The God King gets what the God King wants.
No flat sections, high altitude... I see no challengers against Pogacar here.
No flat sections, high altitude... I see no challengers against Pogacar here.
The God King gets what the God King wants.
No flat sections, high altitude... I see no challengers against Pogacar here.
Due to the higher altitude it won't help him as much though. But there are around 18km's of shallow gradients in this ITTAny non-technical section with a very shallow gradient (positive or negative) should be good for Evenepoel, given his aerodynamics.
Due to the higher altitude it won't help him as much though. But there are around 18km's of shallow gradients in this ITT
Yeah indeed, it's going to be close. I hope, that would give us the most fun raceIt's also true that those sections should be time-weighted not distance-weighted i.e. 18 km sections favouring Evenepoel and 8 km sections favouring Pogacar could have similar total duration.
And how much are they influenced by other riders performances? Will they stick to their pacing plan, or explode.There's an interesting aspect: how to optimize your performance on such a varying route? It's not just a constant execution of FTP (which would take place on totally flat route or on a long climb like Finestre/Ventoux).
On a mix of climbing/flat it probably makes more sense to generate more power during climbing where you can gain relatively more (because speed vs power relation is closer to linear there while it's something between square and cube root on deal flat road). Another factor favouring this tactics are downhills which enable for a short recovery. I would like to see some real examples of such comparisons (i.e. constant FTP vs above-below FTP mix) but not sure if any publications/experiments have ever been done.
And how much are they influenced by other riders performances? Will they stick to their pacing plan, or explode.
I back this. It's definitely an interesting aspect, pacing plan on such a varying route isn't easy and can differ significantly from rider to rider. I don't think they'll be affected much by others.
Im just assuming here, but given the nature of modern cycling, I believe every rider will have a pacing plan prepared in advance using AI to perfectly optimize their individual performance data aligned with every course detail to maximize efficiency. I know Pogacar and Sola at least use ''Anna'' for this entirely, which is highly praised for this purpose, and I assume most riders will have something similar and use it more or less slavic.
Think it was a bigger issue before all the data was aviable to this degree and not the least the use of the data to this extent, but im just assuming here.
I would already be surprised if SOQ/Evenepoel/Belgium uses such tools if the right one existsTo make such a tool perform the desired optimization a lot of input data is necessary. And I don't mean just simple power curves vs duration. The tool has to know how fast they recover from various efforts and what kind of effort they can produce for X minutes after another effort produced for Y minutes. I'm pretty sure the last aspect is just parametrized/estimated/interpolated somehow (they don't have so much detailed data) and the simulation high accuracy isn't guaranteed IMO.
I would already be surprised if SOQ/Evenepoel/Belgium uses such tools if the right one exists
I would already be surprised if SOQ/Evenepoel/Belgium uses such tools if the right one exists
If Indurain ate a sandwich, I think half a sandwich will do for Remco.Indurain recently said that most important was to eat a sandwich before a climb. I suppose this is still Remco's basic pacing plan.
It's Pogacar, so we're at the level of "just pedal harder" kinds of optimization while your manager talks about how aero your road bike is ignoring that your rivals are on literal TT bikes.I've worked on optimization algorithms for many years and would find it really interesting to know how to optimize such stuff on living organisms like Pogacar, especially what kind of effort/recovery data they input to make it work.
If Indurain ate a sandwich, I think half a sandwich will do for Remco.
It's Pogacar, so we're at the level of "just pedal harder" kinds of optimization while your manager talks about how aero your road bike is ignoring that your rivals are on literal TT bikes.
He seems to be able maintain his top form through the Vuelta to the end (based on still placing well on Stage 20 after pulling for Almeida) and it seems good timing that this comes so soon afterward.Really curious about Vine's performance, assuming he can stay on his bike for the whole TT.
Evenepoel has no need for that, he has people in his corner with Artificial Stupidity to tell him what to do.Im just assuming here, but given the nature of modern cycling, I believe every rider will have a pacing plan prepared in advance using AI to perfectly optimize their individual performance data aligned with every course detail to maximize efficiency. I know Pogacar and Sola at least use ''Anna'' for this entirely, which is highly praised for this purpose, and I assume most riders will have something similar and use it more or less slavic.
I know what you mean, but I honestly think that was just a reflection of how steep that TT was. I should know, I walked up the course that morning and it was an absolute pig! Even the supposed flat part seemed to climb up quite a lot!None of the climbing should be particularly slow. And Pogacar doing the MTT on a roadbike is a bit of a red flag for me in regards to his affinity for his TT bike.
Even the supposed flat part seemed to climb up quite a lot!