One day after losing the lead of the UAE Tour on the new climb of Jebel Mobrah, Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) was honest in his evaluation of what led to his collapse before stage 4 on Thursday.
After responding to early attacks on the 13.2-kilometre finishing climb on Wednesday, Evenepoel began to struggle in the final section, eventually giving up just over two minutes to stage winner and new race leader Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious).
“In terms of pacing, I did the climb wrong. It’s funny, actually, because beforehand I had agreed with Klaas [Lodewyck, DS] not to get caught by the first attackers. Yet that’s exactly what happened,” Evenepoel said, according to HLN.be.
“It was reckless, overconfident, and tactically not smart. Maybe I did it this way because I saw Isaac [Del Toro] struggling, but in the end, he just paced himself smartly.”
Coming after such a strong time trial victory on Tuesday, it was a hard blow for the Belgian, who suggested that the effort needed to get that stage win might have contributed to his bad day and cramps in the final kilometres on Jebel Mobrah.
“Breathing-wise, everything was normal, but my muscles were very tight,” Evenepoel said. “It was a very explosive time trial, and I was pushing very high wattages. It was a real strain on my muscles. That’s probably why I got cramps.”
Having raced the time trial with a massive 68-tooth chainring, Evenepoel suggested that the strain of pushing such a big gear might have caused some damage to his muscles.
“The force you have to exert to turn a gear like that is different from a 64, 62, 60, or whatever. To get it going at the start, I had to push really hard, just like after those two sharp turns.
“I’m about 63 to 65 kilograms. Guys like [Josh] Tarling weigh 80 kilograms or more, which makes it a bit easier to transfer that power. That’s where the muscle damage came from.
“I may have won that time trial, but if you look at yesterday… That’s a shame. I still believe that gearing was the right choice for that time trial, but we’ll take that into account and analyse it for the future.”
Other factors, such as broken air conditioning in his hotel rooms and the extra time in the hot seat and fulfilling podium duties after the time trial, hampered his recovery, he added.
“I did drink enough and followed the nutrition plan, of course. But it still didn’t optimise my recovery. There are always pros and cons with a time trial.”
It’s all a learning process, and there’s no panic knowing that the more critical goals are still months away.
“That’s why it’s better to do it now than in a few months during the Tour.”