A Winter Doldrums Brain Teaser: What Is Cycling’s Most Intriguing Skill?

OK, hear me out. This is NOT my favorite couple weeks of cycling. I have always been a bit down on Paris-Nice, a frigid march across quiet areas of France with a lot of sprinting involved before the final weekend (which frequently ends up being thrilling, but still). Being in central Italy Tirreno-Adriatico would maybe interest me a bit more, but just a bit, except it tends to start and finish awfully early for someone in the Pacific time zone. I am content to monitor the results, catch a few highlights, maybe watch the weekend stages if there’s no skiing to be done (update: there is skiing to be done). I won’t quibble with anyone who is thrilled by the action — it is cycling, after all — and for us fans States-side the Jorgenson win might be a watershed moment for him, but between the Strade Bianche adrenaline hit and the real start of Classics Season, I will choose to pace myself. [I see you there, Nokere Koerse.]

So today’s fun is about looking into the upcoming/slightly underway season at large. I know we finished up last year talking about how 2024 was looking like one of the most exciting seasons in a while, where the talent tsunami reaches its full power and washes over the sport. That’s totally happening! But exactly what is it that is driving this excitement? Beyond just saying “that guy’s awesome!” what is the awesomeness exactly? Whose superpower is going to lift this cycling season to the next level of greatness?

Here is a list. As with all of my listicle posts, it’s my starting point and I heartily invite you to supplement it. Or shred it. It’s a free country, last I checked.

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Remco’s Time Trialling

This one is a favorite of mine, bringing up the love/hate dynamic that every sport needs. For people who don’t like Remco Evenepoel, and there are a few (cough), you might see this as your biggest annoyance. But Evenepoel is blessed with a body type that fits time trialling the same way Mark Cavendish’s frame made him the world’s best sprinter for quite some time. Add in some truly elite power numbers, and… well, you won’t see the current World Champion don a standard Quick Step skinsuit anytime soon (unless he gets bored wearing Belgium colors, but hey, he’s not a monster).

Evenepoel’s skills extend beyond time-trialling, to the kinds of attacks on smaller climbs that he is apparently very well equipped to finish off, as he showed in the Paris-Nice finale and stuff like Liège-Bastogne-Liège last year, and 2022 Worlds, etc. etc. As for his major mountain climbing, the type that gets you recognized at the highest level… I mean, he’s better than almost anyone you can name, but against the trio of Rogs, Pogs and Vingo, the evidence isn’t there.

Still, the only thing better at the Tour de France than a Big Three is a Big Four, where alliances and interests can shift in several additional directions at any moment. [Have we ever had a Big Five? Is that like one order of magnitude better? Or do they just start getting in each other’s way? I sure do hope to find out someday.] Evenepoel as one of the Big Four is extra intriguing because of his world-champ-level time trialling. Not that his erstwhile rivals are any slouches there, but does his presence not increase the urgency of putting real time into him on the climbs? Does Roglič, ever hunting last km sprint bonuses, work against the other two in a three-up escape? The number of knives each rider will have out for his rivals in the heat of the moment will exceed the jersey pocket space available for carrying actual knives. The unknowable calculations to be made on the fly, with a final day TT looming, will be fascinating to watch, if the race remains competitive all the way to Paris Nice. I so can’t wait.

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Pogačar’s Showmanship

This one hardly needs much elaboration; it’s been the dominant theme in cycling coverage and fandom, if there is one theme above all others, for a couple years now. It’s why there doesn’t seem to be a cost high enough in our FSA Directeur Sportif game to scare off buyers. But I will try to give it a bit more flavor, in light of recent events.

Yes, you already knew that Pogačar is capable of winning both classics and grand tours. His abilities are just as suited to the Vlaamse Ardennen as the Alps and Pyrénées. That’s pretty dope, as the kids say. But it’s not so much that he can go after any time of prize that makes him so special; it’s that he probably will.

