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

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All this supposition about the Zoncolon etc. is a little odd considering that Remco has not yet "failed" any of these supposed tests. After 8 months off following a bad injury, he's basically in the pink at the Giro following two VERY hard medium mountain stages. What else could he have reasonably done to convince anyone that he's going as well as ever?
He’s not peak Remco until he rides the field off his wheel from the front for 50k.
 
Knox on the Cycling podcast said that Remco was really suffering in the cold and that he was momentarily gapped when Ineos worked the crosswinds on the plateau because he was trying to put on a jacket at that moment. They had to chase which may explain why he seemed to be missing from the front at that time. Later his teammates kept reminding him to refuel. Let’s hope that lesson is now learned. And no more icy weather!
 
Because of Evenepoels characteristic of being able to produce power while staying aerodynamic. The less aerodynamics play a role the bigger the disadvantage in relative terms.

That's an interesting theory, it's hard to say how much he's reliant on that aerodynamic position compared to the actual W/kg he's able to push. I remember him saying 2 or 3 years back that he was already able to push similar numbers as Froome so I doubt that's going to be an issue tbh.
 
That's an interesting theory, it's hard to say how much he's reliant on that aerodynamic position compared to the actual W/kg he's able to push. I remember him saying 2 or 3 years back that he was already able to push similar numbers as Froome so I doubt that's going to be an issue tbh.

Push similar numbers as Froome doing what and for what duration? 400W for a 40mins climb like Finestre? Or a 5/10 mins effort?
 
I'm away for 8 hours and this thread has 2 extra pages? Do you guys post of anything other than Evenepoel? Please consider professional help.

I remember Logic keeping track of all his crashes in his rookie season and there were quite a lot. Last year was a bit better until Lombardia.

Last year there were no crashes to speak of until Lombardia, I remember he got held up behind a crash in stage 1 of San Juan, and later he got trapped in the 2nd echelon due to not being vigilant. That's basically it iirc. The year turned pro he crashed almost every race in the first half of the season, so to speak. He crashed 3 or 4 times in Romandie, including BEFORE the actual prologue. He crashed into a motor in UAE tour (he got taken out of the race), he crashed in Turkey in one of the tricky sprint finishes. He crashed on the final day in the sprint of Baloise Belgium Tour. He crashed in Adriatica Ionica on a gravel/dirt section. I'm probably forgetting some. Ah, he also nearly crashed Ganna in one of the Hammer series, i made a gif of that actually.

We have no evidence of him improving though. And it's not like he underperformed in that race because he was out of shape. He went on a spectacular solo two days later and won with a 2 minutes advantage. That was already a very good Remco who would dominate San Sebastian a week later.
He did come straight from his first ever altitude camp the week earlier, so his form might have been inconsistent at that moment.

I see a looot of assumptions and extrapolations that confuse me. I think it's wishful thinking to question him on a climb like the Zoncolan when he's literally never done a climb like that in a big race and when Bernal is probably one of the 3 best climbers in the world. Yet some see him not losing time on a cat 2 climb with a headwind and then imply Pogacar should be scared? I see assumptions that longer, steeper climbs suit him better when his previous results indicate otherwise. I see people assuming he'll take 2 minutes out of his opponents in the ITT when even his Algarve ITT, while winning, had him taking under 40s out of MAL. It's like he's simulataneously not recovered to his 2020 standard, while being much better than 2020 while still having to get a huge lot better.

Yet you are making assumptions as well. He only took 40s out of MAL who rode the best ITT of his career, after having trained on his TT bike a lot more during the winter than he had before. MAL finished in the same second as Schachmann. Evenepoel did finish over a minute ahead of Almeida, Van Wilder, Leknessund... all "pretty good" ITT'ers and far better than Bernal, over 20k, wouldn't you say? He finished 55 seconds ahead of Bjerg and Thomas. But let's focus on the one-off performance of MAL ;-)

As for Zoncolan, it's hard to imagine why a 60kg guy, with insane w/kg, and who is known for crazy long efforts in pain-mode, would do well on such a climb. Crazy assumption.

That's just confirmation bias based on 1 Tour where he was best in the third week. There's nothing to suggest Bernal underperforms on steep climbs. But he has very consistently performed with the best in the world at climbs >20 minutes.

