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

[Berniece]

I'd wager that MvP's World road win was the first...so maybe the 4th. Oh wait; Remco got dropped that day so is he out of a direct, but still uncomparable performance?

We are discussing climbing, and actual calculated w/kg and climb times. Not just random person saying this was the 3rd best performance...

But you saw Remco, and 3rd best performance and got red in front of your eyes

 

[Valv.Piti]

Tomorrow is a stage to try to claw some time back on Jonas for Remco.

Grande Remco!

 

[wheresmybrakes]

Tomorrow is a stage to try to claw some time back on Jonas for Remco.

Grande Remco!

He needs to go on the attack for that to happen. Is he going to put his 3rd place at risk with the stages we have in the next few days? I think he's happy with his 3rd at his first Tour.

 

[Didinho]

He’s not going to attack Vingo unless he’s seeing him struggle or have his bad day. And he would still just ride his own pace and see how much he can gain.

 

[Oldermanish]

We are discussing climbing, and actual calculated w/kg and climb times. Not just random person saying this was the 3rd best performance...

But you saw Remco, and 3rd best performance and got red in front of your eyes

So, how exactly was Pantani's w/kg calculated?

PS: I admire Remco and the red in the eyes only shows up when someone makes a convenient, prejudicial judgement.

 

[AmRacer]

He’s not going to attack Vingo unless he’s seeing him struggle or have his bad day. And he would still just ride his own pace and see how much he can gain.

Jonas has had his bad day already.

 

[Oldermanish]

What are you blabbering about? We are talking about climbs here.

Evenepoel did the best climbing performance of the 21st century, if not for those two guys who crushed him by 2 and 3 minutes.

The comparison was "best performance of this century". Never mind we're comparing them to a climb from another millennia.
I like the "blabbering" part. Never been accused of that but perhaps I lack your experience. And opinions.

 

[James M]

Want some candy?
These two have really embraced each other.When its properly nr 1 and 2 rider in the world its just really awesome!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1813266866514649311

View: https://x.com/LeTour/status/1813266866514649311

 

[NOT_NORMAL]

The comparison was "best performance of this century".

In the context of riding up a climb.

Never mind we're comparing them to a climb from another millennia.

We're doing both.

 

[AmRacer]

Want some candy?
These two have really embraced each other.When its properly nr 1 and 2 rider in the world its just really awesome!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1813266866514649311

View: https://x.com/LeTour/status/1813266866514649311

Candy? 🤔

 

[kingjr]

Candy? 🤔

Stuff with sugar in it

 

[The fridge in the blue trees]

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:

We are discussing climbing, and actual calculated w/kg and climb times. Not just random person saying this was the 3rd best performance...

But you saw Remco, and 3rd best performance and got red in front of your eyes

But VayaVayaVaya's point shows that calling it the third best performance of the 21st century is simply not what this data says.

Third best w/kg, okay, but that doesn't automatically make it the third best performance. Roglic lower w/kg on Lo Port, but he beat Remco . So sorry, Roglic's performance was better. in the end it's only 1 thing that counts, the time. Arensman's Monte Grappa, crazy numbers he said, but after gaining 2,5 kg during the Giro.... I hope nobody in his right mind would call it one of his best or possibly his best performance.
Be precise, third best w/kg performance of the 21st century, no objection there, but also don't care that much actually.

In the meantime I'll still consider other climbs, say Vingegaard Granon, as better.

Evenepoel was third Sunday, a hard stage that was ridden pretty much full gas the whole day, excellent performance, gained a minute on the next rider, almost 2 on the guy one further back. Excellent. But doesn't mean that he would have beaten Vingegaard on Granon. Or Loze. Or Pogacar on the way to Le Grand Bornand. The day they change the general classification to w/kg we can talk about it again, in the meantime he just did an excellent ride beaten by the 2 guys that for the moment are simply lightyears, or wattyears if you want above the rest.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

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."

Because 2010-2019 didn't have generational talents.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

He can but he needs to improve a lot to catch those two (and they can't improve at all).

