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

[Oldermanish]

The problem I have with the "just a bad day" explination is that, first off, that's one hell of a bad day but also that he just phoned it in at some point. Almeida dropped earlier but kept fighting to retain a chance at top 10, and he managed.

This phoning it in could potentially mean he can go in breaks, but that's not what this vuelta was about. You should've gone to the Tour if you wanted to do that and it would have been fine. If he had a bad day, I'd expect a GC rider to do what almeida did and keep going and hopefully have a better time next day. Yes you lost your chance on winning but you get to keep racing for a gc, the kind of rider he wants to become. A collapse like this is more psychological than physical.

I've been going on all year about weight, tactics in racing and it's all wrong. They've turned him more and more into a one day rider rather than a gc one, it's all they know at sqs perhaps?

What you say makes sense. The one qualification is Remco is now a PRO. He's won big races, faces bigger home pressure and is in control of his training program. I still contend that his priority for the World TT had him laser focussed for that effort when, if he planned to be GT competitive he would need to log alot of 5-6 hour days in a block and still race a bit to gauge recovery from effort. Particularly important would be to test his actual race response to his weaknesses which would seem to be steep climbs. Setting a solo Strava "best" is not the same as a race. How he recovers from that effort should've been a clue to what could happen after 12 stages.
His prior Vuelta came at the right time for that competition. This time his preparation had more hubris than hills, I'm afraid and going Full Gruppetto today and refusing interviews is OK as long as he isn't forced or willfully comes up with a lame excuse for his fans.
Still 23...

 

[Cookster15]

way way more TT kms
Ayuso super young GT debutant
Mas isnt that great

Not saying he cant ride GTs, winning them is another story. Lots of great riders with only 1 GT win
Yates and Valverde and Wiggins come to mind.

edit-also, just like I always kept/keep hope alive for Simon Yates, i gotta keep hope alive for Remco - he did not have optimal prep for this race.
He decided to wing it after focus on the ITT gold.

That’s all fine. But he lost 20 odd minutes on one stage? Something obviously not right - even compared to last year. Plus, at his age he should be getting better. I think he’s sick.

 

[Cookster15]

Excuses again.

I’ve been guilty of jumping on Remco, but this is too much. Found this on Google ….

There is a difference between an excuse and an explanation. An explanation is designed to give someone all of the facts, and lay out the cause for something.An excuse is designed to push the fault for that thing away from oneself.

I lean towards explanation, although maybe he should leave that to his team? He has way more expectations placed upon him than maybe any other rider in the peloton.

 

[Rob5091]

If the guy was not ill, like Almeida, then something's amiss. If he came in 2 minutes behind Vingegaard, then he had a bad day, but being in trouble from km 0 (nearly) then it's something else. We don't know and QS are n't saying so we'll have to see what happens. DNS on stage 14 seems like a big possibility.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Just saw he is ahead of G in GC, and G was just second by 14 seconds in the Giro to Roglic, who is second right now, over 27 minutes ahead of both.

 

[Oldermanish]

Just saw he is ahead of G in GC, and G was just second by 14 seconds in the Giro to Roglic, who is second right now, over 27 minutes ahead of both.

Yeah, one of them has had a bad day and bad mechanical luck times 2. The other quit and rode the gruppetto home.
That happens and G deserved better, wouldn't you think?

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

I think I’m missing some context here, or I’m just tired, because I don’t totally follow you. But yes both of them (and Bernal) deserve better than to be riding in the grupetto.

 

[SafeBet]

As someone here said, reminds me much of Basso:

2005: loses more than 40mins on Stelvio,
2006: Basso unbeatable.

Could be the same for Remco.

Aside from the clinic stuff someone mentioned, Basso was sick during that Giro. Remco apparently isn't.

I don’t know that Remco can or can’t compete with the cream of the crop, but beating Mas and a 19 year old Ayuso is a whole different story than taking on peak Jumbo. They make the race a lot harder.

