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

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Zinoviev Letter

Aug 18, 2010
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Anyone who has spent so little time in a peloton needs to learn basic bike handling skills of a kind that don’t come automatically with freak aerobic gifts. Ok, you’d have to assume that the biggest classics team in the world is well equipped to coach such skills. But it seems to me that he would be better off learning those skills in a less pressurized environment. Being the youngest rider in the WT, thought of as the New Eddy Merckx, on a Belgian team, under the close supervision of the Belgian media, does not strike me as a good environment to learn. He’d be better off spending a year racing at PCT level in the US first.

Your average Espoir is a veteran of the road by comparison with a junior who took up racing a few minutes ago and has spent most of the time since off the front solo. I fear the kid is going to spend a lot of time in the near future missing patches of skin.
 
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Jvotec

Apr 24, 2016
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I. For one think.. that pro cycling has got a lot to learn from soccer/football.
At least defending wise... I think the likes of Boohoohouhani and Renshaw are idiots with a purpose/goal... but since i've played low level soccer it surprises me that in WT those idiots are the worst...
I despise them.. but imho i could think of worse scenarios
 
Akuryo

Akuryo

Apr 19, 2014
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Re:

Zinoviev Letter said:
Anyone who has spent so little time in a peloton needs to learn basic bike handling skills of a kind that don’t come automatically with freak aerobic gifts. Ok, you’d have to assume that the biggest classics team in the world is well equipped to coach such skills. But it seems to me that he would be better off learning those skills in a less pressurized environment. Being the youngest rider in the WT, thought of as the New Eddy Merckx, on a Belgian team, under the close supervision of the Belgian media, does not strike me as a good environment to learn. He’d be better off spending a year racing at PCT level in the US first.

Your average Espoir is a veteran of the road by comparison with a junior who took up racing a few minutes ago and has spent most of the time since off the front solo. I fear the kid is going to spend a lot of time in the near future missing patches of skin.
Click to expand...

While I agree from his perspective, you have to understand that it was probably now or never for Lefevere to get the deal done. And if he really is that once in a generation talent, you have to be quick. Same with Gaviria. The second he beat Cavendish in 2015, Lefevere had the phone in his hand! 2,5 years as a pro and that kid has 34 wins ...
 
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JoeD1997

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What people also forget is that Lefevere can race him a little, maybe even a few WT races, and if he is very much struggling, he can be selected by the Belgian National Team for the nations cup events like U23 GW, Flanders, ZLM Tour, Peace Race and of course l'Avenir and Worlds. If he followed that schedule plus a few races with QS, that could be just as good for his development as a season with HBA, and he gets to do it from the comfort of Belgium rather than moving Stateside
 
Red Rick

Red Rick

Feb 20, 2012
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Valv.Piti said:
Thats just insanity. Doesnt surprise me Sky tried to snatch him, thank god Lefevre got him. According to the article above, he wont even be 19 when he gets on the team next year and he just took cycling up ONE year ago?

I dont know man, this guy is just out of this world. I can't wait to follow him
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Imagine that if you're Bernal.

"Hey Egan, you've done a tremendous job beating up stage races and shepherding Froome through the Tour, but we've found somebody better than you, so now gets more chances form himself than you"
 
Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

Jun 7, 2011
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Wouldn't it make sense to have him do internships both in cyclocross and track teams? Two opposites as far as cycling goes, but bike handling plays a big part in both and might complement riding in peloton.

bambino said:
So is he allowed to ride the World Tour already next year or not? I thought UCI decision was that he has to spend a year in U23 before WT...
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UCI decided he couldn't move to U23 during this year because "rules" and wouldn't make an exception. By doing that, by failing to acknowledge the extraordinary situation, they have now made things worse since he will be skipping that step entirely.

Alexandre B. said:
Valv.Piti said:
Thats just insanity. Doesnt surprise me Sky tried to snatch him, thank god Lefevre got him.
Click to expand...
Pest or cholera.
Click to expand...
With Bernal and Sivakov, Sky already snatched two of the most talented GC youngsters. While Quickstep has De Plus, he is not of the same level and a few years older still. So unless you want more Sky oppression, Evenepoel not going to Sky is only a good thing for the sport. For his own development, it depends on how you look at it. There will be teammates living nearby (like De Plus), he can stay in Belgium more often, Lefevre will make a winner out of him and there is less pressure for GC in that team. The team is very classics minded, so they should know how to improve his bike handling, riding in peloton, but also one of the best TTT teams out there. In Sky, i'm sure the approach would be more scientific, but he'd be more away from home, there would be more pressure as a GC rider... somehow i think him becoming the next Merckx will be more likely if he goes to Sky, but it would also be more likely that he implodes at the age of 22, never to be heard of again.
 
DNP-Old

DNP-Old

Aug 6, 2014
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JoeD1997 said:
What people also forget is that Lefevere can race him a little, maybe even a few WT races, and if he is very much struggling, he can be selected by the Belgian National Team for the nations cup events like U23 GW, Flanders, ZLM Tour, Peace Race and of course l'Avenir and Worlds. If he followed that schedule plus a few races with QS, that could be just as good for his development as a season with HBA, and he gets to do it from the comfort of Belgium rather than moving Stateside
Click to expand...
I don't think World Tour riders are allowed in 2Ncup races except for l'Avenir.
 
