Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta, Strade Bianchi, Paris-Nice, Dwars door Vlaanderen, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Fleche Wallonne, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Criterium du Dauphine, Tour de France, Olympic Games Time Trial, Olympic Games Road Race, World Championships Road Race, World Championships Time Trial, Giro dell’Emilia, Il Lombardia
It is a heavy season for Remco, but he needs to step up to the plate. The Next Eddy Mercx has shown plenty of flashes of greatness, but in his sixth professional season, three years older than Tadej Pogacar when the Slovenian won his first Tour de France, Remco needs to ride a serious program. In particular, he needs to ride the Tour. Quite oddly, as a professional, he has never raced a road bike in France. That will change next season.
Algarve is a warm up in sunny Portugal which he has won before. It will be a good opener and test of form against Pogi and hopefully Jonas.
Remco has struggled on gravel in the Giro d’Italia and Strade is a good way to learn something about riding it. I think the course suits him pretty well, too, and as perhaps the Sixth Monument, he should give it a go.
Paris-Nice is going to be a mini Tour de France next year, and could be an insane early season war between all four of the GC superstars in the peloton. It is also a good tune-up for the Cobbled and Ardennes Classics that come fast in April. Remco may elect to skip Paris-Nice if he is going to take a real shot at the Cobbles, but as I will explain, since he is quite unlikely to do that, he should do The Race to the Sun.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking to imagine Remco starting the Ronde van Vlaanderen next year. But I truly believe his focus should be, like many big riders, around a major Spring Classics campaign, a short rest, and then the Tour de France. You could throw the Olympics in as a pre-season ‘A’ target, but Paris 2024 is really an extension of TdF form anyways.
Remco’s handlers have always been cautious with the young prodigy, as opposed to Pogacar’s, who toss him into dangerous situations and race him into dust as if he is immortal (although he kind of is). So I do not believe that Remco will actually start in Dwars or De Ronde in 2024.
Fleche Wallonne is also doubtful. He has ridden it before, but in support of teammate Julian Alaphilippe. This is probably the race he least ought to do, but it might be worth trying if nothing else because he can truly test his three-minute watts per kilogram and sprint punch on 18 percent ramps. It is a decent warm-up for Liege, too.
Liege-Bastogne-Liege is the first race on this list I am quite confident of him doing next year, as the two-time defending champion. We might finally get the battle between him and Pogacar we all deserve. Unless Remco improves next season, I do not see a scenario in which he wins that match-up. There is a surprisingly widely-held belief that he is superior at Liege than Pogi. My rebuttal would be that his victories came in editions in which Pogacar either did not start or crashed out. As unfathomably good as Remco is, one does not simply defeat the best one-day rider in the world, who packs an insane sprint and competes for GC at the Tour de France, without stepping up a level or two.
After the traditional break for GC riders who rode the Ardennes, the Dauphine is a race he has never ridden and the most prestigious one-week stage race on the calendar, so automatically he needs to participate. It is a proven preparation and predictor race for Le Grand Boucle, and we will probably see Vingegaard here again next year. I do think it is still emotionally healthy for the imperious Remco to get trounced once in a while. That being said, I hope he puts up a fight in France in June so we can all get hyped about the ultimate showdown in July. Of course, Remco will probably opt for the lame Tour de Suisse. Why can’t we have nice things?
The Tour de France 2024. Little more need be said. I have been following cycling religiously for the better part of five years, and never have I seen so much hype in the media and on social media (in October!) for the subsequent season’s Grand Boucle. Remco’s wildcard entry into the fray is fodder for a large portion of that. It does not hurt that there is a brutal course and a matchup for the ages including each quadrant of the Big Four GC riders. My forecast for Remco’s Tour de France is third place with one stage win. But he is still young, and I believe still recovering from his awful crash in 2020, so it is not out of the question he does what Belgium is begging for, steps up two levels in the off-season, and wins the Tour de France. What a spectacle that would be… Scenes I could not begin to describe.
Remco has to ride the Olympic Games after the Tour. He has a slim shot at Road Race glory but an excellent one at Time Trial Gold. This will be top priority in planning his season.
After Paris 2024, he will get his rest again before a quick build into the World Championships. I do not think he needs to race before Worlds; it will have already been a long season, and he has demonstrated his ability to come out of his lair at the top of a mountain, parachute into a Championship or Monument, and blow the field to smithereens. He can do so at Worlds; again the Road Race is not his best profile, but he can double up in the Time Trial.
After Worlds, especially if he is in rainbows again, he can try Emilia for more practice on a 5-minute finishing climb. If he wins Fleche next year, he’ll need to ride Emilia. And it should get him ready for another tilt at Lombardia.
Remco’s rough history at the final Monument of the season could be put to rights next season. Pogacar will of course be a Goliath to slay, but Remco ought to try again. He did crash this season, which surely did not help his chances. Much of this schedule is predicated on Remco’s ability to improve both his consistency and his peak this off-season, but if he does so, he can win Lombardia next year.
So that is what I think he should do in 2024. In reality, I will probably get fewer than 25 percent of the schedule correct. This is in large part because Remco apparently wants to do the Giro and Tour double… and people are saying it is a good idea. It is a terrible idea! It is worse than Pogacar’s logic for doing the Giro because Remco would probably stage-hunt in the Tour de France. A rider of Remco’s ability and stature showing up for Twenty-One Days in July to piss away time in the General Classification and try to go in breakaways would make a mockery of the sport and of course deprive the viewer of the GC battle many, myself included, are already tipping as the best so far in this century.
That is not even to mention that Remco would be hard-pressed to beat Pogi in Italy, should the Slovenian start.
Should Remco do the Giro, he’ll have to put the kibosh on most of the classics season with the exception of Liege and it will harm his form for the Tour de France. It would mess up the flow of his season and possibly prevent him from peaking properly for the Olympics.
Let’s hope he does the sensible thing.
You know who is next.
Puncheur 
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