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

[Riek s]

Bit dramatic to say his year is over. This is the year of his return and he needs to make sure he keeps building on his recovery during this season. If he wants to start the 2022 season like he should, he should end the current season with a good form and base. (close to his previous peak).

There are still a lot of races to come in the next months in which he can participate and maybe contest for victory.

In the end compared to others youngsters he lost about a year in terms of competition and maybe more in terms of progression. So lets hope he can get back asap, since he can be the stick that causes other GC contenders to attack in mountains (imo).

 

[frisenfruitig]

God, so many ridiculous statements in this thread based on nothing. He got dropped on the Zoncolan so that apparently means that he can't handle steep climbs (not because he is clearly empty). He also lost 25 minutes on less steep climbs yesterday so let's just conclude he can't climb whatsoever!

Then there is this guy who says his season is done when he still has plenty of time to build for the rest of the season. Keep it coming guys, I'm having a good laugh over here!

 

[Blanco]

God, so many ridiculous statements in this thread based on nothing. He got dropped on the Zoncolan so that apparently means that he can't handle steep climbs (not because he is clearly empty). He also lost 25 minutes on less steep climbs yesterday so let's just conclude he can't climb whatsoever!

Then there is this guy who says his season is done when he still has plenty of time to build for the rest of the season. Keep it coming guys, I'm having a good laugh over here!

I'm having a good laugh also, but for different reasons. I checked the posts from the first week, hilarious stuff!
I even read that he'll be deadly on Zoncolan because of his insane W/Kg, but that didn't really went well...
The way I see it, kid is talented, no doubt. He'll win plenty of TT's, one-week races with lots of TT, he'll do some stunning solos, win some hilly races with not much descending...
GT's? He has to improve a lot to even stand a chance beside those monsters like Pogacar, Bernal and co.
I wish him good luck in his career, but he's no Merckx, and will never be.

 

[Red Rick]

Let's be real if Merckx rode today he wouldn't be a GT rider either probably

 

[frisenfruitig]

There is a difference between saying he could be good at steep climbs because of a good power/weight ratio (which is what I said at least) rather than saying he will definitely be good at it.

I haven't read all of the pages in this thread but I doubt there are a lot of people who claimed he is the next Merckx (as if that is even possible in this day and age lol).

I'm seeing some people like Red Rick who seemingly can't wait to make premature conclusions about what he possibly can or can't do and I'm kinda curious why that is.

It's certainly possible he will never win a GT in his entire career, but at least I'm not too smug to admit I don't know yet.

 

[huangho]

I meant his season is over in terms of GTs, no tour or vuelta for him for '21, of course he can go to some good races, even the olympics if he feels he can go for it, he also needs some work as a domestique to help him with team building...

Now he needs to regain confidence

 

[Riek s]

I'm having a good laugh also, but for different reasons. I checked the posts from the first week, hilarious stuff!
I even read that he'll be deadly on Zoncolan because of his insane W/Kg, but that didn't really went well...
The way I see it, kid is talented, no doubt. He'll win plenty of TT's, one-week races with lots of TT, he'll do some stunning solos, win some hilly races with not much descending...
GT's? He has to improve a lot to even stand a chance beside those monsters like Pogacar, Bernal and co.
I wish him good luck in his career, but he's no Merckx, and will never be.

Seems like an extremely hefty conclusion based on a guy who was back to riding his bike for less than 3 months before the Giro after an Injury. The fact he even competed with the best during the 1st week is by itself a miracle. He has to re-validate first to determine how much he needs to improve before we can really tell anything. (and that includes descending, because his major problem in descending now was his crash. If he doesn't overcome that fear again, his descending won't improve no matter what you try)
And yes I don't see why a good Remco would do bad on a steep climb at all. Given the circumstances, do you really believe Pogacar or Bernal in his situation would do any better?

 

[Blanco]

And yes I don't see why a good Remco would do bad on a steep climb at all.

I don't see why anybody would do bad on a steep climb, until I actually see it

 

[Fantastico]

I'm seeing some people like Red Rick who seemingly can't wait to make premature conclusions about what he possibly can or can't do and I'm kinda curious why that is.