Logic-is-your-friend

Logic-is-your-friend

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http://www.rivistacontrasti.it/remco-evenepoel-il-divoratore-di-mondi/

Google Translate:

Remco Evenepoel: the devourer of worlds

After leaving football to become a cyclist, a young Belgian with a charming name could become the new tyrant who threatens the world of pedaling.

In the number 48 of March 1966 he made his debut on "The Fantastic Four", Galactus, also called the Devourer of worlds: from that moment the Marvel universe was no longer the same. In those same days, a not yet twenty-one-year-old Eddy Merckx, who made his way to life of his proverbial hunger, won his first Milan-Sanremo, giving way to the most terrible two-wheeled tyranny in the history of the globe. 52 years later it is the turn of a boy just eighteen years old, coming from the Flemish Brabant, to threaten the whole world. Born while the relativity of time bloomed in the new millennium and the whole society asked questions about the real end of the days, Remco Evenepoel is the most truthful manifestation of Stan Lee's invention. Remco Evenepoel is the reincarnation of the "Destroyer", of the "Devourer of worlds".

Born from the mind of Stan Lee, in spite of his fame, Galactus is not an evil being, but is forced to devour entire worlds to survive his fate.

As soon as Remco starts walking, he is not helped by the pedals, but he prefers to kick the ball, immediately putting himself in the spotlight as a talent in the green rectangle. Extremely fast and technical left-back after having done all the training in the Anderlecht youths, he finished over the border in the Netherlands, moving from the homeland of cycling to that - which was - of football.

At the PSV he spends three years demonstrating predetermined skills. Back in Belgium - first at Anderlecht and then at Mechelen - where he will also defend the colors of his national youth team and wearing the captain's armband. Then here is the sacrosanct decision: he wants to ride a bike, following, as in the most trivial of family stories, the footsteps of his father, a professional at the beginning of the 90s and with only one outstanding victory: the 1993 GP Wallonie .

Very young at the time of the PSV (photo source: sporza.be) (image)

Remco Evenepoel probably the comics do not read them, despite having been born and raised in the homeland of the Bande dessinée. He knows that his career will be a story to tell, to draw, Métal hurlant who at the age of just 18 already assumes the proportion of the event to be told. We are in 2017 and Remco launches into the world of youth cycling as a devastating event, making a glimpse of its disproportionate value. In his second race he already wins: stage in a small Belgian race. A few weeks later he repeats, first in France then again in Belgium where he goes to conquer "La Philippe Gilbert".

Remco Evenepoel is a name that sounds wonderfully well, like Edvald Boasson Hagen; another that in the past was compared to Merckx, crushed by pressure has learned to win little and not very well.

Remco Evenepoel is Fluide glacial; in a year and a half from Juniores is destroying, pardon humiliating, devouring each of his young colleague. He wins on every field with abysmal detachments: in time trial and in line as recently before the Belgian championship and then at the European Juniores Championship held in Brno, Czech Republic. In season he also triumphs in several international youth classics, and in two short races in stages: General Patton and the famous "Race of Peace" which takes place in the Czech Republic. In both races he won over the overall standings and two stages, including the points jersey and the mountain grand prix jersey.

Start tasting us: here he tastes his first international title: the European time trial (the bis a few days later in the online test) (image)

He says that the comparison with Merckx makes him afraid, even if he is only eighteen years old: "Simply Evenepoel". That Remco Evenepoel is different from all the others, proves it when he chooses the tiresome bike to the most satisfying - in every sense - football, where he had shown a certain attitude. But it's not a cartoon character, it's not Galactus, not even Tintin: "I had to lose 8 kilos to ride a bike, the first time the workouts had completely destroyed my body: groin pain, tendonitis, my muscles not they were used to this kind of work. "

As a grown-up, before becoming simply Evenepoel, Remco will want to retrace the footsteps of his idol: "I adore Contador and for this reason I feel more of a GT man than a classic". Remco Evenepoel deals with road races in line, as if they were kermis or dry and short trials of the cyclocross: ready to go on the attack. At the recent European Championship in Brno after having beaten everyone in the time trial (doing a time that would have earned him the podium in the Under23 test just behind the Affini), he attacks on the first lap, like a Woet Van Aert any, winning the race with almost 10 minutes of advantage on the second. They are gaps of other times, detachments from Merckx. If we add the advantage on the places placed behind him in the races won this year, it is almost time.

The apparel of the Juniores category is tightly fitting. He has already asked for a derogation from the UCI to run the next World Championship in Innsbruck with the Under 23: nothing to do, he will have to be content to humiliate his junior colleagues; first of all that Van Wilder who constantly ends up behind him in almost all races, as if he were *** Dastardly on his bicycle.

A phenomenon and two Merckx (image)

The next year will taste the profession, the serious one, at first seemed to run with the Axeons Hagen Bergmans, one of the best continental teams and from which for years come out many talents ready to appear in the world - not very idyllic for the truth - of cycling World Tour. Instead it is just a few hours ago the news that from next year will run in the Quick Step: one of the best teams in the world, in a double jump category that makes it get more and more into the restricted world of predestined. Evenepoel is already projected into the future, because what he devours in the present and devoured in the past is just the starter, for those like him who have in his destiny the obligation to be among the greatest of cycling history.
 
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