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

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Well, it's not the preparation for the World ITT.
Sick, not according to the team, but who knows, still possible. But certainly it's not "clear" that he was sick.
Day off, then motivation down the drain? Almeida sick it seems, but battled till the end, lost "only" 7'. Would have been shocking if Remco lost that much, he lost 20' more.. complete mystery for the moment.
 
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Sad day for cycling today. I'm a big Remco fan all the way. Life, just like cycling, has its valleys and hills. I for one, thought he would contest with the best riders today...I'm often wrong. It is by no means the end of the road as far as GT's for Remco. His fighting spirit, the one that all his followers and media and the country of Belgium adored in him will help Remco find a solution and push forward to many more great victories. I see the trolls and are partying today at the expense of our hero. But that's ok...these trolls and haters became what they are because of the fear they had for Remco's success. They've been poisoned by their own vitriolic hatred only because they really thought and still do, that Remco is one of the most exciting racers to come along in many years. They criticize him for almost anything he does, but you only see that when he is in fact racing at a high level. They like to put him down so they can feel better about their own dull and life which is probably filled with failures in their own personal life. It is human nature for trolls like these to act like that. Pick yourself up Remco! The world can still be yours. There will be many more victories heading your way. You have a solid family, a beautiful wife, and the fire in your soul to bring us and yourself, your fans and followers back to glory. Go Remco Go!!!
Not a sad day for cycling. Remco is not cycling, cycling is not dependent on Remco.

A normal day for cycling, favorites that lose lots of time unexpectedly happens suprisingly often, after all they are not robots.

A sad day for the forum of course if posts like that are allowed to stand.
 
Does French soil have a high kryptonite content in it or something?

It's fine to say Remco is not consistent enough but w/kg are w/kg and he clearly has the most or close to the most on his day so there's nothing unique about an especial climb.
The climbs and altitude are different. When the Vuelta went over 1900m last year, it was on climbs with easier gradients. Today was a monster stage more in line with what we see in July than the usual goat tracks that top out at 1300m in the Vuelta. Last year they didn't even feature the epic Vuelta climbs like Covadonga or the Angliru, which aren't as high, but are beasts.

One of the knocks Valverde had to deal with when he rode the Giro was that he was crap once they hit a certain altitude. One of the big questions about Remco is whether or not he can excel on a stage like today, where there are multiple HC climbs with a finish on a climb with the altitude and consistently steep gradient like the Tourmalet. Last year, there wasn't a climb in the race to seperate the pretenders from the contenders. Last year's race was kind of a crap course, to be honest. That's not to say that he isn't capable on a course like this, but that it is still something he has to prove.
 
Not a sad day for cycling. Remco is not cycling, cycling is not dependent on Remco.

A normal day for cycling, favorites that lose lots of time unexpectedly happens suprisingly often, after all they are not robots.

A sad day for the forum of course if posts like that are allowed to stand.
Remco is cycling. " posts like what are allowed to stand"?
 
It's not the first of three climbs, it's a special category col going into the second weekend of a GT. It's reductive to downplay the difficulty here.

It's accumulated wear, tear, fatigue & everything that goes with it. That's Grand Tour racing. And isn't this the first time he's ever done a stage profile like this on French soil?

Everyone knew this Vuelta was way more mountainous than last year's. So there was a question mark over Evenepoel & how he'd cope with this route. Dee
No, clearly there is something wrong with him, likely the flu. He came second in the TT, but by the looks of him he was really knackered, had to go super deep to ecke out 20 secs on Roglic, said he didn't have great TT legs. Hence, I thought he would struggle today, but not get stone dropped by 50 riders on the first climb. That's not normal. So I bet he already had flu in him during the TT and it ravaged his body today. Almeida is also sick and dropped, but not to the extent of Evenepoel. This isn't an excuse, because his body is clearly unwell. Having said that, this does demonstrate a certain vulnerability in handling the rigors of a GT. On the other hand, he's still only 23, but with this generation of champions by his age we tend to forget this. At any rate, he and his team will doubtless be taking a long look in the mirror, for, any way you look at it, only one out of four GT attempts has gone well. There is thus reason for concern. But I don't doubt a healthy and fit Remco is GT material. Although should this trend continue, I will (as it becomes obligatory). Yet I said before the Vuelta, keeping the WITT as a must goal, may have compromised his performance in the mountains, hypothetical illness apart.
 
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Tour of Norway
Wow. What a tappone:

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Sucks to crumble like that and before the race I thought worst would be 8-10 mins lost on one of these stages. At least we’re shown more for why he shouldn’t have went to the Tour in poor shape. Hopefully he can recover and win some stages ala Carapaz and maybe even KoM.


Reminds me of Klöden who always had something going wrong in a GT.
 
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this is not about his climbing abilities, he got dropped by 50 riders on the second climb of the day and pace wasn't even that high, he just look prone to have really really bad days in a GT, so the real issue is more about his recovery, his engine looks not good enough to sustain 3 weeks.