting these charts but aren't both Pogacar's Pla d'Adet (by a very slim margin) and Simon Yates' Blatten both higher above the purple line in the first chart of lanetrnerouge analysis than Remco's Beille, making Remco's performance 5th in 2024 only? So how come the article claims it's 3rd best in 21st century?

Furthermore, even though Vingegaard claims the numbers are accurate for this climb, the numbers of other climbs that they are being compared with might have been inaccurate. And what is shockingly accurate? Is it 1%, 2%, 5%?
5% is the difference between Vingegaard and Remco in Beille.

I simply cannot accept Remco being 3 minutes down is still 3rd best performance in 21st century. No disrespect to Remco, he's done a fantastic job this Tour and exceeded my expectations for him by miles, but it's not possible, it makes no sense....

 

[Berniece]

I simply cannot accept Remco being 3 minutes down is still 3rd best performance in 21st century. No disrespect to Remco, he's done a fantastic job this Tour and exceeded my expectations for him by miles, but it's not possible, it makes no sense....

You don't have to accept it, but that's not really logical.

• Riders have been breaking more and more records the past few years.
• Vingegaard claims this was his best ride ever
• This is the biggest race in the world, so everyone is at their best
• Materials have been better
• Nutrition is much better

Combination of all those things makes it make sense that a rider that is in his best shape ever, now also has the 3rd best performance of this century.

On reading the graph, those other two are in a much shorter time frame. The longer the climbing, the harder it gets, so I would see the performance of Remco as more impressive.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Evenpoel has 2 climbing performances in the top 40 of all time. Roglic has none.

The fact that many climbed that fast is undoubtedly related to the pace the first part of the climb. The fact that Pogacar beat it by so much is undoubtedly related by the fact that he had a domestique de luxe in Vingegaard who further paced him into the final 5k. The stage was long, hard and also raced hard early on. I have not heard of super tailwinds, but i may be mistaken. I don't suppose half of the peloton had a blood transfusion overnight or was riding with motors.

You realize that one of those 2 is Evenepoel's performance on Lo Port when he was beaten by Roglic, right? Does that seem like the best evidence to cite? To me that undercuts this whole, "top 3 greatest performances ever" narrative: The curators who are defining this are selective, biased, making assumptions and decisions in their model, and incentivized to sell hard.

It seems fairly obvious this is the best form we’ve seen from Remco and he timed it really well, getting stronger into the latter bit of the race. Roglic had a good day on stage11 and still crashed. Fatigue? Seems like a potential contributor. Maybe not. He hung on for stage 9, Would have easily been taken out of the race on stage 4 had UAE or Visma been remotely worried about him. Looked rough on stage 2. Remco has been on the front and at the sharp end the entire race, whenever it mattered.

That there’s something going on seems clear, but tangential.

Sure, although I'd point out that Remco is 5 minutes down on Pogacar despite winning the ITT, so "sharp end" is a bit of a stretch." Regardless, I'm not sure how Roglic's rocky start undercuts my skepticism that suddenly the top 10 or so would all beat Lance in 2000 and Contador in 2007. It almost makes me think this picture is a bit too simplistic...

@Berniece & @Logic-is-your-friend
Maybe I am misinterpreting these charts but aren't both Pogacar's Pla d'Adet (by a very slim margin) and Simon Yates' Blatten both higher above the purple line in the first chart of lanetrnerouge analysis than Remco's Beille, making Remco's performance 5th in 2024 only? So how come the article claims it's 3rd best in 21st century?

Furthermore, even though Vingegaard claims the numbers are accurate for this climb, the numbers of other climbs that they are being compared with might have been inaccurate. And what is shockingly accurate? Is it 1%, 2%, 5%?
5% is the difference between Vingegaard and Remco in Beille.

I simply cannot accept Remco being 3 minutes down is still 3rd best performance in 21st century. No disrespect to Remco, he's done a fantastic job this Tour and exceeded my expectations for him by miles, but it's not possible, it makes no sense....

Exactly. We're really supposed to believe that Remco being absolutely obliterated is "better" than anything that Lance, Contador, Basso, Froome, Roglic, Vingegaard (until this Tour when he is barely recovered from an extremely bad crash), and Pogacar (until this Tour) have ever done?

To be clear, I'm not referencing The Clinic, which I know how to find. I am more speculating regarding:

• Biased analysis & reporting
• Unreported / unacknowledged factors that explain consistently high performances across the top 10; I have no idea if any of these are relevant, but a non-exhaustive list of factors could include:
  • Weather conditions
  • Road surface
  • Changes in the start or finish
  • The way the race was ridden
  • The way previous top performances on the climb were ridden (I know Contador and Rasmussen did a series of sprints and recoveries, which indicates they could have certainly gone faster)
  • Impact of motorcycles

 

[scribers]

Add advances in training to the mix of factors. Clearly if pogi can add this much capacity to his form by switching coaches, this is the next level area everyone will be attending to. Would love to have sola’s resume right now.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Wind resistance should be included as a factor in those calculations, so that is possible if Evenepoel rode more on the front.

