On Sunday, Remco Evenepoel will go for a fourth world time trial title. Before the start there is a whole day, and it is written in advance.
Serge Pauwels summed it up for DH: “Remco’s approach to a time trial is high-precision engineering, a perfectly oiled protocol of eight to nine hours.” Soigneur David Geeroms filled in the early part: the course studied months ahead with route visualisation tools like Veloviewer, known for roughly five months, and a reconnaissance on the ground that mostly confirms the picture already in his head. The equipment follows the same logic: Specialized, who have kitted him out since his junior years, settle the wheels and the chainring tooth count by simulation with the performance department, and then it is checked on the road.
The rest runs to the minute. He usually arrives four to five hours before his start, in the team bus. Full concentration about three hours before the start ramp. A warm-up of twenty to twenty-five minutes, one gel, one energy drink, and both feet on the ground eight minutes before he rolls off. Breakfast, for years pistolets (Belgian bread rolls) with raspberry jam washed down with a Fanta, is now worked out through the Athlete Food Coach app, since he joined Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. The hardstyle electro has receded: according to Geeroms, he even watches a short film sometimes.
Eight to nine hours of protocol. I have a protocol too, and it starts in the garage: I look out of the window, I pick the bike, I fill the backpack. The club ride leaves at nine, I leave at twenty past nine, and it has been oiled for years. The difference is that nobody tells me what time I have to get off the bike.
Since May, Evenepoel has been coached by the Dutchman Tim Heemskerk. On Sunday it is Klaas Lodewyck who will talk in his earpiece, while Pauwels drives the team car.
Take off the bus, take off the app, take off the performance department: what is left is my garage, my twenty-past-nine ride and a coffee at the end. That is my own protocol. It has never been validated by a computer simulation, and I am not about to change it.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