Evenepoel meanwhile has had his best results in ITTs and hard hilly stages where he can beat small groups on his own on the flats inbetween the hard hills. He's pulled off big solos in hilly stages in stage races where he got dropped on the big MTF. Then there's Burgos where he won the first MTF after a bunch of echelon action which benefits him because of his rouleur abilities. He did get dropped on the 2nd MTF.

He got dropped on the 2nd MTF? Not sure we saw the same race. He foolishly attacked and got countered 500m from the finish by a guy that had been sucking wheels all climb. He lost a whopping 11s, while he knew the GC was already in the bag, of the final stage. he only had to keep Landa within 30s and he lost 2s to Landa. I'd also like to point that on such single climbs in short easy stages, Sosa is probably one of the best in the world. In fact, i think what happened there is why he refused to take over from Bernal yesterday, or try something himself.

It's hard to claim his best results have been on climbs like Zoncolan when he never rode any like that (in race). It's not hard to see why he could potentially do very well, considering his weight, w/kg and knack for 1 hour efforts.

Because of Evenepoels characteristic of being able to produce power while staying aerodynamic. The less aerodynamics play a role the bigger the disadvantage in relative terms.
His aero plays a bigger role throughout the stage, conserving energy, than on the actual climb itself. Regardless of air resistance on a climb (which is always much less crucial at lower speeds), he still is a guy for longer sustained efforts and he still pushes elite w/kg's.
 
Push similar numbers as Froome doing what and for what duration? 400W for a 40mins climb like Finestre? Or a 5/10 mins effort?

He said the following:

Welke weg het zal uitgaan weet ik nog niet. Op internationaal niveau kan ik bij de junioren niet veel meer leren”, vervolgt Remco, die het WK in Innsbruck wil rijden tussen de beloften. “Uit testen blijkt dat de wattages die ik trap te vergelijken zijn met die van Chris Froome en Alberto Contador. Dat ik soms met Eddy Merckx word vergeleken is een hele eer.”

Which means "Test show I can push similar watts as Chris Froome and Alberto Contador". This was back when he was still a junior.
 
He said the following:

Which means "Test show I can push similar watts as Chris Froome and Alberto Contador". This was back when he was still a junior.
Best not to take everything he says at face value. He's often quite liberal with statements like those. Same goes for his weight. He tells one reporter (Schotte) he weighs 60.5kg, and literally a few days earlier he tells another reporter (Creteur) he weighs between 59 and 60. Early last season he claimed he weighed 4kg less than the year before, of which in an interview at that time, he claimed to weigh 64kg. But then it appears he actually weighed 62, and not 60 (64-4=60) as he led us to believe.

I think in this topic you'll find articles/interview still with his junior coach Fred Vandervennet, and the 400+W seem to be for 20 minute tests.
 
Best not to take everything he says at face value. He's often quite liberal with statements like those. Same goes for his weight. He tells one reporter (Schotte) he weighs 60.5kg, and literally a few days earlier he tells another reporter (Creteur) he weighs between 59 and 60. Early last season he claimed he weighed 4kg less than the year before, of which in an interview at that time, he claimed to weigh 64kg. But then it appears he actually weighed 62, and not 60 (64-4=60) as he led us to believe.

Sure, that's true. Though it doesn't look like he was lying based on his past performances. I have no idea what his actual weight is, but it is pretty obvious that he's significantly lighter than last season. Just looking at his face you can see he lost all of that "baby fat" as they say in Belgium.
 
Quick question about the 6 Watt/kg figure. For what duration is this calculated? I mean, how long do you have to be able to push that figure. An hour?
When the figure is given in a context of a climb, it’s obviously average power for the duration of the climb, divided by your mass. Actually, they are using normalised power nowadays more often, which is calculated by first computing 30 seconds moving averages, then mutiplying them to the power of 4, then averaged again and finally quad root of this value will give you NP. NP will give you higher value than average power if the effort is variable. If the effort is steady, you will get almost the same result.

Now if there is no other context, power/kg will refer to Functional Threshold Power which is best 1 hour average power. So it means one must sustain this power for 1 hour. Equivalent is 20 minutes, but then you need to multiply the value by 0.95 to get FTP.
 