Had this Vuelta been particularly hard before yesterday's stage? Because the way I see it, it had been a rather easy GT. A couple hilly stages were neutralized before the finish and no real mountain stage had been ridden yet.

Evenepoel climbed Aubisque almost two minutes slower than Michael Storer, Andreas Kron, Kenny Elissonde and Cristian Rodriguez, none of whom will likely be remembered for his recovery skills and GT achievements (apart from stage wins). All of this on the first climb of the day and in the first hour of racing.

To me it doesn't look like a normal recovery issue for someone with Evenepoel'a power output. I'm fairly confident last year's third week was a much more demanding test for his recovery and fatigue management than the Vuelta has been so far, regardless of the competition.

I agree this collapse certainly casts a few doubts on his ability as a GT rider, mainly because of its magnitude and because it happened so early in the stage. But I'm skeptical the competition mattered that much.

 

[danielovichdk2]

Where am i wrong ? I only forgot UAE is drilling it too. Ayuso will go nuts for the rest of the race.

Jonas is obviously not in tdf shape but I wouldn't write him off just yet.

Remco has his hands full. With UAE showing splendid form. Rogla looks astonishing. Sepp I don't believe will last but he will finish in front Remco come Madrid.

Remco is not in top 5 when this race is over. That's my prediction.

Great race so far.

Remco this. Remco that.

Small dog.

 

[danielovichdk2]

Nobody important wanted to attack today anyway. Wtf did Kelderman chase down Carthy? It appears Jumbo are going to defend Kuss as long as possible. Why attack when you just might be able to do nothing and win?

Eehh...to gain more time on your rivals? Seems pretty standard

 

[LookProGoSlow]

Fact is, with all the talk, so far he hasn't proven he has what it takes to be competitive at the Tour next year. Aside from the Vuelta 2022, he has had loads of issues riding a GT. Flunked out of the Giro 2 x, Flunked out of this Vuelta. I don't see it happening at the Tour, especially not in his current team.

Harsh, but true.

 

[Gargamel35]

It just shows how good top GC guys really are. Consistent, always close and fighting.

 

[Extinction]

I don't quite see how riding Baby Giro or Avenir would've given a better indication of his actual worth in these type of races than for example winning a Vuelta when still eligible for U23...

Fair point, however, he skipped that step and perhaps it would have provided the chance to mature at a steadier rate, rather than being put under the kind of pressure that has broken him down. I'm speculating, of course, because what we saw yesterday was a kid who couldn't continue a fight with adults. They say he's not sick that he had a bad day. Ok, but the plain truth is that in a GT, you are not allowed to have a bad day (or certainly not the kind in which you totally explode). What's gonna happen in the Tour when the level is even higher?

If his talent isn't the problem, then it must have been in the preparation and if it's not that then we may have seen the limit of the former. Ayuso's not yet 21 and he didn't explode, so I guess that disprooves my theory about not doing under-23 races. However, something has gone devastatingly wrong with his body and head and likely in the Soudal organization in preparing him for this Vuelta. Doing the WITT and WRR, with interest in GC here, was a mistake. He should have been focussing everything on climbing resistence. At any rate, it was a fiasco. Who is going to want to invest 40 million euros on his Tour chances now?

 

[meat puppet]

Even if a bout of illness has been denied, I am not entirely convinced. How else does one implode that badly?

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

Even if a bout of illness has been denied, I am not entirely convinced. How else does one implode that badly?

I'm not convinced he imploded that badly. As wickedw said, I think he simply phoned it in when he noticed he didn' t have the legs.

 

[yaco]

He'll have plenty of chances to win from the break in the rest of the Vuelta, as Jumbo will only control the rest of the stages.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

a lot of drama in this topic. I look at it from a more simple point of view
-Evenepoel has won a GT last year, so clearly everything stated he can't climb with the best etc is largely ***
-what I noticed, Evenepoel needs a near perfect preparation for a GT, with 100% focus and nothing going wrong in the race.

