"I might as well look for something else" - Remco Evenepoel explains Soudal - Quick-Step departure

Remco Evenepoel is heading to Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe and his contract buyout from Soudal - Quick-Step was perhaps the most meaningful transfer of the winter. The Olympic Champion was always reserved about the why he left the Belgian team, but has talked about a negative aspect this year that led him to want to make a change.

"You can see now that the team wants to shift more towards the spring classics and is investing in them. While I think: we were on the Tour podium, won the Vuelta, and were on our way to winning the Giro: why not try harder and invest more? But for some reason, that wasn't really the plan anymore," Evenepoel said in words to Het Nieuwsblad. "So I also thought: okay, if I'm not going to do everything I can, I might as well look for something else."

For several years there was a major plan to turn the Belgian team into one that was adapted to Evenepoel. The signings of Mikel Landa, Valentin Paret-Peintre and other climbers made it feasible for the Belgian to have top support even within the toughest of competitions. The 2024 Tour worked perfectly with Mikel Landa on the form of his life, but so was Evenepoel, so ultimately the duo just rode their own race and followed the wheels of UAE and Visma who raced against each other.

However with the departure of Patrick Lefevere from team CEO last winter, and the entry of Jurgen Foré as the new head of Quick-Step, the situation seemed to have changed. It can't be said for certain if the team decided to invest on classics riders after knowing of Evenepoel's intentions to leave the team, or if the intentions led Evenepoel to want to leave... But the Belgian team is going back to its roots, with signings of Jasper Stuyven and Dylan van Baarle for example looking to make them competitive again in the cobbled classics - something which hasn't been the case in years.

At Red Bull, the Belgian has tons of high-quality climbers and a 'super team' that keeps evolving, fruit of an extensive budget increase. Evenepoel is also changing coaches after several years, with Koen Pelgrim heading to Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team where he will be leading Tom Pidcock's team. The Olympic champion now teams up with Dan Lorang. Could this change also affect the way he performs? "I think he's a bit out of the box. He wants to approach certain things differently".

"Without going into details, but he's read my history on Training Peaks and already drawn up a complete plan, so he knows what he wants. He sees certain areas where there's room for improvement, others where I'm already at my limit. They also have specialists for time trials and aerodynamics, but I'm already pretty good at those."

After what happened at the Worlds, Europeans and Il Lombardia, Evenepoel also got several tests against Tadej Pogacar and understood what he wants to improve on in order to be able to match the rainbow jersey. That is his ultimately goal, not just sticking to his current levl.

"The short effort, with which Pogacar regularly manages to break him. Riding an extremely hard pace for a good five minutes, forcing everyone to drop. You could actually make it ten minutes, because usually his team starts with five minutes, and then he pushes himself for another five minutes. Then he picks up a minute, two minutes, and then maintains that. That's something we're going to work on".