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

[IndianCyclist]

Remco is looking more like Simon Yates in 2017-2018

 

[peterfin]

Lol the almighty Remco. Kid playing with the grownups and getting burned. Stay on shorter races and leave GT racing to the big league.
All Belgium smartasses...a baloon of hot air.

For some, speaking as a grown-up is already too difficult.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

Well, looks like all the smartasses in the race thread were wrong. Not sick and injured. How about we wait next until the interviews before claiming us to be trolls and have no clue about cycling?...

You have no clue about cycling.

 

[Salvarani]

Lol the almighty Remco. Kid playing with the grownups and getting burned. Stay on shorter races and leave GT racing to the big league.
All Belgium smartasses...a baloon of hot air.

The almighty works in mysterious ways. Only the most devoted could ever understand it.

 

[Gargamel35]

For some, speaking as a grown-up is already too difficult.

Then by all means, stop.

 

[FroomeWagon]

Spencer Martin on a podcast yesterday said that he went back through Remco's previous results and he noticed that Remco has never had success on a day that contained two HC climbs and alluded that today might be tough for him. I have no idea if that is true, but if it is, it is pretty telling for his potential as a GC rider.

Obviously the guy has won a Vuelta, and that shouldn't be discounted. On the other hand, this year's field is of much higher quality. Maybe he will have to "pick and choose" his GC's in the future. When Wiggo won his TDF, weren't the mountains fairly "easy" as compared to other years. Maybe focus on GC's with heavy time trials and cobbles? and leave the grand tours with hard mountains for other riders.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Man a lot of talk of Remco behaving childishly; now he performs poorly, handles it with grace, and the forum is full of people behaving childishly.

 

[Red Rick]

The only thing that makes sense to me is overtraining between the Worlds and the Vuelta, particularly the emphasis on 'training on the long climbs' and doing huge multi mountain trainings perhaps in a period where you should actually be doing race specific efforts rather than super high volume work is the only plausible thing I can conjure up.

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

The only thing that makes sense to me is overtraining between the Worlds and the Vuelta, particularly the emphasis on 'training on the long climbs' and doing huge multi mountain trainings perhaps in a period where you should actually be doing race specific efforts rather than super high volume work is the only plausible thing I can conjure up.

Could also have been a dietary bonk.

 

[Valv.Piti]

Spencer Martin on a podcast yesterday said that he went back through Remco's previous results and he noticed that Remco has never had success on a day that contained two HC climbs and alluded that today might be tough for him. I have no idea if that is true, but if it is, it is pretty telling for his potential as a GC rider.

Obviously the guy has won a Vuelta, and that shouldn't be discounted. On the other hand, this year's field is of much higher quality. Maybe he will have to "pick and choose" his GC's in the future. When Wiggo won his TDF, weren't the mountains fairly "easy" as compared to other years. Maybe focus on GC's with heavy time trials and cobbles? and leave the grand tours with hard mountains for other riders.

You're right: I think Wiggo 2012 and Remco 2022 is very similar in the aspect that yes, they won a GT, but the circumstances were incredibly favorable. We really didn't test his vulnerabilities which are recovery and tough mountain stages.

Remco's peak is obviously higher as a GT rider than Wiggo's ever was, not disputing that, but a GT aint just a GT and there's that. There's quite a lot more to it.

 

[Red Rick]

Could also have been a dietary bonk.

Dietary bonk after barely an hour of racing?

 

[saunaking]

I figured that Evenepoel's form was on a downward trajectory. His uphill sprint in stage 11 looked like an all-out effort, pretty much. A comparatively weak one at that. Let's not forget that he had his teammates block the road. You don't do that if you have superior recovery.

He also said that he was hoping for an easy stage 12 (no echelons, I guess) in order to be ready for the mountain stages. That comment was pretty telling.

as bad as he is, stage 11 didn't look like anything. just a little pickup for the line
more concerning was his comments after the TT and not sprinting vs Rog for the intermediate the other day

 

[LesDiablesRouges]

Dietary bonk after barely an hour of racing?

No, his dietary intake throughout the Vuelta. He may not have been processing the nutrients properly and as a cumaltive effecthe eventually ran out of juice.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

Dietary bonk as euphemism for being overweight

 

[Netserk]

Dietary bonk as euphemism for being overweight

Euphemism for his intake of fluids.

 

[dobrien]

I'm a big fan of Remco, just to be clear, so not like i'm weighing in just to slag him. On his day he's the best TT rider in the world, and only a few people on the planet are his match in LBL/San Sebastian type races. And yes, he took a nice Vuelta last year but in hindsight it was by the skin of his teeth; this is not a rider who looks like the type to get stronger in the 3rd week a la Jonas.

For me, him and his team trying to beat the likes of Pog and Ving at the Tour is like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole; it's just not going to fit. I know it's not what his fans or the Belgian press want to hear but the fact is today was a collapse of epic proportions and like it or not really derails his GC aspirations.

Imagine yourself in his shoes finishing today knowing that all the interest in and competition for you as a potential TDF winner just flew right out the window, not to mention having to deal with Patrick's disappointment, the Belgian press, etc.

Today definitely seemed to me also more than just a bad day, something is off. But unfortunately at some point it no longer matters WHY you're not getting closer to your goal, only that you are not. The reasons stop mattering.

