cyclezen

So in line with the start of the season for Evenepoel and McNulty.
Who will you follow and why?
Here's my 'current' list of riders I will follow closely... for now...
The Obvious
Remco Evenepoel - because, who won;t be following him...
Briandon NcNulty -AI guy with great expectations, ever since seeing him race as a junior
Filippo Ganna - Of course...
Egan Bernal - Will he again step greatly into the Grand Tour Lights?
Taj Podacar - Gifted or Juiced? Will he continue to dominate the TDF ?
Richard Carapaz - Will his successes now breed an unrelenting confidence in himself?

The not so obvious:
Damiano Caruso - Will he blossom into Hilly/Mountain race/Grand Tour force, or languish as a domestique, again ?
Magnus Sheffield - When he tries, He is a Force of Nature !
Magnus Cort - is he the 'Son of De Gendt' and be the unrelenting attacker on the hopeless breakway?

And Finally
Wout Van Aert - is he the 'The Cannibal v2' ?
MVDP - Hot & Cold - Will he be the super hot neutron star this season?
Alejandro Valverde - Will he continue to kick butt after going on Social Security & Medicare? Old Guyz RULE !!!
my list, for now...

Whatz your 'watch list' ?

Ride on, and on, and on...
Yuri

MinnMan

Umm, there's no chance of Bernal coming back in time for the Giro or the Tour, and it would be something of a miracle if he could be competitive in the Vuelta. I think we'll all be super-happy for him if he' competitive in 2023.

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ega...y-as-possible/

Similarly MVDP is a total question mark at this time. it's not even clear he can train. https://cyclingmagazine.ca/sections/...poel-training/

Swap in Quintana. He's shown surprisingly great form early.
Where's Roglic?
The Bros. Yates
Angel Lopez
Vingegaard
Sepp Kuss

Also, you don't have any sprinters on your list. Bennett, Ewan, Cavendish, Philipsen, Merlier, Jakobsen, Groenewegen, Viviani.

More will come to mind the moment I hit "submit"

MinnMan

Enric Mas
Michael Woodss
Matej Mohroci
Sonny Colbrelli
Jack Haig
Mike Teunessin
....

And those guys who do the fantasy leagues have much longer lists.

slcbob

So pretty much all of them.

ooga-booga

and those guys prob won't give up anyone not already mentioned...not that it'll help any during league play...

the schlecks...er...yates bros are pretty much dead to me. everything had to break just right for caruso to hit that
gt second step on the podium in 2021. saw/see him as a majka, mollema, etc guy that is unspectacular and rarely incites
a road riot but somehow always manages to be in the top 7-20 placings on gc in gt's riding in the service of (insert name of protected
rider here). may hit the gt top five once or twice in a lengthy career.

mas is kinda snakebit. always right there and ready to take the leader's jersey but he's just barely short of the pogacar/bernal/roglic quality.
one of these days, mas will be in second or third and one of the big boys will crash out/dq/get relegated and mas will swoop in and
secure an overall gt win in the latter 2-3 stages of the race. much less spectacular than superman miggylo who always seems to have one
great stage if he doesn't crash out (which is an even money wager). as posited before, miggylo needs to concentrate on the weeklong races
as the protected rider and/or be the super mtn domestique on one or two gt's. miggylo is the kind of rider us postal/trek/discovery would have
poached to protect the leader in the mtn stages back in the day.

cyclezen

WOW, News to me about Bernal... 6 weeks of being solely into the Winter sports broadcasts and Olympics (other than CX events...) sure has me catchin up !
nasty crash! wish him well and as full a recovery as possible - he joins the ranks of Froome and others who've gone down that road.
I knew about MVDP's surgery, and expect he'll be back in full swing by summer...
Yeah, should add Vingegaard & Sepp Kuss
and Bettiol !
certainly there are all those riders, like Roglic - and who was that guy who just stopped riding in the Vuelta with a hissy fit ?
they're an important part of the story and not ignored...

WOW, I don;t have any sprinters on my list ??? LOL!
Even though prolly 90% of races end with a field sprint, I try to avoid paying attention to any races which have the sole important and possibly interesting action in the last 1.5 Km.
There will be sprints and there will be sprinters, yawn
I like stories, novels, a span of time and events - 250 m is not that.
Sprints from guys who have suffered for 100+ km - epic.

Ride On
Yuri

EDIT: and then there's Joao Almeida, and the Ukranian Mark Padun...... lotta talent out there

sincos

I'd like to see where Ben O'Connor's ceiling is. Last year's Tour was anomalous, but sometimes that what it takes to give someone a boost.

slcbob

So that brings up the question what is the meaning of "follow"? In sort of a Clintonesque, didn't inhale way, and/or spackling the blue dress didn't count.

Hissy fit guy = Miguel Angel Lopez AKA miggylo by ooga-booga. (Or Olga-booga if auto-correct gets its way).

GrainBrain

One word - wanty-groupe-gobert. Er, one phrase?
Loïc Vliegen, my man quinten Hermans had a good cx season and I'm hoping gets a win soon. Taco van der hoorn dropping f'bombs. Odd eiking wore red at Vuelta.

Another team is Bora - no more Sagan but now they have Bennett back with Kamna and Higuita. That's possibly set for a decent gt result!

EF has Mark padun and Chavez - Chavez does well and I'll be obnoxiously posting about it. Powless of course, that will be exciting.

EF and obnoxious posting who have I left out ... Oh yes Lawson Craddock now with bike exchange. Such a great teamate to have I hope he gets his own opportunities instead of Matthews baggage boy.

Sagan with total energy - these guys like Sagan, Quintana,MvdP bringing the spotlight to smaller pro team is neat.

Oh Danny Martinez should be in a leadership position for a one week tour this year at least, right?

MinnMan

Nobody as yet has mentioned the present owner of the UCI road rainbow jersey.

GrainBrain

^All the pressure is off him now he said after winning jersey #2. Should be feeling pretty good with the spouse and almost one year old kiddo. Look at this ridiculous schedule ...

MinnMan

Pidcock, anybody?

ooga-booga

classics are almost here. let's see what he does this go-round. he'll be marked for sure, but not as closely
as wout, mvdp, alaphilippe, sagan, poga, primo, etc. thinking he just barely nabs a classic this year.

slcbob

Helpful list so far to help us all narrow our focus. 😂

While we're at it. I'll keep one eye out for the kids that graduated from Zwift Academy short series - the flying mullet guy from Oz, and the 18 yo smiling assassin gal from the lowlands. I need to go look up their names.