In that sense, he's not a natural "GT talent" like say a Pogacar or Vingegaard who even at 95% would still do well.
If Remco participates at another GT and everything goes 1000% according to plan with no bad days, he can still very much win a GT or at least contend for the podium.

It's just harder for him to get it right.

Keep in mind that Lefevere didn't want Remco anywhere near the 2023 Vuelta.

The fact that it required a very specific prep was (indeed) one of the reasons he mentioned.

 

[Salvarani]

He'll have plenty of chances to win from the break in the rest of the Vuelta, as Jumbo will only control the rest of the stages.

New De Gendt.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Even if a bout of illness has been denied, I am not entirely convinced. How else does one implode that badly?

It’s really interesting to speculate and think about possible explanations when we don’t really know what’s been or what’s going on.
Brunyeel said he was questioning the preparation as a whole, trying to keep the peak condition from San Sebastián to Vuelta (im not sure about that given from San Sebastián to WC was no problem last year)

One thing I can think of is perhaps too aggressive weight loss in the short space between WC ITT and start of Vuelta to get more of a “climbers body” and that could lead to just being empty and not being able to push the normal watts.

 

[Netserk]

I'm not convinced he imploded that badly. As wickedw said, I think he simply phoned it in when he noticed he didn' t have the legs.

Yeah. He did ~5.73 W/kg [Dr.F.] for 45 minutes on Aubisque. On Spandelles, he threw in the towel. —Unlike Almeida.

 

[Miss Violet Smith]

Well. This was even more painful to watch than 2023 TdF Col de la Loze.

Hopefully Evenepoel's team can figure out the root cause of what happened. Personally, I'm not quite ready to write him off as a future GT rider yet - but as much as I don't want to say it, certain aspects of how he has been managed by Lefevere are starting to make sense.

 

[Red Rick]

Yeah. He did ~5.73 W/kg [Dr.F.] for 45 minutes on Aubisque. On Spandelles, he threw in the towel. —Unlike Almeida.

If yesterday is an unipuertp MTF he probably loses under 3 minutes. But he really cant seem to push over the limit when hes bad, and combine that with a brutal stage like yesterday and its a perfect disaster

 

[Blanco]

way way more TT kms
Ayuso super young GT debutant
Mas isnt that great

Not saying he cant ride GTs, winning them is another story. Lots of great riders with only 1 GT win
Yates and Valverde and Wiggins come to mind.

edit-also, just like I always kept/keep hope alive for Simon Yates, i gotta keep hope alive for Remco - he did not have optimal prep for this race.
He decided to wing it after focus on the ITT gold.

But who, apart from Roglic did have optimal preparation for this race?
Vingegaard certainly not.
Kuss?!
Ayuso fell twice during a prep races.
Mas also didn't have an ideal prep.

Bottom line is, he's not a natural GT contender, like for example Vingegaard, Roglic, or even Mas are, he's a born one-day racer, who could do very well in GT's when everything aligns for him. Sort of like Valverde. I hope he won't, like him, chase GT success throughout his whole career, at the expense of one-day racing.

 

[QueenStagiaire]

If yesterday is an unipuertp MTF he probably loses under 3 minutes. But he really cant seem to push over the limit when hes bad, and combine that with a brutal stage like yesterday and its a perfect disaster

I don‘t think anyone can push over the limit if they‘re bad. Here he just made the impression of most big blowups like Simon Yates at the Giro in 2018 (or Landis in the 2006 Tour). He just fell out of the group early and then couldn‘t push on at all because he was already giving it all to stay in there. I don‘t think we should compare him to Almeida for example, who had the most incredible ride to limit his losses, riding on after being dropped by a big bunch 90 k out to finish Top 15 on the stage with minimal team support.

My theory is that Evenepoel is unreliable as a GC rider because he doesn‘t have a slim enough body type and is always pushing his weight down which maybe gets him to him in the second week. But there‘s a lot of logical consequences that aren‘t true at all, so I guess not.

 

[Berniece]

He threw in the towel.

Or he couldn’t do more. Evenepoel isn’t the type to just throw in the towel and ride calmly