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

[Red Rick]

His obsession with the Tour, while skipping big classics like MSR or RVV, is really astonishing. He's more like a natural one-day racer than a stage-racer. I suppose his teams have dictated his schedule a lot but a rider of his calibre should have a lot to say, shouldn't he?

I can't tell if it's TdF obsession or just dodgemaxxing.

 

[Berniece]

His obsession with the Tour, while skipping big classics like MSR or RVV, is really astonishing. He's more like a natural one-day racer than a stage-racer. I suppose his teams have dictated his schedule a lot but a rider of his calibre should have a lot to say, shouldn't he?

It’s even more silly not to do both. It’s spring, TDF is in 3 months…

 

[Unchained]

Remco rode a great race today in every way. Didn't do anything crazy dramatic to try and either make time or cancel his deficit. He did a fantastic dual role as teammate and rolled with some economy not to burn himself up for no reason unnecessarily. He was also consistent, when he got near his outer range, and there was a pulse in tempo or just increased speed he couldn't respond, and staying consistent, once he has something to push against, something to chase, he settles down and gets to work either controlling the gap to not get bigger, or he nibbles back some time.. When Vingegaard stood up, Remco wasn't coming with.. Lipowitz and Martinez didn't want to either but there are no options.. Those 2 just chasing Jonas helplessly did wonders for their GC.
.Today's real winner- loser is Ciccone, guy raced brilliantly, he pulled out all the stops to try and make something happen, ultimately it didn't work out but he strengthened his legs and mind by turning himself inside out trying to make it happen.. Impressive work.

 

[Sciatic]

If there's one rider in the world who can follow Pogacar on these climbs, it's Evenepoel. His only problem will be positioning.

It's been said before but it's a bit painful to see someone with the level of talent that Evenepoel has, wasting it on something he's reasonably good at... but not great. And he can be really great in Flanders, I'm convinced of that.

The type of climbs suit him, but isn’t it true he hasn’t shown himself on those kind of cobbles?

 

[vappa]

Evenepoels positioning isn't the worst. He's no Roglic or something. Plus a race with a lot of hard riding on flats should be right up his alley. It's not like he was bad in the Paris Olympics.

When they reached Montmartre there was 50 guys in the peloton, not 150. The climbs were also much easier than in Flanders. If he's not in top 20 at least on the bottom of 2nd Oude Kwaremont, he'll be chasing alone at least until Taaienberg, that's more than 15km

 

[CyclistAbi]

I hate to say it, but if Roglic shows up in Itzulia, I’d take him to the Tour and deprioritize Remco for that race.

If the idea is to start winning at the highest level then they need each other.

As for the ride Remco and RBH did today, that was solid ride.

 

[James M]

Also factor in regarding RVV, its much more about max power + repeated anaerobic spikes than long steady-state efforts. Remcos biggest trait is aero power efficiency, not raw punch.

All that beeing said im im the same boat as those thinking he can potentially do very well in RVV for sure.

 

[peterfin]

His obsession with the Tour, while skipping big classics like MSR or RVV, is really astonishing. He's more like a natural one-day racer than a stage-racer. I suppose his teams have dictated his schedule a lot but a rider of his calibre should have a lot to say, shouldn't he?

He actually wanted to ride MSR and RVV. It was on his list. RBH decided against it to build up slowly to be top at the TdF this year.

 

[Red Rick]

Also factor in regarding RVV, its much more about max power + repeated anaerobic spikes than long steady-state efforts. Remcos biggest trait is aero power efficiency, not raw punch.

All that beeing said im im the same boat as those thinking he can potentially do very well in RVV for sure.

It's about the repetitions, which in turn is heavily down to aerobic ability and recovery on flat sections.

Evenepoel very easily beat Van Aert in Fleche Brabanconne last year on a parcours that is somewhat on an Amstel lite parcours with some cobbled hills thrown in there.

 

[Oldman]

Clinic issues aside, look at how Armstrong and Froome changed their bodies and transformed themselves to win multiple Tours, but they weren't facing Pogacar and Vingegaard. Sky use to put it as "being put through the citrus press" in training or something like that. What you're talking about ultimately is raising his anaerobic threshold, to be able to handle paces he now cannot and then attack or counter-attack. To do this, if it even can be done, he needs to undergo the kind of physical transformation that Armstrong and Froome went through during their careers (again, clinical issues aside). It will not be easy for him, mentally or physically.

