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

[red_flanders]

It makes sense and completely normal to have discussion regarding him aswell dont get me wrong you missing my point and perception and the meaning behind my question.

Thanks, I think I do understand your point, maybe not the meaning behind it.

As for my part I dont agree I simply dont get why he is constantly put next to Pogacar as a focal point when thats not realistic, my part was more a question in relation to posts i constanly read everytime im here,than anything else, and the reason I asked, also because I admit my view might be skewed or wrong since I’m not here very often., see where im coming from and my view? hence the question

I'm not sure I see it as constant, and I'm in the thread quite a bit, so I question that premise. Subjective of course, YMMV.

Maybe it seems a bit that you come here to re-iterate over and over that he's not close to Pogacar. Seems like you really, really want to make that point. Fair, and also fair to say maybe he will be some day. We've certainly seen our share of transformations or surprising improvement in many riders over the years, not the least of whom is our friend Tadej. So why not Remco? He's closer that most, and he's the goal, so again I don't see why he wouldn't be the focal point of many comparisons.

To me, it seems like every time I am here, Pogacar is constantly positioned as the focal point in relation to Remco, in the sense he is the only guy he needs to overcome, when he in fact he isnt the closest rival to Remco even, get my point? More as in theres far more/reasonable better focal points to focus on as well. It was a sincere question.

I don't really see that, I think a lot of people just don't find Vingegaard very interesting to talk about. Maybe I'm projecting. He's boring personally. He really only rides GT's. He's conservative on the bike in many ways. Tadej is cool AF and attacks all the time, riding everything from Roubaix to the TdF. He's tons more interesting, and he's the best. So of course he's the focal point.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Here's the reality as I can find it:
2025 Tour l'Avenir Stage 5 to Tignes:
Won: Jarno Widar, Sextas 2nd and 3 others within 8 seconds & overall time of 3:34:48
Distance: 121 km
Vertical: 3,864 meters

2021 Tour Stage 18 to Col De Portet:
Won: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vindegaard 3 seconds behind & overall time of 3:33:45
Distance: 178.4 km
Vertical: 4,375 meters

So how are these two efforts remotely comparable? Tadej and Jonas in a contentious stage 18, 57km longer, more vertical of 511 and an overall time of a minute faster are pretty much what my of incomparable events.

And from those disparate races you suggest that Pogacar in 2021 is somehow related to Pogacar 2025 and the new kids are better...

Amazing.

 

[houtdffan]

So basically Rogla and Remco fans will argue on who should do the Giro? Crazy. Just send them both.

send rogla and Lipo to the TDF, I mean world climbing championships, then

I'd love for Remco to sweep the worlds this year and tell Gouvenou and Guillen to F right off. Prudhomme has to do something at that point, or his job as director du cyclisme of ASO becomes in danger

 

[Berniece]

send rogla and Lipo to the TDF, I mean world climbing championships, then

I'd love for Remco to sweep the worlds this year and tell Gouvenou and Guillen to F right off. Prudhomme has to do something at that point, or his job as director du cyclisme of ASO becomes in danger

I think RBH will send Evenepoel to the TDF no matter the course. Not to mention Evenepoel probably wants to ride a normal and long spring campaign which works better with TDF than Giro

 

[Berniece]

According to HLN the team for WC will be as follows:

1. Evenepoel (SOQ, ITT/RR)
2. Van Wilder (SOQ, ITT/RR)
3. Uijtdebroeks (Visma, RR)
4. Benoot (Visma, RR)
5. Campenaerts (Visma, RR)
6. F. Vermeersch (UAE, ITT/RR)
7. Q. Hermans (ADC, RR)
8. Meurisse (ADC, RR)

I don't understand why you would bring Hermans or Meurisse instead of Vervaeke. The rest seems logical to me knowing WVA is too tired, Van Gils doesn't want to make the trip, and Wellens cares more about Pogacar than his country.

“Met deze ploeg kunnen we voor nieuwe trui gaan”: dit is de WK-ploeg rond Evenepoel, met drie debutanten

Bondscoach Serge Pauwels heeft zijn achtkoppige selectie voor het WK wielrennen in Kigali bekendgemaakt. Kopman <a href="https://www.hln.be/dossier/remco-evenepoel~d778b588c-e8d5-4568-bd82-bef6ca4a745d/" target="_blank">Remco Evenepoel</a> wordt onder meer omringd door debutanten Ilan Van...

www.hln.be

 

[aruipksni]

why he is still racing now?
he is leading Soudal in TBN again?
he probably is just going to watch himself even more this time.
(i guess there will be some rain)

 

[AmRacer]

why he is still racing now?
he is leading Soudal in TBN again?
he probably is just going to watch himself even more this time.
(i guess there will be some rain)

He probably needs this before other upcoming races.

