He was better than expected in the last stage. Congrats on a very good performance this week. He is on the right track.
Indeed! And I am not too sure about why so heavy. There are plenty of elite athletes who have done serious strength and power training to get more explosive, without gaining an enormous amount of weight. I seem to recall the same thing about Wout (I think it was his own comments) ... Is it some sort of silly Belgian training?Remco is heavy like a dock worker right now (® @Logic-is-your-friend). It's obvious that steep gradients (when almost 100% of resistive force is gravity) are more difficult for him than shallow gradients. When he loses weight it should be easier for him.
That's the plan. He has worked a lot on short efforts in his season prep with the Ardennes classics in mind. That means he hasn't worked a lot on longer climbs and that he has gained a lot of muscle weight (which hasn't really been helping on the harder climbs). He's a lot bulkier and muscular than exactly one year ago. The plan is to work on that towards the Vuelta, which has more TT kms than the other GT's this year.Am late on to the Evenepoel bandwagon so this has probably been discussed before, but is it set in stone that he won't be riding The TDF this year? What little I know of the course seems so much more suited to him. Whereas the Vuelta traditionally contains of all his atm, perceived weaknesses.
That's the plan. He has worked a lot on short efforts in his season prep with the Ardennes classics in mind. That means he hasn't worked a lot on longer climbs and that he has gained a lot of muscle weight (which hasn't really been helping on the harder climbs). He's a lot bulkier and muscular than exactly one year ago. The plan is to work on that towards the Vuelta, which has more TT kms than the other GT's this year.
Let him first ride at high altitude for 3 weeks before making claims.My point is that he is nowhere near a real climber like Ulrich who had the ability to be good in the high altitude for over 3 weeks.
I’m not questioning that (his potential upside) and will root for that to be the case. I was pointing out (which is probably fruitless, I know) that the biggest question will be performance in the high mtn stages, particularly in 3 was, and that we can’t know that until he actually goes through it. So the extrapolations from steep short climbs or lower altitude climbs or one week races cannot answer that. But I do understand many of us are looking forward to finding out, and it’s tempting—and I suppose fun for some folks—to keep trying to predict what will happen.Not to restate the obvious but Ullrich was on a serious program, too; so it is difficult to know what his comparable talent level could be. Remco has a bigger upside, given time as I keep saying.
I didn't think so? And the Vuelta also has a TTT on top of that.Doesn't the tour have more ITT km?
One of the most positive aspects of the week was how much they have got him psychologically primed to descend strongly which understandably took a while to repair after the Lombardia crash. That threatened to be a weakness large enough to derail hopes of becoming a podium finisher in Grand Tours whereas now he is very capable.
He was fun to watch this week. Stronger than expected and hung on better than expected the times he got dropped. Definitely showing some promise but still a tier below the level of climbing needed to win a GT. Cutting a few kg could make up some of the difference but at what cost to everything else? In the past when he was lighter was he still a step behind on climbs? Overall he definitely helped make the race exciting and would be great to see him duking it out at the top of big races, but still a coin flip if that’ll happen.
At la Vuelta, I expectPogRog to crush him on the Muritos
Definitely showing some promise but still a tier below the level of climbing needed to win a GT. Cutting a few kg could make up some of the difference but at what cost to everything else? In the past when he was lighter was he still a step behind on climbs?
Maybe, maybe not as if the gap was larger after a longer TT the other riders would have felt more need to push on in previous stages when they dropped Remco by a few seconds instead of easing that allowed him to drag himself back into the main pack. With the smaller time gap they all felt like they could crack him on the final day which they did to enough extent to knock him off the podium but it was still an impressive step forward in his development.He lost a whole 24 seconds today. With the Contador era TTs of 20-25 km in this race, he wins this in his sleep
In TA, on his bad day, he was still 13th on that stage.
This is damn good for races that are not his main targets. It's not like he's Armstrong or Froome losing 20 min plus.
Nobody gave him a chance to finish better than Rog. He handled Rog just fine
Rog was carrying an injury going into this race. Still beat him in the ITT.He lost a whole 24 seconds today. With the Contador era TTs of 20-25 km in this race, he wins this in his sleep
In TA, on his bad day, he was still 13th on that stage.
This is damn good for races that are not his main targets. It's not like he's Armstrong or Froome losing 20 min plus.
Nobody gave him a chance to finish better than Rog. He handled Rog just fine
And he obviously beat everyone else. By a fair bit more.Rog was carrying an injury going into this race. Still beat him in the ITT.
I feel like the effort he put into winning the last sprint had a major effect on how he fared the last climb. Once he got rid of the lactic acid the gap stabilized.
It was damned if you do, damned if you don't.I feel like the effort he put into winning the last sprint had a major effect on how he fared the last climb. Once he got rid of the lactic acid the gap stabilized.