Beat Up and Fed Up: Red Bull Reveals Why Evenepoel Isn’t Racing before the Tour de France

Remco Evenepoel came out of the spring beat up, fed up, and in desperate need of a proper break to iron out the creases before he takes on Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France.

And that’s why the Belgian superstar broke all the rules of pro cycling by choosing not to race for 68 days before he goes chasing after the maillot jaune.

At least, that’s all according to his trusted DS on Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Klaas Lodewyck.

Lodweyck told Het Laatste Nieuws this week that Evenepoel was mentally and physically fried after he watched Pogačar and Paul Seixas blast away from him at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

According to Lodewyck, Evenepoel needed time to work through “a thing or two” after he suffered a bitter disappointment in the Ardennes.

Sprinting for third, nearly two minutes back on Pogačar and Seixas, was a mental right-hook to an athlete already at breaking point.

Evenepoel had been on it since January in an extra-ambitious calendar of stage-racing and classics.

The 26-year-old was on borrowed time while he slugged out a streak of podium finishes at Flanders, Amstel, and Liège.

Evenepoel pays the price for ambitious start to season

Lodewyck said Evenepoel was cooked when he won the sprint for third in Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

“That long block of competition took its toll. Twenty-five days isn’t an extreme amount, but it was mainly about the way he approached it,” Lodewyck told HLN. “Remco raced consistently at a very high level.

“In the week after his victory in the Amstel Gold Race, you could already tell that he was trying to recover a bit and wanted to take things easier. The mental sharpness was still there, but it was offset by the accumulating physical fatigue.”

For Red Bull and Remco, racing the Critérium du Dauphiné [now called the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes] next week as per the plan would be one race too far.

The anticipated brawl with Seixas and Isaac del Toro can wait a month until the Tour de France.

“Remco salvaged that third place in Liège purely through perseverance and resilience,” Lodewyck said. “Hats off to him. Because he could just as easily have let it slide and ended up with nothing at all.”

After taking on a little too much in spring, Evenepoel needed a summer reset.

No Critérium du Dauphiné after a questionable spring

Evenepoel’s racing wheels have been in storage since Liège on April 26.

No eventual winner has turned up to the grand départ without racing for that long.

It’s a calculated gamble after what was an unconvincing start to Evenepoel’s time earning a blockbuster new Red Bull paycheck.

Because Evenepoel’s winter and spring were a rollercoaster ride of dominant highs and disappointing lows.

He won six times in less than two weeks while most of the peloton was still on training camp in January and Feburary, but he fumbled hard at the UAE Tour and Volta a Catalunya.

Evenepoel’s climbing weaknesses and stage-racing consistency were ruthlessly exposed on the high summits of the Emirates. A bizarre crash in Catalunya denied him the chance to prove wrong the chorus of doubters questioning his capacity as a stage-racer.

It was a messy start to a high-profile season for Evenepoel.

It muddied the waters of where he stands in the Red Bull hierarchy for the Tour de France.

Because while Evenepoel is slated to co-lead the team with metronomically consistent Florian Lipowitz in July, the results sheet shows who’s the safer bet.

A second risk for Evenepoel: No more altitude

Lodewyck reasserted to HLN that the controversial decision to cancel the Dauphiné was Evenepoel and his team’s best chance for the Tour de France.

He can start the TTT in Barcelona fully recharged and full of Bonus Miles.

“Remco is saving himself the worry of getting ready in time for the Dauphiné, and the four or five days of recovery afterward. It would be desperately needed, given the extreme difficulty of the race,” Lodewyck said.

“Instead, he gets the ‘luxury’ of being able to continue working towards the Tour in peace. And to maintain the necessary physical and mental freshness.”

Evenepoel leaves Sierra Nevada this weekend after a long block at altitude and will head back to his base in Calpe.

He then flies out for one last tune-up block of training at the end of June.

But this second installment of the Remco Regimen isn’t also at thin air, as expected.

Instead, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe is again ripping up the Tour de France script. Evenepoel and his entourage are pivoting from the tried-and-trusted altitude of Tignes or Isola 2000 to a lower-level camp in the Haute-Savoie.

According to Lodewyck, the off-beat base in the north of the Alps allows Evenepoel to better dovetail training efforts with Tour de France reconnaissance.

“We’ll have to see where recons are compatible with Remco’s training,” Lodewyck said. “His fitness is the most important thing now. If that’s good, we can usually get a lot done.

“From now on, we want to dedicate every day to perfect training and perfect recovery. We’ll see how far we can get against our rivals with that,” Lodewyck told HLN.

No room for error in blockbuster Tour de France brawl

Evenepoel’s path to his first Tour de France as a Red Bull rider is laden with risk.

Jonas Vingegaard just crushed everybody at the Giro d’Italia, Seixas seems to get better with every pedal stroke, and Pogačar … he’s Pogačar.

For Evenepoel, there’s no room for error.

Lodewyck isn’t worried. With risk comes reward.

“I am convinced that he will not come out of this worse than from a program with competition,” Lodewyck said. “The Volta a Catalunya made it clear that we needed to continue to focus on climbing. And that is what we are taking the time for.”