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

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Well that was a bit disappointing... although somewhat expected for today. Was really hoping to much from him after his injury. Guess his bike handling skills didn't really improve when he was off the bike o_O.


I agree with the others that he seemed to have been dropped because of his fear/incompetence in the downhill leading to a lot of small efforts that cooked him. Also found him extremely uncomfortable on the gravel on the straight sections as well. Think we now know where he needs to put his focus to... maybe he should do some winter cross training next year.

Hopefully he can get his head up again and see where he can end up in the Giro without completely blowing himself. Maybe he should focus on riding out the Giro for experience and road skills/comfort and less for classement.
 
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He descended like an amateur. I even wondered if he had the wrong tires because it seems he had zero confidence in going around a corner without braking superhard. I cannot understand the way he took some curves, and how afraid he was following wheels: if you lack the technical skills, at least try to follow the line of the rider in front of you.

He lost contact on a (not even fast) descent. I cannot understand that a guy like Almeida wasn't just around him when he was losing contact with the group.
He looked spent just because he had to close all his self-made gaps, and for a moment I thought he would loose closer to 3-4 minutes than the 2 minutes it was in the end.
 
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He descended like an amateur. I even wondered if he had the wrong tires because it seems he had zero confidence in going around a corner without braking superhard. I cannot understand the way he took some curves, and how afraid he was following wheels
His crash may be a factor there.


Much worse, yes. At times he looked like he was completely shot.

Still, not sure what to think now about his prospects in this race.
Think nothing, and let the race surprise you :)
 
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The issue is that this is the Giro d'Italia, not Baliose Belgium tour or Vuelta Burgos, its not nice February Beach race like Algarve. You need to be able to steer your bike, to fight for position, to ride gravel and hard climbs on repetitive days, to have a team that puts you in the best position at all times, to descend well etc. Not just attack the nice smooth easy belgian roads while the others warm up for bigger objectives.

Belgian roads are far from smooth or easy ;)
 
Anyways Crows are safe to eat
So, serving it up could actually be good for the health :D :D
Can You Eat Crow? (Is It Safe, Is It Legal, and How To Prepare It)
 
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Anyways Crows are safe to eat
So, serving it up could actually be good for the health :D:D
Can You Eat Crow? (Is It Safe, Is It Legal, and How To Prepare It)
Crows are smart, beautiful and friendly. How dare you.
 
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He lost contact on a (not even fast) descent. I cannot understand that a guy like Almeida wasn't just around him when he was losing contact with the group.
He looked spent just because he had to close all his self-made gaps, and for a moment I thought he would loose closer to 3-4 minutes than the 2 minutes it was in the end.

Descending on loose ground can be scary. But it's definitely something that can be learned to an extent imo. I wonder if he did his recon at speed or more casual.
 
Panda Claws

You were the one who said to anyone who tried to bring any realistic view of Evenepoels chances in his first GT should eat crow

you decided about the whole crow eating rubbish

no one else

I'll admit I got caught up in the hype a bit maybe, although I was more realistic before the race, and always sceptical of choosing the Giro as his return race.

Looking at it sober though - IF he can stay in the contender group tomorrow, prove recovery and stay reasonably in range of Bernal on saturday, he's still doing ok. If he blows up again, then I'll be worried.
 
Much worse, yes. At times he looked like he was completely shot.

Still, not sure what to think now about his prospects in this race. Tomorrow will be interesting again. If someone wants to mix things up it could be another hard day.

edit: and I'm not sure we should put a lot of weight into Giro GPS.


Couple of things.

This was his first race after a rest day as well the first time being so deep in a race.

Sometimes riders can struggle with a rest day.

He was miserable at stage one at the Adriatica Ionica on the same type of roads and lost big time as well. He also bonked on the climbing stage. Then the next day he blew up the field and dropped Masanda for a 2+ minute stage win.

Hard to say how he'll recover but it's possible albeit extremely unlikely that he bounces back in the race.

Bernal hasn't shown weakness and he's got the strongest team by a long shot even without Sivakov.

It's difficult to think he could in his current form overcome Bernal's protection along with catching Bernal in a vulnerable position.

The only way to do it is to launch a long distance breakaway of 40-50km versus a small peloton. (10-15 riders) . However he may not be capable of that currently, and there may not be such an opportunity available.
 
Couple of things.

This was his first race after a rest day as well the first time being so deep in a race.

Sometimes riders can struggle with a rest day.

He was miserable at stage one at the Adriatica Ionica on the same type of roads and lost big time as well. He also bonked on the climbing stage. Then the next day he blew up the field and dropped Masanda for a 2+ minute stage win.

Hard to say how he'll recover but it's possible albeit extremely unlikely that he bounces back in the race.

Bernal hasn't shown weakness and he's got the strongest team by a long shot even without Sivakov.

It's difficult to think he could in his current form overcome Bernal's protection along with catching Bernal in a vulnerable position.

The only way to do it is to launch a long distance breakaway of 40-50km versus a small peloton. (10-15 riders) . However he may not be capable of that currently, and there may not be such an opportunity available.
If it's true what Rick said, that he was pushing bigger numbers than Bernal, than the problem wasn't that he's done. Just that today he lacked the skills and wasted energy.
 
Very strange how he was having problems at those sterrato sections, especially on descents... the energy spent trying to close the gaps made him crash in the last section... But after all losing only 2 minutes to Bernal was almost a miracle, at one point i thought that we would lose 4 or 5 minutes...
 
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If it's true what Rick said, that he was pushing bigger numbers than Bernal, than the problem wasn't that he's done. Just that today he lacked the skills and wasted energy.

I think he's the only one capable of still beating Bernal in the Giro albeit an extremely long shot assuming that Bernal's back doesn't blow up. (This is still going to be an issue for Bernal long term as back injuries never really go away for too long).
 
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I did wonder how today would go for him; he's a late comer to the sport, so hasn't grown up racing & learning technical skills - which are just as important as his engine. I think it's a combination of his crash on the descent in Il Lombardia - and not being comfortable riding loose surfaces, with the bike moving around beneath him.

If I were his boss, I'd be thinking about maybe doing some CX training/racing in the winter, just to get comfortable with a bike sliding around.

He's 21, first race for 9 months - he'll win GTs....just give him time to develop.
 
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If it's true what Rick said, that he was pushing bigger numbers than Bernal, than the problem wasn't that he's done. Just that today he lacked the skills and wasted energy.
It's definitely true he had to push bigger watts than Bernal as whenever you saw him on the sterrato he was riding like 3 meters behind the wheel of the rider in front of him. While Bernal being constatly glued to his teammate's' wheel all the time.
 
There simply weren't enough false flat sections, pretty obvious.

But he held on well after being dropped. Lost 55" in the last mountain? Look at how much others lost to Bernal there, Ciccone, Soler. But also the rest lost 20-30" seconds to Bernal, so losing 25" to Carthy in the end means he did well there, considering that he had been dropped for quite a while there.
 

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