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

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To those who have questioned the merits of calling him Bambi, I think yesterday proved why it makes sense.

Pogi on the other hand could fend for himself and easily get in position and around the course.
I can - somewhat - see the merits of calling him Bambi but mostly I just see a blatant lack of class and respect in calling him Bambi. But you do you I guess, if it makes you happy.
 
bagdad-bob.jpg
I see a strong resemblance. Is it Remco's dad or his uncle?
 
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watching Evenepoel in other races I would not say that he he has issues descending or cornering

it does seem that the accelerations (not only on the climbs, but also out of the corners) were just too much
You can see it all the time, even when he doesn't get permanently dropped on a descent. He had to close 10m gaps visibly so often that he let go because he lost more speed in the corners.
 
You can see it all the time, even when he doesn't get permanently dropped on a descent. He had to close 10m gaps visibly so often that he let go because he lost more speed in the corners.

I mean he looked fine to me in San Sebastian unless I have missed something.

When he was attacking yesterday, he wasn't super through the corners, but I think he was kind of fried by that point.
 
The problem with his descending/technical aspects is that at the end its compared to guys who are just technical marvels. (WVA/VDP/.... Pog). compared to Mads he wasn't really worse in the corners and in most classics the cornering isn't the biggest problem. But for sure if was a factor on this WC where you need to take 4 corners/km.

As mentioned in the other threads (17th of July):
Parcour seems to be a wet dream for VDP though. technical, lots of small accelerations. Basically every uphil section is the length of a (long) sprint. Especially the last climb in the circuit.. if you can sprint over that... you will get 10-20seconds on a peleton who will most likely struggle through it. (or loose the workers).

In the end both statements are true. But even with better cornering the continuous sprints on this parcour would have put him on the chopping block. On this parcour its a vicious circle: You need to be in the front to have less impact of those accelerations, but you need to have those accelerations to be in the front. (better corning would have postponed it, not alleviated it)
Its very clear that those who escaped earlier could really hang on long in the end and do extremely well. Thats because they didn't have those continuous accelerations of the peleton.

The only way Remco would have had a shot on this parcour is if was in the breakaway (either before the circuit or in the 2nd round) This was also the reason why he was made a favorite, because if he could get away early it would have been difficult to bring him back. But this long way escape took way to much the forefront to make him a big candidate for this. Such an escape should have made him an outsider at best.

This was in the end an ugly and very specific, CX like, parcour which was raced brilliantly. But a WC should favor different riders/parcours every year, so in the end CX like parcour make sense with 3 biggest CX riders riding on the road (one didn't attend unfortunately, think Pidcock would have also been in the leadgroup. wouldn't rule out that the parcour had pidcock in mind). In the end the WC delivered a great and fantastic world champion on an extreme hard raced parcour. (but it wasn't Remco :D)
 
I see no reason to treat Evenepoels post race interview as gospel here. He's not gonna wanna highlight and shout out to the world that "Hey my cornering, positioning and descending still sucks"
Shouting out to the world that he can't deal with the accelerations is just honest feedback. If you need confirmation, watch his climbs. He loses many positions during the short climbs because he can't keep up the pace.
 
I mean he looked fine to me in San Sebastian unless I have missed something.

When he was attacking yesterday, he wasn't super through the corners, but I think he was kind of fried by that point.
San Sebastian has wide, sweeping corners where Evenepoel won't get dropped if you attack him because he closes gaps on the straights and valleys anyway. And still you see better descenders leaving small gaps take a different line and somewhat staying off his wheel becuase they don't trust Evenepoels descending.
 
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If you read his comments you would understand that he had issues with the succession of explosive climbs. He was not outclassed due to lack of technical skills. He doesn't have the technical skills of WVA or MVDP but Pogi neither.
"It was a very hard course. Personally, for me a bit too technical, a bit too explosive," Evenepoel said. "So not really the course that was my favourite. But if you see the podium, I think it has been an amazing race."
 
"It was a very hard course. Personally, for me a bit too technical, a bit too explosive," Evenepoel said. "So not really the course that was my favourite. But if you see the podium, I think it has been an amazing race."
And a bit too explosive as he says. In his interview rightly after the finish he was pointing to that in particular.

I hope there is also partly a lack of technical skills because it's something he can work on. He has only 5 year of practice sofar.
 
He gave it a go, kudos to him for that. Most GT riders didn't even bother showing up, but he did and he did not ride an anonymous race despite it not suiting his skills very well. It's like Riek said: if you're not as technically gifted as MVDP and WVA, you have to make up with explosiveness on the short hills. If you don't really have both, than you stand very little chance, especially if it's raced full gas like yesterday.
 
I posted it in the Word champion RR thread itself, but Stuyven did in total 3min21seconds above 1000W with a max of 1300W. (according to strava according to hln)
So assuming 15seconds interval that would be around 14 full fledged sprints for someone like Remco (assuming he can even push 1000W) to keep pace with just Stuyven.

I'm guessing the best of the race are probably doing that for 4-5minutes.
 
My god is this Bambi talk stupid. I'm happy for Netserk that after I don't know how long he is still finding joy in triggering Evenepoel fans. Because guess what, it's possible for two things to be true at the same time.
1.) People are mocking Evenepoel with stupid nicknames because they find it hilarious to provoke people on the internet.
2.) Evenepoel isn't as good at cornering as others, which is one of the factors why he wasn't up to the task on Sunday.

Why does every race of this guy have to spark a pages long discussion. A guy who is a TT/climbing specialist couldn't win on a course with a 90° corner every 100 meters and the average climb being as high as a lamppost. My god, how controversial. Pogacar being good on this kind of terrain has completely distorted everyones view on what courses gc riders are supposed to thrive on.
 
My god is this Bambi talk stupid. I'm happy for Netserk that after I don't know how long he is still finding joy in triggering Evenepoel fans. Because guess what, it's possible for two things to be true at the same time.
1.) People are mocking Evenepoel with stupid nicknames because they find it hilarious to provoke people on the internet.
2.) Evenepoel isn't as good at cornering as others, which is one of the factors why he wasn't up to the task on Sunday.

Why does every race of this guy have to spark a pages long discussion. A guy who is a TT/climbing specialist couldn't win on a course with a 90° corner every 100 meters and the average climb being as high as a lamppost. My god, how controversial. Pogacar being good on this kind of terrain has completely distorted everyones view on what courses gc riders are supposed to thrive on.
It's not like Evenepoel has no results in rouleur races or anything. Most, including me, just underestimated the extent to which the technicality of the parcours would determine the results or underestimated how badly Evenepoels cornering and positioning would hurt him.
 
It's not like Evenepoel has no results in rouleur races or anything. Most, including me, just underestimated the extent to which the technicality of the parcours would determine the results or underestimated how badly Evenepoels cornering and positioning would hurt him.
Yeah absolutely. I did the same thing. But that's it. Me and many others were wrong about the route suited him. Were people swarming the Cancellara thread in 2013 mocking him for not being competitive on a route clearly not suiting him?