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

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To be fair today’s racing is much more specialized. That being said the crazy part about Merckx is that he had a horrible crash 1968 that caused him to ride i. pain for the remainder of his career. No crash and he probably wins quite a few more races

1969. Blois. 6 day race in the winter after his first TDF win. It particularly affected his climbing from then on.
 
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nothing funny at all there. The way he is riding, he would be a favorite if he were to go to the tour. He could have a large lead after the first week as that suits him (he could go on the Turini and hold the gap to the Col D'Eze). The finishing climb of stage 4 is a pure power climb, favoring him, as is the finish to stage 6
Okay the 3 assumptions I'm talking about:

  1. Alaphilippe as high mountain domestique is a good idea. Which it really isn't. He was struggling to hang on for most of the Tour and he wouldn't be able to even do much work for Evenepoel in the best case, wasting one of the best stagehunters on maybe a few seconds here and there.
  2. Egan Bernal is only good on high altitude. He wins as much on low altitude as on high altitude, and he was really just not great in the 2nd week of the Tour last year.
  3. Evenepoel would be the standout favorite for the Tour. I wouldn't go that far. He'd be one of the favorites to win, but with him never having done a GT before I'm not sure why I'd go for the Tour at a first GT attempt, when the Giro suits him many times better and has a weaker field.
 
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He'll attack 70k from the finish, everybody will think he' s crazy and wait... and he'll be in the hotel by the time Colbrelli wins the sprint, thinking he'd won.
Jokes on Evenepoel when Demare this time steps into the team car and drives it past Evenepoel to the finish while Nibali can barely hang on so that Evenepoel barely podiums.
 
Is the field stronger now than in the past or weaker? Tough to say, but I can’t remember a time with so many exciting contenders and former Gt winners. I hope everyone wears a mask and socially distances so we don’t eff this up.

Evenepoel vs Nibali vs S Yates vs Carapaz in Giro and that’s the weaker field.

Bernal vs Roglic vs Thomas vs Dumoulin vs Kr....jk vs Pogacar, plus the Froome side show, plus the Landa, Quintana wildcards
 
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I don't think I ever saw something like this to be honest.
What's left to test? Multi climbing stages? Recovery over 3 weeks.
Seems from another planet.
Multi mountain stages, like really big ones, especially back to back. Normally you'd assume he can't make efforts like these every day. My assumption would be if he's the best in the high mountains, the gap is somewhat smaller than on hilly terrain, and the overall edge would be a little less big over the course of 3 weeks.

Not really assuming he'd magically crack.
 
Is the field stronger now than in the past or weaker? Tough to say, but I can’t remember a time with so many exciting contenders and former Gt winners. I hope everyone wears a mask and socially distances so we don’t eff this up.

Evenepoel vs Nibali vs S Yates vs Carapaz in Giro and that’s the weaker field.

Bernal vs Roglic vs Thomas vs Dumoulin vs Kr....jk vs Pogacar, plus the Froome side show, plus the Landa, Quintana wildcards
I think the field is surely stronger than any of the post 2006 years. It's also great that riders mix their GTs up more and are less contained to one of strictly Giro/Tour/Vuelta

Contador's time had Schleck and Cuddles as main opposition. Froome had Quintana, NIbbles and Contador mainly, but Contador would *** up every Tour and Froome and Nibbles barely collided. Meanwhile you had GT winners in Hesjedal, Horner and almost Kruijswijk.
 

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