To be fair, those premature conclusions come from both sides. Just look at the previous page where huangho writes
"And thats the fact with Remco this year, he was not prepared and we all know he is not a one-trick pony, he has a lot of cards to play, he was just misprepared for Giro, that's it!!".
No, that's not it! In fact, we do not know anything for certain. The same way that it is speculative whether Remco's performance in this Giro (especially the 2nd week) is indicative of him not being able to be a world-class GT rider, him being not perfectly prepared does not allow the conclusion that his whole set of weaknesses in this Giro can be explained by this single factor.

 

[Bonimenier]

To be fair, those premature conclusions come from both sides. Just look at the previous page where huangho writes
"And thats the fact with Remco this year, he was not prepared and we all know he is not a one-trick pony, he has a lot of cards to play, he was just misprepared for Giro, that's it!!".
No, that's not it! In fact, we do not know anything for certain. The same way that it is speculative whether Remco's performance in this Giro (especially the 2nd week) is indicative of him not being able to be a world-class GT rider, him being not perfectly prepared does not allow the conclusion that his whole set of weaknesses in this Giro can be explained by this single factor.

But that's not really what Huangho said though. I don't think we can expect that his bike handling skills and his descending ever will be up there with the best and that it's likely that those will be weaknesses to some degree throughout his career. But the weaknesses he showed uphill, or not being able to handle 3 weeks still aren't that clear to me. Those could be explained by not being perfectly prepared. I guess we'll see in the future.

 

[frisenfruitig]

To be fair, those premature conclusions come from both sides. Just look at the previous page where huangho writes
"And thats the fact with Remco this year, he was not prepared and we all know he is not a one-trick pony, he has a lot of cards to play, he was just misprepared for Giro, that's it!!".
No, that's not it! In fact, we do not know anything for certain. The same way that it is speculative whether Remco's performance in this Giro (especially the 2nd week) is indicative of him not being able to be a world-class GT rider, him being not perfectly prepared does not allow the conclusion that his whole set of weaknesses in this Giro can be explained by this single factor.

That's a long winded way of saying you agree with me I guess? Yes, it is indeed ridiculous to make premature conclusions, both positive or negative.

Other than the fact that his bike handling is problematic to say the least. I think we can all agree on that one.

"Not perfectly prepared" seems like a bit of an understatement though, he had to rebuild from zero and had less than 3 months of training before this Giro. The more I think about it the dumber it seems they even tried to go for this tbh

 

[SHAD0W93]

Let's be real if Merckx rode today he wouldn't be a GT rider either probably

Nah Merckx would have dominated even more. Imagine him on Sky/Ineos.
I wonder what he would have focused on.

 

[huangho]

To be fair, those premature conclusions come from both sides. Just look at the previous page where huangho writes
"And thats the fact with Remco this year, he was not prepared and we all know he is not a one-trick pony, he has a lot of cards to play, he was just misprepared for Giro, that's it!!".
No, that's not it! In fact, we do not know anything for certain. The same way that it is speculative whether Remco's performance in this Giro (especially the 2nd week) is indicative of him not being able to be a world-class GT rider, him being not perfectly prepared does not allow the conclusion that his whole set of weaknesses in this Giro can be explained by this single factor.

I get your point... We know nothing Jhon Snow...

At this point everything is uncertain, but to be fair, his lack of preparation was real, so in order to get things straight, his Giro is not good to get any conclussion yet, neither good or bad.

But I feel he has room to improve from now on.

 

[Bonimenier]

Nah Merckx would have dominated even more. Imagine him on Sky/Ineos.
I wonder what he would have focused on.

Imagine him on DQS with Almeida though

 

[huangho]

That's a long winded way of saying you agree with me I guess? Yes, it is indeed ridiculous to make premature conclusions, both positive of negative.

Other than the fact that his bike handling is problematic to say the least. I think we can all agree on that one.

"Not perfectly prepared" seems like a bit of an understatement though, he had to rebuild from zero and had less than 3 months of training before this Giro. The more I think about it the dumber it seems they even tried to go for this tbh

It seemed like a good idea in April, maybe some commercials commitments sealed the deal...

