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

[Salvarani]

Easy there, cowboy.
Some of the riders involved in crashes in descents the past few years, were very experienced like Gilbert and Bakelants.
Kruijswijk crashed at age 28 in similar circumstances (pressure by Nibali)
Fuglsang was just lucky in L-B-L last year.

I'd say that experience in Cyclocross or MTB are the main factors to reduce the chance of this kind of crashes.
Age? Not so much.

Dont bother, let him talk to himself from now on.

 

[YavorD]

According to some guy on Wielerflits, he also has 2 fractures in his pubis.


Maybe check what i was responding to before asking me to ease down.

Anybody can crash, but inexperienced riders will have a much higher chance of crashing under those circumstances. Are you going to debate that? The fact that you can name older experienced riders that also crashed is irrelevant. It is merely a result of them being more likely to be in those circumstances to begin with, considering it is not often that a young inexperienced rider is in the final of a big race competing for the win. Be it a GC of a GT or victory in a monument. It's like saying adults have a higher chance of crashing their car than teenagers. Obviously, because most teenagers don't drive a car yet.

The way and the circumstances Remco fell, I don't think it has much in common with experience or age.
Probably every rider on the peloton crashed multiple times while trying to reduce/or make a gap on a downhill.
So no. Age and experience wont prevent a rider from crashing. Will it be less likely to crash being 25-28-31? Don't think so, Contador was crashing like crazy it the last years of his career. And I do believe I can find a lot of riders who descended worse/crashed often in the later stages of their career.

Anyway, this discussion is pointless. Luckily Remco doesn't seem to have serious injury (and by serious I mean what could've been by the way he fell...) and hopefully he will come back strong(er).

 

[Big Doopie]

You're probably right. I just Remember him as being trash in 2012 even before the crash but that did not necessarily mean much.

yes, the deterioration of both schlecks coincided quite dramatically with clinic-related advances in testing. coincidence...?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

The way and the circumstances Remco fell, I don't think it has much in common with experience or age.
Probably every rider on the peloton crashed multiple times while trying to reduce/or make a gap on a downhill.
So no. Age and experience wont prevent a rider from crashing. Will it be less likely to crash being 25-28-31? Don't think so, Contador was crashing like crazy it the last years of his career. And I do believe I can find a lot of riders who descended worse/crashed often in the later stages of their career.

Anyway, this discussion is pointless. Luckily Remco doesn't seem to have serious injury (and by serious I mean what could've been by the way he fell...) and hopefully he will come back strong(er).

You don't have to read my post, and you don't have to respond to it. But please, if you decide to respond to it, please try to read what i actually wrote?

Older riders also tend to crash more, regardless of experience, simply because they start losing their edge, are slower to react etc. Completely different matter.

 

[spalco]

Honestly Logic, i like you, but i think you're going a bit far out on a limb here. Lefevre can't hold a rider's hand all day long. Evenepoel is young, but everyone old enough to ride a bike, whether it's in a race or for fun, in the end is responsible for their own safety (not counting freak incidents like what happened to Schachmann).

The team could have reconned the descent or something (or maybe they did anyway?), but telling someone 'take it easy following nibali' seems pointless to me. The guy on the road knows best, or should know best, how fast to go.

 

[Breezy1985]

I'm amazed that the first thing he said to Lefevere was "sorry". Tells you all you need to know about his attitude to his sport. Relieved that his injury are comparatively minor, when I saw the first replay of the crash I thought at first he just plummeted down the entire length of the bridge. I don't remember having ever been so scared looking at a TV.

It feels like it's getting harder every year to even watch bike races just for fear of something awful happening on every descent or other dangerous situations - as a kid I used to hardly care about crashes at all, today it's very different.

I felt physically sick and feared the worst. It's such a weird looking crash first it looks like he is gonna hit the wall and crash on the road then it looks like he has slowed almost to a stop and will.hit the wall slowly but then he suddenly flies up over the bars and from the angle we see looks like he falls the entire length of the bridge.

