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

[red_flanders]

Why would I have a conversation with him? He's clearly realistic about how his incremental work has paid off.
I would argue the proposal that Visma had a large part in his success and any off-book implications that may have. The kid did the work and was smart enough to beat Roglic, Remco and their teams while being humble.

Watched this yesterday, had to laugh, sorry. He's asked about the difference in the teams. To paraphrase...

Spencer: What's the difference between Visma and Movistar that's allowed you to go from 8th to 1st?

Matteo: I'm just on a different level physically. It's the training, it's basically the opposite of what I used to do.

Highlight in the intro right at the beginning, full question/comments start at around 31:05.

 

[Basecase]

Remco shall not win MSR - his jaded ego shall not permit it....

 

[repre]

I don't know the answer to this but in recent times who has gone clear at Cipressa and held the gap?

But nobody is like Remco, his power and endurance are unmatched in classics...

 

[Oldermanish]

Watched this yesterday, had to laugh, sorry. He's asked about the difference in the teams. To paraphrase...

Spencer: What's the difference between Visma and Movistar that's allowed you to go from 8th to 1st?

Matteo: I'm just on a different level physically. It's the training, it's basically the opposite of what I used to do.

Highlight in the intro right at the beginning, full question/comments start at around 31:05.

That response isn't a surprise. His prior training/nutrition regime was pretty much all him on Movistar.
As I had noted way back he customarily rode huge rides: Mountain Home, Idaho to Galena Summit and back which is 350 km and probably 3000 m of elevation gain. He also started each season hard as a domestique and then secured the results as the opportunities occurred. This was an all-season regime, too. Beauty of being young and focused.

At PN he was the dedicated JV leader, knew it per plan well in advance and was not overtrained. That's assuming what he was willing to say in the interview was accurate but it makes sense. All of those things would enhance the self-developed strength he had. In that way JV provided him the opportunity to reach "another level" in his words. That doesn't include the implication by many that JV may have some other program influences.
This would be the hopeful outcome of being on a better team be it JV or UAE. McNulty has had the same increase in performance; coming from US Rally Cycling and putting in the miles to get a National Championship, Tour of Cal results and others that attracted UAE. It's a fairly expected outcome to having a real management situation and hopefully both will prosper from the influences.

 

[Sciatic]

I don't know the answer to this but in recent times who has gone clear at Cipressa and held the gap?

No one?

 

[red_flanders]

That response isn't a surprise. His prior training/nutrition regime was pretty much all him on Movistar.
As I had noted way back he customarily rode huge rides: Mountain Home, Idaho to Galena Summit and back which is 350 km and probably 3000 m of elevation gain. He also started each season hard as a domestique and then secured the results as the opportunities occurred. This was an all-season regime, too. Beauty of being young and focused.

At PN he was the dedicated JV leader, knew it per plan well in advance and was not overtrained. That's assuming what he was willing to say in the interview was accurate but it makes sense. All of those things would enhance the self-developed strength he had. In that way JV provided him the opportunity to reach "another level" in his words. That doesn't include the implication by many that JV may have some other program influences.
This would be the hopeful outcome of being on a better team be it JV or UAE. McNulty has had the same increase in performance; coming from US Rally Cycling and putting in the miles to get a National Championship, Tour of Cal results and others that attracted UAE. It's a fairly expected outcome to having a real management situation and hopefully both will prosper from the influences.

Not a surprise? The entire point of our back-and-forth was that I'd asserted (and you'd denied) that he's on another level, and that Visma was the reason for his improvement. At least that was all my point ever was. All this other stuff about overtraining and "program influences" whatever that means, doesn't have anything to do with the points I've been making. To my assertions, you said...

Jogensen is a real talent. Visma has had little to do with his success and he can ride like a team player.

You missed his Tour de France and other rides last year? They were almost all solo efforts and happened several times without much Movistar support. He's not much different than last year in power. He worked hard enough to make that happen; not given a magic cape by Visma.

That he's clearly on another level takes nothing away from what he did before. He was, as I said, a good young rider with potential, who had some gritty performances but had never looked comfortable or at ease, had few wins, and certainly had not won a major stage race against competition like this and he did it looking totally in command. Oman? Nice early season win for sure, but it was versus nobody, and he barely won by what, one second?

