Arnaud De Lie excited about the signing of Elia Viviani: "He could be the piece that was still missing from our mosaic"
Cycling
Arnaud De Lie's big breakthrough should've come last spring, but some bad luck with crashes forced the Belgian champion to sit out the most important classics. This allowed him to prepare for a solid Tour de France debut and now it's time to return to the initial goal; to ride for top result of Flemish Classics.
But that doesn't mean De Lie will give up on sprints in 2025 with plans to return to finally win a stage at the Grande Boucle. And that's where the newest Lotto recruit; Elia Viviani could come into play. The late addition of the 36-year-old Italian sprinter is a significant boost for Lotto's already strong sprint lineup.
"As a team, we have a very young core," De Lie mentions the high amount of young riders currently at Lotto in a response to DHnet. 15 riders on the 2025 roster are still yet to turn 25. This is a testament to Lotto's commitment to grow youth talent, but such low average age means that there is lack of riders who can pass down experience in key moments.
De Lie believes the signing of Viviani might bring exactly what the team was missing to be competitive at the biggest races. Especially in bunch sprint finishes. "Elia has a lot of experience in the most important races and has also won several. He could be the piece that was still missing from our mosaic."
The young Belgian had a first meeting with the experienced Italian and his overall impression from this encounter seems to be positive. "I have already spoken with Elia, he is a guy who has great passion and will certainly be able to bring something important to our team," De Lie evaluates.
Whether we will see the two sprinters from different generations build a fearsome sprint train? Probably no. De Lie expects that Viviani will take up the role of Lotto's second sprinter and fight for top placings in the races which De Lie already outgrew. "Our director, Stéphane Heulot, had spoken to me about the possibility of this transfer and I think that Viviani will be able to play his cards with us, in the races in which I will not be present."
At the moment, there is no information about when should Viviani debut in the new colours, but it shouldn't take long with the amount of attractive one-day races on the schedule for coming weeks.
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- Great commentCaralladas05-04-2025
- i’m such a sucker for those group-hug, happy ending moments between competitors, largely because it’s so WASN’T that way in my younger, stronger days. (on that note, i have this hope that somewhere down the road, maybe fifteen or twenty years, a middle aged wout and mathieu will go for a pleasure ride together in flanders, and reminisce about the days when they were the young, strong monsters that stalked the cobbles.)OCexile05-04-2025
- Just like Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Ronde van Vlaanderen was/is NOT on MAX. Get your facts straight.Ben04-04-2025
- You might bounce more for the same power, but not the same speed. Sending 20 kgs over a jump at 20 kph will fly just as far as 10 kgs at the same speed. Again, Galileo demonstrated this.acem8204-04-2025
- So, you're saying that doing a bunch of small hops on a bike is easier if you're heavier? Why do people buy lighter bikes, then? Why do they generally feel better and faster? An appeal to "rhythm" is not helpful either, as the right "rhythm" might be on the lighter or heavier side of things, and as it varies, it's likely a wash either way. Then we are left with the physics truth that it takes less power to lift lighter things than heavier things.acem8204-04-2025
- No, weight doesn't affect the ability to go into the wind at all. It's all CdA vs power at that point. For example, it's "obvious" that a heavier object falls faster than a lighter one. But, absent wind resistance, it's not true (Galileo demonstrated this). An appeal to "obviousness" doesn't matter when the physics is clear. And yes, you have to be able to hold everything else constant, or you can't determine anything! So, imagine a 300 watt rider at 80 kgs with a CdA of 2.0, then imagine that same rider at 70 kgs with a CdA of 2.0. (Assume ideal tire pressure for both, same bike.) Which one can ride over a bumpy road fastest? The lighter one, as he doesn't have to lift as much. That's also why when they test bikes on 5 star cobbled sectors, the MTB goes faster than even a cobble-build road bike. Even though rolling resistance is higher on a flat road, and the CdA is junk, it smooths out the cobbles, allowing the person to not lift as much as they otherwise would.acem8204-04-2025
- I disagree. If you have lower weight, you will bounce more at the same speed, meaning that you will spend more time in the air and shorter time on the ground, as a consequence, when you are on the ground you have to produce more force for the same speedvappaxbipmv04-04-2025
- That’s not quite true, even steep climbs and sudden gradient changes can be considered as remaining tangential to the wheel whereas the occasional dip between cobbles a wheel drops into cannot, as such riding over cobbles can become like a permanent surmounting of small obstacles that hit back into your wheel slowing you drastically if you don’t have the right rhythm to “fly” on the mounds, here again the greater the momentum the less these obstacles reduce your speed. But, it is but one factor, you cannot decide on this alone. Like with natural surface ripple formation on desert tracks used by vehicles, there is an optimal speed range to efficiently pass over such surfaces, too fast or slow and your car gets shaken to pieces from the “harmonics” in the vibrations caused. Pretty sure the same applies to riding on cobbles.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- I am saying I have an open mind at the moment for your cobbles theory but cannot agree with your wind statement (and by extrapolation sprinting since that implies speeds where wind is by far the limiting factor). Had you argued all things not being equal I could have agreed with you but if we thus assume 2 objets of the same size and speed but with differing weights, it is completely obvious that the lighter one will suffer faster in the wind. Extrapolate to the extreme, drop stuff off cliffs or just remember your momentum equations to verify. Now, obviously in real life we have to assume riders of different weights won’t have the same wind hitting surface but you cannot generalise at all then as you can have very unaerodynamic light riders and very aerodynamic heavy ones because it isn’t weight that defines CdA, Teslas have an incredible CdA and are ridiculously heavy, and someone like Harry Levreyssen is a Tesla in cycling.Mistermaumau04-04-2025
- When Roglic beat Geraint Thomas on the last day's TT at the Giro, I remember just how unbelievably emotional his team was. One guy, I forget who, German rider I think, was interviewed and was nearly speechless with a really drawn out "fuuuuuuuuuck it's incredible" comment. And then something even more amazing happened. Geraint Thomas came through the ranks of the Jumbo Visma riders and congratulated them all. True, honest, sincere, sportsmanlike, and celebratory of what had been achieved. Here he was, getting second, and he meant it. And cycling these days is like that, as you say - the way Pogacar hugged Matthews in Quebec, the way Matthews congratulated Pogacar in Montreal, on and on they honor and respect each other. It's pretty great.RidesHills04-04-2025