68 days without racing: Red Bull’s millimetre perfect plan to get Evenepoel Tour ready

The Belgian has not raced since finishing third at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and is currently training in Sierra Nevada, where he began a three week altitude camp on May 9. He is not expected to ride the Belgian road championships on June 28, meaning his next race could be the Tour opener in Barcelona on July 4.

The decision follows Red Bull’s earlier call to remove the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes, formerly the Critérium du Dauphiné, from Evenepoel’s schedule. The team had already explained that it wanted a calmer and longer build up after his heavy spring campaign, but Patxi Vila has now offered more detail on how that plan is being executed.

“Remco is very motivated,” Vila said to DH Les Sports from Sierra Nevada, where Evenepoel is training alongside several teammates and performance staff.

The camp includes long rides of six to seven hours, repeated climbing work, sessions on the time trial bike and shorter, more intense efforts at lower altitude. Vila described the current phase as building “the foundations of the house” before the work becomes more specific in the coming weeks.

For Red Bull, the choice to skip another race before the Tour is deliberate. Vila said the team has seen enough evidence in recent months to believe Evenepoel can reach a very high level without needing a heavy block of preparation races.

“We have seen in recent months that Remco can reach a very high level without necessarily doing a lot of preparation races,” Vila said. “We preferred to go in a straight line towards the Tour, and we have confidence in this plan. It should allow him to arrive in Barcelona more relaxed and in better condition.”

Beyond physical freshness, the main reason is control. 

“In a race like the Dauphiné, you never know how things will unfold,” Vila said. “Whether it will be ridden very fast or more calmly. We want to keep control of the load, the stimulus, the progress and the process. We want to prepare Remco down to the millimetre for the Tour.”

That approach also gives Red Bull more room to manage Evenepoel’s physical profile. After a spring campaign built around power and explosiveness, the team is now guiding him toward a leaner shape for the high mountains.

“He is not the only rider to do that,” Vila said, referring to Tadej Pogačar. “We are working in another direction, which requires a slightly different silhouette.”

The plan carries obvious risk. Evenepoel will arrive at the Tour without recent race rhythm, but Red Bull is betting that freshness and precision will matter more than another hard week in the peloton.

It is a new approach for Evenepoel’s Tour preparation, but not entirely new territory for the rider himself. Red Bull has also looked back at the way he prepared for his 2022 Vuelta a España victory, when he raced only sparingly in the final stretch before the race.

Speaking to Domestiqueearlier this month, Red Bull chief of sports Zak Dempster pointed out that Evenepoel’s build up to that Vuelta was hardly packed with competition either, with the Clásica San Sebastián his only major outing in the weeks before the start.

“If you look back to the Vuelta he won, he only really did San Sebastian on the way there, so it’s not a new thing,” Dempster said. “We’ll see how it works out.”

Red Bull is using its Sierra Nevada altitude camp to fine-tune its Tour de France selection. Florian Lipowitz will share leadership duties with Remco Evenepoel, while Maxim Van Gils, Jan Tratnik and Gianni Vermeersch have also been part of the altitude group.

Primož Roglič was also part of the group and even joined this week’s team time trial preparations. Whether that should be read as a signal is difficult to say. 

Red Bull’s initial plan for Roglič was to target the Tour de Suisse, the only major one week stage race still missing from his palmarès, before turning his attention to the Vuelta a España, where he could become the sole record holder for overall victories.

In any case, Red Bull’s Tour group is not yet complete. “Other riders will still join the training camp soon,” Vila said.

Mattia Cattaneo, Mick Van Dijk, Gianni Moscon and Daniel Felipe Martinez are according DH Les Sports among the names who could still link up with the squad, while the team will also monitor how Jai Hindley and Nico Denz recover from the Giro.