"Where do you go from there?" - How Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe aim to develop Remco Evenepoel's time trialing even more

How do you help develop a reigning Olympic, World and European time-trial champion? Is it even possible? At Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, who will be having Remco Evenepoel in their roster from 2026 onwards, that is the plan, albeit an ambitious one...

“I think it’s scary to bring in the Olympic champion, a three-time world champion… where do you go from there?" Aerodynamics specialist Dan Bigham, member of the German team, told CyclingWeekly. "But it comes back to trusting everything about the process".

The Briton joined the team after his own experience as a pro rider, and his wide knowledge on the discipline, equipment and everything connected to it. However it is hard to argue that it is possible to develop further the Belgian who at age 25 has virtually achieved everything that is possible in the discipline, except for the hour record - which he does not think of, for the time being.

“Just because he’s achieved performance doesn’t mean everything’s perfect, and I think you have to accept that. That has to be your base premise: he is flawed in how he’s done things – everybody is, we’re definitely not near perfection yet. Therefore there is more performance to be found".

In Bigham's perspective, in order to work on Evenepoel's time trialing abilities even further it is necessary to accept that the Belgian is not yet at his best, even though his results naturally contradict the idea. However where there is room for improvement is also something that will have to be studied closely.

“We haven’t mastered it yet, but there’s plenty of work to be done, and I think we will improve him. I hope we’ll improve him. It’s a scary thing, for sure, but I think we can’t be afraid of changing some aspects of what he does, or how he does things," he argues.

"Because as long as you trust everything about your models, your process, then it’s completely justified. Hopefully we make him even more outrageous than he already is.” Evenepoel is aiming to win the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France in the future, where his time trialing ability can come in very handy. So it can be argued that there is an important motivation to be better than what he is today.