Photo by Dirk Waem – Pool/Getty Images

Watching Pogs in the Strade Bianche was just a bit of additional color to his rainbow personality as a cyclist. Not only is he winning classics, he’s doing the Hinault thing of practically announcing his plans beforehand and daring anyone to stop him! [Hinault did this, didn’t he? I may have dreamed it, but even then it strikes me as Hinaultesque.] And he’s smiling! He actually enjoys this!! That to me is the really rare quality that makes you truly wonder what he’ll do next. Our whole lives we have willed on cyclists to race one way, only for them to tell us a million times that the smarter choice is to race some other way. Finally we have a man of the people, who’s willing to do all the dumb stuff we beg riders to do! And still winning!

I think I have used up my quota of exclamation points, so let’s keep moving.

Photo by Pauline Ballet UCI – Pool/Getty Images

Van der Poel’s Raw Power

I just got through praising the excitement of seeing a guy who might do anything you can think of, so now, not being tethered to any standard of consistency, I am going to praise the rider who really only does one thing: generate watts. Lots and lots of watts. Usually when you, a rival rider, really wish he would just stop already.

By comparison to Pogačar — a comparison that seemed ludicrous until they started trading Rondes van Vlaanderen — van der Poel is machine-like in his style and demeanor. But that is an awfully high bar, and I wouldn’t suggest for a moment that the Dutch World Champion lacks passion. It’s just not his defining feature.

Photo by Vincent Kalut-Pool/Getty Images

No, his defining feature is power, mixed with relentlessness. Not just in a machine-like way, but in a way that… I’ll just never forget his Amstel Gold win, when he just wouldn’t stop leading chases, even if guys tried to camp on his wheel. There’s a purity of spirit to his accelerations, He’s not another cynical guy who would punt away a chance for a win if he doesn’t think someone else is doing their fair share. He’s more like the Classical Greek sculpture version of a cyclist. It’s pretty cool in an understated way. I suppose he’s the perfect Dutch star then.

Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images

Van Aert’s Climbing

Speaking of perfect stars in the eyes of their home country… I won’t try to add anything to the Wout/Matti comparison, it’s beyond words at this point. But we should never let go of the awesomeness that Wout brings in those races when van der Poel is nowhere to be found. Yes, I’m talking about the high mountains.

We all know that Van Aert has his limitations as a climber, but exactly when they will ever kick in is incredible, riveting entertainment. His presence in any middle mountain breakaway is pure poison to the rest, given his sprinting abilities. That talent is guaranteed to launch any number of strategic decisions.

But more than that is just what his efforts mean to the sport. He’s the reverse-Pogačar in his total disregard for the labels you thought should apply to him, the Classics grunt who invades the holy space of the Tour mountains. And he’s as good a symbol of the beauty of cycling, not for the Pogačaric joy of it all but for a grimmer form of dedication, the ability to inspire an athlete to dig deeper than us outsiders could possibly imagine. Cycling has always been about glorious suffering. Wout won’t let you forget it.

Photo by ANDER GILLENEA/AFP via Getty Images

Ayuso’s Precociousness

We have endured several rounds of “how young is that guy?!?” in cycling of late, the most recent of which involved Evenepoel rocketing into the upper echelon by winning his third-ever World Tour race, the 2019 Clásica San Sebastián at age 19. By that time, Pogs — two years older — was already on a Vuelta podium, though the Slovene would massively up the stakes a year later. Now we have this illustrious battle brewing for the biggest races, a mix of young and sorta young, as Evenepoel tries to insert himself into the conversation at the Tour this year. And the Belgian is only 24!!

Uh except he’s three years older than Juan Ayuso. And I’m not sure he’s a better bet in a grand tour. In fact, I kinda think the Spaniard will end the year on roughly equal terms when it comes to the high mountain battles which will (mostly) decide the Tour de France, and maybe the Vuelta if there’s an autumn rematch.

Just this past week, Ayuso shadowed Jonas Vingegaard around central Italy, with Ayuso taking second overall ahead of former Giro winner Jai Hindley. Small potatoes maybe but Ayuso ended 2023 as the top rider at the Vuelta outside of the Jumbo Three, a pretty cool result that paired nicely with his 21st birthday, which he celebrated by rolling in just ahead of the Kuss-Vingo group on the Vuelta’s penultimate stage. Oh, and in his spare time he won the Faun Ardèche classic.

