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

[Blanco]

Someone should've told the kid that Giro isn't exactly the best race for him to start Grand Tour journey.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Someone should've told the kid that Giro isn't exactly the best race for him to start Grand Tour journey.

This Giro. This Giro isn't the best race for him to start his Grand Tour journey.

Had this been last year's Giro, weaker field, no sterrati and double the ITT kms, he could very well have been wearing pink with his current form, at this point in the race. As it stands he lost 2m9s on the sterrati, and 1m30 on Zoncolan, on the best rider in the race, who didn't participate last year. He is currently 2m40s down on the second guy in GC. Take the sterrati away and add an extra ITT...

 

[Wvv]

Someone should've told the kid that Giro isn't exactly the best race for him to start Grand Tour journey.

I'm a big believer of Remco, but I kind of regret him making his maiden comeback in a race like this. The expectations were always going to be too high, because of his incredible reputation. I would've preferred smaller stage races, a first peak in the late summer with the Olympics and then a Vuelta + Worlds to try and reach top level again. With time in between to regain rythm, and most of all (bike handling) confidence. It doesn't matter how exciting his first week in the Giro was, it can't be a good way to roll back into things. And these polarized opinions and discussions are often unpleasant. However, under the given circumstances, it's already nuts how he returned. There is no doubt about that.

The guy is gonna get there though, sooner or later. About that I remain very convinced.

 

[Poursuivant]

Remco Evenepoel sur un fil pour poursuivre le Tour d'Italie - L'Équipe (lequipe.fr)

Patrick Lefévère says they'll assess his situation tomorrow evening & if he loses too much time, they'll send him home & he won't finish the Giro in order to preserve him.

Taking someone out of their first GT while sitting top ten seems daft, if this was anyone but RE, everyone would be saying it’s an amazing performance so far.

 

[Red Rick]

This Giro. This Giro isn't the best race for him to start his Grand Tour journey.

Had this been last year's Giro, weaker field, no sterrati and double the ITT kms, he could very well have been wearing pink with his current form, at this point in the race. As it stands he lost 2m9s on the sterrati, and 1m30 on Zoncolan, on the best rider in the race, who didn't participate last year. He is currently 2m40s down on the second guy in GC. Take the sterrati away and add an extra ITT...

Take the sterrato away, add extra ITT, aaand it doesn't matter cause Stelvio.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Take the sterrato away, add extra ITT, aaand it doesn't matter cause Stelvio.

Stelvio was in the third week.

 

[Big Doopie]

Taking someone out of their first GT while sitting top ten seems daft, if this was anyone but RE, everyone would be saying it’s an amazing performance so far.

isn't it dependent on him losing a bunch of time tomorrow. then likely he is out of top ten.

 

[Red Rick]

He didn't even feel bad going onto the Zoncolan. Others were just better.

 

[staubsauger]

If they pull him tomorrow evening, it would've been wiser to let him peak for the Tour of Switzerland right from the start.

Especially with the excuse of his crash and him riding the Olympics.

After all Switzerland still is everything that awaits him in a Grand Tour, just in 8 days.

So unless he completely cracks and ends-up in the gruppetto I would finish off his learning experience now. Because otherwise you better could've smoothly built towards a gc win attempt in Switzerland!

 

[Riek s]

isn't it dependent on him losing a bunch of time tomorrow. then likely he is out of top ten.

He needs to lose almost 4minutes to Valter or Martin. (or
5 to Almeida) before he would drop out of top10. I don't see that happening without a collapse. (of course it is downhill... so maybe he will walk downhill if the weather is horrible)

EDIT: which i wouldn't mind if that saves him from crashing though.

 

[Bonimenier]

It feels like some people are overreacting to his performance. It's not like he is losing buckets of minutes everyday and is suffering every single minute of every stage. For now he is still comfortable in the top 10. Why would he quit?

 

[Red Rick]

It feels like some people are overreacting to his performance. It's not like he is losing buckets of minutes everyday and is suffering every single minute of every stage. For now he is still comfortable in the top 10. Why would he quit?

He was looking forward to tomorrow, convinced the tempoclimbs like Fedaia and Giau suit him better than Zoncolan.

 

[hayneplane]

The time loss on Zoncolan May end up a blessing in disguise tomorrow if other teams have written him off as a factor and don’t bother pushing the descents hard prior to the Giau where by the top it will be Mano-a-Mano anyway.

This will only matter IF he has the legs to hang on through 3 big mountains anyway but from riders behind him only Dan Martin and Almeida are obvious candidates to leapfrog him in GC barring a collapse and Martin is just as a bad a descender.

 

[Bonimenier]

He was looking forward to tomorrow, convinced the tempoclimbs like Fedaia and Giau suit him better than Zoncolan.

Uphill that's definitely possible, but the one advantage the Zoncolan had, was that there was no wet descent following. Although saying that something else suits him more is kind of a talent of him.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

He didn't even feel bad going onto the Zoncolan. Others were just better.

He said he felt his legs drain when they got to the ultra steep parts. Probably the fact that they had to close a gap in the valley didn't help either.

Uphill that's definitely possible, but the one advantage the Zoncolan had, was that there was no wet descent following. Although saying that something else suits him more is kind of a talent of him.

He makes strange comments from time to time. He's repeatedly claimed he 's not a time trialer, even though he had just won the EU CC and got silver on the WCC. Unless maybe he feels like that moniker is selling him short. But i think it's clear long but less steep climbs should suit him best. That may prove to be completely irrelevant if he's running on fumes.

 

[TMJ]

It reminds me how much I miss the Amgen Tour of California which last took place during may. It usually offered a nice mix of stages of hill, mountain, sprint and time trial. Pogacar's star rose there. Remco would certainly have liked this stage race too. In addition, the USA flair from natural and cultural landscape. Just those yellow road markings alone (sigh).

