He is listed as 74 kg, so that's 7.12 W/kg?. He does seem more like an 80 kg rider from the photos. Either way, that is a lot of wattage.

He's certainly heavier than 74 kgs. I'm not sure his actual weight, but its closer to 80 kgs I think. Just looking at his Strava this past year and especially lately is impressive. He has Ganna-esque power and more punch.

Gnarly weather in France. Weird and fun to see Mads get El Tractored.

Would be awesome if Mads has that fraction more to be there when MvdP and Wout light it up this classics season.

The “watch from start” option is fab. Thus far Max is way better at this than Flo.

So far, both Mads and MvdP are looking incredible. I'm really hoping Wout has a good year too; I want to see some slug fests. Mads has some questionable competition at the moment, but it's hard not to see all the ingredients of a champion in the Spring.

That is the lowest bar to clear. ;) I am glad there are good options becoming available though for all cycling fans.

Lamperti with another impressive ride to take 2nd on hilltop finish today. He’s looking very Sagan-esque in his characteristics.

Yeah Lamperti is looking great, showing some real versatility. He might surprise some people this spring.

Yes. Cool Hand has moxie. Looks right at home.

Mads drags the field around Provence. Good to see Tractor Tim doing his thing too.

mad is looking sharp early on

wout was racing today too

tick tock... the clock is ticking!

I can't wait for the big races!

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

So Magnier and Lamperti really giving Lefevere something to be happy about over the past few weeks. Both those guys looking fantastic (with the caveats that they haven't necessarily faced the stiffest competition and lots of dudes are not on form right yet). Still, perhaps rumours of the demise of the wolfpack have been premature. Neither of those guys are on the startlist of the 'loop, but QS only has 5 guys listed right now, so we'll see if they get in there. I don't really know what the focus for the season is for either of those guys, beyond the "get some experience" kind of thing for guys that are new like that. You'd think the way they're riding, and the types of riders they are, that the classics would be right up their alley though.

Leadout was very good, but he looked ever-so-slightly off form by his standards - not unlike his CX form being a bit off compared to his past performances vs. MdVP. I'd thought he'd have wanted to go a touch harder, and a couple of seconds longer. Kooij very nearly got pipped.

sorta tho the same...

hopefully we get to see the best wout again because he has been *mia for a bit

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The entire event (IM) is like "death by 1000 cuts" and the best race is minimizing all those cuts and losing less blood than the other guy. - Dev

Given that even without any focused CX training at all, he was still the best of the rest after MVdP in all the earlier races AND was building race fitness right up until his last race, I'm gonna guess we're going to see a different Wout this Spring. I realize it's a crap shoot to dwarf all crap shoots, but I'm hoping to see a resurgent Wout at P-R.

MvdP has already won just about everything he’s likely to—absent perhaps taking a big run at Liege—so not many more hills for him to conquer to solidify legacy (tho he’ll certainly add to palmares). Seems like all the pressure is on Wout to start racking up some notable Ws.

Competition still isn't the strongest, but Oier Lazkano took an impressive victory in Classica Jaen. He got in the break early, held off Jumbo chasing hard and still got away at the end for a victory. MvdP and Wout better look out for him this spring.

Check out his ride: https://www.strava.com/activities/10747851570

I'd really like to know his actual weight. He's consistently listed at 74 kgs, which if true is insane.

Oier "Como Va" Lazkano?

~350W for nearly four hours is legit stuff. He could be a Roubaix monster with that power. Maybe Movistar should give up on the Grand Tour thing. Will Barta is also doing some good stuff with Movistar early in the season. Could be picking up where MattyJo left off.

He had a hell of a ride at DDV last year that was a similar display of raw power. That performance seemed to catch a lot of people by surprise and I remember someone asked the Movistar DS where it came from and the answer was along the lines of, "he's just a brute" who is able to churn out huge watts over long distances.

One of those guys that you really can't let get up the road, sort of like Ganna or Remco, though interesting that he doesn't seem to have any real TT results to speak of.

His power file from that day were huge too. I was looking at his Strava last week and one ride was labeled FTP, but had the power data hidden. I would have liked to have seen that.

Your early season form looks good.

He is a big rider but yeah, that is some serious wattage. I wasn't long ago when Ganna was still sharing power on the road bike on Strava. Surprised he is still showing his wattage, but I suspect it won't be long before he goes silent specially now that he is looking like a classics contender.

He's started hiding more recently.

Yates is looking in good early season form doing about 6.8 w/kg for 18 minutes. In Algarve, we made it past a flat boring stage without Remco being involved in the crash, so that's nice.

And that didn't look like a real effort from him, he just marked Hurt for most of the climb before casually dancing away in the last 100m, and he looked pretty fresh afterwards.