What I asserted is exactly what he says in this interview, comically so. Surprised that you'd be still willing to debate the points.

 

[Oldermanish]

Not a surprise? The entire point of our back-and-forth was that I'd asserted (and you'd denied) that he's on another level, and that Visma was the reason for his improvement. At least that was all my point ever was. All this other stuff about overtraining and "program influences" whatever that means, doesn't have anything to do with the points I've been making. To my assertions, you said...




That he's clearly on another level takes nothing away from what he did before. He was, as I said, a good young rider with potential, who had some gritty performances but had never looked comfortable or at ease, had few wins, and certainly had not won a major stage race against competition like this and he did it looking totally in command. Oman? Nice early season win for sure, but it was versus nobody, and he barely won by what, one second?

What I asserted is exactly what he says in this interview, comically so. Surprised that you'd be still willing to debate the points.

Perhaps I lumped you in with those that suggested his performance came from nowhere and was dependent on some JV influence beyond what he references; if you listened to the entire interview he gets specific and there's monumental difference other than stress reduction and support. He's also being very deferential to his team and their help because he is respectfully humble; unlike some of the riders he just beat. I apologize for blending the bias of other posters into a response; it's not fair and glad you get a laugh from that.

As a seasoned fan you must know what the inference is win a rider is described as "on another level" or "extraterrestrial". You'd also have to admit that; considering his performances in recent years that it would take the next level of support, team-wise to make the difference from podium to top step. As for Oman; he won it. I didn't watch any of it and don't know how that happened. Perhaps someone could fill us in on that and whether it was "versus nobody". Wins are wins.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Perhaps someone could fill us in on that and whether it was "versus nobody". Wins are wins.

He beat Vansevenant by one second. So not only was it versus nobody, he nearly got beaten by nobody as well. In fact, he was extremely lucky the jury didn't count the gap at the line as one second when Vansevenant won the last stage (uphill):

As for "wins are wins", as you will no doubt have noticed on this forum and more specifically this thread, that's not entirely true. Wins are not wins in the Evenepoel topic. Which is okay, since this discussion would probably be better off being had in the Jorgenson thread.

 

[Oldermanish]

He beat Vansevenant by one second. So not only was it versus nobody, he nearly got beaten by nobody as well. In fact, he was extremely lucky the jury didn't count the gap at the line as one second when Vansevenant won the last stage (uphill):

As for "wins are wins", as you will no doubt have noticed on this forum and more specifically this thread, that's not entirely true. Wins are not wins in the Evenepoel topic. Which is okay, since this discussion would probably be better off being had in the Jorgenson thread.

OK about Vansevenant being less prominent than other racers. I guess he was closer than Evenepoel was in PN but that might seem disrespectful.

 

[SHAD0W93]

OK about Vansevenant being less prominent than other racers. I guess he was closer than Evenepoel was in PN but that might seem disrespectful.

One of those isn’t like the other.

 

[Berniece]

"Based on data, they try to estimate exactly where the breaking point is for Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel." - Merijn Zeeman.

They need to look no further than "the book of @mou" for data scouting.

This is what Bakelants said too. Visma now knows how Evenepoel is riding thanks to Paris-Nice, but SOQ doesn’t really know anything about Vingegaard.

 

[AmRacer]

This is what Bakelants said too. Visma now knows how Evenepoel is riding thanks to Paris-Nice, but SOQ doesn’t really know anything about Vingegaard.

They will learn at Itzulia Basque Country.

 

[Berniece]

They will learn at Itzulia Basque Country.

He'll get a lesson in humility most of all Although ever since the 2021 season I felt he grew a lot as a person.

 

[Berniece]

Expectations for Itzulia: Victory in the ITT (or close to it), another stage win, and in the last stage he will attack on Krabelin with ~70 km to go (only Vingegaard will follow him there).

 

[Andre]

Expectations for Itzulia: Victory in the ITT (or close to it), another stage win, and in the last stage he will attack on Krabelin with ~70 km to go (only Vingegaard will follow him there).

...so, second place for Remco?

 

[Berniece]

...so, second place for Remco?

I'm not sure. I don't see him lose time until maybe the last stage, and only to Vingegaard. And maybe he's still able to win the GC even though he lost time in that stage, because I wouldn't be surprised if he's 30s ahead by then thanks to the TT, and sprinting for seconds.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

This is what Bakelants said too. Visma now knows how Evenepoel is riding thanks to Paris-Nice, but SOQ doesn’t really know anything about Vingegaard.

