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

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Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

Jun 7, 2011
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Velolover2 said:
At some point, we have to stop making excuses for Remco's climbing.

He is perfect for rolling hills and medium mountains, not the longer climbs.
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Maybe you missed it, but he lost less time on the hard mountain stage than he did on the hilly/medium mountain stage yesterday. Could you also shine your light on what happened in Norway?
 
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GuntherL1

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If there are no specific health reasons for his performance the past few days, expectations for the Vuelta have to be adjusted to the downside. Focusing on a stage win would be more reasonable.
Because he was below par two days in a row, my guess is that something's wrong with his health and at 1500m altitude, it's not going to be the heat.
 
spalco

spalco

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GuntherL1 said:
If there are no specific health reasons for his performance the past few days, expectations for the Vuelta have to be adjusted to the downside. Focusing on a stage win would be more reasonable.
Because he was below par two days in a row, my guess is that something's wrong with his health and at 1500m altitude, it's not going to be the heat.
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It's two months until the start of the Vuelta. No reason to panic, but I suppose expectations should be kept low (for real, not just pretending).
 
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Rackham

Rackham

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Logic-is-your-friend said:
Maybe you missed it, but he lost less time on the hard mountain stage than he did on the hilly/medium mountain stage yesterday. Could you also shine your light on what happened in Norway?
Click to expand...

You type this like you've made a point but someone could equally retort "yes, Norway, where on the palmarès he joined legendary Tour of Norway & future GT winners like Ethan Hayter, Kristoff & Eduard Prades...".

I'll sound like a boring stereotype here but both extremes (aka people who bury Evenepoel after a bad result & also people who find excuse after excuse) are wrong.

He is what he is. Everyone in the peloton has good days & bad days. Some have lit up climbs in some races & faded badly in others. For every climb in Norway where Evenepoel impressed the watts analysts, there are other climbs in WT races like Switzerland where he just fades. This isn't new.

Until he wins the Tour de Suisse or such a race & podiums a Grand Tour, it's wait & see. I know that's annoying (& doesn't generate debate), but I believe that's the only answer here on the Evenepoel topic.
 
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Ripper

Ripper

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Rackham said:
You type this like you've made a point but someone could equally retort "yes, Norway, where on the palmarès he joined legendary Tour of Norway & future GT winners like Ethan Hayter, Kristoff & Eduard Prades...".

I'll sound like a boring stereotype here but both extremes (aka people who bury Evenepoel after a bad result & also people who find excuse after excuse) are wrong.

He is what he is. Everyone in the peloton has good days & bad days. Some have lit up climbs in some races & faded badly in others. For every climb in Norway where Evenepoel impressed the watts analysts, there are other climbs in WT races like Switzerland where he just fades. This isn't new.

Until he wins the Tour de Suisse or such a race & podiums a Grand Tour, it's wait & see. I know that's annoying (& doesn't generate debate), but I believe that's the only answer here on the Evenepoel topic.
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Agree!

Also, for those who then compare (perhaps internally) to riders who seem to never have bad days and seem almost inhuman, well there are clinical explanations for those phenomena, so perhaps chillax
 
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Eddy Evenepoel

Eddy Evenepoel

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Rackham said:
You type this like you've made a point but someone could equally retort "yes, Norway, where on the palmarès he joined legendary Tour of Norway & future GT winners like Ethan Hayter, Kristoff & Eduard Prades...".
Click to expand...
If anyone actually would reply that they would look really stupid as the parcour of Tour of Norway this year was nothing like in previous years when those you mentioned won it.
It would be like comparing the winners of the flat editions of Milano-Torino with the winners of the climbing editions.
 
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Rackham

Rackham

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Eddy Evenepoel said:
If anyone actually would reply that they would look really stupid as the parcour of Tour of Norway this year was nothing like in previous years when those you mentioned won it.
It would be like comparing the winners of the flat editions of Milano-Torino with the winners of the climbing editions.
Click to expand...

Yes & no.

In terms of parcours, maybe, but in terms of intensity & density of opposition, no.

Smaller races have never been good for extrapolating performances in bigger WT stage races. You can find an endless list of performers in races like the Tour of Norway (with or without climbs) who don't make the jump. I mean for example we just had Ruben Guerreiro win the Mont Ventoux challenge (& do a good performance in the final Dauphiné climb last weekend), but does he have a thread of fans saying he'll go toe-to-toe against the favorites in the TdF? No.

Liège is a far better example of Evenepoel's abilities (& they're huge), but as it stands, he's a phenomenal one day racer & monument winner who can also win stage races, just not the biggest. Not yet. Tbh I find his efforts in Itzulia in April were far more noteworthy than winning Norway, i.e. due to the nature of that race.
 
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Lui98

Lui98

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He was interviewed by Het Nieuwsblad after the race.
Remco Evenepoel lost time in Friday's (stage of the) Tour of Switzerland. Our 22-year-old compatriot finished just under a minute behind general classification riders Jakob Fuglsang, Geraint Thomas and others in the tough mountain stage. Evenepoel, who finished 22nd, lost just over three minutes to stage winner Nico Denz. "But the feeling was better than yesterday," Evenepoel said.

"I have to say that I could purely follow the pace, but the tempo accelerations I had in Norway are missing now," Evenepoel explained immediately after the stage. "I wasn' t good enough to follow the best. I don't know what that could be, maybe I got too good too soon after my altitude training and that's why it's not so good now. I am happy that I was able to keep up for so long. When I got dropped at the end of the race, I was able to keep my pace and watch them ride away. Eventually I caught up with some guys, but I can't go with the best climbers this week. That's clear."

Still, Evenepoel remains combative again. "I would like to be able to give it all again on Sunday for a stage win. But I'm not satisfied with my legs," Evenepoel said. "If I'm really good, I should be able to compete on any course here and just go with the guys. Maybe I needed a different preparation. It's clear I don't ride uphill like I did in Norway. Beforehand I said, 'if I could push like I did in Norway, then I'll definitely go with the best', but that's really not the case now."


Evenepoel moved up a little in the general classification, from nineteenth to fifteenth place at 3'08" of leader Jakob Fuglsang. However, that also has to do with the fact that some riders, such as Aleksandr Vlasov, dropped out with corona. "I don't know what will happen now in the general classification, whether I'll be closer or in the top ten," Evenepoel said after the finish. "I don't want to let it go either, suppose I have a better day tomorrow and I can compete for a win: then I'm not going to let that go to waste."

"The feeling was already much better than yesterday, I also did a lot more cooling and put ice on my neck, maybe I should have done that yesterday as well. But we'll see tomorrow, and I'm going to give it my best on Sunday anyway."
Click to expand...

Link: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20220617_95630892
I used a translator, so there could be some mistakes.
 
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Riek s

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Apparently they estimated the final climb was done at a staggering 5.52W/kg. So Remco atm can't even hold 350W now.
Yeah this is nothing to do with climbing or just a bad day imo. HE can say what he wants, but those numbers don't indicate a high pace at all, which is probably the reason why he could keep the pace for so long as well.

They did this climb at a slow pace, hence why Kung was still there. If WVA was present, he would have won the sprint at the finish.
 
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