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

[Extinction]

Remco is clearly in good shape. Sunday's finish at Campo Felice on the sentiere I think will say something more. I know the climb and that last 1.5 klm on the sterrato have perhaps been understimated in terms of difficulty. Some riders could falter. Then the Montalcino stage is another huge test, as well as of course the Zoncolan. If Remco is still with Bernal into the last week then he becomes the real favorite, because of the final TT. But it is still too early to forecast.

 

[Skalman]

i really think you are missing the point.

38 total kms of TT is ridiculously low and favors pure climbers. Why do you think Bernal, Carthy, Martin, Landa, Yates, etc... are among the favorites.

There was a time that you had over (even well over) 100 kms of TT in a GT. And the winners were more well-rounded because of it. The above riders would have been mentioned as having top ten/climbers jersey potential. In recent years there has been a move away from TTs in GTs that has favored pure climbers. At one point Carapaz, Yates and Bernal were the holders of the GTs. that is simply unheard of in cycling history.

having one TT to re-coup 1.30 mins is chicken sh!t for the rider who has all around capabilites. why do you think remco is foced to drop weight.

remco would have strolled all over last year's giro. and he had a better chance of winning this year's TDF than this giro -- in terms of parcours.

I hear you, but its still a factor if one is so much significantly better at that the rest. That's like a buffer of 1.30 he has afford to loose to the others.
Then that buffer might not be worth anything when your above 2000 meters and being dropped hard, but the TT its still something that favors Remco heavily if he can hang on and make it tight.
The weight loss was obviously for those reasons

 

[Big Doopie]

I hear you, but its still a factor if one is so much significantly better at that the rest. That's like a buffer of 1.30 he has afford to loose to the others.
Then that buffer might not be worth anything when your above 2000 meters and being dropped hard, but the TT its still something that favors Remco heavily if he can hang on and make it tight.
The weight loss was obviously for those reasons

1.30 is not much if you have one so-so day in the mountains. i think it is hard to see Remco losing less than that in the montains to come UNLESS he fully returns to 2020 Remco. and he may still, i just believe that for now the jury is still out and Bernal is the strongest and favored by the route.

i am a Remco fan, btw. and (surprisingly apparently) also somewhat a realist.

 

[Skalman]

1.30 is not much if you have one so-so day in the mountains. i think it is hard to see Remco losing less than that in the montains to come UNLESS he fully returns to 2020 Remco. and he may still, i just believe that for now the jury is still out and Bernal is the strongest and favored by the route.

i am a Remco fan, btw. and (surprisingly apparently) also somewhat a realist.

I understand that, but right now (as i said or should have said) he is the favorite for me and i think for a lot of others, he went with Bernal with ease from what it look like, even though Bernal might not have gone all out and even forced a smile when he crossed the line , it seemed the same for Remco, he had more to give.
If he performs like that in the high mountains is ofc to early to tell, but we somehow need to base the speculation from what we see so far and so far not many of the other contenders look good.

I'm not a Remco fan btw and just the thought that he would contest this Giro in any serious way was somewhat almost outlandish for me , but now he is up there and looks more than good, hope he can keep it up

 

[KZD]

The more I see, the more I think Remco would have been the only one capable of beating the Slovenian duo in the Tour.
With the Zoncolan and the third week descents still to come I don't think that he will beat Bernal if the latter remains healthy.

 

[Walter1234]

...

Hmm. Not sure about that. Bernal so far is the strongest. Remco has suffered at high gradients. Zoncolan may be tough. ....

Yes and no. Yes Bernal is better and will almost always be better in short efforts. That is why he (and many riders) can take a few seconds on Remco in the last kms when it is steed like a few days ago. No; for a longer steep effort Bernal still has to prove it in this Giro. The difference versus today even when steep will not be big. They are about the same weight. But when they attack early they risk a counter from Remco and they don't see him back. The good Remco we saw last year is able to outperform any smaller group.
But I still don't know if have a good Remco here. To know that we should have insights in his test results.
But so far everything's develops perfect for Remco.

Walter

 

[Salvarani]

If he is still good come week three with shot at it and doesnt have a super-bad day along the way... he can ride calculated and defensive just tryna follow the moves.

Because he know he can take time in the ITT. A big chunk of time if he comes up to normal standard, which is always difficult to know at the end of a 3-week race. For anyone.

So far, so good. But a big test will be Zoncolan. If he doesnt implode there, he is in it for real.

 

[peterfin]

I really like Remco's performance and attitude so far. He is focused and drives smart, maximising his chances of a podium spot. He knows that he can't fully assess his current shape and he neither knows what the impact will be on his body driving a 3-week GT so he is very calculated in his driving. His TT was good but he said that he didn't take risks in the turns and that he knew the pink jersey was basically impossible with a motivated Ganna, a world champion 4km track cycling. During the 4th stage he didn't want to respond to the acceleration, not knowing if he would blow up just before the top, so he used his TT-skills to minimise the gap to handful of seconds. Today his focus was on staying with the podium candidates and that will likely be the strategy for the first two weeks, sparing his energy for the final week when also his shape may improve.