In today's Catalunya stage he appeared to undertake the kind of effort that would help raise those thresholds. He managed to thin the GC frontrunners down to six riders with a little help from the Bahrain rider. This was a varied terrain effort for nearly 40km before Vingo, then Martinez and Lipo left him with about 3km to go. Martinez and Lipo are judged to be better climbers yet Remco didn't just give in. In spite of the previous workload he lost 10 seconds to those two and 20-some seconds to Jonas who have benefitted from sitting in the draft the entire time. That's good work. It's also the pain apprenticeship he'd need to do regularly to test that quality, IMO.
His descending looked more aggressive and confident in that race section as well. There's room for improvement and a good comparison in Ciccone's technique for that same descending test. Remco's arms were mostly straight and somewhat rigid coming in and out of each turn. He got out of the saddle to accelerate, which burned some matches. By contrast, Ciccone used stronger weighting on his outside pedal and more relaxed upper body to arc those turns like a good GS skier. His turns seemed to carry momentum in those arcs better and required much less aggressive acceleration out of turns. Little things add up and that techniques is safer, IMO.

 

[Ulle97]

His obsession with the Tour, while skipping big classics like MSR or RVV, is really astonishing. He's more like a natural one-day racer than a stage-racer. I suppose his teams have dictated his schedule a lot but a rider of his calibre should have a lot to say, shouldn't he?

Do you think he has a genuine chance of winning San Remo or Flanders?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Do you think he has a genuine chance of winning San Remo or Flanders?

San Remo, yes. Flandres good chance for top3. Still, it's much better to have top3 in monuments than outside top3 places in week stage races (which are less prestigious than monuments on top of that).

 

[Extinction]

In today's Catalunya stage he appeared to undertake the kind of effort that would help raise those thresholds. He managed to thin the GC frontrunners down to six riders with a little help from the Bahrain rider. This was a varied terrain effort for nearly 40km before Vingo, then Martinez and Lipo left him with about 3km to go. Martinez and Lipo are judged to be better climbers yet Remco didn't just give in. In spite of the previous workload he lost 10 seconds to those two and 20-some seconds to Jonas who have benefitted from sitting in the draft the entire time. That's good work. It's also the pain apprenticeship he'd need to do regularly to test that quality, IMO.
His descending looked more aggressive and confident in that race section as well. There's room for improvement and a good comparison in Ciccone's technique for that same descending test. Remco's arms were mostly straight and somewhat rigid coming in and out of each turn. He got out of the saddle to accelerate, which burned some matches. By contrast, Ciccone used stronger weighting on his outside pedal and more relaxed upper body to arc those turns like a good GS skier. His turns seemed to carry momentum in those arcs better and required much less aggressive acceleration out of turns. Little things add up and that techniques is safer, IMO.

Agreed. I'd say Remco deserves an 8 out of 10 today, 9 even for being a selfless teammate. You don't climb like that and lack climbing qualities (the second climb was particularly brutal, 15-17-18-19-20% in the last 5 km). He then took over on the descent (putting several in trouble, who'd have thought?), then pulled until half way up the finish ascent mostly himself. If he and Bora are thinking performance and long game, then keep plodding away, stay focused and enjoy being a pro cyclist with a huge engine. Race hard, have fun and worry about nothing else.

 

[Extinction]

Do you think he has a genuine chance of winning San Remo or Flanders?

Who knows until he rides them? If Ganna can take 2nd in MSR, I wouldn't consider Remco a wild outsider. Like Flanders, he first needs experience to see how to race them. But there is no doubt he has the engine for it.

 

[Rule #9 apostle]

Do you think he has a genuine chance of winning San Remo or Flanders?

Msr i've no doubt he could. He can perform like pidcock on those climbs, and they can not in any circumstance let him go on the flats. His sprint is also good enough to give him a shot. I think the biggest issue is to be in position at the bottom of the cipressa.

In Flanders i just dont think anyone can keep up with pog on the last two rounds of that route. Also i don't trust that remco will be in position here either.

But what about roubaix? He's a monster on the flats, and if he makes the selection they'd suffer as hell in his wheel. Of course the cobbles are a huge questionmark, but with modern tires i think its possible. He's also not that light-weight in his 'classics shape'. I'd love to see him there but i doubt hell ever do it