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

[Red Rick]

The amount of GTs that would be different with 50k extra ITTs is extremely overrated.

 

[Berniece]

The amount of GTs that would be different with 50k extra ITTs is extremely overrated.

Indeed, as long as he loses 10min in the mountains on Pogacar/Vingegaard, it doesn't matter that he can take 1-2min back during a flat ITT.

 

[Berniece]

I'm not sure if it's smart and it should probably be taken with a large grain of salt but Pauwels has already revealed some details about Belgium's game plan for the upcoming WC: https://www.hln.be/wielrennen/slech...ach-over-het-strijdplan-voor-kigali~a5a31d39/

Surprise, surprise, it's all centered around Pogacar and how to (try to) beat him.

Florian Vermeersch needs to control the first 160km basically on his own. The other 7 riders will be spared as much as possible until Mount Kigali. There it all depends on what Pogacar does.

In an ideal scenario all 7 riders make it over Mount Kigali in the first group(s) but that only happens if Pogacar doesn't attack.

If Pogacar does attack on Mount Kigali only Remco and Cian are allowed to (try to) respond. All other riders need to try to stay together to be able to work together after the climb. They can't make the same mistake as last year where they all tried to close the gap with Pogacar one by one and got burnt out too quickly.

If Pogacar doesn't get away on Mount Kigali or gets caught shortly afterwards, a new race starts but no details have been disclosed about the game plan in that scenario.

Pauwels seems to be looking at Denmark as possible ally to control the race and to try to contain Pogacar. Apparently he has already spoken several times about the WC with Morkov.

Remco and Cian shouldn't be trying to follow Pogacar. If Pogacar really wants to go solo 100km's before the finish, let him go for it. More than time enough to close it if they actually work together.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Indeed, as long as he loses 10min in the mountains on Pogacar/Vingegaard, it doesn't matter that he can take 1-2min back during a flat ITT.

Evenepoel gained like 0.5 s/km on Pogacar during last two flat/rolling time trials at the Tour so not sure where you took those 1-2 minutes from. Pogacar's form at the Tour is so high that he becomes a monster in time trials. It won't matter unless Evenepoel becomes as good climber as Pogacar.

 

[Berflamand]

Remco and Cian shouldn't be trying to follow Pogacar. If Pogacar really wants to go solo 100km's before the finish, let him go for it. More than time enough to close it if they actually work together.

I'd agree but I guess it depends on how depleted the field already is at that point and how good Remco feels. If he feels good and is able to follow I think he won't be able to contain himself.

Having Cian as a sandbag to Pogi's wheel after Mount Kigali wouldn't be bad I guess but I think it's unrealistic to expect Cian to be able to follow Pogacar on Mount Kigali (especially as the only one?).

 

[Berniece]

Evenepoel gained like 0.5 s/km on Pogacar during last two flat/rolling time trials at the Tour so not sure where you took those 1-2 minutes from. Pogacar's form at the Tour is so high that he becomes a monster in time trials. It won't matter unless Evenepoel becomes as good climber as Pogacar.

On a flat ITT of 50km's with an in-form Evenepoel? That's different than what we've seen this TDF.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Evenepoel needs 15 minutes on TTs if he wants to have a realistic chance of winning the Tour against Pogacar. So we are talking about 450 km of TT (2 s/km)
The only difference is Pogacar would need to attack from far out just like Vingegaard did on Madeleine. If Jorgensen worked after the descent, Pogacar would gain (at least) 5 minutes on Onley and Lipowitz. In just one stage.

 

[Berniece]

I'd agree but I guess it depends on how depleted the field already is at that point and how good Remco feels. If he feels good and is able to follow I think he won't be able to contain himself.

Having Cian as a sandbag to Pogi's wheel after Mount Kigali wouldn't be bad I guess but I think it's unrealistic to expect Cian to be able to follow Pogacar on Mount Kigali (especially as the only one?).

Yeah that’s not realistic at all for Cian. He isn’t even able to follow that acceleration and won’t be able to close the gap.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

On a flat ITT of 50km's with an in-form Evenepoel? That's different than what we've seen this TDF.