 

[Berflamand]

According to HLN the team for WC will be as follows:

1. Evenepoel (SOQ, ITT/RR)
2. Van Wilder (SOQ, ITT/RR)
3. Uijtdebroeks (Visma, RR)
4. Benoot (Visma, RR)
5. Campenaerts (Visma, RR)
6. F. Vermeersch (UAE, ITT/RR)
7. Q. Hermans (ADC, RR)
8. Meurisse (ADC, RR)

I don't understand why you would bring Hermans or Meurisse instead of Vervaeke. The rest seems logical to me knowing WVA is too tired, Van Gils doesn't want to make the trip, and Wellens cares more about Pogacar than his country.

“Met deze ploeg kunnen we voor nieuwe trui gaan”: dit is de WK-ploeg rond Evenepoel, met drie debutanten

Bondscoach Serge Pauwels heeft zijn achtkoppige selectie voor het WK wielrennen in Kigali bekendgemaakt. Kopman <a href="https://www.hln.be/dossier/remco-evenepoel~d778b588c-e8d5-4568-bd82-bef6ca4a745d/" target="_blank">Remco Evenepoel</a> wordt onder meer omringd door debutanten Ilan Van...

www.hln.be

This has been confirmed.

I'm also mostly surprised by the exclusion of Vervaeke, especially since he's supposed to be close to Evenepoel (but maybe something changed between them after Remco's transfer to Bora).

 

[Berniece]

This has been confirmed.

I'm also mostly surprised by the exclusion of Vervaeke, especially since he's supposed to be close to Evenepoel (but maybe something changed between them after Remco's transfer to Bora).

And he was riding quite attractively in the Vuelta and seemed to be in good form. Was also normally going to TDF. I don't think something changed between them, it's just Pauwels that thinks other riders might be better suited.

 

[Berniece]

Tour of Britain pre-race interview

"Gaan niet in oorlog uit elkaar": Remco Evenepoel blikt voor Tour of Britain - waar hij "over de rooie wil gaan" - terug op transfer | sporza

Na een redelijk turbulente periode kan de focus van Remco Evenepoel opnieuw op het sportieve. Voor de start van de Tour of Britain kwam Evenepoel wel nog even terug op de bekendmaking van zijn transfer naar Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.

sporza.be

 

[CyclistAbi]

send rogla and Lipo to the TDF

This indeed is an interesting conundrum.

 

[Berflamand]

He took his TT bike with him to Britain and he's training some more after the stages (at least today but I guess he didn't bring the TT bike for only one training).

 

[houtdffan]

This indeed is an interesting conundrum.

it's an easy decision. No ITT = no remco. He'd be wasting his time

 

[Berniece]

He took his TT bike with him to Britain and he's training some more after the stages (at least today but I guess he didn't bring the TT bike for only one training).

He mentioned 3 stages that were relatively short and with only a transfer of 40km’s.

 

[red_flanders]

it's an easy decision. No ITT = no remco. He'd be wasting his time

It's a fair point WRT individual stage wins, it decreases the interest for him. But WRT winning GT's, the TT's of today really have almost zero impact. You have to win in the mountains. TT's have been devalued to uselessness.

 

[houtdffan]

It's a fair point WRT individual stage wins, it decreases the interest for him. But WRT winning GT's, the TT's of today really have almost zero impact. You have to win in the mountains. TT's have been devalued to uselessness.

which is why if the giro has a 2024 course that has a legit amount of TT, he needs to race there. 75km of flat ITT can make a big difference

 

[red_flanders]

which is why if the giro has a 2024 course that has a legit amount of TT, he needs to race there. 75km of flat ITT can make a big difference

Sure, but that's unfortunately the exception these days. I thought the discussion was about the Tour. Even if there's minimal ITT, it's going to be a goal for him.

 

[houtdffan]

Sure, but that's unfortunately the exception these days. I thought the discussion was about the Tour. Even if there's minimal ITT, it's going to be a goal for him.

the rumors are NO ITT. Only a TTT and an MTT

 

[red_flanders]

the rumors are NO ITT. Only a TTT and an MTT

Well can't say I'm a fan, but I don't think it changes anything for him. TTT will be cool, and the MTT is an ITT of sorts. Anyway. It'll be won in the mountains.