Here's hoping he goes out with a bang, a magnificent stage win of some sort. And after that I hope he focuses for awhile on what he does best and forgets about TDF GC. Maybe Cian riding great will be good for Remco, take a little of the spotlight off him.

Just my .02.

 

[dobrien]

Dietary bonk after barely an hour of racing?

If someone is already empty from what has led up to it (overtraining, not recovering) the duration doesn't matter. I will bet he was thinking "Oh sh*t" at the first pedal stroke today.

 

[Jagartrott]

The only thing that makes sense to me is overtraining between the Worlds and the Vuelta, particularly the emphasis on 'training on the long climbs' and doing huge multi mountain trainings perhaps in a period where you should actually be doing race specific efforts rather than super high volume work is the only plausible thing I can conjure up.

This may make sense. There's a lack of knowledge at QS for GC racing and preparation still, I think. Evenepoel's abilities in GTs are still a mystery of sorts. Can he really not handle tough mountain stages, but what then with his wins in tough one day races with plenty of climbing and sustained (long range breakaway) efforts? Does he really have limited recovery (and can that be trained)? Wrong diet? Wrong training? Many questions, and I do not think they can answer or resolve them at QS.

 

[Izzyeviel]

Spencer Martin on a podcast yesterday said that he went back through Remco's previous results and he noticed that Remco has never had success on a day that contained two HC climbs and alluded that today might be tough for him. I have no idea if that is true, but if it is, it is pretty telling for his potential as a GC rider.

Obviously the guy has won a Vuelta, and that shouldn't be discounted. On the other hand, this year's field is of much higher quality. Maybe he will have to "pick and choose" his GC's in the future. When Wiggo won his TDF, weren't the mountains fairly "easy" as compared to other years. Maybe focus on GC's with heavy time trials and cobbles? and leave the grand tours with hard mountains for other riders.

If that were true, Remco wouldn't have been dropped on the first real climb of the day, he'd have cracked on the Tourmalet. They say he wasn't sick or injured...well I can only presume there's something they're hiding or maybe he is actually sick but hasn't realised it yet. Even if he'd been up all night on the booze he shouldn't be this bad.

 

[DoYouEvenRideBruh]

What really blows my mind is the epic proportion of his collapse. Training mistakes and suboptimal diet hardly account for the loss of almost half an hour (!) in a single stage. I was certain he must have some kind of illness, but that is apparently not the case.

I don't think this puts the final nail in the coffin of his GC aspirations (for crying out loud, he won a Vuelta, although a fairly atypical one), but the question marks that already existed about his potential as a consistent top GT rider have become a lot bigger today.

That said, the guy is only 23. The Pogs and Ayusos of the world shouldn't be the stick by which we measure such a young rider's performance. He has time to improve - I only worry whether too much focus on his potential as a GC rider as opposed to his already well developed one-day racing qualities will end up to be harmful to his career and palmares, should things turn out badly for him.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

I think the obvious lack of proof of his capacity we are missing is hard mountain stages with several climbs (and additionally at high altitude) and blocks of several hard mountain stages following days.

If everything looked normal for the first part of the stage and he had cracked on Tourmalet today it would've been a big red flag about his limitations as a rider. If he had been doing okay today and cracked tomorrow it would've been a big red flag about his limitations as a rider.

Dropping halfway up Aubisque (even before reaching an altitude of even 1500 masl) on the first climb of the day when the peloton is still like 50 men is just so much worse than what could possibly be within the range of a bad day under normal circumstances. I think Lanterne Rouge in his podcast estimated that the pace at Aubisque must have been around 5,0 w/kg when Remco dropped. That a rider like Remco is struggling at such an effort early on a stage is hard to understand, especially since the last two stages before this stage has been pretty easy.

It will be interesting to see what the rest of the Vuelta holds. If @Red Rick is right about the overtraining I expect him to be nowhere for the rest of the race and it would be a sensible explanation. If @Izzyeviel is right and Remco is actually sick but hasn't realised it yet that would also be a sensible explanation. If Remco suddenly perform "normal" again and they don't have any explanation of this complete bonk I don't know what to think.

 

[IndianCyclist]

Ineos becomes even more imperative at this point if SQS cannot figure out what happened or what training/diet to do so that he does not collapse midway through a GT

 

[Cookster15]

So how did he manage to win the 2022 Vuelta then? He comfortably beat Mas and Ayuso who now sit 23 minutes ahead of him on GC. Something isn't right at this Vuelta and I don't think its because he can't ride grand tours.

 

[FroomeWagon]

Ineos becomes even more imperative at this point if SQS cannot figure out what happened or what training/diet to do so that he does not collapse midway through a GT

It becomes more of an imperative for Remco and his camp, but I think it makes it less likely that Ineos is interested. Maybe Ineos still wants Remco, but maybe not at the price his dad was asking for.

 

[geisterhome]

This may make sense. There's a lack of knowledge at QS for GC racing and preparation still, I think. Evenepoel's abilities in GTs are still a mystery of sorts. Can he really not handle tough mountain stages, but what then with his wins in tough one day races with plenty of climbing and sustained (long range breakaway) efforts? Does he really have limited recovery (and can that be trained)? Wrong diet? Wrong training? Many questions, and I do not think they can answer or resolve them at QS.

I would always have thought that the best riders (or athletes in general) also have the best natural ability to recover. That is even if it doesn't matter how fast you are able recover from an effort while you are competing (like for e.g. classics specialists). Just cos if you recover faster it also means you can train harder and thus get in better form.