+9
12-04-2026 18:30
+2
12-04-2026 18:23
+27
12-04-2026 16:34
+0
10-04-2026 23:16
+5
08-04-2026 15:01
+3
07-04-2026 19:05
+4
07-04-2026 01:25
06-04-2026 19:50
+6
06-04-2026 19:48
06-04-2026 19:10
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+9
RidesHills
I no longer see any posts by a certain Croatian, nor any of my replies (though a Dalmatian dog has joined the discourse). Perhaps all comments and threads were removed? More to the point, van Aert has had a surprising spring given his winter injury, and what a way to end the cobble season!12-04-2026 18:30
+2
RidesHills
What a ride by Franzi Koch! Amazing how she used strength and strategy to arrive at the sprint and still had enough energy to win it. Excellent!12-04-2026 18:23
+27
RidesHills
Wout!! What an ending, tactics that were completely in his favor, and less bad luck than all the rest. It adds up! I wanted Pogačar to win because the dream of all 5 monuments at once is so insane, but having Wout van Aert win is fabulous. Congratulations!12-04-2026 16:34
+0
RidesHills
Speaking as a parent of a kid who competed in a sport that has left people paralyzed, while also showing the incredible beauty of the melding of technology and human beings (I'm talking about pole vault, where people are meters in the air using a carbon fiber object that bends waaaaaayyy too much for parental comfort - and also: Mondo is f'ing beautiful!), I really understand where they are coming from. Can you imagine being his parents? The level of overwhelm they must experience on a regular basis? They knew him when he was 4 months old, 4 years old, was he that kid, then? Of course not! As parents, it's what we have that our kids don't, we know them when they were small. But to have this happen to your kid? What a ride they must be on.10-04-2026 23:16
+5
RidesHills
I suspect that not knowing how to type a č on non-Slavic keyboards is why some people just write Pog or Pogi. I just recently learned how to get mine to do it easily08-04-2026 15:01
+3
RidesHills
Did they watch the race last year? Where a select group went out, during and after Arenberg, and it was whittled down slowly until the end, when a visibly exhausted Pogačar made an error and ended up only second? Last year's race already addresses most of what this article claims. The remaining issue is where to get rid of Van der Poel, and what level of power is needed in the last major 4 and 5 star sections to shake him off. Pogačar may end up helping Van der Poel get away from all the rest, but he'll be helping himself along the way, as well.07-04-2026 19:05
+4
RidesHills
My favorite weird statistic after San Remo was that he’d won 11 Monuments out of 110 wins. Every 10th win was a Monument?! That’s ridiculous! (OK OK Bettiol at one point had 100% of his wins be a Monument. N=1 leads to great stats.) Pogačar has how many Tour stage wins, and is going for his 5th Tour? Before 2020, this wasn’t how cycling worked. (It remains fabulous to see it work this way.)07-04-2026 01:25
+3
RidesHills
Also to keep in mind, Merckx's numbers wouldn't have existed in these times, because his doping violations would have led to suspensions during some of his most successful years.06-04-2026 19:50
+6
RidesHills
Let's pull up the data and compare them at the end of their 7th pro year (so Dec 31, 2025 and Dec 31, 1971): they were tied. Each had won 10 Monuments, 2 world championships, and 5 Grand Tours. Looking ahead to the coming years, in Y8, Merckx won 3 monuments and 2 grand tours. Pogačar is heading toward 4 or 5 Monuments (that is just shocking to write), a grand tour, and another world championship. Will Pogačar ever make it to 11 Grand Tours? I seriously doubt it. Will he have more Monuments and World Championships than Merckx? He might. I think it matters that he's doing all this in a harder racing environment with tougher competition from the best of the world, not the best of a subset of Western Europe. But he still has a few years to go before we can say more.06-04-2026 19:48
+2
RidesHills
As people debate the tactics, should Van der Poel have dropped back to join Evenepoel, when there were no more than a few meters between them, so that they then worked together to rejoin Pogačar in front?06-04-2026 19:10