There's an asymptotic ceiling on improvement the better you get the less room there is too improve, I'm not sure how much more Pogacar can improve at this point. He already looks like a skeleton. Remco is much thinner than he has been but he still has more weight to lose to look like a malnourished alien like Tadej and Jonas.

 

[NOT_NORMAL]

generational talents.

What's that?

 

[Valv.Piti]

What's that?

I suppose its riders that breaks the rules of what we think can be possible or at least simply are just more talented than their peers. Every sports has those unique characters - Michael Jordan, Leo Messi, Usain Bolt etc. Every 20th year or whatever, there comes this one guy that just kinda defies everything we know. During the 10's, I think we saw some relatively weak Tour winners to be fair and also at the back end of the 00's due to Operacion Puerto. I think the field lacked talent to some extent even though you obviously still had riders like Schleck, Evans, Nibali, Froome, Quintana and especially Contador, but none of these were particularly generational even though you can argue Contador had an absolutely great 07-11 run and Froome 13-18. But they doesn't have what Pog has, actually not even close.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

What are you blabbering about? We are talking about climbs here.

Evenepoel did the best climbing performance of the 21st century, if not for those two guys who crushed him by 2 and 3 minutes.

I have no idea why this continues to be parrotted as some sort of truth when it is incredibly disingenious and not even correct . Guess people are just going to ignore Basso on Mont Bondone in 2006.

It's not even the third best climbing performance of the last weekend, but somehow people can't even remember Pogacar's Pla D'Adet climbing performance where he broke the climbing record for Pla D'Adet by nearly two minutes.

 

[AmRacer]

I suppose its riders that breaks the rules of what we think can be possible or at least simply are just more talented than their peers. Every sports has those unique characters - Michael Jordan, Leo Messi, Usain Bolt etc. Every 20th year or whatever, there comes this one guy that just kinda defies everything we know. During the 10's, I think we saw some relatively weak Tour winners to be fair and also at the back end of the 00's due to Operacion Puerto. I think the field lacked talent to some extent even though you obviously still had riders like Schleck, Evans, Nibali, Froome, Quintana and especially Contador, but none of these were particularly generational even though you can argue Contador had an absolutely great 07-11 run and Froome 13-18. But they doesn't have what Pog has, actually not even close.

Regarding Teddy Merckx, you must go further back in time.

 

[NOT_NORMAL]

I suppose its riders that breaks the rules of what we think can be possible or at least simply are just more talented than their peers. Every sports has those unique characters - Michael Jordan, Leo Messi, Usain Bolt etc. Every 20th year or whatever, there comes this one guy that just kinda defies everything we know. During the 10's, I think we saw some relatively weak Tour winners to be fair and also at the back end of the 00's due to Operacion Puerto. I think the field lacked talent to some extent even though you obviously still had riders like Schleck, Evans, Nibali, Froome, Quintana and especially Contador, but none of these were particularly generational even though you can argue Contador had an absolutely great 07-11 run and Froome 13-18. But they doesn't have what Pog has, actually not even close.

So how many "generational talents" do we have at this point? 5? 6?

Were Armstrong and Pantani "generational talents"?

 

[NOT_NORMAL]

I have no idea why this continues to be parrotted as some sort of truth when it is incredibly disingenious and not even correct . Guess people are just going to ignore Basso on Mont Bondone in 2006.

It's not even the third best climbing performance of the last weekend, but somehow people can't even remember Pogacar's Pla D'Adet climbing performance where he broke the climbing record for Pla D'Adet by nearly two minutes.

It's based on the calculations of lanternerouge.com and nothing more than that.

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

Please keep up before you throw a hissy fit.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

What's that?

A talent that only comes around once in a generation. Ironically there are two currently. I do not count Jonas because he doesn't win important one day races.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

It's based on the calculations of lanternerouge.com and nothing more than that.

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

Please keep up before you throw a hissy fit.

Not my problem when you cannot read graphs from links that you post.

You literally said 3rd best climb of the 21st centruy and that is not true.

Do not not see the curve on the bottom graph and notice the blue dot that's way above the Remco dot?

That's literally far above Remco's performance for a longer time.

 

[Taxus4a]

It's based on the calculations of lanternerouge.com and nothing more than that.

