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Volta Ciclista a Catalunya 2023, March 20-26

Page 45 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
A lot of time we complain about big races that underperform. This is a smaller race that has hugely over-performed! Great battle so far, very entertaining. Parcours has been excellent. Riders have animated the race and fought for every second!

It's a treat to watch cycling the last few years with all the young talent. It's so much more entertaining than it was 5-10 years ago. Feeling lucky to witness this era!
This forum has also hugely overperformed. 1100 posts halfway through the race is very impressive. Posters have animated the thread and fought for every like!
 
The main reason we are discussing wheelsucking right now is because Remco and QS has thrown everything they got at it. And Roglič is still ahead.
I think the bolded part of your post is wrong. Everyone could see Remco didn’t go all in over the line yesterday, but chose to celebrate instead of chasing every second.

I don’t know if he did it because he doesn’t care about one or two extra seconds or if he didn’t realize one or two extra seconds would give him the GC lead, but him celebrating the win 100% means he didn’t throw everything he got at taking the GC lead.
 
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I think for Purito it comes mainly from the 2012 Giro, where he didn't attack enough when he had the legs and lost in the TT.

For Valverde I simply think it doesn't apply that much to high mountain stages anyway. Valverde more about the negative tactics in the classics.
Purito in 2012 Vuelta, in 2014 Vuelta was a mountain sprinter all the time. Always waiting for Contador.
 
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common sense?

more like wishful thinking.

what could you possibly be basing this on other than your own personal bias?

i personally have no idea which rider is closest to their best form.

what i know, is if remco were not here, rog would have ridden with the rest of the group and outsprinted them at the end.

First and foremost, I surely ain't biased towards any of those two, i couldn't care less about who's better or who's at better form ATM, Roglic or Evenepoel.
So forget about the "wishful thinking" :smirk:

My opinion was only based on the fact that Evenepoel´s preparation for this season was not affected by any kind of injury or recover from injury, on the other hand we all know that Roglic was off his bike for at least 2 months after a major shoulder surgery in November. According the news he resumed road training mid December. Common sense should point to Roglic´s preparation being behind the normal schedule, just that. It's a certainty? No it's not! It's probable? I think it is.

As for your last note, I agree that without Evenepoel Rog would win yesterday's stage outsprinting the opossition in the last 400 meters.
 
First and foremost, I surely ain't biased towards any of those two, i couldn't care less about who's better or who's at better form ATM, Roglic or Evenepoel.
So forget about the "wishful thinking" :smirk:

My opinion was only based on the fact that Evenepoel´s preparation for this season was not affected by any kind of injury or recover from injury, on the other hand we all know that Roglic was off his bike for at least 2 months after a major shoulder surgery in November. According the news he resumed road training mid December. Common sense should point to Roglic´s preparation being behind the normal schedule, just that. It's a certainty? No it's not! It's probable? I think it is.

As for your last note, I agree that without Evenepoel Rog would win yesterday's stage outsprinting the opossition in the last 400 meters.
This seems like common sense to me.
 
...
My opinion was only based on the fact that Evenepoel´s preparation for this season was not affected by any kind of injury or recover from injury, on the other hand we all know that Roglic was off his bike for at least 2 months after a major shoulder surgery in November. According the news he resumed road training mid December. Common sense should point to Roglic´s preparation being behind the normal schedule, just that. It's a certainty? No it's not! It's probable? I think it is.
...
Just based on the timing and length of prep, I would think the relative lack of early training would affect his endurance and base quite a bit more than his peak power output. He'll need that base for the Giro, but he has plenty of time. I would think at Catalunya it's probably not having a huge effect?

That said, maybe the intensity of his training has been affected to some degree, or maybe there have been complications slowing him down early in the recovery. Don't know. If he's more off top power than others it's pretty impressive what we're seeing here.

I think we're seeing two riders on track for the Giro with excellent early season form. It's a bit hard for me to imagine Roglič would be significantly stronger right now if he'd have had full prep.
 
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