Breaking down the key points of Sunday's Hell of the North and how Mathieu Van der Poel's Alpecin team set up yet another unstoppable solo breakaway win
The thing I found most amazing about Van der Poel's riding over the cobbles... his bike is going up and down, bumpy, shaking, but if you focus just on him, he does not seem to be doing any bouncing at all. If I didn't know he was on cobbles, I would have never guessed it.
Yes, this is a great point (I'm going to go back and add a note on this). It shows just how much more physically talented he is at these efforts than the rest of the field. A lot of riders in the field on Sunday have high FTPs, but don't have the technical skill to carve through cobbles, and a lot of riders have good technical skill, but lack the raw power to keep up with him. This combo shows what a special rider he is.
The thing I found most amazing about Van der Poel's riding over the cobbles... his bike is going up and down, bumpy, shaking, but if you focus just on him, he does not seem to be doing any bouncing at all. If I didn't know he was on cobbles, I would have never guessed it.
Yes, this is a great point (I'm going to go back and add a note on this). It shows just how much more physically talented he is at these efforts than the rest of the field. A lot of riders in the field on Sunday have high FTPs, but don't have the technical skill to carve through cobbles, and a lot of riders have good technical skill, but lack the raw power to keep up with him. This combo shows what a special rider he is.