A successful change? Evenepoel "will no longer strive for that Giro weight from last year"

In an interview with Wielerflits, Remco Evenepoel's coach Koen Pelgrim has talked about his lead-up to Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but also about his recent development as a rider.

More specifically on how he's evolved in some aspects of cycling, which he reminds is a sport that the Belgian talent hasn't practiced since a young age, like many of his rivals. “Remco has never really been a bad descender, but at some point everyone is so focused on that and it is put under a magnifying glass. Don't forget that he's only been racing for a few years. Other guys who start cycling at that age don't immediately ride down a mountain like [Paulo] Savoldelli. That takes a little more time. And a fall like the one in Lombardy does something to your confidence... But it was already clear then that he was going to get better and better," he said.

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But besides his apparent evolution in descending, he's reported a big change in Evenepoel's weight, which saw him struggle at the Giro d'Italia last year. "He has gained slightly more functional muscle mass compared to last year. And you can now see that in his explosiveness... He kicks off more absolute power. Since his weight is also slightly higher, his watts per kilogram has not decreased at the same time, so that he does not look worse uphill."

"We also see this explosiveness in his data. When he does sprints in training, he kicks more power than before. That benefits him in races like Liège-Bastogne-Liège," he added.

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Whether or not this added weight, which is reported to have risen from a 60.5Kg at last year's Giro from 64kg currently, will have any effect on his climbing abilities seems to have been dismissed, as it brought along more absolute power. And above all, Pelgrim has stressed how this can improve his consistency - which has been one of his few flaws over the last few years.

“The weight he has now has become a stable factor. He can keep that weight and thus finish all competitions at a high level. We will no longer strive for that Giro weight from last year. Sharpen up a little bit, because the efforts in that Vuelta [a España] are longer. And he doesn't need that pure explosiveness as he needed in Liège-Bastogne-Liège there. But we are certainly no longer talking about several kilos, no. Just some other accents," he concluded.