 

[Extinction]

Something to consider is that with Evenepoel and Bernal were Martin and Ciccone, who, while very good riders, are not Pogacar or Roglic. That Bernal was not able to get rid of Martin or Ciccone, leaves me wondering how strong he really is and if he will be dominant when we get to the Alps and Dolomites.

Then you have to imagine that DQS brought Remco to the Giro planning his form to increase for the third week. Such a plan may not pan out, but certainly they must be anticipating that it will. In this case, we could be in for a hell of a race from here on out.

 

[BlueRoads]

Thinking about it I came to the conclusion that DQS must have told him a thousand times "don't overpace, don't overpace, stay smart, don't overpace..." fearing that he will get too enthusiastic and waste his energy.

 

[Red Rick]

If he is still good come week three with shot at it and doesnt have a super-bad day along the way... he can ride calculated and defensive just tryna follow the moves.

Because he know he can take time in the ITT. A big chunk of time if he comes up to normal standard, which is always difficult to know at the end of a 3-week race. For anyone.

So far, so good. But a big test will be Zoncolan. If he doesnt implode there, he is in it for real.

The ITT isn't that long, and it's completely flat. Gaps be like 1'30 at the very max, and a minute is more likely IMO.

 

[BlueRoads]

A strong Evenepoel can take 2 minutes on Bernal on such a route. Whether he is that strong by then, I don't know.

 

[Salvarani]

Thinking about it I came to the conclusion that DQS must have told him a thousand times "don't overpace, don't overpace, stay smart, don't overpace..." fearing that he will get too enthusiastic and waste his energy.

Smart and sensible tactics.

Drop a couple of seconds here and there to not go too deep at certain points is smart. Especially when there are so many unknowns about how the race might/will affect him. One day at a time.

He also has the ITT where he should gain a lot of time on a few of others. They need to drop him at some point, big time, to be "safe" going into that unless he runs completely empty and is not a factor.

 

[Salvarani]

The ITT isn't that long, and it's completely flat. Gaps be like 1'30 at the very max, and a minute is more likely IMO.

Okay. He will gain time. Thats all I said he would probably do, normally. So we agree then.

 

[Red Rick]

A strong Evenepoel can take 2 minutes on Bernal on such a route. Whether he is that strong by then, I don't know.

2 minutes? Based on what?

 

[Hugo Koblet]

Good showing today. He looked very comfortable and responded to Bernal's attacks with ease. I had hoped he would attack - and thought so as well - but I think he's riding this very smart. He's still my favorite for the GC, but of course a Bernal in top form is not easy to beat.

 

[Bonimenier]

2 minutes? Based on what?

He took 20s in 8km. Last TT is 3,5 times as long.
3,5 x 20s = 120s = 2 mins

 

[Walter1234]

He took 20s in 8km. Last TT is 3,5 times as long.
3,5 x 20s = 120s = 2 mins

On top of that; remco's extended effort is relative less weaker then his short time efforts. That could be another minute.

 

[Red Rick]

He took 20s in 8km. Last TT is 3,5 times as long.
3,5 x 20s = 120s = 2 mins

Short ITTs and prologues don't scale linearly, especially not between the start of the race and the end of the race. Dumoulin put 1'24 into Quintana over the exact same distance. I'm not inclined to believe Evenepoel is that much better or Bernal is that much worse.

 

[Bonimenier]

On top of that; remco's extended effort is relative less weaker then his short time efforts. That could be another minute.

So that's 4 minutes already...

 

[Hugo Koblet]

He took 20s in 8km. Last TT is 3,5 times as long.
3,5 x 20s = 120s = 2 mins

What kind of math is this? I hope you're just kidding around, but I think you are

 

[houtdffan]

2 minutes seems like the right amount of time Remco should gain.

Bernal lost 1:30 ish to Alap in the 2019 TT of a similar length, which was on a terrain more favorable to him with some climbing

 

[BigCoward]

There was a time that you had over (even well over) 100 kms of TT in a GT. And the winners were more well-rounded because of it.

Except when Wiggins won because of TT's, that didn't show he was well rounded, it showed he got lucky in a TT heavy course IIRC, that was designed specifically for him or some other absurd xenophobic nonsense.

 

[Volderke]

If Remco wants to keep his winning streak in 1-week races intact (for more than 1.5 years already), he has to take the jersey on Saturday, or we have to admit that Attila Valter beat him.

 

[bajbar]

When it comes to ITTs it is true what Red Rick says. Contrary to popular belief, small skinny climbers lose less time in a pan flat TT than they would on a hilly route of the same lenght. For some reason commentators allways believe if there are some hills or some 3-4% false flats that the climbers will "limit their losses". Wrong. That is where they usually lose the most.