We saw two quite fast TTs in the Tour last two years and we saw what happened, I just stated the facts (not speculations - you like them, I know). Basically noone said Evenepoel's performances were subpar then. I dunno why you think Evenepoel wasn't in good form on those days. To have a realistic chance against Pogacar in the Tour he would need to hold his wheel almost every time (his advantage from a long TT would be a few dozens of seconds) so he should become Pogacar's equal (or almost) on that terrain.

 

[Peter von]

I'd agree but I guess it depends on how depleted the field already is at that point and how good Remco feels. If he feels good and is able to follow I think he won't be able to contain himself.

Having Cian as a sandbag to Pogi's wheel after Mount Kigali wouldn't be bad I guess but I think it's unrealistic to expect Cian to be able to follow Pogacar on Mount Kigali (especially as the only one?).

Only way people follow pogi is if the racing is too easy up until he attacks or if you provoke him into attacking at the wrong place.
Some will try to do the first and others will try for the latter.
But it’s very difficult to make a wcrr easy.
Also very difficult to force Pogi into a bad situation without making the race so hard he auto wins.

 

[Red Rick]

I'm really confused why Uijtdebroeks is part of the WC conversation cause nothing he's done suggests he's a top 30 rider in that race.

 

[Berflamand]

I'm really confused why Uijtdebroeks is part of the WC conversation cause nothing he's done suggests he's a top 30 rider in that race.

I'm just quoting Serge Pauwels (or at least the article with the Pauwels quotes).

Apparently Pauwels thinks Mount Kigali is a climb which should suit Uijtdebroeks really well but I'm also skeptical myself that Cian can play a major part in the race.

 

[Netserk]

Evenepoel gained like 0.5 s/km on Pogacar during last two flat/rolling time trials at the Tour so not sure where you took those 1-2 minutes from. Pogacar's form at the Tour is so high that he becomes a monster in time trials. It won't matter unless Evenepoel becomes as good climber as Pogacar.

It'd have to be even flatter than this year. And less technical.

 

[Netserk]

The amount of GTs that would be different with 50k extra ITTs is extremely overrated.

It would mostly change the pacing of the race and the dynamics in a few stages.

 

[houtdffan]

Indeed, as long as he loses 10min in the mountains on Pogacar/Vingegaard, it doesn't matter that he can take 1-2min back during a flat ITT.

He was a whole 3 minutes behind Vingo in 2024, and under2 minutes back heading into the final MTF. A couple of 50km ITT (not MTT) could have made the difference

 

[Red Rick]

Add 2 TTs to a race that already had 2 TTs.

It's turtles time trials all the way down

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Add 2 TTs to a race that already had 2 TTs.

I think a lot of things were bad with the GT routes from when I started watching cycling at the 2003 Tour, but I think it was pretty cool with 3 ITTs. The 2003 one had a 7k prologue and two flat ITTs of 47 km and 49 km. That would be cool to see also now I think.

(I dont really like TTTs, especially those really long ones from that era, so I think it's not something to hope for)

 

[SHAD0W93]

Evenepoel needs 15 minutes on TTs if he wants to have a realistic chance of winning the Tour against Pogacar. So we are talking about 450 km of TT (2 s/km)
The only difference is Pogacar would need to attack from far out just like Vingegaard did on Madeleine. If Jorgensen worked after the descent, Pogacar would gain (at least) 5 minutes on Onley and Lipowitz. In just one stage.

Tour has to just go back to the days when everyone rode solo with no draft or teammates.

 

[Netserk]

He was a whole 3 minutes behind Vingo in 2024, and under2 minutes back heading into the final MTF. A couple of 50km ITT (not MTT) could have made the difference

Change the two ITTs in that race to flat 50 km ones. Assume for simplicity that the gaps would have been twice that of the first ITT both times.

Evenepoel would still finish behind Vingegaard, despite the latter not riding against him primarily.

That's the best ever Evenepoel on a fantasy route with 100 km of flat ITT.

How much would Evenepoel have lost if Vingegaard rode with Pogi on the gravel? There's a couple of other times he could have raced differently if he needed to.