Ok where do we draw the line? What about relative cda? Shouldn’t that be factored in though? Maybe we should make an assumption on reserves leftover?

 

[peterfin]

You realize that one of those 2 is Evenepoel's performance on Lo Port when he was beaten by Roglic, right? Does that seem like the best evidence to cite? To me that undercuts this whole, "top 3 greatest performances ever" narrative: The curators who are defining this are selective, biased, making assumptions and decisions in their model, and incentivized to sell hard.

Sure, although I'd point out that Remco is 5 minutes down on Pogacar despite winning the ITT, so "sharp end" is a bit of a stretch." Regardless, I'm not sure how Roglic's rocky start undercuts my skepticism that suddenly the top 10 or so would all beat Lance in 2000 and Contador in 2007. It almost makes me think this picture is a bit too simplistic...

Exactly. We're really supposed to believe that Remco being absolutely obliterated is "better" than anything that Lance, Contador, Basso, Froome, Roglic, Vingegaard (until this Tour when he is barely recovered from an extremely bad crash), and Pogacar (until this Tour) have ever done?

To be clear, I'm not referencing The Clinic, which I know how to find. I am more speculating regarding:

• Biased analysis & reporting
• Unreported / unacknowledged factors that explain consistently high performances across the top 10; I have no idea if any of these are relevant, but a non-exhaustive list of factors could include:
  • Weather conditions
  • Road surface
  • Changes in the start or finish
  • The way the race was ridden
  • The way previous top performances on the climb were ridden (I know Contador and Rasmussen did a series of sprints and recoveries, which indicates they could have certainly gone faster)
  • Impact of motorcycles

Today we have more data and that helps of course but why would his 2 top 40 results be just because of biased reporting and conditions? Most of those you reference had a whole career of climbing so are statistically in a better spot to have perfect conditions. Material, nutrition ... these things probably make a difference vs Lance, Basso and the like, maybe offsetting even their use of illegal substances, so comparisons are difficult accross generations. So I think his top 3 spot is justified vs the current pro peloton. It looks marginal vs some other performances so we can also fairly say that Remco did great and is the first of the 'humans'.

 

[bNator]

You don't have to accept it, but that's not really logical.

• Riders have been breaking more and more records the past few years.
• Vingegaard claims this was his best ride ever
• This is the biggest race in the world, so everyone is at their best
• Materials have been better
• Nutrition is much better

Combination of all those things makes it make sense that a rider that is in his best shape ever, now also has the 3rd best performance of this century.

On reading the graph, those other two are in a much shorter time frame. The longer the climbing, the harder it gets, so I would see the performance of Remco as more impressive.

Re 1st bold part: It may be so, that this was Vingegaards best ride ever but still, for Remco's ride to be 3rd bestin 21st century, this would have to be Vingegaards best ride by at least 5% (!!). So more than 5% better than Granon, more than 5% better than Combloux, more than 5% better than anything else he has done this Tour... I don't buy it. They are making a mistake somewhere with their calculations. I can't prove anything, of course, but neither can they. As @VayaVayaVaya mentioned, there are far to many variables for these calculations to be accurate.

Re 2nd bold part: I think the purpose of inverted curve is to normalise efforts of different durations. Absolute numbers don't matter, what matters is their relative position to the inverted curve. And here, those 2 efforts that I mentioned are higher relative to the inverted curve not just in absolute terms. But this was already explained by @NOT_NORMAL, it's the altitude corrected values. Which again is tricky - what they should be correcting against is the air pressure...

Oh, and regarding better materials: these should also be compensated in calulations if they are using rider power output as their performance quantifier.

 

[Berniece]

Re 1st bold part: It may be so, that this was Vingegaards best ride ever but still, for Remco's ride to be 3rd bestin 21st century, this would have to be Vingegaards best ride by at least 5% (!!). So more than 5% better than Granon, more than 5% better than Combloux, more than 5% better than anything else he has done this Tour... I don't buy it. They are making a mistake somewhere with their calculations. I can't prove anything, of course, but neither can they. As @VayaVayaVaya mentioned, there are far to many variables for these calculations to be accurate.

Re 2nd bold part: I think the purpose of inverted curve is to normalise efforts of different durations. Absolute numbers don't matter, what matters is their relative position to the inverted curve. And here, those 2 efforts that I mentioned are higher relative to the inverted curve not just in absolute terms.

Then you can join VayaVayaVaya in the "they are biased"-camp if that makes you feel better. If you don't have an explanation on why they are incorrect besides "I don't believe it", then you don't really have anything.

Doubt we would have this discussion if Roglic was still in the Tour and finished together with Remco. Which I think he would've btw.