Despite a late cameo as part of the lead-out train that delivered Fabio Jakobsen to victory on stage 1 of the Volta ao Algarve, Remco Evenepoel's day wasn't done when he crossed the finish line in Lagos. On reaching the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team bus, he climbed aboard his time trial bike and crouched into his aerodynamic position to conduct his warm-down.
This Volta ao Algarve is likely to be decided in Saturday's individual time trial, a rippling, 32.2km test to Tavira, and Evenepoel is eager to bank every available opportunity to familiarise himself with his new machine beforehand.
On Wednesday, he dutifully went through his paces on the turbo trainer before heading to the podium to accept the white jersey of the best young rider.
"I'm obviously training a lot on my time trial bike," Evenepoel had explained to reporters at the start on the marina in Portimão. "Last month, I couldn't train on my time trial bike, because it's a new set-up and I didn't have it with me. But I was on it yesterday. And today after the stage, I will do an easy spin on the TT bike on the rollers and try to get used to it for a long effort. But of course, I did some specific training for time trials, on long climbs and small climbs, so I have this kind of effort in my legs."
Then again, Evenepoel has most kinds of efforts in his legs. As the sun began to dip over the Bensafrim river late on Wednesday afternoon, the youngster powered to the front of a peloton that had been whittled down to just 30 or so riders by two crashes in the finale. His surge on the final hillock before Lagos briefly threatened to erode that reduced group still further. In the end, he settled for helping to tee up Jakobsen for his third win of the nascent season, while helping himself to 7th on the stage.
"He did it already in Valencia and chapeau that he does it because it's not an easy job," directeur sportif Tom Steels told Cyclingnews afterwards. "He has also improved a lot in this kind of work. But of course, it's Remco: he's one of the top talents in international cycling and if he does a lead-out, then it goes fast."
Evenepoel's presence at the front of the peloton has been inducing varying degrees of panic among his peers since he entered the WorldTour as a teenager in 2019. When he flapped his wings speculatively midway through that year's Grand Prix de Montréal, for instance, it was striking how the bunch tensed in anticipation of an imminent hurricane.
During that early apprenticeship, however, there were doubts about Evenepoel's ability to navigate his way through the cut and thrust of a 200-rider peloton – hardly surprising, perhaps, given that he had raced for just two years at underage level, mostly alone and off the front, several minutes clear of his peers. Steels maintains that the gaps in Evenepoel's armoury are being filled with experience, and he certainly looks increasingly assured in fraught finales.
"He always makes steps forwards. It doesn't come that easy in cycling, but just by doing the race and doing many races, you learn a lot," Steels said. "I must say he is really getting better and better. And I think for him, if you feel more comfortable in the bunch, you also save a lot of energy."
Fóia
The two years since Evenepoel's previous, victorious appearance at the Volta ao Algarve have been filled with lessons. The harshest came as he battled his way back to full fitness after fracturing his pelvis in a horrific crash at Il Lombardia in 2020. His return from injury came at the Giro d'Italia, where, understandably, his condition did not yet match his ambition.
Evenpoel's disappointment was evident there, but he proceeded to notch up eight wins by season's end, even if his achievements were overshadowed at times by the polemics that followed his co-existence with Wout van Aert at the Olympics and World Championships. Before this season began, Evenepoel declared his intention to become a calmer and more mature rider.
"If you have a year like last year, where you really have to fight to get back on the level again, then you know the back side of cycling also," Steels said. "When you have to come back from an injury, you realise that not everything is easy in cycling. I think that's the biggest lesson he got last year. And that also makes him calm, because he knows he can always get back to his best level."
The first test of Evenepoel's maturity at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, where he won the opening stage but then lost a leader's jersey in a stage race for the first time in his career, placing second overall behind Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe). The defeat was digested quickly.
"Remco said in the first meeting of the year, 'It's never a problem to lose to a stronger rider, it's only a problem to lose to a smarter rider because then you are the more stupid one,'" Steels laughed. "So to lose to a stronger rider is never a problem, as long as you did everything you could and don't make tactical mistakes. And on that point, he improved a lot also."
Perhaps it helped that the Volta ao Algarve was imminent. On Thursday, Evenepoel returns to the Alto da Fóia, where two years ago, he claimed stage victory and the overall lead with an acceleration of a magnitude rarely seen at this early point in the season. His rivals will be braced for another show of force this time out.
"I think the time trial will be very decisive, but also tomorrow is a very hard stage," Evenepoel said. "The second last climb is actually harder than the last one, so the final will be very long. I'll try to stay out of trouble on the sprint stages, and the long time trial will make the most damage on GC."
