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

[houtdffan]

No Tour next year is freaking ridiculous.

agreed 100 percent

 

[Riek s]

well he said the plan is to do the tour in 2024, i hope the other part of that sentence ("or the giro") was to kiss giro director ass..

I still hope he does a GT this year as well. Otherwise he is wasting a lot of precious time that he can use to at least try and take home a GT.

Would prefer a vuelta win over yet another san sebastian win for example.

Next year focus on classics + tour. No more wasting time doing the giro and skipping classics.

The only time it wouldn't be a waste of time is if he plans the Giro/Vuelta double.

 

[Andre]

"No Tour" next year doesn't make sense. Maybe it's like the other poster said...he wants the Tour stage designers to make it more interesting than it's been in recent years.

 

[Rackham]

If he goes to the TdF 2023 he would de-facto be one of the top 3 favorites. That's a fact. All he has is Covid. He's not injured. He's one of the 6 best riders in the world & one of the 4 top GC riders in the world. And when we see what's happening in the Giro (DNF's everywhere), all any rider & team can do in this modern pro-cycling is look after themselves & let the chips fall where they may.

It means if the TdF plays out like the Tour of Italy, Evenepoel could totally win the thing this year. IMO there's a balance between 'not rushing things' & actually missing opportunities. Avoiding France this summer leans towards the latter so IMO Quick-Step is making a mistake.

 

[yaco]

Remco doesn't need much of a team in the TDF - He just needs to follow Jumbo and UAE.

 

[BigCoward]

If he goes to the TdF 2023 he would de-facto be one of the top 3 favorites. That's a fact. All he has is Covid. He's not injured. He's one of the 6 best riders in the world & one of the 4 top GC riders in the world. And when we see what's happening in the Giro (DNF's everywhere), all any rider & team can do in this modern pro-cycling is look after themselves & let the chips fall where they may.

It means if the TdF plays out like the Tour of Italy, Evenepoel could totally win the thing this year. IMO there's a balance between 'not rushing things' & actually missing opportunities. Avoiding France this summer leans towards the latter so IMO Quick-Step is making a mistake.

He would be a very very distant 3rd favourite, even assuming he has no covid issues.

 

[Rackham]

He would be a very very distant 3rd favourite, even assuming he has no covid issues.

If Quick-Step are waiting for Evenepoel to be first favorite before sending him to the TdF, then they might be waiting forever.

Vingegaard is 26. Pogacar is 24.

It's also a fact that Thierry Gouvenou (the main guy who designs the TdF route every year) has an absolute aversion to ITT's. So it's just not realistic to put off until everything is 'right' according to their own criteria, i.e. I think the proverb "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" applies here.

It means waiting for everything to be perfect is a waste of time & talent.

 

[Pantani_lives]

It's not realistic to ride a good Tour this year. He's ill, he's unprepared and he doesn't have a team.

Realistic goals are the WC (focusing on the time trial), the Vuelta and Lombardia. Those are the biggest races he can still win this year.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

If Quick-Step are waiting for Evenepoel to be first favorite before sending him to the TdF, then they might be waiting forever.

Vingegaard is 26. Pogacar is 24.

Remco is waiting until the July mutants burnout. Maybe it will happen earlier or...maybe by this time Remco realizes he can't climb faster than your average Joe.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

maybe by this time Remco realizes he can't climb faster than your average Joe.

So we are back to “Remco can’t climb”?

 

[Krzysztof_O]

So we are back to “Remco can’t climb”?

Haha, nah it was about sth else actually. Try to guess.

 

[peterfin]

The longer he waits to go to the Tour, the bigger the pressure when he starts his first. He reduces his chances to win the race that is his primary goal in cycling. That's the big picture. I hope he understands that.

 

[shadowrider]

Lefevre would probably make Prudhomme pay up even for the Vuelta

The Girodirector denied Evenepoel and his team were payed to take the start.
I did not read or hear any reactions coming from the Giroresponsibles to the numerous other withdrawals from the Giro due to covid. Especially Ganna and Vlasov. So, why that vicious attack of the Girodirector regarding Evenepoel ?

 

[peterfin]

The Girodirector denied Evenepoel and his team were payed to take the start.
I did not read or hear any reactions coming from the Giroresponsibles to the numerous other withdrawals from the Giro due to covid. Especially Ganna and Vlasov. So, why that vicious attack of the Girodirector regarding Evenepoel ?

Because he was the star of the race and he wasn't informed prior to his withdrawal?

 

[houtdffan]

If Quick-Step are waiting for Evenepoel to be first favorite before sending him to the TdF, then they might be waiting forever.