Plus, lack of dangerous Euro road furniture. The American roads are so much safer for WT racing because they are not obsessed with traffic calming schemes, which bring us multiple kerbs, concrete islands, roundabouts, poles, bollards, railings etc......

 

[Andre]

At this point I just hope the multiple mountain stages aren’t going to cause issues for him longterm. I expect nothing dramatic of course, but how smart is it for him to do this race now? He is not at the right level, that much is clear now. If he continues what will it do for his mindset and maybe even his physical progress? Will it help to make him stronger mentally or will it be too much? It’s a big ask to do this race after injury and after such a long time out of competition.

He's doing great. I say keep going and gain the experience.

 

[Nick2413]

It feels like some people are overreacting to his performance. It's not like he is losing buckets of minutes everyday and is suffering every single minute of every stage. For now he is still comfortable in the top 10. Why would he quit?

He shouldn’t be pulling out from the race just because he’s not going to win. People on here act like he’s either going to win or he’s going to blow massively and cause irreparable damage by drastically overexerting himself. Maybe he’ll get too 10, maybe even top 5, or maybe top 20, but that’s no reason to abandon the race.

 

[Big Doopie]

he has now needed almeida to drop back at least twice to pace him.

clearly he is nowhere near poland 2020.

 

[Parker]

clearly he is nowhere near poland 2020.

How good exactly was Poland though? It was a race for those targeting the Giro post lockdown, two months before. He attacked at an odd time and then everyone looked to the race leader - Carapaz who had crashed and wouldn't start the next day - to put on the chase. That amounted to Eddie Dunbar who got so frustrated at no-one helping that he attacked himself. Eventually three good riders tried to chase but with little co-operation.

Evenepoel clearly has talent, but he needs to win some big boys' races to justify his fans' hyoe.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

How good exactly was Poland though? It was a race for those targeting the Giro post lockdown, two months before. He attacked at an odd time and then everyone looked to the race leader - Carapaz who had crashed and wouldn't start the next day - to put on the chase. That amounted to Eddie Dunbar who got so frustrated at no-one helping that he attacked himself. Eventually three good riders tried to chase but with little co-operation.

Evenepoel clearly has talent, but he needs to win some big boys' races to justify his fans' hyoe.

This is getting so old. I'm sure for some reason San Sebastian or his European title won't count. You probably mean stage races, and winning 5 one week races at age 19-20 doesn't count obviously. Now, if it were van der Poel, or Roglic, thèn it would count. Beating Carapaz, Yates, Fuglsang, Landa, McNulty, Wellens, Thomas, Nibali, Kuss, Bennett, Gaudu, Sosa, Kämna, Lopez, Schachmann, Martin, Martin... is meaningless, because none of those guys actually wanted to win those races, right? Every time there is an explanation why it doesn't count, why it's no big deal. Even when he's in the top 10 of his 1st GT under the current conditions, it's still "meh". Yeah, Ganna, Dennis, Thomas, Küng, Affini... they also didn't want to win those TT's where he beat them.

In fact, Remco's real superpower, is that he can impose indifference onto his rivals, so that they don't try to win any of the races in which he competes. Not even in a covid season, where chances to compete and win, get slashed, and teams are losing sponsors faster than they can spit. All the others had different goals, but Remco was the only one who made it a season goal to win San Juan, Algarve, Burgos, Poland... oh wait, that doesn't add up. If Poland was a season goal for him, then how did he win San Juan and Algarve and Burgos? Hmm, maybe those weren't real goals for him either, and he was also just working towards bigger goals, just like everybody else?

 

[Panda Claws]

It was definitely always justified to hype up the kid's potential. The things he's done at his age while only riding a bike so short are, if not unprecedented, up there with the biggest talents we've seen. There is plenty of reason to believe that Evenepoel can become scarily dominant. He does not need to win the big boys' races before this hype about his potential is justified. Even if he ends up not improving it was only reasonable to belief that he could improve to very high levels.

You don't need to win the big races for the hype about you being able to win those races to be justified. Hype, as with any prediction, does not become reasonable based on the result. If I had hyped up Froome before the 2011 Vuelta my hype would not be justified because I turned out to be correct because I had no good reason to believe that Froome would suddenly become that good.

Now I know you probably mean hype about e.g. him crushing this particular Giro because of what he showed before. And while I agree that is less reasonable it is also a take you are not going to find repeated here that often. Most hype is about his eventual potential and based on what he has shown a lot of that is justified.

If you couldn't hype Remco and predict he would do great things then there is almost nobody else that you could hype up at that age. Of course there are extreme cases where hype is just going to be unreasonable (you don't hype up the World Champion in the 12 year olds' race) because there is too much uncertainty.

 

[Escarabajo]

he has now needed almeida to drop back at least twice to pace him.

clearly he is nowhere near poland 2020.

I think it is very unfair to Remco. In my opinion, he never should have been taken to the Giro. It was just plain stupid. They put him on a losing position from the beginning. Not only on lack of experience, lack of racing and lack of confidence because of his injury. Lefevre just does not have experience with how to manage GC potential. Now that he is here they should take the pressure off and let him finish. Let Almeida do his race. The kid will learn how to fight and will come back stronger.

 

[Ripper]

I would not be surprised if dude loses gobs of time on the descents tomorrow. Obviously it all depends on how aggressively they drive.

 

[Savant12]

He could easily recover to top shape but if he doesn't improve his bike handling and descending then he ain't going to win any Grand Tour. The engine will only compensate for his weaknesses to some extent. Once he regains his favorite status in GC then every other team know they just need to apply pressure on a descent and he'll ship bucket loads of time or crash out.