Photo by Billy Ceusters/Getty Images

None of this is normal. Sure, his teammate Pogačar’s record is arguably a lot less normal, like than anyone ever, and what that means for Ayuso is a mixed bag — pairing with a great mentor who casts a massive shadow. Regardless, for all the talk of a youth movement sweeping the sport, we should probably focus in on the guy who might be the face of the post-Pogs wave of kids of kids.

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Pidcock’s Bike Handling

The Netflix documentary on the 2022 Tour de France last year was predictably annoying at times, leaning way too heavily into drama (like all TV does) when the reality is more Xs and Os. But they are great at editing footage, and footage these days is incredible, and when Tom Pidcock decided on the Alpe d’Huez stage to throw all caution to the wind and just go flat out mach chicken on the descent of the Col de la Croix de Fer, it was utterly terrifying, breathtaking madness… even if you’d known the ending for the previous 11 months.

Pidcock is a truly unique mix of talents, a Cyclocross World Champion who is often in the picture with Van Aert and van der Poel, who also crossed over to the road very successfully, winning classics as early as 2021, shy of his 22nd birthday. Unlike those rivals, however, Pidcock is small in stature, an advantage not just going uphill but down too, especially once you add in the off-road skillset (he’s also the reigning Olympic MTB cross-country gold medalist) and nerves of… whatever is 1000 times harder than steel. You don’t become a Member of the Order of the British Empire by relying too heavily on your brakes.

Photo by Alex Broadway/Getty Images

Pidcock is therefore, in our popular minds, the downhill belt holder, a title we very informally bequeath to whoever we can remember being unbelievably awesome at descending (which often happens away from cameras, so this is a very inexact science). He has inherited the title from such legends as Vincenzo Nibali, Paolo Savoldelli, Fabian Cancellara, and several others whose (less Italian) names I am not remembering right now, but you get my point. Great handling and nervy descending is so rarely on display that when we see it, we can’t believe our eyes, and our brains start to scramble over whether the race is about to be snatched away from the usual best-climber guys. Stage races can be a bit formulaic — who can climb well enough to beat the time trialer — and great descending is an absolute wild card, not to mention a huge adrenaline shot. And incredible television.

Photo by DAVID PINTENS/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

Merlier’s Instincts

I don’t know if everyone will agree with me here, maybe you have another name you’d like to put in this space, but to me, right now, Tim Merlier is the Sprint Wizard. And I’m not just overreacting to him winning his pet race Nokere Koerse.

Merlier is the latest example of a guy from the sprinter set who seems to get by on the subtle, murkier arts of the trade. Most cycling fans are up for a bunch sprint to see who is the “fastest man on two wheels,” even if usually that man requires an elaborate escort to reach that speed at the precise moment you need it to win the race. Which is, of course, the only goal. So there’s something special about the sprinters who seem to not need anyone’s help to win.

This is no wunderkind — Merlier started making elite Cyclocross podiums in 2015, and scored a lone sprint win on the road in 2016 at the GP Stad Zottegem, only finally becoming a sprinter to reckon with at the World Tour level in 2020, at age 27. All that experience, more so than raw talent, seems to have defined his career, which now includes stages of the Giro and Tour. Merlier so often seems to move himself into pre-sprint position just when he needs to, chaos be damned, and with few if any of his Soudal Quick Step teammates in the picture.

And that’s what gets him on this list. I would describe it as predictable unpredictability, in that he appears out of nowhere — a Robbie McEwen specialty IIRC? — in time for the final push, but it happens often enough that you should expect it by now. And respect it too. The sprint trains are impressive teamwork, but there’s a lot to be said for a self-made winner. And yes, I know there is no such thing, that teamwork plays a constant role in Merlier’s success too, just maybe not in the last 100 meters. I’m not disparaging his mates so much as commending his positioning skills and pure, unteachable instincts. This is a form of genius, perhaps a bit more common in Belgium than other places? Perhaps another byproduct of Cyclocross training? Whatever it is, Merlier has clawed his way into the top class of sprinters, pedigree and leadouts be damned.

*****

OK, this is a non-exclusive list of particular riders’ particular skills that you might find extra relevant to your cycling enjoyment. Who else’s what would you like to add in here? Have at it!

And what the heck, let’s put in a poll to see which if any of these unique talents is your fave.