 

[houtdffan]

Change the two ITTs in that race to flat 50 km ones. Assume for simplicity that the gaps would have been twice that of the first ITT both times.

Evenepoel would still finish behind Vingegaard, despite the latter not riding against him primarily.

That's the best ever Evenepoel on a fantasy route with 100 km of flat ITT.

How much would Evenepoel have lost if Vingegaard rode with Pogi on the gravel? There's a couple of other times he could have raced differently if he needed to.

We don't know what would have happened. Time gaps usually balloon the longer a TT goes. Keeping it to within 20 seconds over 25km does not mean he keeps it to within 40 seconds over 50 km.

Plus, Vingo is quite inconsistent in the TT, as he showed in this year's TT

 

[Netserk]

We don't know what would have happened. Time gaps usually balloon the longer a TT goes. Keeping it to within 20 seconds over 25km does not mean he keeps it to within 40 seconds over 50 km.

Plus, Vingo is quite inconsistent in the TT, as he showed in this year's TT

He was also on his way to the victory of the longest ITT in the Tour of the past decade before he gifted it to Van Aert. This year is the only bad ITT he has ever ridden in the Tour.

By the same token, the MTT also showed that Evenepoel is quite inconsistent in ITTs.

 

[Berniece]

I'm really confused why Uijtdebroeks is part of the WC conversation cause nothing he's done suggests he's a top 30 rider in that race.

San Sebastián?

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

He was also on his way to the victory of the longest ITT in the Tour of the past decade before he gifted it to Van Aert. This year is the only bad ITT he has ever ridden in the Tour.

By the same token, the MTT also showed that Evenepoel is quite inconsistent in ITTs.

Vingegaard nearly crashed out of a corner in the last part, which tells me he was not holding back when he lost that TT to Van Aert. If he was holding back, then he very likely would have crashed in that corner and would not have won the race regardless.
Vingegaard has done subpar TT's other than the one this TDF. Only talking about the TDF TT's is cherry picking if you want to compare that to Evenepoel's consistency, who's previous bad TT (not top 10) was when he was sick and quit the race a day after.
If Vingegaard can stay within 30-40s of Evenepoel on a 50k flat TT, he should start doing the WCC TT as he would be on the podium. In a GT a lot also depends on when the TT is being held. Early first week, day 20... Even sprinters can do good flat TT's up to 10km. Doesn't mean you can extrapolate that to 20km, or 50, or 70...

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

Evenepoel needs 15 minutes on TTs if he wants to have a realistic chance of winning the Tour against Pogacar. So we are talking about 450 km of TT (2 s/km)

He lost by less than 10 minutes last year. At this point i'm pretty sure if either of both riders still has more headroom to improve, it's going to be Evenepoel. If he can indeed improve overall, he would likely still need to make up too much time in TT's for it to be feasible. If he can improve on his 2024 level and go 4 minutes faster overall, he would still need 5 minutes in TT's so that's not happening anyway.

 

[Netserk]

Vingegaard nearly crashed out of a corner in the last part, which tells me he was not holding back when he lost that TT to Van Aert. If he was holding back, then he very likely would have crashed in that corner and would not have won the race regardless.
Vingegaard has done subpar TT's other than the one this TDF. Only talking about the TDF TT's is cherry picking if you want to compare that to Evenepoel's consistency, who's previous bad TT (not top 10) was when he was sick and quit the race a day after.
If Vingegaard can stay within 30-40s of Evenepoel on a 50k flat TT, he should start doing the WCC TT as he would be on the podium. In a GT a lot also depends on when the TT is being held. Early first week, day 20... Even sprinters can do good flat TT's up to 10km. Doesn't mean you can extrapolate that to 20km, or 50, or 70...

Vingegaard was faster than Pogi in all sectors until the last 800 m when he sat up. Yes, even in the last one including the descent where he nearly crashed. Had he ridden the last 800 m in the same time as Pogi, he'd have won it.

In my example, I assumed Vingegaard would lose 1'14" in each 50 km ITT. So I don't know where you get 30-40 seconds from.