• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

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

Page 400 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.

Should we change the thread title?


  • Total voters
    110
The problem with Evenepoel is that he rests too little. He came out of the training period for Itzulia in good shape. So early April. With hardly any rest he moved on to Liege . After that, he should have rested for at least two, maybe three weeks, and not competing in Norway. Instead, build up very slowly to Switzerland. Now he came from Norway tired, and started with a declining form in Switzerland.

Who thinks he's learned his lesson ? Not at all. He declared to rest only one week after Switzerland. OK, he won't do Burgos , but he will do San Sebastian. He will probably not be fresh enough for the Vuelta again, not for the second half anyway. And certainly not for the world championships.
 
S
Height doesn't say everything about body dimensions though. I think Evenepoel has relatively short arms and legs, which in scientific literature is inversely associated with climbing and time trialing performance IIRC. This is a weak association mind you. And I don't precisely know why that would be.
Shorter arms and legs should result in a significantly lower CdA with no significant loss in power, and iirc leg length is observed to be much more closely related to CdA than height. For climbing performance there would be some logic to it, in that longer arms/legs should result in improved cooling, but extremely hard to believe the TT one.

Nevermind, saw the research article, possibly just a result of the small sample size and ended up with an odd population.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Sandisfan
The problem with Evenepoel is that he rests too little. He came out of the training period for Itzulia in good shape. So early April. With hardly any rest he moved on to Liege . After that, he should have rested for at least two, maybe three weeks, and not competing in Norway. Instead, build up very slowly to Switzerland. Now he came from Norway tired, and started with a declining form in Switzerland.

Who thinks he's learned his lesson ? Not at all. He declared to rest only one week after Switzerland. OK, he won't do Burgos , but he will do San Sebastian. He will probably not be fresh enough for the Vuelta again, not for the second half anyway. And certainly not for the world championships.
Based on what I'm reading he should take the time to grow longer femurs.
 
The problem with Evenepoel is that he rests too little. He came out of the training period for Itzulia in good shape. So early April. With hardly any rest he moved on to Liege . After that, he should have rested for at least two, maybe three weeks, and not competing in Norway. Instead, build up very slowly to Switzerland. Now he came from Norway tired, and started with a declining form in Switzerland.

Who thinks he's learned his lesson ? Not at all. He declared to rest only one week after Switzerland. OK, he won't do Burgos , but he will do San Sebastian. He will probably not be fresh enough for the Vuelta again, not for the second half anyway. And certainly not for the world championships.
Maybe he’s just a young rider who is inconsistent. Not sure these unequivocal declarations about what he should be doing are warranted.
 
Watts per kilo is king for climbing

To be even more precise it's watts/(body_mass + 7 kg) on steep slopes. Bike mass changes things: from two cyclists generating the same w/kg the heavier will climb faster (due to additional power independent of body mass that is needed to lift a bike). To achieve a VAM of 1800 m/h a 60-kilo cyclist needs about 5.5 w/kg to overcome gravity alone while a 70-kilo cyclist needs 5.4 w/kg for that. For most climbs additional 0.8-1.2 w/kg (depending on gradient) is needed to overcome mainly rolling resistance and aero drag (which is less than linearly mass-dependent and also favours more powerful cyclist esp. on shallower slopes).
 
Last edited:
To be even more precise it's watts/(body_mass + 7 kg) on steep slopes. Bike mass changes things: from two cyclists generating the same w/kg the heavier will climb faster (due to additional power independent of body mass that is needed to lift a bike). To achieve a VAM of 1800 m/h a 60-kilo cyclist needs about 5.5 w/kg to overcome gravity alone while a 70-kilo cyclist needs 5.4 w/kg for that. For most climbs additional 0.8-1.2 w/kg (depending on gradient) is needed to overcome mainly rolling resistance and aero drag (which is less than linearly mass-dependent and also favours more powerful cyclist esp. on shallower slopes).
But doesn't the heavier rider need to generate more watts to keep up with the lighter rider, at which point bike mass is an extra handicap?
 
But doesn't the heavier rider need to generate more watts to keep up with the lighter rider, at which point bike mass is an extra handicap?

Obviously the heavier rider needs more watts but I'm saying that from two riders generating the same w/kg the heavier will be faster (therefore pure w/kg is not the only thing that matters uphill). That's why super strong climbers are often around 65 kg instead of 55 kg. Bike mass changes things. A 65-kilo guy generating 390 w will be faster uphill than a 60-kilo guy generating 360 watts (both have 6 w/kg).
 
But to win TTs means you have the power. If he weighs 61Kg that means he should be able to climb with the best and he has shown that albeit inconsistently.

He may have the power but not the right muscle fibers to handle multiple high mountain stages (consecutively). Jury's still out.

His 2 impressive MTF wins (Gaustatoppen, Picon Blanco) were both essentially Unipuerto stages. Both with echelons that likely killed the climbers. Ideal circumstances.

He was rightly praised for his performance in Itzulia but that was (of course) a medium mountain course.
 
Obviously the heavier rider needs more watts but I'm saying that from two riders generating the same w/kg the heavier will be faster (therefore pure w/kg is not the only thing that matters uphill). That's why super strong climbers are often around 65 kg instead of 55 kg. Bike mass changes things. A 65-kilo guy generating 390 w will be faster uphill than a 60-kilo guy generating 360 watts (both have 6 w/kg).
I was not aware of this, so I can only take your word for it. But I still don't see why at the same w/kg a heavier rider pushes the 7 kg bike faster. You'll have to explain the physics of that.
 
I was not aware of this, so I can only take your word for it. But I still don't see why at the same w/kg a heavier rider pushes the 7 kg bike faster. You'll have to explain the physics of that.

try this formula (vertical speed is the quotient of power and resistive force (gravity in this case)):
VAM [m/h] = 3600 * power / [9.81 * (mass+7)]
for two cyclists with the same w/kg:
  1. 70 kg and 420 w
  2. 60 kg and 360 w
This will give you overestimated values (due to other forces I mentioned) but for steep slopes the relative difference is similar to this.
 
Last edited:
try this formula (vertical speed is the quotient of power and resistive force (gravity in this case)):
VAM [m/h] = 3600 * power / [9.81 * (mass+7)]
for two cyclists with the same w/kg:
  1. 70 kg and 420 w
  2. 60 kg and 360 w
This will give you overestimated values (due to other forces I mentioned) but for steep slopes the relative difference is similar to this.
It's all just Greek to me.:)
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Sandisfan

TRENDING THREADS