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

Please keep up before you throw a hissy fit.

Maybe all that is true, but almedia is not one of the greaters climber of this era, whatever the numbers said.

Of course he is doing a very good Tour and he is climbing very well. He was quite far fron his team mate, but anyway a good performance if you look at history. It is one of the best performances of Landa for sure in numbers, but in terms of proportional level whenj he droped Contador at Finestre for me is another level. I dont compare con tador with Jonas or Pogacar, they are much better riders and climbers, but Contador should be at least as good climber as Evenepoel is today (he will improve, for sure, at least a little)

 

[NOT_NORMAL]

Not my problem when you cannot read graphs from links that you post.

You literally said 3rd best climb of the 21st centruy and that is not true.

Do not not see the curve on the bottom graph and notice the blue dot that's way above the Remco dot?

That's literally far above Remco's performance for a longer time.

I said that because that is what lanternerouge.com said:

Remco Evenepoel lost 2:51 min on a climb to Pogačar, but his performance still was the 23rd best of all-time as he pushed 6.53 ᵉW/Kg for 42:41, which for sea level normalised is 6.81 ᵉW/Kg. Evenepoel’s performance still is the third best in the 21st century. Pogačar’s Stage 14 effort on Pla d’Adet is the fourth best.

But I see your point about Basso and the graphic.

Maybe they didn't include Pogacar and Vingegaard's PdB ascents in that statement.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Want some candy?
These two have really embraced each other.When its properly nr 1 and 2 rider in the world its just really awesome!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1813266866514649311

View: https://x.com/LeTour/status/1813266866514649311

There's an asymptotic ceiling on improvement the better you get the less room there is too improve, I'm not sure how much more Pogacar can improve at this point. He already looks like a skeleton. Remco is much thinner than he has been but he still has more weight to lose to look like a malnourished alien like Tadej and Jonas.

I dunno...I would have agreed without seeing that photo that was posted immediately before, but Remco seems much more vascular. Probably just a quirk of Tadej's physiology, though.

I have no idea why this continues to be parrotted as some sort of truth when it is incredibly disingenious and not even correct . Guess people are just going to ignore Basso on Mont Bondone in 2006.

It's not even the third best climbing performance of the last weekend, but somehow people can't even remember Pogacar's Pla D'Adet climbing performance where he broke the climbing record for Pla D'Adet by nearly two minutes.

Exactly. People (fans of riders who are being exalted here) are blindly regurgitating this, forgetting a few things:

1. These are imperfect estimates
2. LR, as much as I like their podcast, have a history of sensationalism, particularly hyping certain riders
3. Context matters
4. Don't forget the eye test (as Taxus indicates below)
5. Winning matters!

Maybe all that is true, but almedia is not one of the greaters climber of this era, whatever the numbers said.

Of course he is doing a very good Tour and he is climbing very well. He was quite far fron his team mate, but anyway a good performance if you look at history. It is one of the best performances of Landa for sure in numbers, but in terms of proportional level whenj he droped Contador at Finestre for me is another level. I dont compare con tador with Jonas or Pogacar, they are much better riders and climbers, but Contador should be at least as good climber as Evenepoel is today (he will improve, for sure, at least a little)

Exactly. You can cite all the numbers you want, but you're not going to convince me that Landa, 9 years after he dropped Contador on Finestre, is a better climber now riding as pack fodder than he was then. Or that Almeida and Buitrago are suddenly better climbers than Roglic or than peak Froome or Contador or Lance.

I said that because that is what lanternerouge.com said:


But I see your point about Basso and the graphic.

Maybe they didn't include Pogacar and Vingegaard's PdB ascents in that statement.

They are conflating "best estimated watts/kilogram during a climb that LR has selected from the database for consideration" with "best performance." Winning matters. I'm prepared to admit that Pogacar might have had the best climbing performance (or as good as any) yesterday, but telling me getting third, down by 2.5 minutes, all in the last few kilometers is better than any of the stunning performances we've had all century, or even in the last 3 years? Come on. Maybe it has a higher watts/kg estimate using their assumptions and calculation, but it's not better, and Remco wouldn't have dominated the last 4 Tours.