Vingegaard is 26. Pogacar is 24.

It's also a fact that Thierry Gouvenou (the main guy who designs the TdF route every year) has an absolute aversion to ITT's. So it's just not realistic to put off until everything is 'right' according to their own criteria, i.e. I think the proverb "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" applies here.

It means waiting for everything to be perfect is a waste of time & talent.

And Guillen has just as much as an aversion to ITTs

Until Prudhomme fires Tweddle Dee (Gouvenou) and Tweddle Dum (Guillen) or Marie Amary fires Prudhomme, we'll be waiting forever

 

[houtdffan]

It's not realistic to ride a good Tour this year. He's ill, he's unprepared and he doesn't have a team.

Realistic goals are the WC (focusing on the time trial), the Vuelta and Lombardia. Those are the biggest races he can still win this year.

He's not dying or dead. Remco won't totally lose his form. His base form is already an elite level

This is not Lance who would show up at the start of a season and get dropped on a freeway overpass

 

[shadowrider]

As i said before, San Sebastian to Worlds last year was 2 months. Liège to Worlds is 3.5 months this year.

Your comparison is incorrect.

There is a clear break in between. The covidinfection and disease for at least a week, the recovery (a week), relaxed cycling for a few days. That can be compared to a rest period of two and a half weeks. Then 10 days of training on sea-level followed by two weeks of altitude training. I am sure that this allows him to combine both good condition and freshness. Maybe not to compete with Poga, Vingegaard and Bernal in the first few days. But he wouldn't lose minutes. I am convinced that he would then be one of the best during the second half of the Tour.

 

[Red Rick]

I'm so confused or is "Evenepoel hasn't shown he can follow Pogacar and Vingegaard in the high mountains" still getting misrepresented as "Remco can't climb"

 

[shadowrider]

Because he was the star of the race and he wasn't informed prior to his withdrawal?

So, one can falsely accuse "the star" of the race of cheating and feign a covid infection ? In the leader's jersey. But not Italian star Ganna and another favorite Vlasov. Really ? The organizing newspaper and the Giro director have since received a lot of criticism about these shameful allegations

 

[KZD]

If Levefere is not willing to send Remco to the Tour next year then he should think about leaving Quick-Step, unless he is just scared of Pogačar and Vingegård which I don't want to believe its the case.

 

[Red Rick]

If we go by what Evenepoel has said in the past few months, I think he said something like "now I know I'm not a worse climber than Roglic" after Catalunya and before the Giro he'd been talking about mainly beating Roglic in the ITTs, so he likely thinks they are of similar level in the mountains.

 

[peterfin]

If we go by what Evenepoel has said in the past few months, I think he said something like "now I know I'm not a worse climber than Roglic" after Catalunya and before the Giro he'd been talking about mainly beating Roglic in the ITTs, so he likely thinks they are of similar level in the mountains.

Which may be the case based on his performance sofar and the data they got from his training. If he gets in a good shape, it's good enough to go to the tour and discover what he misses to be on the level of Pogacar and Vingegaard.

 

[Andy schleck]

If Quick-Step are waiting for Evenepoel to be first favorite before sending him to the TdF, then they might be waiting forever.

Vingegaard is 26. Pogacar is 24.

It's also a fact that Thierry Gouvenou (the main guy who designs the TdF route every year) has an absolute aversion to ITT's. So it's just not realistic to put off until everything is 'right' according to their own criteria, i.e. I think the proverb "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" applies here.

It means waiting for everything to be perfect is a waste of time & talent.

Remco needs a lot of TT to win the tour? It's not the tour that should adapt to the riders. It's the riders that should adapt to the grand tours routes.

 

[The fridge in the blue trees]

The Girodirector denied Evenepoel and his team were payed to take the start.
I did not read or hear any reactions coming from the Giroresponsibles to the numerous other withdrawals from the Giro due to covid. Especially Ganna and Vlasov. So, why that vicious attack of the Girodirector regarding Evenepoel ?

What vicious attack by the Giro director?
I answer myself, there was no vicious attack by the Giro director.

 

[Red Rick]

Which may be the case based on his performance sofar and the data they got from his training. If he gets in a good shape, it's good enough to go to the tour and discover what he misses to be on the level of Pogacar and Vingegaard.

The problem with looking at climbing numbers alone is you're gonna ignore strategy that leads to numbers and you're gonna ignore high level performances in very hard stages. Vingegaard "only" did 6.1 W/kg for 35 or whatever minutes on Granon after all.