With 36 days to go until he returns to competition, Remco Evenpoel (Soudal-QuickStep) has reflected on the mental difficulties of being sidelined with injury for nearly four months, but counts himself "lucky that I got this injury in December."
The Olympic champion has been working back into shape after he was left with a fractured rib, shoulder blade and hand when he was doored by a postal worker's vehicle and crashed, just as he was returning to structured training ahead of the 2025 season.
While he's confident that a return at Brabantse Pijl on April 18 and build up to his second Tour de France in July should go smoothly, he told Dutch media couldn't help but be disappointed at the situation in which he found himself.
"I found it hard to accept that I had ended up in this situation. Especially after my crash on the same side in the Tour of the Basque Country," said Evenepoel to Wielerrevue.nl in a recent interview.
"I was unable to train normally for a long time. Not only could I not ride my bike, but also could not do strength training in the gym. So I have to come a long way this time. I know what it takes to get back into absolute top shape, and that just takes a lot of time."
Evenepoel reflected on the vast contrast of the euphoria he experienced from taking both the Olympic road race and time trial titles in his "absolute highlight" of the year to lying on the ground and in bed injured just a few months later.
"That is apparently how it can go as a professional cyclist. The contrast is very big," said the Belgian.
"Especially in the period when everyone goes to training camp and you see the photos and videos from sunny Spain, while you yourself are lying in bed doing nothing. That is not easy."
Nonetheless, his recovery in the meantime has been going to plan, with him recently jetting off from Belgium back to the Costa Blanca in Spain, where he was spotted training with gravel pro Freddy Ovett and Ineos Grenadiers rider Axel Laurance.
He'll reportedly head for altitude camp at the end of the month in Sierra Nevada with Mikel Landa and Valentin Paret-Peintre, according to Belgian newspaper HLN, before racing at Brabantse Pijl, all three of the Ardennes Classics and possibly the Tour de Romandie.
Then, he believes, and with a final tune-up for the Tour, he should be ready to face off against rivals Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) again.
"I can count myself lucky that I got this injury in December," continued Evenepoel to Wielerrevue.
"After [spring], I'm going to copy my preparation from last year towards the Tour. Long altitude training camps, the Dauphiné, the national championships and the Tour.
"If everything goes well from now on, I have no doubt that I will be there during the Tour. Seven months should be enough to fully recover. I think it makes sense to have the Tour as the only main goal for the first part of the season."