I'm not sure they will have much data to go on based on Paris Nice. If you check Strava, the climbing times of Evenepoel and Jorgenson were slow as molasses on the final day. Like nearly 2 minutes slower on a 10 minute segment than times of Yates, Pog etc. Furthermore, Evenepoel has not been at altitude yet, which he always responds very well to (which is different for everybody) and likely not even close to (hopefully) his TDF weight, PN will leave them guessing more than anything else imho.

Was it because of the weather? Possibly. If Evenepoel (and Jorgenson) were simply "bad" they were still much better than Vlasov, Skjelmose etc. Skjelmose was asked after his stagewin how he felt, and he said he was in the best form of his life, better than during last year's TDS which he won. Vlasov did not do any turns the last day, and was dropped straight off the wheel even though Evenepoel was doing an extremely slow climb - compared to other Strava results.

While i have no doubt Vingegaard would have won this PN instead had he started, or that Evenepoel would not have won TA had he started there, i am not sure how big the gap is exactly. I have to assume Evenepoel would have at least been able to follow Pidcock and Arensman. I wasn't left with a feeling the Vingegaard's level in TA was so far ahead to take away all hope. He took 30s on Hindley and Ayuso fast, and then stagnated. Even Del Toro was climbing faster in the second part of the climb i believe.

In conclusion, i think that if Visma want to know which numbers Evenepoel can potentially push, they'd be better off looking at data of the '22 Vuelta before his crash, because i don't think he has been riding at that level since.

 

[Froome]

This is what Bakelants said too. Visma now knows how Evenepoel is riding thanks to Paris-Nice, but SOQ doesn’t really know anything about Vingegaard.

Visma knows almost everything from Roglic and Pogacar for this year, just like Bora and Emirates know almost everything about Vingegaard.

Based on the performances in races, the performance staff of every team, can know approximately make the calculations of the power curve of the rivals, FTP and other things.

Visma probably knows a bit less from Remco evenepoel for Grand tours in terms of his power curve, especially in the mountains(certainly they know everything about him in TT skills), because they only have the Vuelta 2022 to know more about him, but after Dauphine they will know a bit more about him. Dauphine will also be good for the rival teams, see what evenepoes does in mountain stages with multiple climbs.

Naturally evenepoel will have a better form in the Tour 2024 than in vuelta 2022 because he is still young, but it's not that difficult to the staff of perfomances of each team, know almost everything thing about the opponents.

Emirates knows very well that Pogacar doesn't have the power to drop Vingegaard in the mountains, and they know what probably Vingegaard can do to him on stages of plateau de beille, cime de la bonette and in the last TT. That's why they will go with almeida, yates, ayuso, because the strategy will be of attacking very soon with all of them even in breakaways, to break Visma, and force Vingegaard to chase or follow every move, to tire him, and Pogacar doing the differences after that situation.

Bora will also go with a similar strategy, with hindley, vlasov, Roglic.

Visma will go with the same strategy of last year.
They will go full gas everyday. They prefer to put guys with a strong diesel engine who can go with a good pace during a lot of time, like laporte, van baarle, tratnik, jorgenson, Benoot, instead of going with a lot of climbers. They don’t need that, because they know based on data, that Vingegaard is the strongest individually. They will go full gas to break phisically all the peloton especially in the last week, before they launche Vingegaard.


The strategy of each team, are all based on the data that they approximately have for each rival.


Visma went with Vingegaard and Roglic in 2022 against Pogacar, because they weren't sure they could beat Pogacar one vs one.

 

[AmRacer]

Visma went with Vingegaard and Roglic in 2022 against Pogacar, because they weren't sure they could beat Pogacar one vs one.

Visma went with Vingegaard and Roglic in Vuelta 2023 against Evenepoel, because they weren't sure they could beat Evenepoel one vs one.

 

[Froome]

Visma went with Vingegaard and Roglic in Vuelta 2023 against Evenepoel, because they weren't sure they could beat Evenepoel one vs one.