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When the figure is given in a context of a climb, it’s obviously average power for the duration of the climb, divided by your mass. Actually, they are using normalised power nowadays more often, which is calculated by first computing 30 seconds moving averages, then mutiplying them to the power of 4, then averaged again and finally quad root of this value will give you NP. NP will give you higher value than average power if the effort is variable. If the effort is steady, you will get almost the same result.

Now if there is no other context, power/kg will refer to Functional Threshold Power which is best 1 hour average power. So it means one must sustain this power for 1 hour. Equivalent is 20 minutes, but then you need to multiply the value by 0.95 to get FTP.
Yeah it's because I often see talk (especially in the clinic) about the 'magical figure' of 6 Watts/kg on climbs that a rider needs to be able to hit if he wants to reliably win GT's. But obviously it would be a lot harder to hit 6 Watts/kg over a climb of 20 minutes than it would be to hit that number on the Mur de Huy in FW.
 
Honestly his bike handling still worries me a lot. Surely more than his ability to climb on steep gradients with the best. I also don't think DQS has a particularly good team for the sterrato stage here, but that's just speculation on my part.
I missed this earlier. I would assume Serry would survive most of this stage and could stay with Remco at least going into the final. Serry was very good in the 2018 Strade, made top 10, only 2 minutes down, and actually played an active role in the final. A year later Serry was 13th, less than 3 minutes down. Also Almeida was half decent in this year's Strade (less than 7 minutes down). Honoré rode Strade at least once as well.

Anyway, i would assume Serry to be very important in this stage.
 
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I missed this earlier. I would assume Serry would survive most of this stage and could stay with Remco at least going into the final. Serry was very good in the 2018 Strade, made top 10, only 2 minutes down, and actually played an active role in the final. A year later Serry was 13th, less than 3 minutes down. Also Almeida was half decent in this year's Strade (less than 7 minutes down). Honoré rode Strade at least once as well.

Anyway, i would assume Serry to be very important in this stage.
Yeah Serry is a good asset for the sterrato. Hopefully his crash has no consequences.
 
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That's just confirmation bias based on 1 Tour where he was best in the third week. There's nothing to suggest Bernal underperforms on steep climbs. But he has very consistently performed with the best in the world at climbs >20 minutes.

Evenepoel meanwhile has had his best results in ITTs and hard hilly stages where he can beat small groups on his own on the flats inbetween the hard hills. He's pulled off big solos in hilly stages in stage races where he got dropped on the big MTF. Then there's Burgos where he won the first MTF after a bunch of echelon action which benefits him because of his rouleur abilities. He did get dropped on the 2nd MTF.
People also don't remember that remco was dropped in tour of san juan by guillaume martin and oscar sevilha. In my opinion remco already is one of the best in the itt, but i don't think he will be so good in the mountains on week 3 of the giro like people think. I think bernal will be a lot superior than remco in the mountains and win the giro.
But don't get me wrong, remco is a great talent, he will win a lot of grand tours in the future.
 
People also don't remember that remco was dropped in tour of san juan by guillaume martin and oscar sevilha. In my opinion remco already is one of the best in the itt, but i don't think he will be so good in the mountains on week 3 of the giro like people think. I think bernal will be a lot superior than remco in the mountains and win the giro.
But don't get me wrong, remco is a great talent, he will win a lot of grand tours in the future.
People probably don't remember that, because it never happened.
 
People also don't remember that remco was dropped in tour of san juan by guillaume martin and oscar sevilha. In my opinion remco already is one of the best in the itt, but i don't think he will be so good in the mountains on week 3 of the giro like people think. I think bernal will be a lot superior than remco in the mountains and win the giro.
But don't get me wrong, remco is a great talent, he will win a lot of grand tours in the future.
You mean when Evenepoel got outsprinted at the very top by Oscar Sevilla (taking 2s) and Guillaume Martin (taking 0s)? If you want to call that dropped lmao.
 
After chasing for 10k alone due to echelons while Martin/Sevilla were warming up in his wheel...
It was a lot more than 10k. From roughly 39k to 10k from the finish.
Martin was in the first group, getting a free ride from Bora, UAE, 2 cars and 3 motorcycles.
Sevilla eventually started working halfway, but Evenepoel did get some help from Serry and later Paredes.
 
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