 

[Panda Claws]

Seeing the bike stand there like that before we knew went on was just so omnious.
At first I tried to think of a positive explanation. Perhaps Remco was picking up a new bike somewhere idk even though that does not make sense.
But you see the bridge all the while and you worry more and more.

 

[rghysens]

According to Yvan van Mol, season is over, but they expect him in good condition in trainingscamps in winter.
The way they asses it now, probably no surgery needed, but 6 weeks of complete rest.
Lung capacity isn't damaged.

source: sporza website

 

[tobydawq]

I suppose when you're a kid you think your heroes are invincible. Then you learn, to your horror, that they aren't.

I don't think that's the explanation at all.

 

[kingjr]

I don't think that's the explanation at all.

I think it's a mix of general unawareness of the things that can happen to someone in an accident, and a kind of detachment to what is happening on a TV screen, as in you don't fully comprehend the reality of it.

And I suppose one's sense of empathy isn't fully developed yet as a child, at least mine wasn't I'm pretty sure.

 

[Panda Claws]

According to Yvan van Mol, season is over, but they expect him in good condition in trainingscamps in winter.
The way they asses it now, probably no surgery needed, but 6 weeks of complete rest.
Lung capacity isn't damaged.

source: sporza website

I really hope so. I understand that it could have been far worse but could be devastating for him if he did not recover well.

 

[tobydawq]

I think it's a mix of general unawareness of the things that can happen to someone in an accident, and a kind of detachment to what is happening on a TV screen, as in you don't fully comprehend the reality of it.

And I suppose one's sense of empathy isn't fully developed yet as a child, at least mine wasn't I'm pretty sure.

I think that is precisely the explanation.

 

[tobydawq]

That said, two crashes as the ones we have seen with Remco and Fabio are luckily rare, and I don't think I ever witnessed something quite so scary in the many, many, many years I was watching as a child and probably not since then, either. Okay, I'm told I watched the Tour in 1995 but I don't have any recollection of that, specifically not about Casartelli's crash.

I was watching the Giro stage where Weylandt died but I don't think we saw the crash. We did see him lying on the ground, I think.

I also remember an incident where I think it was Pereiro who rode out over the mountain side but nothing happened to him. And the same with Augustyn but we could quickly see he was alright. The same goes for Ullrich.

I didn't see Gilbert's crash in 2018 live as I was standing on the final mountain of the day but I think that would maybe have elicited the same fear as Remco's and Fabio's incidents.

 

[BlueRoads]

Hm. I was way more afraid of crashes when I was young. I could never believe they were actually allowed to go down these descents, always left me with an open mouth: "There are no barriers?" "They are allowed that?" Now I often feel like they are invincible ("They are pros, they can do it") and always find myself in harsh reality when a bad crash happens.

 

[Panda Claws]

Gilbert was scary for sure but I think we got An update quicker and he could stand at least. Imo Evenepoel's crash was made a bit scarier by how young he is. Psychologically that feels different.

 

[JosephK]

According to Yvan van Mol, season is over, but they expect him in good condition in trainingscamps in winter.
The way they asses it now, probably no surgery needed, but 6 weeks of complete rest.
Lung capacity isn't damaged.

source: sporza website

This is incredibly good news, almost miraculous.

 

[BlueRoads]

That said, two crashes as the ones we have seen with Remco and Fabio are luckily rare, and I don't think I ever witnessed something quite so scary in the many, many, many years I was watching as a child and probably not since then, either. Okay, I'm told I watched the Tour in 1995 but I don't have any recollection of that, specifically not about Casartelli's crash.

I was watching the Giro stage where Weylandt died but I don't think we saw the crash. We did see him lying on the ground, I think.

I also remember an incident where I think it was Pereiro who rode out over the mountain side but nothing happened to him. And the same with Augustyn but we could quickly see he was alright. The same goes for Ullrich.

I didn't see Gilbert's crash in 2018 live as I was standing on the final mountain of the day but I think that would maybe have elicited the same fear as Remco's and Fabio's incidents.