 

[Fantastico]

"Not perfectly prepared" seems like a bit of an understatement though, he had to rebuild from zero and had less than 3 months of training before this Giro.

Of course, it is an understatement given the circumstances. But on the other hand, he was pretty fine in the first week. So he was very likely not well prepared for a GT, but certainly good enough to be competitive in a high-stacked field in shorter races. Probably still not at his best, but very competitive. Add to that the he and his whole team seemed to be really confident in fighting Bernal then, having him even sprint for bonus seconds.

So, I think we shouldn't act like he was completely out of form at the start of the Giro. But of course, it is also clear that the longer the race the more his lack of race kilometers and endurance may become a limiting factor. Some guys here had hopes that he could ride himself into form and be at his best in the third week, but, to be honest, I always thought that his "battery getting empty" was the more likely outcome after such a long hiatus.

The thing is that we just cannot assess to which extent this is the reason for his performance and to which extent he would have lost time anyway, even at his best. Possible that even he himself may not be sure about this.

 

[Andre]

Let's be real if Merckx rode today he wouldn't be a GT rider either probably

No, cause he's like 70 years old.

 

[Andre]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View: https://www.instagram.com/p/CPJRntnHV4q/?utm_medium=copy_link

 

[Red Rick]

Nah Merckx would have dominated even more. Imagine him on Sky/Ineos.
I wonder what he would have focused on.

Probably TTs

 

[Andre]

Lucien Van Impe would have had this Giro as well

 

[red_flanders]

Nah Merckx would have dominated even more. Imagine him on Sky/Ineos.
I wonder what he would have focused on.

Stomping everyone into the ground across all terrain.

I know things are more specialized now by a long shot, but the dude won sprints, classics, GT's, shorter stage races, track, whatever. I can't think of a more dominant athlete in any sport, ever. He won a THIRD of the professional races he entered. It's hard to get your head around what that kind of dominance was like, how that would have affected the sport and his "competition". What was his placing rate? Can't even imagine. I just don't think it would be all that different now.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Stomping everyone into the ground across all terrain.

I know things are more specialized now by a long shot, but the dude won sprints, classics, GT's, shorter stage races, track, whatever. I can't think of a more dominant athlete in any sport, ever. He won a THIRD of the professional races he entered. It's hard to get your head around what that kind of dominance was like, how that would have affected the sport and his "competition". What was his placing rate? Can't even imagine. I just don't think it would be all that different now.

I think it was for 8 years he basically won at least once a week when his wins were broken up over 365 days for the whole year. I don’t know how the calendar was like but I don’t think it was Jan-October like now.

 

[Ripper]

Holy crappp does this kid ever generate a plethora of people saying "he should do this ... he should do that". Pretty amazing how strong of a reaction gets generated in both directions! In the spirit of no such thing as bad press, he's killing it

 

[frisenfruitig]

Holy crappp does this kid ever generate a plethora of people saying "he should do this ... he should do that". Pretty amazing how strong of a reaction gets generated in both directions! In the spirit of no such thing as bad press, he's killing it

Is that supposed to be surprising though? Did you miss his first year on the pro scene?

 

[Jagartrott]

I think two things are important regarding his Giro so far:

* technical ability: This is clearly a weakness, though I think it was exacerbated by his quite horrific accident in Lombardia. We shouldn't forget that he could've ended up dead or in a wheelchair. Everybody then said that it was foolish to try and follow Nibali instead of riding your own pace. The accident and that advice will have made him take the downhills more slowly than he would've done one year ago, of that I am fairly certain. Nevertheless, with training and time, he should be able to fix at least part of this issue. He'll never be a Sagan, but being "OK" is probably enough.

* stamina for a three week race: Given his short preparation, a lack of a deep base (after a normal winter and spring) would always be likely to come and haunt him the further the race progressed. Moreover, I think that the quite challenging weather conditions accelerated the attrition. We can't say for sure that with a normal preparation he would be in the game still, but we definitely cannot extrapolate from his current collapse.

Conclusion: he's still an enormous talent, but we still do not know if he can really challenge for GCs. However, claiming that he'll not be able to challenge GCs based on his showing this Giro, is disingenuous.