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

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It's not like Roglic was barely hanging on or that his body language looked bad, and it's not like he barely won that sprint cause Evenepoel started just a touch early. He put the seconds into him. It's not like you can recover easily if you're a weaker climber when say Almeida or Soler are doing career high performances.
There was one moment I thought Roglic was breaking, and Remco was also thinking that. When Soler or Almeida went, suddenly there was a gap of 2-3m between Remco and Roglic. Not sure if that was because of a bike issue, or a moment he actually wasn't able to follow. I don't suspect the latter since he was able to follow everything afterwards.

For the Giro it should be very important to recalibrate very quickly. I don't necessarily think both their levels will be the same on the same type of stages as now.
For the Giro I expect Remco to be able to ride in the defensive like Roglic could do now since he will be ahead in the GT, maybe even already in the leaders jersey after stage 4.
 
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For the Giro it should be very important to recalibrate very quickly. I don't necessarily think both their levels will be the same on the same type of stages as now.

Both have yet to improve, but in different areas if that makes sense? It sounds like Evenepoel has yet to lose a bit of weight, while Roglic has yet to do more high intensity training.

true. but i think the high intensity training (short interval bursts) is also something remco has yet to focus on. (typically that is the last thing that is being focussed on no? )

At least its not going to be an easy Giro between both of them. Especially given that both their teams are not dominant enough to completely control everything.
 
true. but i think the high intensity training (short interval bursts) is also something remco has yet to focus on. (typically that is the last thing that is being focussed on no? )

At least its not going to be an easy Giro between both of them. Especially given that both their teams are not dominant enough to completely control everything.
I think you get more specific the closer you get to the goal, but the Giro has a huge range of different efforts, so I would expect them to do the efforts last that taper off the quickest.

Roglic specifically has mentioned that he hadn't done 20 minutes efforts at race pace yet, so it's likely he had only done shorter intervals before he came down from altitude.

I generally don't really know what a final training block looks like for GT riders, if you watch trainer videos they're not that geared towards GT riders specifically, so there's a bit of a black box for me.

I do know that Pogacar allegedly beat the Stelvio and Gavia KoMs in training before last years Tour, so presumably there are some long all out efforts as well.
 
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This is a good week to learn some race tactics. He's used to ride everyone off his wheel when he's in good shape. He went with some different approaches in the sprints. I hope he learned something again yesterday, and will execute it better in the Giro. If he's in the lead, don't ride every mountain in front. Stick to Roglic wheel and ride defensively for once. But I think he's too eager to show how good he is, he want to prove it.

Roglic looks lean/sharp but still needs to work on his basis for 3 weeks, is what we all think.
And Remco still has some weight to lose.
We're in for an exciting Giro.
 
Lots of handwringing here.

Takeaways:

  1. Rog is still a great rider.
  2. Remco is actually better than I expected at this point. Particularly his climbing. Better than he was at this point last year.
  3. Remco needs a long hard race to hope to make a difference on a final climb. He needs that long sustained high pace as they did in stage 3. Look at his best victories and he seems to have that notch above when the race is long and hard. When that extra something may have been taken out from the legs of riders like Rog. Waiting for the last climb and going in spurts is not where Remco can excel.
  4. While I expect Rog to be closer in TTs than the one at the Vuelta, I still think Rog is the one who will need to find time elsewhere.
  5. Going to be a great Giro.
 
Would it leave Roglic and Evenepoel more tired than going into the final sprint? No I don't think so. In the best case they would set Almeidas pace, not drop Roglic pace.
Masnada said that Roglic looked skinner than the same time last year, weeks ago. Of Evenepoel we know he still has kilos to lose. Who do you think will crumble faster due to repeated accelerations on steep sections? It's not rocket science. He killed himself, not Roglic.

What we can say, is that Roglic' form was close enough to top form for whatever mattered in this race. People may want to believe he will even drastically improve, and he might in areas that were not important in Catalunya (TT, multi HC climbs, 3 week base...) But when you can drop riders who had a normal winter and prep like Almeida, Yates, Hindley... at will, not get dropped by Evenepoel, i think you can't realistically claim you are far behind schedule. Unless you have rushed your preparation and will face the consequences in the Giro.

As for the Giro, some people like to wave the Olympic TT flag when talking about the TTs. We will see, but i think the chances are they will be in favor of Evenepoel rather than the opposite. In that case the race dynamics will flip and Roglic will be the one who needs to drop Evenepoel, who can then simply wait it out. First TTs are flat iirc.
 
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This is really getting boring. So much excuses (sorry, observations). Before Catalunya Remco was set to destroy Rog according to Remco lovers here. In the middle of Catalunya Remco will destroy Rog on long climbs they said. None of that happened. Now we wait for Remco to destroy Rog in the last day of Catalunya.

If that won't happen, excuses continue towards Giro where Remco will demolish Rog in climbs and TT for sure.

