Evenepoel spotted on TT bike in Canada ahead of Worlds record bid

The day began with reports that he is considering a tilt at the Giro d’Italia in 2027, but in the here and now, Remco Evenepoel has designs only on the rainbow jersey. The Belgian defends his time trial title at the World Championships in Montreal on Sunday before taking aim at the road race, where he will aim to regain a crown he last won in 2022.

Evenepoel arrived in Canada last week ahead of his victory at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, and he followed that up with fifth place at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal two days later.

Like many of his rivals at the Canadian WorldTour races, Evenepoel has elected to stay in the country as he prepares for the Worlds. He has been based 80km east of Montreal for the week in Bromont, where the Belgian cycling federation has hired three ski chalets for Evenepoel and his teammates Maxim Van Gils, Quinten Hermans, Alec Segaert and Tiesj Benoot.

“It is much quieter there,” national coach Serge Pauwels told Het Nieuwsblad of the decision to train away from the Worlds course.

“In the immediate vicinity of Montreal, everything is flat, so not ideal for training. In Bromont, however, there are elevation changes. No cols, the slopes are even less steep than back home in the Ardennes, but you can find stretches of, say, 5km at 5%, so you can easily map out a 100km training course with 2,000m of elevation gain. On top of that, there are often long roads without traffic lights. The conditions there are much better, especially for time triallists.”

In the aftermath of the GP de Montréal, Evenepoel outlined his plans for the period ahead of Sunday’s Worlds time trial. 

“I’ll have two days of recovery, followed by a few days of specific work on the time trial bike, and then a bit of tapering for Sunday,” he said.

Evenepoel was engaged in some of that specific work on Thursday, when he was spotted aboard his time trial bike while heading out on a training ride with his Belgian teammates. 

The 26-year-old is the favourite to win a fourth successive time trial world title – and a fifth straight global title, including the Paris 2024 Olympics. He has a 100% record in individual time trials so far in 2026 and he has won 14 of his 19 time trials over the past three seasons.

Twelve months ago, Evenepoel caught and passed Tadej Pogacar en route to gold on the hilly Kigali course. Rivals on the 39km Montreal course include Filippo Ganna (Italy) and Stefan Küng (Switzerland), who warmed up for the Worlds with victory in the time trial at the Vuelta a España.