Remco Evenepoel "starts the countdown" to Tour de France with a lengthy altitude camp in Sierra Nevada isolation

Remco Evenepoel's path at the 2026 Tour de France will be one of the most closely followed storylines of the entire season. The Belgian blew up the transfer market last winter with an explosive move from Soudal - Quick-Step, where he had spent the past seven seasons, to the extremely ambitious Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe with one goal in mind; to win the Tour. At some point...

Ideally, the Olympic champion would aim to surpass all expectations already this summer but as for now, the winners of past six editions - Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard seem to be completely out of Evenepoel's reach. At least in the high mountains, because Evenepoel is considered the world's strongest time trialist at the moment.

And so while there's not much work to do in the time trial department, Evenepoel travelled to the altitude camp in Sierra Nevada to work on his apparent weakness. The Belgian rider is expected to skip both preparation races Tour Auvergne-Rhone Alpes and Tour de Romandie, as well as the National Championships in favor of his big goal at the start of July.

We can follow his journey on Strava, where Evenepoel uploaded first three training sessions since his arrival on Sunday.

Remco's first activity titled "Start the countdown" was a 86-kilometer long acclimatization ride from Grenada to Purullena and back in the company of teammates Tim van Dijke and Gianni Vermeersch.

But starting Monday, the Red Bull group moved into the mountain cabin in Pradollano, 2,300 meters above sea level. If you wonder how high up in the mountains that is... the 2026 Tour will only ride in a higher altitude once during the entire race - passing Col du Galibier in the edition's final mountain test.

Then the nature of Evenepoel's training sessions for the next few days and weeks is crystal clear - riding up and down this seemingly endless climb. Hopefully, this does wonders for the 26-year-old Belgian and he finds even better legs than when he podiumed the Tour two years ago.

Of course, Remco Evenepoel is far from a one-dimensional rider whose only quality is time trialing. The 26-year-old just so happens to be also an excellent rider at the Classics and a two-time Liege-Bastogne-Liege champion (2022 and 2023), if we leave aside his road race title at World Championships (2022) and Olympic gold from 2024 Paris Games. Naturally, Red Bull therefore expects Evenepoel to score on multiple fronts.

That is why Evenepoel clocked in 25 race days this spring, more than double the amount of his rival Tadej Pogacar (11). And the results? ...of all sorts.

Evenepoel started the year strongly winning three Mallorca Challenge races and the Volta Comunitat Valenciana alongside two stages, but the next two appointments saw Remco struggle notably.

At UAE Tour, Evenepoel couldn't keep up with even third/fourth-row GC riders, finishing 10th overall mainly thanks to his strong time trial. Already at Volta a Catalunya, the impression was slightly better, but Remco was still downgraded to the role of Florian Lipowitz's right-hand man as his to-be rival at the Tour, Jonas Vingegaard, was on a whole another level.

Then came the Classics where Evenepoel made a surprise appearance at the Tour of Flanders and taking a sensational podium. In Ardennes, Evenepoel was more on his turf, securing a first big victory of the season at Amstel Gold Race. But his Liege-Bastogne-Liege showing was rather disappointing despite the eventual third place, because the Belgian was nowhere near competing with Tadej Pogacar or Paul Seixas uphill.