And yet day in day out, some washed 33 year old washes the floor with world nr. 1 rider (Pogačar laughs in the distance).

Wow, you've ridden into this thread as if it was Fred Wright.
 
This is really getting boring. So much excuses (sorry, observations). Before Catalunya Remco was set to destroy Rog according to Remco lovers here. In the middle of Catalunya Remco will destroy Rog on long climbs they said. None of that happened. Now we wait for Remco to destroy Rog in the last day of Catalunya.

If that won't happen, excuses continue towards Giro where Remco will demolish Rog in climbs and TT for sure.

And yet day in day out, some washed 33 year old washes the floor with world nr. 1 rider (Pogačar laughs in the distance).

If you saw Tirreno, and i bet you did, you should have noticed that Roglic was far from going stellar at that moment. (slower TT than Almeida). 2 weeks later he is posting 6.9W/kg on a 23minute climb.

So yes, if roglic had real troubles in Tirreno, than he would have been dropped by Remco. The fact that it didn't happen is a valid observation now and this was not a prediction before the volta started.
The fact that they are both posting numbers seemingly higher than the magic duo in PN is also something we can see. (whatever the arguments are for those higher numbers, or excuses as you call them).

I think you have a hard time grasping some english words, maybe you are, just like me, not a native English speaker.

excuse:
seek to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offence); try to justify.

prediction:
the action of predicting something.
"the prediction of future behaviour"

observation:
the action or process of closely observing or monitoring something or someone.


Before catalunya = prediction not excuses
Before giro = prediction not excuses

Prediction that didn't end up happening are not excuses.
Excuses are when it was said Remco would have won the 1st stage if he asn't put out of position, or started to early or ...
Observation are when it was said, remco was badly positionned in that sprint.

Excuses are he lost in the uphill sprint because he went to early, otherwise he would have won
Observation: he went early and blew up.

See excuses and observations can be close together because what we observe can be used as an excuse for something. But you need to observe something in order to grow/understand/...
Observations are typically a statement of fact, something that can be seen
Excuses are typically a use of observations to justify a failure or give a subjective value to the observations.
 
This is really getting boring. So much excuses (sorry, observations). Before Catalunya Remco was set to destroy Rog according to Remco lovers here. In the middle of Catalunya Remco will destroy Rog on long climbs they said. None of that happened. Now we wait for Remco to destroy Rog in the last day of Catalunya.

If that won't happen, excuses continue towards Giro where Remco will demolish Rog in climbs and TT for sure.

And yet day in day out, some washed 33 year old washes the floor with world nr. 1 rider (Pogačar laughs in the distance).
That is equally as pathetic. Both are outstanding riders that would be clearly in the top 6 riders in the world (MVDP/WVA/Roglic/Remco/Pogacar/Vingegaard) in no particular order and will likely trade wins throughout the Giro with very little to separate them at the end.
 
This is really getting boring. So much excuses (sorry, observations). Before Catalunya Remco was set to destroy Rog according to Remco lovers here. In the middle of Catalunya Remco will destroy Rog on long climbs they said. None of that happened. Now we wait for Remco to destroy Rog in the last day of Catalunya.

If that won't happen, excuses continue towards Giro where Remco will demolish Rog in climbs and TT for sure.

And yet day in day out, some washed 33 year old washes the floor with world nr. 1 rider (Pogačar laughs in the distance).
It's best to give references and quotes of those who claim without joking that Remco will "destroy" Rog rather than a believe or assessment that he may or will be better than Rog this season. "Destroying Rog" is not a topic here unless I missed something in this long thread.

Sometimes I have the impression that posts like this are addressing a frustration rather than people on the forum.
 
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Aug 26, 2022
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still by far the most annoying little *** in cycling.
giphy.webp
 
Well thats it, his form is excellent. But the scenario he has today will repeat him in a lot of races. wheelsuckers who don't dare to take over. He better find a way to cope with it, or one of these days bottles and helmets will be thrown.
what exactly would be the reason for Rogla to take over today ?To make belgians fans happy ? Remco to not throw another teen girl tantrum ?
 
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sorry, i meant to quote Riek

and i am responding "for Riek". Re-read what he wrote. in no way was he criticizing Rog. in fact he was warning remco.

and the reason i am setting it straight, is that is precisely how these things get blown out of proportion, like the narrative now that remco fans think rog is a wheelsucker, when most here TOTALLY understand the tactical logic of the way he is riding.
 
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Well thats it, his form is excellent. But the scenario he has today will repeat him in a lot of races. wheelsuckers who don't dare to take over. He better find a way to cope with it, or one of these days bottles and helmets will be thrown.

what exactly would be the reason for Rogla to take over today ?To make belgians fans happy ? Remco to not throw another teen girl tantrum ?


Did you read what i state? because your comment indicates otherwise.

i said Remco should find a way to cope with wheelsuckers because it will occur a lot and need to avoid that it escalates...
 

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