Visma had planned going with the Roglic and Vingegaard to the Vuelta since December 2022, and Evenepoel wasn't even listed to go to the Vuelta 2023.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Emirates knows very well that Pogacar doesn't have the power to drop Vingegaard in the mountains, and they know what probably Vingegaard can do to him on stages of plateau de beille, cime de la bonette and in the last TT. That's why they will go with almeida, yates, ayuso, because the strategy will be of attacking very soon with all of them even in breakaways, to break Visma, and force Vingegaard to chase or follow every move, to tire him, and Pogacar doing the differences after that situation.

Has mou taught you nothing?

Seriously though, i think Vingegaard's TT abilities are generally overestimated. He won the TDF'23 TT in spectacular fashion, but some context is key. First of all, Van Aert had been quite awful all year in TT's, so he was not the top 3 TT'er he was the past few years. So he was not the reference many people think he is. Pogacar was at that point already imploding as a result of his troublesome preparation, and loss of form shows easily in a TT. While Vingegaard himself had prepared specifically for this TT, having done multiple in-depth recons. He knew all the corners with his eyes closed. There were comparisons of how Vingegaard and Pogacar took corners, and you could see he went through the corners at a much higher speed. That means you are literally talking about seconds per corner, since that includes braking later, going through the corner at a higher speed and accelerating to top speed sooner/faster (and while wasting less energy). Basically it's how Foss became WCC ITT, by spending 2 weeks on the course, which Küng and Evenepoel did not.

Vingegaard is a very good TT'er and possibly will benefit from a TT in the 3rd week, but had Pogacar been in top form and prepared for that TT just as meticulously, i think you would have seen a very different outcome. Not necessarilly a different winner, but nothing to expect major differences in the future.

 

[Froome]

Has mou taught you nothing?

Seriously though, i think Vingegaard's TT abilities are generally overestimated. He won the TDF'23 TT in spectacular fashion, but some context is key. First of all, Van Aert had been quite awful all year in TT's, so he was not the top 3 TT'er he was the past few years. So he was not the reference many people think he is. Pogacar was at that point already imploding as a result of his troublesome preparation, and loss of form shows easily in a TT. While Vingegaard himself had prepared specifically for this TT, having done multiple in-depth recons. He knew all the corners with his eyes closed. There were comparisons of how Vingegaard and Pogacar took corners, and you could see he went through the corners at a much higher speed. That means you are literally talking about seconds per corner, since that includes braking later, going through the corner at a higher speed and accelerating to top speed sooner/faster (and while wasting less energy). Basically it's how Foss became WCC ITT, by spending 2 weeks on the course, which Küng and Evenepoel did not.

Vingegaard is a very good TT'er and possibly will benefit from a TT in the 3rd week, but had Pogacar been in top form and prepared for that TT just as meticulously, i think you would have seen a very different outcome. Not necessarilly a different winner, but nothing to expect major differences in the future.

Pogacar already said he could had gone 40 s in best case, i also think that. 1.38 min in 22 km is to much between them but the winner of the TT would be the same in normal conditions.What i was saying is that Vingegaard has an advantage in the mountains and in the TT of the third week.

In the first TT of the Tour, it's very obvious that Vingegaard will probably be more slow than Pogacar and evenepoel, but i don't expect big gaps between them.

 

[Netserk]

The Nice ITT will come after two big MTFs and is with next to no flat. Perfect for the best climber in the race to win.

 

[SHAD0W93]

Expectations for Itzulia: Victory in the ITT (or close to it), another stage win, and in the last stage he will attack on Krabelin with ~70 km to go (only Vingegaard will follow him there).

I think he’ll do better than Roglic but both won’t be close to Vinge.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Pogacar already said he could had gone 40 s in best case, i also think that. 1.38 min in 22 km is to much between them but the winner of the TT would be the same in normal conditions.What i was saying is that Vingegaard has an advantage in the mountains and in the TT of the third week.

In the first TT of the Tour, it's very obvious that Vingegaard will probably be more slow than Pogacar and evenepoel, but i don't expect big gaps between them.

Like i said, it's not so much how much harder Pog could have pushed the pedals, but the difference in preparation for specifically this TT, which Vingegaard/Visma did meticulously. By the time they started the last/main climb, Pogacar was already over half a minute down, and cornering played a major part in that. Like i explained, it's quite possible Vingegaard gained time and burned less energy simply by superior cornering. Saved energy that let him expand the gap on the climb. I personally wouldn't take that TT as a basis to predict future H2Hs.