 

[peterfin]

It's a fair point WRT individual stage wins, it decreases the interest for him. But WRT winning GT's, the TT's of today really have almost zero impact. You have to win in the mountains. TT's have been devalued to uselessness.

It's sad. The believe must be that race becomes more interesting because TTs are "boring" but you get the opposite. Hard and long mountain climbs is all about the watt/kg edge. If you have a clear edge it becomes easy to gain minutes and win the race. A good balance with TTs bring others in the game too with different qualities.

Due to the focus on watt/kg you get all kinds of optimizations on the edge and surely also over the edge (clinic stuff) because you are basically guaranteed to win if you control that part. It was already an issue when Armstrong was controlling the game and I fear that it just got worse ...

But back to Remco. If he wants to win the TdF some day, becoming better and more consistent at climbing should be his focus. A TT win is just a nice extra, nothing more.

 

[Prim]

WRT?

 

[red_flanders]

WRT?

With Regard To

 

[houtdffan]

with how the TT is dying, maybe the UCI needs to drop the WTT as it is simply not relevant to the sport any longer

 

[Extinction]

It's sad. The believe must be that race becomes more interesting because TTs are "boring" but you get the opposite. Hard and long mountain climbs is all about the watt/kg edge. If you have a clear edge it becomes easy to gain minutes and win the race. A good balance with TTs bring others in the game too with different qualities.

Due to the focus on watt/kg you get all kinds of optimizations on the edge and surely also over the edge (clinic stuff) because you are basically guaranteed to win if you control that part. It was already an issue when Armstrong was controlling the game and I fear that it just got worse ...

But back to Remco. If he wants to win the TdF some day, becoming better and more consistent at climbing should be his focus. A TT win is just a nice extra, nothing more.

I think they, the race designers, did it when the difference uphill between pure climbers and TTers who were also GC candidates, became practically nill or even tipped in favor of the latter types, starting with Indurain, but culminating with Armstrong, who could annihilate the race on the first MTF and then crush the TT and it was over. Consequenty, I think the rational on the part of the race designers was, we gotta curtail the TT distances to keep the climbers in the game, which at the time seemed reasonable. Today, however, to make the GTs interesting again, given that 30 guys ride up mountains at speeds which in the past only half that number or less could do, it's time to bring back those two 50/50+ TTs of old to try and compensate for the over-dominance in the mountains of Pogacar and Vingegaard. It would actually be interesting, and I would now say even necessary to maintain interest over three weeks, to see the time differences two long TTs would generate, rather than everything skewed in favor of mountain performances. However, I'm not saying make it mountains-light, no, keep the uphill aspect as it is, just bring back those long TTs to balance things out and make it more interesting to follow. What the Tour in particular has evolved into is a watts per kilo competition in the mountains amongst superteams, for which riders have gotten lighter and lighter to try and raise the bar, while pushing performance and ethical limits to an extreme. This is another reason to bring back two 50+ km TTs on flat to rolling terrain, which would doubtless drive the team performance managers crazy, but force the riders to have to physically adapt to the different challenge if they don't want to risk their GC.

 

[Berflamand]

I'm not sure if it's smart and it should probably be taken with a large grain of salt but Pauwels has already revealed some details about Belgium's game plan for the upcoming WC: https://www.hln.be/wielrennen/slech...ach-over-het-strijdplan-voor-kigali~a5a31d39/

Surprise, surprise, it's all centered around Pogacar and how to (try to) beat him.

Florian Vermeersch needs to control the first 160km basically on his own. The other 7 riders will be spared as much as possible until Mount Kigali. There it all depends on what Pogacar does.

In an ideal scenario all 7 riders make it over Mount Kigali in the first group(s) but that only happens if Pogacar doesn't attack.

If Pogacar does attack on Mount Kigali only Remco and Cian are allowed to (try to) respond. All other riders need to try to stay together to be able to work together after the climb. They can't make the same mistake as last year where they all tried to close the gap with Pogacar one by one and got burnt out too quickly.

If Pogacar doesn't get away on Mount Kigali or gets caught shortly afterwards, a new race starts but no details have been disclosed about the game plan in that scenario.

Pauwels seems to be looking at Denmark as possible ally to control the race and to try to contain Pogacar. Apparently he has already spoken several times about the WC with Morkov.