I remember Gilbert very well. When he crashed, that was my hardest shock ever before Remco. (I did not see Jakobsen crash.) When Gilbert turned up again it was like in a movie: Like Indy climbing up when his father stands there and thinks he's dead. Thinking about that now: Was it a stage that Alaphilippe later took? Because there was a time when I had an antipathy for him. And I think it had also something to do with the fact that he always seemed to take advantage of other people crashing (I was very silly.)

 

[tobydawq]

I remember Gilbert very well. When he crashed, that was my hardest shock ever before Remco. (I did not see Jakobsen crash.) When Gilbert turned up again it was like in a movie: Like Indy climbing up when his father stands there and thinks he's dead. Thinking about that now: Was it a stage that Alaphilippe later took? Because there was a time when I had an antipathy for him. And I think it had also something to do with the fact that he always seemed to take advantage of other people crashing (I was very silly.)

Yes, it was a stage that Alaphilippe, Gilbert's teammate, took after overtaking Adam Yates on the final descent when the latter crashed. Initially, Alaphilippe wanted to wait for Yates which prompted sports director Brian Holm to call him an idiot, and so he went on to win.

Gilbert's crash was much earlier in the stage but he was also leading at the point of the crash.

 

[rghysens]

There's also the crash of Bruyneel in the descent of the Cormet de Roselend in 1996. It has some similarities to Remco's, but he came out unscathed.

 

[spalco]

I was watching the Giro stage where Weylandt died but I don't think we saw the crash. We did see him lying on the ground, I think.

Right, the crash wasn't captured, him lying on the ground for a very brief moment was, must have been less than a second (and never repeated) when the editor or maybe the camera man realised what is being shown on camera - a man who just died.
I don't have image memory, but the memory of how i felt that moment is haunting, i've watched the sport differently since then.

Wasn't the first time i saw someone die on camera though, that was Ulli Maier in 1994, incredible tragedy too.

 

[GuntherL]

Dont bother, let him talk to himself from now on.

Bramati had given him the right advice.
"Keep your distance, build in some safety," sports director Bramati had told him. "If you are less than ten seconds behind, there is no man overboard."

Anyway, I expect him to recover. I'll check this forum again in January 2021.

 

[hayneplane]

Honestly Logic, i like you, but i think you're going a bit far out on a limb here. Lefevre can't hold a rider's hand all day long. Evenepoel is young, but everyone old enough to ride a bike, whether it's in a race or for fun, in the end is responsible for their own safety (not counting freak incidents like what happened to Schachmann).

The team could have reconned the descent or something (or maybe they did anyway?), but telling someone 'take it easy following nibali' seems pointless to me. The guy on the road knows best, or should know best, how fast to go.

I disagree, the team should have been telling him not to worry about losing a bit of time on the descent both in the pre-race tactical briefing and before the climb as a reminder.

If they did do that and Remco ignored the advice and pushed beyond his bike handling abilities then it’s a different case.

 

[Red Rick]

I disagree, the team should have been telling him not to worry about losing a bit of time on the descent both in the pre-race tactical briefing and before the climb as a reminder.

If they did do that and Remco ignored the advice and pushed beyond his bike handling abilities then it’s a different case.

I think it goes both ways.

I think it's cycling 101 he wasn't losing the race there. But it's still up to the DS to hammer that into him.

 

[SafeBet]

The Jakobsen-Remco combo of crashes in a few weeks was easily the biggest scare of my entire life as a cycling fan. I still can't believe both riders are alive and will likely race in 2021.

Zakarin's crash in 2016 descending from Agnello was also terrifying, with the rider lying on sharp rocks meters away from the bike.

 

[dicanio_michael]

I disagree, the team should have been telling him not to worry about losing a bit of time on the descent both in the pre-race tactical briefing and before the climb as a reminder.

If they did do that and Remco ignored the advice and pushed beyond his bike handling abilities then it’s a different case.

How did you know the team had not done so ?
How did you know he pushed beyond his abilities rather than pure accident ?

It was meaningless to talk about this afterward. As Lefevere said, luckily he is alive and nothing else matters. I hope we focus on his recovery and come back. No need to point fingers on anybody.